The Internet

[redstar2000]

The internet has had many effects on our lives and threatened, in one sense or another, many powerful and entrenched institutions.

It's far too soon to say how revolutionary the internet will actually turn out to be -- there's a lot of hype "out there".

But it occurred to me that one institution has, to the best of my knowledge, never been mentioned before -- the Leninist party and its organizational format "democratic centralism".

First, I assume you understand the way "democratic centralism" works. Information flows upwards to the leadership; decisions (commands) flow downwards to the party members.

It's rather like an army; not surprising, since it was designed in imitation of that model.

The "democratic" part of "democratic centralism" is supposed to derive from the "fact" that the party congress can "change the line" or even "replace the leadership".

Historically, this has been an exceedingly rare event...because the members of the party are prevented from organizing to change the line or replace the leadership.

Firstly, members of local party groups are not supposed to communicate their discontents horizontally...only upwards.

And secondly, they are not able to organize any kind of concerted drive towards the congress to "change the line" or "replace the leadership". They (or their delegates) enter the congress as individuals confronting the organized power of the center.

It's not much of a contest. The leadership wins "in a walk" and the losers quit the party (or get expelled).

Will the internet change this?

Suppose you're an isolated individual in a Leninist party...and you want some serious changes?

So you write up a well-argued document on what is bugging you...and you post it anonymously on a large number of left websites where many party members will see it.

Now, you go to your own local party group and say "look what I found on the internet...and it makes a lot of sense".

Even party members who don't use the internet are going to hear about this from other lefties who do. In a couple of weeks, the whole party is aware that a serious challenge to the leadership is "in the works". (And so will much of the left milieu generally.)

When the leadership attempts to respond, you're "right on them" with rebuttals to their pathetic evasions. And your original criticism is being posted on left message boards that you've never even heard of. Lefties all over the world may be talking about it.

Now you must try to locate email addresses for members of other party groups that you can communicate with (best to do this from the beginning -- when you join a Leninist party, try to exchange email addresses with every party member that you can).

You write to them and tell them of your support for the challenge and see if they feel the same. You say, "we need to organize a unified challenge to the bastards in the headquarters".

The leadership at this point may be getting desperate -- mass expulsions might be ordered, the party congress indefinitely postponed, etc. It won't do them any good because you will hold the congress inspite of them and they can't stop you from doing that.

They may hold on to the party name and the bank account...but without members, they're helpless.

And you win!

Moreover, the first time this actually happens, the lesson will spread throughout the Leninist milieu. Perhaps there will emerge a PartyCriticismForum message board that will be used by many unhappy Leninists to circumvent the despotism of their leaders.

It could turn into the beginning of the end of "democratic" centralism.

Something to smile about. :D

:redstar2000:

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

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Hey Redstar, if I start PMing you criticisms of the PCQ, will you start spreading them throughout the internet? :D

I mean, traditionally, the sort of thing you're describing could have be done by pamphlets, etc. - I don't feel the internet is so much a change of form, as a change of degree.
The sheer volume offered to us by technology of mass communication and global networks is a weight that, hopefully, no counter-democratic institutions will be able to bare.

PS Ned Ludd is dead.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Virgin Molotov Cocktail
I mean, traditionally, the sort of thing you're describing could have be done by pamphlets, etc.

And often was. But the leadership controlled the channels of communication to the membership -- if they didn't want your dissent publicized, then it wasn't.


Hey Redstar, if I start PMing you criticisms of the PCQ, will you start spreading them throughout the internet?

I'd be delighted...if I agree with them. :lol:

But you don't need my assistance...nor does any unhappy member of a Leninist party. There's actually very little censorship on the internet...it's easy to get the word out. :D

:redstar2000:

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

[antieverything]

I don't see anything objectionable in your post, Redstar...but to be honest, who cares? "Democratic" Centralism has seen its best days anyway. Real, vital leftist organizations practice completely different methods of organization.

Since there are now so many more viable alternatives is it any wonder that the Leninist groups lose membership to newer, more democratic groups (even those with a less-radical purpose)? After all, who wants to be saddled with a workload yet at the same time be shut out of the decision making process as seems to be the pattern in old-style authoritarian groups (the Workers World Party in particular I've heard this about but ISO seems to be the same song and dance)?

While authoritarian sects such as the WWP or ISO appear to be making headway, largely by hijacking anti-war movements, the real trend looks to be toward the small-a anarchist (in the sense of organization, not world-view) model. Notice that the real victories of the last decade and a half have been won not by rigid military discipline but rather by the new-school anti-authoritarian structures that have arisen...complete with affinity groups, spokes-councils, concensus democracy, etc.

I'm not saying that these organizational models are applicable to the organization of post-capitalist society or even to a revolutionary movement. I do, however, think that there has been an irreversible lurch away from authoritarianism in politics and organization by the new generation of radicals--and this should be expected. Anarchism (whatever you may think of it) is probably the natural "soul" of radical politics even if it just provides a starting point philosophically--after all, what we can be most sure of is the drive for liberation inside of ourselves...Marxist "science" can never produce the same intensity of desire or universality. It is interesting to note that anarchism, Marxist and otherwise, was the heart and soul of revolutionary politics worldwide before the rise of Bolshevism in 1917. It is, then, not suprising that after the fall of the Soviet bloc the Left would re-emerge along similar lines.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
I don't see anything objectionable in your post, Redstar...but to be honest, who cares?

It is possible that you are right; i.e., most sensible people are not interested in "democratic" centralism at all anymore and it's rapidly becoming a "dead issue".

I certainly hope so! :D

Nevertheless, we have an active thread right now on the "faults" of non-authoritarian decision-making...and I think there are still a fair number of serious people who feel the "appeal" of "democratic" centralism -- if for no other reason than it "gets things done" or at least appears to do that.

So, I think the issue needs to be periodically raised and discussed. As you know, "bad ideas" just don't "go away by themselves" -- they need to be struggled against and defeated.

:redstar2000:

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

[YKTMX]

What a bourgeois fantasy this is.

Have you considered that a large slice of working class people don't have the money for an interner connection; even if they did, would they have the time or the will to discuss things on message boards.

The workers' struggle is in the workplace, where Marxists can use revolutionary politics to win colleagues over to revolutionary politics. This will never be replaced by individuals communicating using a tool that basically isolates the individual.

As for the "end" of democratic centralism, it's a non-issue. No matter whether you like it or not, people will always go back to the writings of Marx and Lenin, and they will always conclude that we need organized, serious socialists who can agitate and argue in the real world. The Bolsheviks organized the only workers' revolution in history and we can do little better than to follow their lead.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX
The Bolsheviks organized the only workers' revolution in history and we can do little better than to follow their lead.

Yes, "we all know" that history "ended" in 1917! :lol:

The fundamentally conservative nature of your "fantasy" is clearly illustrated by your comments.


Have you considered that a large slice of working class people don't have the money for an internet connection; even if they did, would they have the time or the will to discuss things on message boards?

The price of the internet has been steadily declining. We all manage to find, in one way or another, the money and time for that which we think is really important.

There are already a scattering of working class sites devoted to union struggles. I freely predict, without benefit of "dialectics", that there will be many more to come.


The workers' struggle is in the workplace, where Marxists can use revolutionary politics to win colleagues over to revolutionary politics. This will never be replaced by individuals communicating using a tool that basically isolates the individual.

No one ever suggested that the internet would "replace" class struggle in the workplace. But it could turn into the main way of organizing that struggle "behind the bosses' backs".

As to the proposition that the internet "isolates the individual", that's completely opposite to the truth of the matter. I have talked (and occasionally listened :lol:) to more people in the last two years than in the previous two decades.

Something tells me that I'm not exactly unique in that regard.

:redstar2000:

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

[YKTMX]

Yes, "we all know" that history "ended" in 1917!

I was talking about actually making revolution in the real. What happened after 1917 is not related in any fashion to the degeneration.


The price of the internet has been steadily declining. We all manage to find, in one way or another, the money and time for that which we think is really important.


Strangely Victorian approach to household economics. The reason the working poor don't have internet connections is because they aren't "thrifty" enough.


As to the proposition that the internet "isolates the individual", that's completely opposite to the truth of the matter

You see, the problem with the internet, and the reason why the bourgeoisie love it so much, is that it is an "individual experience". A "consumer" sits at home using shopping, speaking to people etc. without ever actually having to meet another human being. It is a complete tool of isolation.
This also counts in political spheres. If we're talking about actual revolutionary struggle, the only place for that is the workplace. Merely "speaking" to comrades on the other side of the world contributes nothing to revolutionary struggle.
If the internet replaces "actual organisations" what we will probably see an increase in is the "Stalin kiddie" phenomenon. People who encounter ideas on the internet that they "like", but they can never apply them in real life. So being a Marxist becomes merely another "choice", "ideas for consumption".

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX
Strangely Victorian approach to household economics. The reason the working poor don't have internet connections is because they aren't "thrifty" enough.

You draw the oddest conclusions.

The reason the working poor don't have computers and internet connections is, obviously, that they are still too expensive.

Will that be true ten years from now? 20?


You see, the problem with the internet, and the reason why the bourgeoisie love it so much, is that it is an "individual experience". A "consumer" sits at home using shopping, speaking to people etc. without ever actually having to meet another human being.

You have a curiously "tactile" approach to this stuff -- as if without our noses up each other's armpits, we are unable to communicate "for real".

I agree that, for the moment, bourgeois "consumerism" probably dominates 99% of the internet.

In the first century of printing, 99% of what got printed was religious garbage of one kind or another.

But things change.


If we're talking about actual revolutionary struggle, the only place for that is the workplace.

Too narrow. The main place, yes, in all likelihood.

But not the "only" place.


If the internet replaces "actual organisations" what we will probably see an increase in is the "Stalin kiddie" phenomenon. People who encounter ideas on the internet that they "like", but they can never apply them in real life. So being a Marxist becomes merely another "choice", "ideas for consumption".

Once again, I did not suggest that the internet would "replace" actual organizations -- what I did suggest is that undemocratic forms of organization will have a more and more difficult time of things because information is nearly impossible to suppress on the internet.

Nor do we have any reliable way of predicting how and when the ideas that people learn about on the internet will be "expressed" in "real life".

But we've already seen a little bit of that on this board.

And, as you surely know, it's "early days yet". :)

:redstar2000:

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

[YKTMX]

The reason the working poor don't have computers and internet connections is, obviously, that they are still too expensive.

Will that be true ten years from now? 20?


Maybe. We'll see.


You have a curiously "tactile" approach to this stuff -- as if without our noses up each other's armpits, we are unable to communicate "for real".


I suppose I am quite "tactile". Maybe I'm being overly personal; most of my politics come not from books but from discussions I've taken part in and meetings I've attended. I'm just concerned that people try to replace this with the internet.


what I did suggest is that undemocratic forms of organization will have a more and more difficult time of things because information is nearly impossible to suppress on the internet.


I obviously don't accept that "democratic centralism" is undemocratic.

[antieverything]

Have you considered that a large slice of working class people don't have the money for an interner connection; even if they did, would they have the time or the will to discuss things on message boards.
That's true but it doesn't mean that those who do should be discouraged from using it! By the same logic working people have neither the money to support working-class causes nor the time to participate in said causes.


I was talking about actually making revolution in the real. What happened after 1917 is not related in any fashion to the degeneration.
The Bolsheviks, remember, didn't organize and coordinate the mass uprisings that were to become the real defining moments of the Russian revolution. In fact, it is the purpose of the Leninist organization to cynically direct and manipulate these mobilizations and at the critical moment to hijack the wave of revolutionary sentiment! In this respect Redstar may indeed be on to something. This sort of cynical, anti-democratic organization depends on the masses' ignorance as to what is happening in respect to control of the state aparatus...people in Russia didn't know what the Bolsheviks were planning and had they been it is unlikely they would have approved. With the internet it is much more difficult to keep people in the dark as information travels quickly to every corner of the country--and even the globe. When people can connect with one another and understand how they are being exploited, misled, and manipulated by revolutionary elites they are far more likely to do something about it. Instead of depending on an elite group to coordinate the "interests of the people" they can do it themselves by coordinating their disparate struggles through use of information technology. The capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with indeed!


I suppose I am quite "tactile". Maybe I'm being overly personal; most of my politics come not from books but from discussions I've taken part in and meetings I've attended. I'm just concerned that people try to replace this with the internet.
Not everyone has the ability to attend meetings or participate in discussions without the aid of information technology--how many people here have cut their radical teeth on internet sources? A sizable portion, I assure you.


I obviously don't accept that "democratic centralism" is undemocratic.
Just read the political theory of Lenin and Stalin--democratic centralism is not only undemocratic in practice, it is intended to be that way...the very point is to keep people from challenging the party line--the word "democratic" is there for propaganda purposes alone.


As for the "end" of democratic centralism, it's a non-issue. No matter whether you like it or not, people will always go back to the writings of Marx and Lenin, and they will always conclude that we need organized, serious socialists who can agitate and argue in the real world. The Bolsheviks organized the only workers' revolution in history and we can do little better than to follow their lead.
History, my friend, appears to be proving you wrong. I would go so far as to say that Leninism is a historic anomaly due to the rise of Soviet communism and the failure of international leftists to properly critique it--for many reasons. Like I said, the core of radicalism pre-1917 (and indeed, the core of Marxism itself) was Anarchism of various types. Ultimately it was not reactionaries who destroyed the IWW in the US, it was the rise of the Soviet Union and Marxist-Leninist ideology. Of course the millions around the world who looked to the USSR as a shining example were soon to be sorely disappointed and radical politics seemed to be dying along with the Soviet system. Only after the collapse of "communism" did a vibrant discourse reemerge on the radical Left--and it did so largely along the lines of anarchism, as an ethical starting point if not as a formulated ideology.


The Bolsheviks organized the only workers' revolution in history and we can do little better than to follow their lead.
This sentence is absurd on its face...I think most working people, if this statement were true, would reject socialist politics entirely. The fact is, we can do much, much better and if we can't then we may as well give up now.

[SonofRage]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2004, 05:37 PM


You see, the problem with the internet, and the reason why the bourgeoisie love it so much, is that it is an "individual experience". A "consumer" sits at home using shopping, speaking to people etc. without ever actually having to meet another human being. It is a complete tool of isolation.
As someone who as spent some time studying the internet on an academic level, I must say that is way off base.

The internet is primarily a tool for communication. Does the telephone isolate us? Does the postal service isolate us?

[flyby]

democratic centralism is necessary because of how humans sum up truth from experience.

It has to do with the very epistemology of practice.

People haave experiences, see part of the picture, have results, try things out....

And that can only be summed up and synthesized into insights, correctives and new policies in a concentrated and collective way.

The internet doesn't make democratic centralism obsolete, any more than telephones make meetings unnecessary.

[Guest1]

The reality is, internet penetration growth has begun to level off in the west.

The real growth in internet usage today is happening in China and India and places like that, where they are deploying systems with Linux on them, which is free, so it makes it all the more accessible. It's also not by coincidence that Linux is essentially the result of the natural development, a communal production scheme, backed up by a gift economy in distribution.

YKTMX, you are totally misguided about the internet.

If you take a look at what's happening now, the real potential of the internet is the democracy it is showing already, in non-political reality. Look at projects like the wikipedia encyclopedia, look at open-source software like FireFox and Linux, look at the gift economies of file sharing networks that the music industry tries and fails to stop.

The ultra-democracy these projects create is now finding a contradiction between the natural development of the internet and its leaning towards collective production and distribution, and the Capitalist society that has already begun reaching the point of being nothing but a hinderance to it.

It is also proving the centralized model to be a relic of the past.

The real need for centralized models came from their efficiency back then. In order to get the information out to all the components of a society/party/whatever, it made sense that they all report up, vote up, whatever, and then orders/news/etc... would flow back down from the center. There's no need for that anymore. News, decisions, communications, it's all instant, at all sectors. There's no need for a centralized distributor of information to organize people.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2004, 06:48 PM
democratic centralism is necessary because of how humans sum up truth from experience.

It has to do with the very epistemology of practice.

People have experiences, see part of the picture, have results, try things out....

And that can only be summed up and synthesized into insights, correctives and new policies in a concentrated and collective way.

The internet doesn't make democratic centralism obsolete, any more than telephones make meetings unnecessary.
Yes, we all see a "partial picture" of reality; human limitations will not permit otherwise.

And by communicating our partial views with one another, we arrive at a better approximation of reality than any of us (even a Marx!) could do "on his own".

What the internet seems to have the potential for is enormously increasing the volume of that communication...in a way that's readily accessible to the masses.

Further, it is inter-active in way that the old revolutionary technology (printing) was not...the masses can talk back in a way that they didn't used to be able to do.

Think about it. Someone said that many workers can't (yet) afford a computer and an internet connection...but how many workers could ever afford a printing press or a radio station?

In "all hither-to existing societies", information has been a de facto monopoly of the ruling classes...actual or potential.

Information was gathered from the "base", "summed up" at the "top", and orders resulting from that "summing up" were transmitted downwards.

I think we are approaching an era in which "anyone" (in principle) can "sum up" very effectively...regardless of their location on the "social pyramid".

Of course, intelligence and effort are still required to "sum up" with any hope of accuracy...but I am not a follower of the doctrine that the masses are "stupid and lazy" and need to be "taken in hand".

Thus, while many workers will use the internet for entertainment and/or shopping, I think, in time, that will change.

I think it's changing now.

As to telephones, what they made unnecessary was mostly personal letters...though I'm sure they've also replaced many very small meetings as well.

I think it's interesting that one of the very first telephones installed in London was in the home of one F. Engels -- and, for all I know, it was one of the very first that was tapped. :D

:redstar2000:

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