Preventing dictatorship

[CubanFox]

Everybody knows what catastrophically oppressive places East Germany, Bulgaria, the USSR, Poland, Albania, Hungary, etc were. As Redstar has outlined, Leninism degenerates into this sort of dictatorship.

However, what I'd like to know is how can we prevent this happening again. How can we prevent the revolution from turning into Prussian communism? What specifically about Leninism is it that means it inevitably rots into Prussianism?

What aspects of Leninism must we banish from our ideologies to stop the rise of yet another police state?

Is it the "state security" institutions that Leninist societies seem to have in abundance? The KGB, Stasi, StB, Securitate, etc?

Or is it the insistence on vanguards? Is it inevitable that these vanguards will turn into the apparatchiki that evolve into Party dictatorships?

I really don't know.

[percept¡on]

I'd say it's the insistence on the wisdom of the leaders and the foolishness of the masses.

[Mike Fakelastname]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2004, 08:15 PM
Everybody knows what catastrophically oppressive places East Germany, Bulgaria, the USSR, Poland, Albania, Hungary, etc were. As Redstar has outlined, Leninism degenerates into this sort of dictatorship.




However, what I'd like to know is how can we prevent this happening again. How can we prevent the revolution from turning into Prussian communism? What specifically about Leninism is it that means it inevitably rots into Prussianism?

Leninism is stupid, and it simply does not work. According to Marx, "No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions of their existence have matured within the framework of the old society." To try to force changes is simply not possible; Leninism is in many ways the complete opposite of Marx’s revolutionary intentions.


What aspects of Leninism must we banish from our ideologies to stop the rise of yet another police state?

Every single bit, Lenin was incorrect about everything, his revolution amounted to nothing more than condensed optimism shat out of his superficial ass, he is WRONG. There is nothing from Leninist ideology that we should keep for anything more than historical reference to see what NOT to do.

[RedAnarchist]

There never was any Communism or Socialism in Eastern Europe during 1945-1989. In fact, most of the countries were far-right, nationalistic dictatorships where the leaders had some strange delusion that their policies were anywhere near any kind of progressive or even liberal idealogy.

Communism is not dead. It did not collapse. Only Stalinism came near, and only the authoritarian fringes of the Left still advocate any Stalinist idea.

[James]

I posted a relevant post, in a different thread: here (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27815&st=40)





And people think they have taken an exceedingly bold step when they have freed themselves of faith in a hereditary monarchy and swear now by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the State is nothing else than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed no less so in the democratic republic than in the monarchy.


- Frederick Engels (1891), Introduction to The Civil War in France

This criticism easily applies to many "communist countries" which the origional article (or is it a post?) may cite, or had in mind at the time of writting.

[hence why i think the Republican cause in the UK is counter-revolutionary, and un-productive: which in turn led to some people calling me a monarchist, and thus i was thrown out of the CC. A perfect example of how the majority can be wrong! Dead wrong.]






The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State. ...
The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society - the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society - that is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.
The State is not "abolished." It dies out.


- Frederick Engels, Socialism - Utopian and Scientific

To me, this is why it is so important that we don't try and rush the revolution. I don't think a real communist revolution would be possible in my life time, in the UK, as things stand (although of course, things can change!).
Anyhow, this quote demonstrates that the state ceases to be a seperate body from the people - it all merges into one: therefore there is no elite (although i do struggle to comprehend such a society, as things stand - who knows, maybe human actions/attitude/social patterns can and will change).



Despite the claim that "in practise" a rulling elite appears, and selfish actions turn communism, once established (which i do not believe has ever really happened, other than in small communities) into a nightmare of an elite exploiting the innocent majority; a claim which i think is central to the origional hippy (or yuppy) post/article; in real REALITY the theory is not followed "in practise" (in the events which the article is refering to)- which is what allows such abuses to happen. The theory is quite simple;




All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.


- Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1848), The Communist Manifesto
Lets go through this slowly and properly, because it is very important to one's understanding of marxist revolution.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities.

Here Marx recognises the fact that revolutions have been used in the way the hippy refers to.

The proletarian movement

Here marx introduces a new and different idea: which is seperate from the concept he first states (that of a minority etc etc). The article refers to the first type of movement - that isn't what Marx was refering to, thus not really communism.

is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.

Its not brain dead; it doesn't follow a few; it only has the interests of the immense majority at heart. Not individuals.


(see my sig for a similar quote)


In summary:




What justification is there, then, for terming the upheaval in Russia a Socialist Revolution? None whatever beyond the fact that the leaders in the November movement claim to be Marxian Socialists.


- J. Fitzjerald, Socialist Standard, Aug 1918

[Roses in the Hospital]

The potential development of dictatorship would be severly limited if 'the masses' are educated and motivated. In China, Russia etc. the vast majority of the population was made up of illiterate peasents at the time of their revolutions, whose political outlook would be incredibly niaeve, so that when a group of middle-class intellectual say they're going to make life better fo them there's no reason for the masses to disbelive them, untill it's to late. In a country where the majority of people are literate, educated and politically aware however, the chance for a vanguard to 'pull the wool over their eyes' would be limited, meaning only genuine, trustworthy people would be placed into power in the first place. So by that logic it's more likely that well developed industrialised countries will produce a sucsesful revolution. Just what Marx said all along...

[YKTMX]

Everybody knows what catastrophically oppressive places East Germany, Bulgaria, the USSR, Poland, Albania, Hungary, etc were

In the Easy European sattellites there was NO working class revolution so socialism could not have possibily existed there. Lenin fought all his life against groups who proclaimed that the working class were a barrier to their own emancipation. So to intimate that "Lenin" or "Leninism" is to blame for these regimes is silly.


As Redstar has outlined, Leninism degenerates into this sort of dictatorship.

:lol: I must have missed that thread.


However, what I'd like to know is how can we prevent this happening again. How can we prevent the revolution from turning into Prussian communism? ?

Fair question. If Marx is right and the revolution starts in the advanced capitalist countries where resources are so plentiful and as long as the revolution has an international character, there should be no danger of the degeneration of the Russia example.


What specifically about Leninism is it that means it inevitably rots into Prussianism?

Nothing.


What aspects of Leninism must we banish from our ideologies to stop the rise of yet another police state?

None.


Is it the "state security" institutions that Leninist societies seem to have in abundance? The KGB, Stasi, StB, Securitate, etc?

Certainly organisations like this have a place in the dictatorship phase, but as states and classes worldwide disintegrate these groups will naturally become defunct.


Or is it the insistence on vanguards? Is it inevitable that these vanguards will turn into the apparatchiki that evolve into Party dictatorships?

All parties are vanguards, anyone who suggests otherwise is being wilfully ignorant. Therefore, if it is your proposal that we get rid the "the party", it is fatally flawed.


I really don't know.

No shit.

[commiecrusader]

my feeling is that possibly there would be a need for slight oppression, maybe for two generations or about 80 years. this is because when communism first takes over, there is bound to be people who were rich and oppose the new order, and there will be the leftovers from far right politics (okay so those two things are fairly similar lol)

however after two generations, the masses will have been educated and grown up in a communist state, and people who oppose this will have died/been imprisoned/left. the state would then be able to cease such vigorous oppression and release its grip, reducing in size until eventually there is no need for the state, and the people will govern themselves.

the problem comes when people get power hungry and refuse to relinquish their grip on their power. even people who were good can get corrupted.

[wet blanket]

Every single bit, Lenin was incorrect about everything, his revolution amounted to nothing more than condensed optimism shat out of his superficial ass, he is WRONG. There is nothing from Leninist ideology that we should keep for anything more than historical reference to see what NOT to do.

Oh honestly, have you ever even read anything by the man or do you just see him as a father of a failed revolution? Lenin brings up some very interesting subjects on the nature of the capitalist state as well as revolutionary organization. To dismiss EVERYTHING the man has said would be foolish. It's important when studying the past to be able to pick out some truths as well as dismissing mistakes.

then again, it's much easier to just put your fingers in your ears and saying "HE'S WRONG LALALALALALA" instead of actually sitting down and studying it.

[Saint-Just]

Socialist society and bourgeois society are both dictatorships. They are class dictatorships. KGB etc. are not problems; they are solutions to problems. In the Soviet Union various organisations seen by bourgeois ideologies as oppressive had the function of excluding specific types of people from political process. Working-class people, peasants, revolutionaries and so on were not precluded from offering their ideas. On the contrary, these people and their free debates and discussions are what Soviet and other such governments were constructed upon. Positions in political office were freely voted for from the bottom of the system to the top. As such, the masses could not be dictatated to by any particular individual without ultimately having the ability to peacefully eject that individual from his/her post.

Leninism created no such oppressive dictatorships, so, the question is perhaps non-sensical.


What aspects of Leninism must we banish from our ideologies to stop the rise of yet another police state?

I think a better question would be, what can we do to turn favour towards the tide of socialism around the world.

USSR, DDR, Albania, Hungary, Romania etc. were not 'catastrophically oppressive places'. They were places in which genuine advanacement in society was offered to individuals. Where the problems of crime, poverty and alienation were addressed and combatted at their very roots. All of society was included in solving these problems and offering a far greate chance for humans to succeed and to develop.

In these places, prejudices such as sexism and racism were put into the correct perspective through education, social programs and cultural work. People learnt a scientific and logical view of society and other people than allowed them to see these prejudices for what they were and to transform their own lives and those of other people for the better. Women began to marry at a later age and see the possibility of involving themselves in work away from home, this as one example.

[Daymare17]

Trotsky put it quite well: Nobody else has ever tried to undertake a serious Marxist analysis of the degeneration of the Bolshevik party than the Bolsheviks themselves. He wrote a book about it in 1936, which I think everyone interested in this vital question should read:

The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/index.htm)

[gaf]

Originally posted by percept¡[email protected] 15 2004, 01:25 AM
I'd say it's the insistence on the wisdom of the leaders and the foolishness of the masses.
the "leaders" were not wise and the masses were naives.althought history didn't give them a lot of choices

[Fidelbrand]

Firstly, socialism should not be forced, it should be supported by the people genuinely.

Second, a democratic system should be set up. Beholding the socialist ideal as the land's fate....democracy to all levels should be made possible because votes, ballots and opinions & sugeestions are the ruler's "water" in ruling.

[SonofRage]

I think we need to start looking at other models of organizing revolutionary parties/organizations. What I'm trying to build in the Socialist Party USA is a sort of "Revolutionary Democratic Socialism." We have to look at both the Leninist and the Social Democratic model as failures, try to learn what we can from the mistakes, and move on.


I think people like Nestor Makhno and groups like the Friends of Durriti really tried to learn from the mistakes of failed revolutions.

A few good links:

Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/platform/org_plat.htm)

Manifesto of Libertarian Communism (http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mlc/)

The Friends of Durruti Group (http://www.spunk.org/library/places/spain/sp001780/)

I also think Council Communists like Anton Pannekoek and Paul Mattick had some great insights. I have links to their works in my signature.

[Salvador Allende]

I think generally we should follow the wise words of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but adapt it to the current situation of the nation that the revolution hits. We should whole-heartedly oppose Khruschevist revisionism that ravaged East Europe and the world following Comrade Koba's death. We should accept that the leadership of the movement now falls upon Supreme Commander Kim Jong-Il and President Kim Yong-Nam and seek to apply Socialism to our countries based on their conditions.

[Morpheus]

In the 19th century many anarchists predicted that attempts to create a "workers' state" would result in exactly what it did: oppressive bureaucratic elites. The solution is for the revolution to abolish the state, in addition to capitalism. Otherwise the same thing will happen again and again. Those who deny this are being unscientific.

Although Authoritarian Socialists [1] like to portray themselves as advocates of a radically egalitarian and democratic society, reality is somewhat different. One cannot have centralized planning, or any other form of economic hierarchy, and a classless society. Attempts to establish so-called "workers’ states" inevitably results in the establishment of a new ruling class over the workers. The Communist Manifesto is really a manifesto of state-capitalism. The "conquest of political power by the proletariat" in practice really means the conquest of state power by a political party or group of leaders that claims to represent the proletariat. Upon taking power that party then ends up waging war against and subjugating the proletariat, establishing itself as a new ruling class.

The economic program put forth by Marxists [2] is essentially state-capitalism. The Manifesto says, "the proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state." This is a proscription for what is now known as a centrally planned economy. Implementing this policy will never, and has never, liberated the working class but instead replaces one set of exploiters with a new set.

In a centrally planned economy, instead of decisions being made by the producers themselves decisions are made by a small group of centralized planners in Moscow (or Washington or London or some other city). The workers are disempowered, deprived of control of their own lives, and forced to submit to these planners. Material conditions have a huge impact on a person’s consciousness, behavior, and material interests. Individuals are shaped by the institutions they are a part of, the position they occupy in those institutions and the social relationships they have with others. Since they are in different conditions then the workers these bureaucrats will tend to end up with different consciousness and material interests. There's no reason to expect them to act in the workers’ interests, and since they have different material interests then the workers the planning class will come into conflict with the workers (a conflict called class struggle). This happens even if your bureaucrats are elected workers, as, once elected, they are no longer workers but bureaucrats. Thus the actual rulers are not workers but bureaucrats who end up constituting a new ruling class that exploits the proletariat just as the previous ruling class did. It doesn't matter whether this is applied in a single isolated country, a third of the globe or the entire world - this is inherent in the nature of a centrally planned economy.

Instead of centralized planning we should implement a classless society based on self-management. All workplaces should be placed under the control of those who work in them. Consensus and/or direct democracy (or a combination of the two) would be used to make decisions. Everyone should have an equal say in all decisions that involve them. Worker assemblies can form networks with each other so as to coordinate production, thereby forming confederations of worker assemblies. This would be based on decentralized direct democracy with decision-making power resting in the hands of ordinary people. The worker committees and federations formed by anarcho-syndicalists during the Spanish Revolution are one way this could be done.

Establishing a state controlled by the proletariat, and/or the majority of the population, is not possible and attempts to do so always leads to the formation of a new group of exploiters to replace the old ones. There has never been an attempt to establish a workers’ state that has not done this (as predicted by anarchists 150 years ago). Marxists like to talk about "historical forces" but they actually ignore a good chunk of history, the predicted results of their revolutions degenerating into dictatorial tyrannies being a prime example.


Although cloaked in democratic rhetoric, after coming to power Lenin and Trotsky both came to the conclusion that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is really a one party state - which they equated with working class rule. Lenin said, "When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party ... we say ‘Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position." [3] He generalized this claim to apply to all countries (not just Russia) arguing that "the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organization embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts ... that an organization taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard." [4] In "Ultra-Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder" he continued this theme, "the mere presentation of the question, namely, ‘dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship of the class, dictatorship (Party) of the leaders or dictatorship (Party) of the masses?’ -- testifies to the most incredible and hopeless confusion of mind." [5] He continued this theme, claiming that "after two and a half years of Communist rule we stood before the entire world and said at the Communist International that the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible in any other way but through the dictatorship of the Communist Party."


Trotsky agreed, stating several years after the Russian Revolution that, "if there is one question which basically not only does not require revision but does not so much as admit the thought of revision, it is the question of the dictatorship of the party." [6] He defended, "the Leninist principle, inviolable for every Bolshevik, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is and can be realized only through the dictatorship of the party." [7] "The revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution ... abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced by the ‘dictatorship’ of the whole toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved under capitalist conditions." Referring to the Workers Opposition, a Bolshevik faction that wanted to introduce more democracy into Soviet Russia following the end of the civil war (and was quickly purged), Trotsky warned, "They have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers’ right to elect representatives above the party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed with the passing moods of the workers’ democracy! ... The Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship ... regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class ... The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal principle of a workers’ democracy." [8]


There is no evidence to indicate that Lenin, Trotsky or any other mainstream Bolshevik leaders regretted the loss of democracy and workers' power or even referred to these losses it as a retreat (as Lenin did when War Communism was replaced by the NEP). The idea that a one party dictatorship means the rule of the working class is simply ludicrous. There is no reason why such a dictatorship would magically obey the workers and in all likelihood it will pursue the interests of it’s leaders, suppressing opposition (as was done in Soviet Russia and nearly every other one-party state in history). In a one-party state the leaders of the party make most major decisions, not the working class. Hence, it is not the rule of the workers but of a small elite. By implemented a one-party state Lenin & Trotsky destroyed any possibility of the working class running Russian society.

Of course, theoretically one could advocate a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which is not a one-party state but takes some other form. A multi-party state similar to the so-called "liberal democracies" in West Europe and the United States (but without private property) could be proposed, but such a multi-party state would still be an instrument of minority rule (as they are presently) even with socialist politicians running things. A "dictatorship of the proletariat" along such lines would not be compatible with Leninism (since Lenin explicitly advocated a one-party state), but it could be compatible with other forms of authoritarian socialism. While Marx did claim that "Between capitalist and communist society there lies ... a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." [9] a minority of his followers claim that this does not have to be a one-party state and Marx himself was rather vague on what form this dictatorship would take. Nonetheless, there is no form of the state--neither monarchical, one-party, multi-party nor any other - which would allow the working class to control it.

The structure of states makes it impossible for it to be anything other then an organ of minority rule. The state is an organization with a monopoly (or near-monopoly) on the legitimate use of violence. It is a centralized rule-making body that stands "above" society and uses various armed bodies of people and coercive institutions (courts, prisons, etc.) to force people to obey it. It is an organ of class rule that cannot be used to abolish classes. How are the workers supposed to maintain control of an organization standing "above" society with it's own specialized armed forces and maintaining a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence? It's not possible - the state is the one with a monopoly on violence and could use that monopoly to ignore what the proletariat want and order them around - effectively forming a new ruling class over the proletariat.

All states have three characteristics:
1) A "monopoly of violence" in a given territorial area;
2) This violence having a "professional," institutional nature;
3) A hierarchical and authoritarian nature - centralisation of power and initiative into the hands of a few.

All states have historically had these characteristics. Such an organization inevitably becomes part of a ruling elite. If a group has a monopoly of force it can easily establish itself as ruler over the rest of the proletariat, even if that organization is initially made up proletarians. The hierarchical nature of the state insures that this will be the rule of a small elite. No organization should have a monopoly or near-monopoly on force. The state maintains armed bodies of people with a top down authoritarian chain of command that control the population and coerce it into obeying the orders of those on the top of the chain of command. This is always a form of minority rule because it is that minority on the top of the chain of command who makes the decisions and thus controls the rest of the population.

One idea for the proletariat to control the state is making representatives recallable in order to keep control of the state by the proletariat. There are a number of problems with this. First, the state by definition has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The politicians can simply use that monopoly to disregard recall and public opinion in situations where it gets in their way. This is precisely what the Bolsheviks did when they were recalled in the Spring of 1918; Soviets that voted the wrong way were simply disbanded. The methods used don't need to be that crude, there are much subtler ways to manipulate the electorate. There are many states today in which representatives can be recalled, but that does not mean the proletariat are the rulers or change the capitalist nature of those states.

A deeper problem is that society is still divided into a group of order givers and order takers. The "workers' parliament" (or politburo or council of people's commissars etc.) gives orders, the rest of the population obeys. The workers do not come up with and implement their own plans and projects, but instead elect a tiny group of leaders who make the decisions for them. The workers aren't really running society in this case, a small group of representatives are. Actual decision-making power lies not with the workers but with that small group of leaders. The majority of workers don't actually make the decisions but are instead reduced to choosing their masters. When the "workers' parliament" (or legislature or council of people's commissars etc.) is making the decisions the working class is not.

In all states there is a division between rulers and ruled; between those who give orders and those who obey them. By it’s very nature the state divides a population into rulers and ruled. As Malatesta said:

"A government, that is a group of people entrusted with making the laws and empowered to use the collective power to oblige each individual to obey them, is already a privileged class and cut off from the people. As any constituted body would do, it will instinctively seek to extend its powers, to be beyond public control, to impose its own policies and to give priority to special interests. Having been put in a privileged position, the government is already at odds with the people whose strength it disposes of." [10]

Furthermore, representative democracy (even with recallable representatives) is self-refuting. If the workers are capable of running society then we don't need a state at all; we can dispense with the state and have the direct self-rule of the masses. If workers are capable of deciding whether the decisions of a representative are good or bad, and thus deciding on whether or not to vote for or recall them then they are capable of directly making those decisions themselves. "for recall to work the population must be in a position to judge 'the questions of the day' in order to evaluate the actions of their representatives. ... Simply put, whoever is competent enough to pick their masters is competent to govern themselves and whoever is able to recall their representative is able to decide on 'the questions of the day' directly and explicitly mandate them. Thus, if recall is possible, so is self-management" [11] and the state is not needed. "The very theory of [representative democracy] contains its own negation. If the entire people were truly sovereign there would no longer be either government or governed; the sovereign would be reduced to nothing; the state would have no raison d'etre, would be identical with ssociety and disappear into industrial organization." [12]

If the workers are the ruling class, as the Communist Manifesto advocates, who are they to rule over? If the capitalists still exist then the workers do not rule because the capitalists have the power in the boss/worker relationship. If there are no capitalists then everyone rules. But if everyone rules then no one rules and there is no state.

The myth of the "good state" is a popular one among leftists, but in reality every state throughout history has been founded on the blood of the poor (even "socialist" ones). Liberalism and Authoritarian Socialism both share a common theme in that they establish systems of minority rule and claim that this system of minority rule is actually majority rule; that the rulers aren't really the rulers. With Liberalism they claim that under their state "the people" rule but the wealthy (and corrupt politicians) actually rule; with Marxism they claim that under their state "the proletariat" rule but actually the party (or the leaders of the party) rule.

Most Marxists claim that a state is necessary to prevent the capitalists from using violence to launch a counterrevolution and force us back into capitalism. A state is not necessary to prevent this; there are many other ways to do so. First off, after an anarchist revolution there wouldn’t be any capitalists. The working class would directly seize the means of production and a self-managed classless economy implemented. The capitalist class would then cease to exist. Capitalists could not attempt to launch a counterrevolution because there would be no capitalists. Former capitalists and other reactionaries could theoretically attempt to launch a counterrevolution. This could be stopped with the same means used to overthrow capitalism and the state--direct action. This includes, but is not limited to, civil disobedience, strikes, insurrections, street fighting, etc. If necessary the population could be armed and decentralized networks or confederations of democratic militias formed to engage in guerilla warfare against the reactionary forces. The later was implemented by Anarchists in the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution and were successful in defeating the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian nationalists and several white armies despite being massively out gunned. Unfortunately, after the civil war was over the Bolsheviks stabbed them in the back and used their vastly superior resources to conquer the Ukraine. They then implemented a reign of terror and violently suppressed all opposition, [13] showing how counterrevolutionary "workers' states" really are..

Many Marxists define the state as "the organization of violence for the suppression of some class" [14] (or something similar to this) and, based on this, claim that the above measures constitute a "state." This is a common Marxist fallacy whereby Marxists play with the definition of words to make two very different things seem the same. This definition is overly broad. To equate a confederation of community assemblies or a decentralized network of militias with the centralized states created by all Marxists when they get in power is pure nonsense. The state is more than merely an instrument of force used by one class against other class(es). If two workers punch their boss there is force being used against a different class, but that does not mean that those two workers suddenly become a state. If a boss beats up an employee he is not magically transformed into a state, even though he is using force against a different class. To equate _all_ use of force between classes with a state is pure sophistry. Marxists generally do not have a good understanding of the state; this definition is not based on any kind of empirical analysis of the state but is plucked out of thin air to suit their political agenda. When Marxists attempt to make an empirical analysis of the state they often end up acknowledging this and coming close to the anarchist view of the state but refuse to see the political implications. For example, in "The Family, Private Property and the State" Fredrick Engels differentiates between the state (which he describes as a public power placed "above" society with its own armed bodies of men and coercive institutions) and the "self-acting armed organization of the population." It is precisely the "self-acting armed organization of the population" which is advocated by anarchists [15] as a means of defeating violent counterrevolutionaries!

The main problem with Authoritarian Socialism is that the forms of organization they advocate are simply incompatible with the goals they claim to advocate. They claim to believe in an egalitarian & democratic society based on the participation of everyone yet desire social structures - hierarchy, states, centralism, etc. - which are incompatible with these goals. Authoritarian Socialism, especially in its Leninist form, is really a philosophy advocating the rule of a small burueaucratic elite who use egalitarian rhetoric to justify their rule.

Notes
1. The term ‘authoritarian socialism’ refers to all forms of socialism which seek to use the state to abolish capitalism
2. I am referring to mainstream Marxists here. Those Libertarian Marxists who agree with anarchists on the abolition of the state are excluded from this critique.
3. Lenin’s Collected Works, vol. 29, p.535
4. Collected Works vol. 32, p. 21
5. Left-Wing Communism, p. 26
6. Leon Trotsky Speaks, p, 158
7. Platform of the Opposition, p. 62
8. 10th Party Congress
9. Critique of the Gotha Program
10. Anarchy P. 34
11. Anarcho, "A few comments on on 'Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy: A review by Chris Gray" http://anarchism.ws/writers/anarcho/Bakunin_critique.html
12. Guerin, Anarchism P. 17
13. See "The History of the Makhnovist Movement" by Peter Arishnov
14. Essential Works of Lenin, p. 287
15. With the exception of anarcho-pacifists, who believe that only non-violent means (civil disobedience, etc.) should be used to resist counterrevolutionaries. If such means are sufficient to defeat counterrevolutionaries it would be preferable, but if not I believe workers are justified in using force to defend ourselves.

[SonofRage]

Originally posted by Salvador [email protected] 20 2004, 04:55 PM
We should accept that the leadership of the movement now falls upon Supreme Commander Kim Jong-Il and President Kim Yong-Nam and seek to apply Socialism to our countries based on their conditions.
Please tell me that you are joking.

[Salvador Allende]

I am certainly not joking. Socialism has survived in the DPRK and no where else because it was correctly applied in a an anti-revisionist style, a Korean style and based on the Korean conditions where most other states used to attempt to directly copy Marxism-Leninism without looking at the conditions and attempted to deny their history.

[redstar2000]

What specifically about Leninism is it that means it inevitably rots into Prussianism?

I think if you translated the Leninist appeal to the working class into plain English, it would read something like this...

Trust in US; WE will provide!

The Leninist party appeals to workers to have faith in the leadership of the Leninist party; in much the same fashion as bourgeois politicians plead for public faith in their leadership.

For all the "r-r-revolutionary" rhetoric, this Leninist appeal is one that promotes passivity among the workers.

Just do whatever WE tell you to do and everything will work out fine!

Everything has not turned out "fine" at all, of course. Nor has any reason been offered in recent times why anything should.

All we hear is the mantra: "The working class cannot seize power successfully unless it is led by a vanguard party."

This "holy formula" is supposed to substitute for revolutionary theory.

It doesn't...which is why it belongs in a museum.


Or is it the insistence on vanguards? Is it inevitable that these vanguards will turn into the apparatchniki that evolve into Party dictatorships?

Yeah...I think that is inevitable. Lenin's party didn't reach that point until it had held state power for three years or so. But the modern Leninist party is actually based on the post-October 1917 model...so it starts out thoroughly and, in my opinion, irrevocably authoritarian. The modern Leninist party is, in miniature, what their society would be like if they were successful.

Pretty bad.


[In the USSR] working-class people, peasants, revolutionaries and so on were not precluded from offering their ideas.

Just precluded from having any way of enforcing them against the will of the Politburo.


On the contrary, these people and their free debates and discussions are what Soviet and other such governments were constructed upon. Positions in political office were freely voted for from the bottom of the system to the top. As such, the masses could not be dictated to by any particular individual without ultimately having the ability to peacefully eject that individual from his/her post.

Total fantasy...indeed, not even Tolkien at his most imaginative could top it.


We should accept that the leadership of the movement now falls upon Supreme Commander Kim Jong-Il and President Kim Yong-Nam and seek to apply Socialism to our countries based on their conditions.

No, we should set up a political "de-tox" center for our comrades who have over-indulged in Leninist hallucinogens.


Of course, theoretically one could advocate a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which is not a one-party state but takes some other form.

It's been done; there's at least one strand of Trotskyism that advocates this and I've run across at least one "independent Leninist" who favors it.

They do so in the confidence that their Leninist party will win the free elections, of course. Should that not happen, well...

A curious corollary of this position derives from the fact that there's apparently no "clear-cut" way to "draw the line" between bourgeois and proletarian parties...so they don't try to do that. Instead, it's "wide-open" -- the Leninist party and all the various bourgeois parties (perhaps even Nazis) "duke it out" at the polls. (One point is carefully passed over in silence: suppose there's more than one "Leninist" party?)

My "gut feeling" is that this would be an unstable arrangement. Either a coalition of bourgeois parties would win a majority and restore capitalism or one of the Leninist parties would gain ascendancy and proceed to outlaw, one by one, the opposition parties.

Even if one began by "drawing a line" to exclude the bourgeois parties, what would happen then is that all the reactionary and backward elements would join the most right-wing of the proletarian parties and "pull" it rightward...and we'd all be back "in the shit" again.

There does not seem to be any plausible way to make a centralized state apparatus more than briefly accountable (if that) to the revolutionary working class.

There's simply no point in trying to accomplish the impossible.


Socialism has survived in the DPRK and nowhere else...

Not for much longer.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[gaf]

Originally posted by Salvador [email protected] 20 2004, 10:55 PM
I think generally we should follow the wise words of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but adapt it to the current situation of the nation that the revolution hits. We should whole-heartedly oppose Khruschevist revisionism that ravaged East Europe and the world following Comrade Koba's death. We should accept that the leadership of the movement now falls upon Supreme Commander Kim Jong-Il and President Kim Yong-Nam and seek to apply Socialism to our countries based on their conditions.
either you are serious ,or you are brainwashed wich is realy triste
and by the way what is adapting ? brain washing?
and this supreme command know surely better.
don't play god man because it's an illusion..are you preaching? or are you joking?...
what ever. it is really sad...but sadly you are real.aren't you?

[Pete]

Historical cross-reference for a wider perspective: African independance movements where, for the most part, hollow shells that united the populance for freedom from the colonial power, but nothing more. After independance was gained the unity collapsed, and allowed the rise of military dictatorships in the 60s and 70s.

This is, I believe, a point that should be examined when discussing the topic at hand. It is not so much "leninism" at fault, but that entire ilk of hollow ideologies based more on projections into the far future and unity to overthrow a single opposing party that leads to dictatorships.

[__ca va?]

Everybody knows what catastrophically oppressive places East Germany, Bulgaria, the USSR, Poland, Albania, Hungary, etc were. As Redstar has outlined, Leninism degenerates into this sort of dictatorship.

Not all of them were catastrophically oppressive! I don't know it about Albania and Bulgaria, but I can tell you that Hungary was the least oppressive after 1963(referred to as the 'happiest barrack'), and Poland and Yugoslavia were also not 'catasrophically' oppressive. The most oppressives were the GDR, USSR and Romania under Ceausescu.


There never was any Communism or Socialism in Eastern Europe during 1945-1989. In fact, most of the countries were far-right, nationalistic dictatorships where the leaders had some strange delusion that their policies were anywhere near any kind of progressive or even liberal idealogy.

This is true.


In the Easy European sattellites there was NO working class revolution so socialism could not have possibily existed there.

In Hungary there was a communist revolution in 1919! Though it only lasted for 113 days.


USSR, DDR, Albania, Hungary, Romania etc. were not 'catastrophically oppressive places'. They were places in which genuine advanacement in society was offered to individuals. Where the problems of crime, poverty and alienation were addressed and combatted at their very roots. All of society was included in solving these problems and offering a far greate chance for humans to succeed and to develop.

In these places, prejudices such as sexism and racism were put into the correct perspective through education, social programs and cultural work. People learnt a scientific and logical view of society and other people than allowed them to see these prejudices for what they were and to transform their own lives and those of other people for the better. Women began to marry at a later age and see the possibility of involving themselves in work away from home, this as one example.

Have you ever come here in Eastern-Europe?? If you had you wouldn't be talking such bullshit! Sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive, but you're way too naive! The socialist attempt wasn't the earthly paradise though it was not unbearable everywhere.
Saying 'prejudices such as sexism and racism were put into the correct perspective through education, social programs and cultural work' just makes me laugh as I think of the oppression, the banning of local language in the Baltic states, the deliberate famine in Ukraine in 1933(?) and the mass destructing of Hungarian villages and oppression of Hungarians in Romania!


People learnt a scientific and logical view of society and other people than allowed them to see these prejudices for what they were and to transform their own lives and those of other people for the better.

If this was true, people would be socially counscious. But they are not! Racism is a big problem since the change of regime and this is not because the capitalists/imperialists generated hate! This is because hate existed even under communism (in some places: USSR, Romania this not even kept a secret)
and when it was gone it came to the public. (Errr.. this was a wierd sentence :D )