All You Vanguardists!

[Paradox]

Ok, after having quite the discussion on this in the Chat room, I want all you Leninist-Moaist types to explain to me exactly why leaders and vanguards are necessary. I still see no way for that to lead to a classless society. The discussion in Chat room, along with some reading I've been doing has made me look at things in a different way. I still believe in revolution, but a mental one. I'm not saying that violence won't happen, but I don't see a "revolutionary" minority "leading" the people to Communist society. It was said that the people "don't know what they need," and "can't understand Socialism/Communism," and so they "need" leaders to "show them the way" so to speak. How does this lead to anything? A small group of leaders take power and "lead" the majority who aren't yet Socialist/Communist because the majority can't understand? Please explain.

Also, I found some quotes from Lenin's "The Chief Tasks of Our Times," and I'd like you to explain them as well:


Reality says that State Capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State Capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us. How could they be so blind as not to see that our enemy is the small capitalist, the small owner? How could they see the chief enemy in State Capitalism? In the transition period from Capitalism to Socialism our chief enemy is the small bourgeoisie, with its economic customs, habits, and position.


To bring about State Capitalism at the present time means to establish the control and order formerly achieved by the propertied classes.

:huh:


Even if a man is a scoundrel of the deepest dye, if he is a merchant, experienced in organising production and distribution on a large scale, we must learn from him; if we do not learn from these people, we shall never achieve Socialism, and the revolution will never get beyond the present stage. Socialism can only be reached by the development of State Capitalism, the careful organisation of finance, control and discipline among the workers. Without this there is no Socialism.

I know we'll have to be organized, but work with the capitalists!?! With the "scoundrels of the deepest dye"!?! :o Why not work with bush and cheney if you feel that way? Or maybe wal-mart? Please explain!


Until the workers have learned to organise on a large scale they are not Socialists, nor builders of a Socialist structure of society, and will not acquire the necessary knowledge for the establishment of the new world order. The path of organisation is a long one, and the tasks of the Socialist constructive work require strenuous and continuous effort, with a corresponding knowledge which we do not sufficiently possess. It is hardly to be expected that the even more developed following generation will accomplish a complete transition into Socialism.

Like I said, how does this small group of leaders make the un-Socialist majority Socialist? And what makes you think that the people will understand Marxist ideas if they are forced upon them by some vanguard?

The following is a quote from Zinoviev's report to the First Congress of the Third International:


Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members of the right to vote at the Congress of the party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right of voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to assure the homogenous unity of the Communists. So that in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire state machine from the top to bottom.

:huh: He says THE ENTIRE PARTY approved the measure to DEPRIVE certain members of the party from voting. How can that be? Why would they vote to restrict THEMSELVES from voting? Also, he says "500,000 members who manage the ENTIRE state machine from the TOP to bottom." Shouldn't it be from the BOTTOM? Isn't the aim to have the WORKERS in control? So that it would be a "workers'" state? I realize I may be misinterpreting these quotes and the ideas discussed in them, so I ask you Leninists to explain them, and why you believe such ideas are necessary.

[NovelGentry]

I'm not a Leninist or Maoist, but I do believe in a vanguard. Different form though.

[Faceless]

Reality says that State Capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State Capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us. How could they be so blind as not to see that our enemy is the small capitalist, the small owner? How could they see the chief enemy in State Capitalism? In the transition period from Capitalism to Socialism our chief enemy is the small bourgeoisie, with its economic customs, habits, and position.
In many respects he was right. Capitalism has progressive elements; it drags the peasantry into the workforce and it industrialises nations. Petty capitalists though are reactionary. They have neither the interests of the proletariat nor the interests of the bourgeoisie. Their interests are in turning back the hands of time.
Many members of this board relish in the fact that capitalism has in-built limits and that the most progressive development in capitalism will bring us closer to socialism. And yet you cringe in the knowledge that the most highly developed form of capitalism is in fact monopolist and an integrated form of fascism. Lenin did make mistakes though. The concept for instance that state capitalism had to be achieved politically only. Russia had no economic base upon which "state capitalism" could lay its roots. I wouldnt either lay much of the economic development in Russia under Lenin/Stalin to "state capitalism". The capitalist revolution in Russia was already underway and state capitalism necessarily fell as it was inevitably premature.


Like I said, how does this small group of leaders make the un-Socialist majority Socialist? And what makes you think that the people will understand Marxist ideas if they forced upon them by some vanguard?
Lenin was mistaken in believing that he could force socialism onto the consciousness of the overwhelmingly peasant Russia. He couldnt. You mistake his failure for "vanguardism". The failure was fundamentally because of the inability of the peasantry to form a coherent, progressive consciousness.


He says THE ENTIRE PARTY approved the measure to DEPRIVE certain members of the party from voting. How can that be? Why would they vote to restrict THEMSELVES from voting? Also, he says "500,000 members who manage the ENTIRE state machine from the TOP to bottom." Shouldn't it be from the BOTTOM? Isn't the aim to have the WORKERS in control? So that it would be a "workers'" state? I realize I may be misinterpreting these quotes and the ideas discussed in them, so I ask you Leninists to explain them, and why you believe such ideas are necessary.
Bear in mind, "worker's" revolution was impossible in 1917 Russia. Democracy was also impracticle; the peasants had no means of political organisation until their interaction with the means of production was socialised.

Now, the matter of the vanguard. Leninism is not defined as "vanguardist". Indeed, as a Luxemburgist myself, and as all the most class consciouss elements are, I consider myself a "vanguardist". Leninism though is defined as the wholly artificial seperation of the vanguard from the labour movement as a whole on one level or another. I think their is some confusion over how best to pigeon-hole "leninism", so if you must pigeon-hole it at all, refine your definition.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2005, 11:31 AM
Ok, after having quite the discussion on this in the Chat room, I want all you Leninist-Moaist types to explain to me exactly why leaders and vanguards are necessary. I still see no way for that to lead to a classless society.
I'm a Leninist but not a Maoist, and won't attempt to justify the tripe you were referring to near the beginning of your post...the nonsense about the masses won't understand socialism and so forth.

But a tool for building something doesn't have to resemble what you're building. A hammer doesn't look like a house. And a revolutionary party doesn't have to look like a classless society.

"Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments. Some bunch of capitalists grabs power coming out of it...as with the February Russian Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, etc....there are no historical examples of the opposite happening. Political parties are the means by which classes administer state power. That's why workers need one.

Another source of widespread confusion, I think: the party isn't the vanguard. Not automatically, anyway.

The vanguard is the most conscious workers, the activists, the best fighters. A revolutionary party seeks to recruit them, and to educate and inspire its members to be among the best fighters. But especially when a revolutionary party is small, the vanguard of the working class is much broader than the party. When the Bolshevik Party became essentially the same as the vanguard of the working class, it wasn't just because the party proclaimed it so....they worked for it and earned it.

The Lenin and Zinoviev stuff doesn't have a lot to do with this I think - they're addressing different polical questions. The main piece by Lenin where he explains the need for a centralized party of dedicated professional revolutionaries is "What is to be Done".

I think with both articles you're focusing on particular words and phrases without their context and maybe without understanding the general idea the authors are trying to advocate.

The Lenin article you're quoting was in the context of the Soviet government holding power, in a country where the economic and cultural conditions of Russia weren't ready for socialism, and revolutions in more advanced countries had been put down....the last partly because of the lack of experienced Bolshevik-style parties.

So Lenin favored a workers' government using elements of state capitalism to build up the economic and cultural conditions.

"Like I said, how does this small group of leaders make the un-Socialist majority Socialist? " By building up the economic and cultural conditions. Keeping in mind most workers in the early Soviet republic weren't un-socialist in the sense of their politics being anti-socialist; quite the contrary. What Lenin's talking about is they lacked the culture and education to build socialism.

I had to go find Zinoviev's speech in "Founding the Communist International", which is basically a complete transcript of the First Congress, to get the context and find out what the heck he's talking about. It looks like you (or your source?) has left out a sentence and maybe some other words in the middle of the quotation. You're really supposed to put dots (....) to let people know you're doing that. If that quote is how it appears in your source I'd say it's a very bad translation or maybe even dishonest.

Here's how it appears in my book:

However, because our party stands at the helm of the state, it is understandable that a considerable number of careerists and wavering petty-bourgeois elements also seek admission. But we have made a firm and clear decision to put obstacles in our way. Our Central Committee even decided to deny voting rights for the party congress to some categories of party members. It is, of course, unusual to limit the right of voting within the party, but I emphasize the whole party approved of this measure because we want all the party to be cast in the same mold. We want only genuine communists admitted into our party. This decision affects only our half million members - who hold in their hands the entire state apparatus, from top to bottom.

So the purpose is to try to combat the corruption of the workers' party by bureacracy and careerists....a phenomenon which later became known as Stalinism. Probably it was easily approved by all party members because it applied mostly to members joining in the future (besides, Bolsheviks oughta be objective, and think of the needs of the revolution, before personal pride). And "top to bottom" appears to have no special significance beyond the party controlling all levels of the state apparatus.

Incidentally, the "half million members" should pretty definitely show that a Bolshevik party is not just a "small group of leaders".

[Red Heretic]

The vangaurd's necessity, in my eyes, is confined to nations which are not yet industrialized. It is needed in certain nations which have not developed yet in order to force the development of that country to the point where it can achieve real socialism, and eventually communism. However, as history and dialectics have shown, it is less needed in more industrialized nations (ie. Spain during the civil war).

Without a vanguard, you cannot force the development of economy or industry, and thus, cannot achieve communism unless the country was already fully developed. Of course, it would always be preferrable tht we would not have to use a vangaurd.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 07:21 AM
A hammer doesn't look like a house. And a revolutionary party doesn't have to look like a classless society.
An interesting analogy. I think one of the biggest lessons we can learn from the devastation of Leninism however, is that theoretics matter, and they matter a great deal.

A Leninist political organisation will create a government controlled by this revolutionary party. That is it's aim. It's objective is to seize control of the state and then reorganise society on "behalf" of the workers.

The party maybe like a hammer and may not resemble the house, but it is not these elements which are of importance. It is the person holding the hammer which is the key.

In order to have a "strong, centralised revolutionary party" you require several concomitants. Powerful leadership, obedient followers and a self-proclaimed mandate.

Once this revolutionary party has assumed control of society their task is to reorganise and maintain society, the mould and structure doesn't suddenly change just because there has been a revolution. In fact, admittedly by Lenin himself, the opposite happens. The revolutionary parties leadership becomes even more powerful, the followers become more obedient and the mandate becomes the only acceptable mandate to exist. They call this the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The revolutionary party may not be the model of classless society but it is the model of a transitional society and it is this stage in history which is key in securing any chance of achieving communism.

The political party creates material conditions in a quest to create other material conditions; the difference between those two and the inconvenient fact of time mean that there is a contradiction that can never be reconciled.

The transitional phase corrupts history in a sense, to such a point that actually creating communism becomes impossible. There has to of course be that point where visible stages of transition begin. How can that happen when this "revolutionary government" requires powerful leadership, obedient followers and maintains a mandate which isn't allowed to be challenged, on a vast scale, while at the same time creating the opposite?


"Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments.

That was proven to be incorrect during the Spanish revolution.


So Lenin favoured a workers' government using elements of state capitalism to build up the economic and cultural conditions.

Workers government is an oxymoron. The Bolshevik government controlled these economic and cultural conditions along with the arms of the state such as the army and the police/secret police forces. Someone who controls the means of production et al is not a worker.

[Paradox]

I'm a Leninist but not a Maoist, and won't attempt to justify the tripe you were referring to near the beginning of your post...the nonsense about the masses won't understand socialism and so forth.

I guess that the RL member who we were discussing this with in the Chat room was a bit more pessimistic or something. He was a MLM and he kept saying that a vanguard is necessary, leaders, because the people "don't know what they need," and would not be able to "understand," etc., etc.. I appologize if I took that opinion as being true for all Leninists or Maoists.


It looks like you (or your source?) has left out a sentence and maybe some other words in the middle of the quotation. You're really supposed to put dots (....) to let people know you're doing that. If that quote is how it appears in your source I'd say it's a very bad translation or maybe even dishonest.

The quote I posted was written exactly how I posted it, so I guess the source left out what you say was missing.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 1 2005, 10:19 AM
It's objective is to seize control of the state and then reorganise society on "behalf" of the workers.
Who are you quoting? The objective of a Leninist party is to lead the class, not substitute for it.


In order to have a "strong, centralised revolutionary party" you require several concomitants. Powerful leadership, obedient followers and a self-proclaimed mandate.

Says who? Centralism is not counterposed to democracy. On the contrary, democracy implies majority rule, which if it is to be meaningful requires everyone to comply with the majority decision.

Organizations that don't elect leaders willy-nilly develop unelected leaders, and organizations without centralism willy-nilly let individual leaders do whatever they please, regardless of the will of the ranks. Anarchism in 30s Spain, which you mention later in your post, is a good example of this.

And the Bolshevik party, the July 26th Movement, or any other party which successfully leads a revolution has earned a mandate, not just proclaimed one.


They call this the dictatorship of the proletariat.

No, some of the problems you refer to are a real danger, especially under adverse conditions, but the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to something else, the violent suppression of the capitalists.


The revolutionary party may not be the model of classless society but it is the model of a transitional society

It's not the model of anything. Where and when has anything but a party been organized along the democratic centralist lines of a Leninist party? Neither the Soviet government in Lenin's time nor the Cuban government is....as for Stalinist governments, even their parties aren't organized along those lines, heck they're not political parties at all (when in power) rather clubs people join to advance their careers.


There has to of course be that point where visible stages of transition begin.

Really? What kind of transitional stages does anarchist theory allow for?



"Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments.

That was proven to be incorrect during the Spanish revolution.

I'm curious. Are you claiming that the Spanish Republic was a revolutionary government? It looks more like a capitalist government to me, which refused to arm the workers' militia, and ultimately crushed them, making Franco's victory inevitable. If you think it was a revolutionary government, that might explain why anarchist leaders supported it, even joined the Catalan government as ministers, contrary to all their stated principles...


Workers government is an oxymoron.

Then why were you, a minute ago, contradicting my statement that revolutionary governments can result from spontaneous uprisings? From this later statement you logically shoulda said, "that's right, but they can't come from any other kind of uprising either." (Unless some class other than the workers can create a revolutionary government in the modern world?)


The Bolshevik government controlled these economic and cultural conditions along with the arms of the state such as the army and the police/secret police forces.

They controlled the economic and cultural conditions? Apparently they had not just totalitarian power but godlike omnipotence.


Someone who controls the means of production et al is not a worker.

Well, if the workers can't control the means of production, might as well give up now, huh?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
And a revolutionary party doesn't have to look like a classless society.

The kind of political organization that you build and function in -- regardless of what you name it -- generates and encourages certain kinds of behavior and stifles or otherwise discourages certain other kinds of behavior.

What we do is, in large measure, who we are...and a pretty good predictor of what we will do in the future.

If we actually want a classless society "after the revolution", then our revolutionary movement had better support that behavior...or else we'll get something entirely different from what we want.

And it won't be pretty.


"Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments.

Well, they haven't so far...is that "the end of the story"?

Particularly in light of the track record of those "revolutionary governments" that were established by "strong, centralized revolutionary" parties.

Leninists delight in crowing "we can win, the masses by themselves can't win". But what did you win? And how long were you able to hold onto it?

These days, both Maoists and Trotskyists are politically insignificant factors in the "west". In fact, the only significant Leninist parties in the "west" after World War II were in France and Italy...and then only because they were openly reformist.

Every Leninist party says that this will change and their party will, someday, "get it right" and "lead the masses to victory".

But if one is in the mood to consider possibilities, then is it not equally valid for others, like myself, to say that someday the masses will "get it right" and "lead themselves to victory"?

The historical record suggests that the best the Leninists can do for us is a benevolent despotism (Cuba). More often they've done considerably worse.

That's not "good enough". At least not for me and that means not for anybody.

Those of you who are content with the idea of a "socialist despotism" ruled by a "vanguard party"...well, pick one or start your own. The field is "wide open".

I'm in favor of communism, myself...regardless of how long the odds against us may appear at the present time.

Was it Eugene Debs who said it? It's better to fight for what you want and not get it than to fight for what you don't want and get it.


Political parties are the means by which classes administer state power. That's why workers need one.

Yes, I think Lenin said that.

But he was wrong, of course. Political parties are a bourgeois invention for the purpose of administering state power by the capitalist class.

Before that, class power was "a family affair", literally.

This suggests that political parties may be totally irrelevant to working class power in a post-capitalist society.


Incidentally, the "half million members" should pretty definitely show that a Bolshevik party is not just a "small group of leaders".

Hmm...and what was the population of the USSR when the half-million members of the CPSU(B) ran everything "from top to bottom"? 180,000,000 or something like that?

Not to mention that most of those 500,000 party members were "order-takers" -- bureaucratic underlings. The matters of greatest importance were decided by a much smaller group at the top of the party -- rather like a large, modern corporation.


The objective of a Leninist party is to lead the class, not substitute for it.

That's what's on the label; when the box is opened, the content is just the opposite.


On the contrary, democracy implies majority rule, which if it is to be meaningful requires everyone to comply with the majority decision.

More false advertising. Leninist parties follow a rather predictable trajectory. When they are young and small, there's quite a bit of both formal and informal democracy. As they age, their leadership becomes more and more entrenched, opposition and even criticism becomes less and less welcome. They become sclerotic.

In the end, they rather strongly resemble an "oriental despotism" -- a "god-like" leader, a small surrounding "council of ministers", and the party membership, who are little more than slaves.

When the "emperor dies", then there is a scramble at the top to determine who the new emperor will be. Otherwise, things continue as before.

In the course of this trajectory, coherent opposition occasionally arises...this is punished with banishment from the realm (expulsion).

Such a party may win state power in a backward country...but their behavior doesn't change.

The social order they will establish will reflect the party's own place on that trajectory. If the party comes to power while it is still young, things may be fairly democratic...for a while.

But out of power or in power, Leninist parties move on that trajectory. At a "rough guess", any Leninist party more than 25 years old is probably hopeless with regard to internal democracy.

Remember that this is not a consequence of "personal villainy"...in fact, personalities have almost nothing to do with it.

It's a consequence of a chosen method of political work.


Organizations that don't elect leaders willy-nilly develop unelected leaders, and organizations without centralism willy-nilly let individual leaders do whatever they please, regardless of the will of the ranks.

Any organization, with or without leaders (elected or unelected), is a product of the collective will of its membership. The ambition of that centralized leadership is to reduce the contribution of the membership to "voting yes".

In the Leninist paradigm, the leaders are very good at this.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 07:54 PM
The objective of a Leninist party is to lead the class, not substitute for it.
Then why did that happen?



In order to have a "strong, centralised revolutionary party" you require several concomitants. Powerful leadership, obedient followers and a self-proclaimed mandate.

Says who?

How can you have a "strong, centralised revolutionary party" without those things?


Centralism is not counterposed to democracy.

Democracy within the party line, not outside it. Party line that is dictated by your leadership more to the point.


Organizations that don't elect leaders willy-nilly develop unelected leaders,

Let's just miss out the leader part then.


and organizations without centralism willy-nilly let individual leaders do whatever they please, regardless of the will of the ranks.

That says allot for your faith in the masses.


Anarchism in 30s Spain, which you mention later in your post, is a good example of this.

How is it an example?


And the Bolshevik party, the July 26th Movement, or any other party which successfully leads a revolution has earned a mandate, not just proclaimed one.

I suppose you could say the same for Franco's Fascists or the Clerics in Iran. I suppose if Hitler was successful in 1923 he would have earned himself a mandate also.


No, some of the problems you refer to are a real danger, especially under adverse conditions

So you are admitting that in a transitional society "The revolutionary parties leadership becomes even more powerful, the followers become more obedient and the mandate becomes the only acceptable mandate to exist."


but the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to something else, the violent suppression of the capitalists.

This theory however has to take a practical form. The real world doesn't live in the expanse of your words. In a revolutionary situation of this nature lines become distorted and words like suppression and violent become difficult to define.


Really? What kind of transitional stages does anarchist theory allow for

Nice evasion.

Anarchism advocates the collectivisation of aspects of society. We have seen that this is possible and successful, again taking Spain as a prime example.

Of course we can't suddenly have a communist world, and certain bourgeois elements may still operate in terms of economics but the general principle of organisation is not that complicated. You just do it.


Are you claiming that the Spanish Republic was a revolutionary government?

No. The Popular Front was a broad revolutionary coalition, including CNT members, but on analysis it's platform and tactical functioning was primarily directed by Stalinists who adopted bourgeois methods to crush opposition.

If you analyse the situation in Spain in terms of gains made by workers, it is evidently clear that the anarchists were a success.

Taken from Eddie Conlon's pamphlet "Anarchism in Action - The Spanish Civil War"


As with the militias, slander was also thrown at the collectives. It was claimed that each one only looked after itself and did not care about the others. This was rubbish as in many areas equalisation funds were set up to re-distribute wealth from the better off areas to the poorer ones. It was ensured that machinery and expertise were shifted to the areas most in need of it. Indeed one indicator of the feeling of solidarity is the fact that 1,000 collectivists from the Levant, which was quite advanced, moved to Castille to help out.

Federations of collectives were established, the most successful being in Aragon. In June 1937 a plenum of Regional Federations of peasants was held. Its aim was the formation of a national federation "for the co-ordination and extension of the collectivist movement and also to ensure an equitable distribution of the produce of the land, not only between the collectives but for the whole country."

In the collective of Aragon, production actually increased during the conflict.


It looks more like a capitalist government to me, which refused to arm the workers' militia, and ultimately crushed them, making Franco's victory inevitable.

The PF government was actually controlled by the Cominturn and on the orders of Stalin the militias weren't armed. But indeed, it was this that lead to Franco's victory.


If you think it was a revolutionary government, that might explain why anarchist leaders supported it, even joined the Catalan government as ministers, contrary to all their stated principles...

They joined it because they thought it would make a difference in some way. Of course they were wrong. A lesson anarchists must always learn. Participating in bourgeois politics will never achieve anything. The CNT-FAI were betrayed, in retrospect that was to be expected.


Then why were you, a minute ago, contradicting my statement that revolutionary governments can result from spontaneous uprisings?

The word government is loosely defined. Anything can be defined as a government.


They controlled the economic and cultural conditions? Apparently they had not just totalitarian power but godlike omnipotence.

They controlled the media, acceptable attitudes, propaganda, food, the army, police force, morality and purpose.


Well, if the workers can't control the means of production, might as well give up now, huh?

I didn't say that.

[Black Radical]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 06:01 PM

I'm a Leninist but not a Maoist, and won't attempt to justify the tripe you were referring to near the beginning of your post...the nonsense about the masses won't understand socialism and so forth.



It looks like you (or your source?) has left out a sentence and maybe some other words in the middle of the quotation. You're really supposed to put dots (....) to let people know you're doing that. If that quote is how it appears in your source I'd say it's a very bad translation or maybe even dishonest.

The quote I posted was written exactly how I posted it, so I guess the source left out what you say was missing.


I guess that the RL member who we were discussing this with in the Chat room was a bit more pessimistic or something. He was a MLM and he kept saying that a vanguard is necessary, leaders, because the people "don't know what they need," and would not be able to "understand," etc., etc.. I appologize if I took that opinion as being true for all Leninists or Maoists.

I think we all should be able to agree that people don't know what they need. If one believes communism is the only hope for the earth and humanity, one must also accept that the overwhelming majority who does not believe in or even understand communism, does not know what they need.

Having said that, I think the notion of a vanguard party is one of several ways to get the job done. I find the notion of a vanguard party a bit arrogant with each party claiming to be the vanguard and such. The point is, workers need to understand communist ideas.

[flyby]

I'm sorry I didn't get to this thread earlier, paradox.

It is me you were talking about in chat. And perhaps there was a miscommunication about some important issues.

My argument was not that "people don't know what they need" (i.e. that they need to be ordered around like stupid children.)

My argument is more complex: that people don't automatically what they need, especially on complex matters of politics and economics.

Do working peole automatically know they need a radical new socialist/communist society? NO, the knowledge of that emerged from a serious study of history, politics and economics. It is not something you just "feel in your bones" or know from an accumulation of experiences being oppressed in society.

In many ways, however oppressed people more quickly and deeply grasp the truth of revolutoianry politics -- because its conclusions and perspective resonates with their situation, their experience and their historic interests.

Another reason people don't "automatically know" is that people have contradictory interests in capitalism -- on one level, working people have a larger and historic interest in making revolution (in sacrificing for that.) On another level, people "need to live" and all the bullshit of that (competing for jobs, scrambling for overtime, seeking a break at the expense of other, etc.) actually presents itself to people as being "in their interests."

A third reason people don't "automatically know" their interests is the heavy weight of a thousand years of tradition and the great capitalist machinery of liex and propaganda. People are taught mountains of bullshit (about god, about democracy, about their chance to get rich, about the inferority of black people, about the need to civilize the third world etc. etc.) And digging out from under that mountain is not something most people do "automatically" -- it takes work, study and the assimilation of the theoretical work of all kinds of criticial thinkers.

So part of what we were debating was the need for leadership and theory.

People who love "radical democratic" soclutions (like direct control by workers) think that people automatically know what they want and need. But in fact, society is more complex. And even under socialism that is true.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by flyby
People who love "radical democratic" solutions (like direct control by workers) think that people automatically know what they want and need.

Misleading.

It's not a matter of "automatically knowing" -- like some simple Newtonian clockwork. There are always people who are "advanced" in their understanding...who know more.

Those people must speak up, over and over again...even when people "don't want to hear it".

The difficulties arise when those who are advanced in their understanding get "the big head" and think their greater insight automatically confers the right of command.

Those who dislike "radical democratic" perspectives (like direct control by workers) are prone to summon up irrelevant "parallels".

The captain commands the ship, not the ship's cook. The chief surgeon commands the operation, not the scrub nurse.

"Therefore", The vanguard party commands the revolutionary movement, the socialist order, and the transition to communism...not ordinary workers.

What's wrong with these "arguments"? They confuse a limited example with the whole.

It's possible -- and happens all the time -- that really intelligent people learn how to captain a ship or perform surgery. However complex these tasks are, they are well within the range of individual human comprehension and mastery.

But note that even here, things are more complicated than they seem. A ship's captain cannot do without the chief engineer...he can't look at the engines himself and figure out what's wrong. A top surgeon cannot do without the anesthesiologist. And so on.

When we pass to the question of the transition from class to classless society -- the most dramatic and complicated change in human society in the last 10,000 years -- matters have reached a degree of complexity that will require the "brain power" of hundreds of millions of people to master even partially. There's no small group -- even if it were composed of a hundred thousand "Karl Marx's" -- that could work out a "fail-safe" plan...do this and then do this and then do this, etc.

The Leninist conceit is that "our party and its leader" sees "the road ahead" with such outstandingly superior clarity compared to the working class as a whole that...we should command and the class should obey.

That's on a par with claiming to have personally counted and cataloged every star in our galaxy...it simply beggars belief.

I would never assert that the working class as a whole will "always get it right" while a Leninist vanguard party would "always fuck up".

I'm speaking rather on the grounds of probability: the direct participation of and control by the revolutionary masses is more likely to succeed in a successful transition to communism than the command of any possible elite -- no matter how brilliant, dedicated, or both.

I think Marx understood this point when he wrote the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves.

That is the source of my "radically democratic" interpretation of Marx and Marxism.

A revolutionary communist movement must be radically democratic within its own ranks and in its relationship to the working class.

Communists should participate in a proletarian revolution...not "lead" it.

If any transitional "state" is thought necessary at all, it should be a "Paris Commune-type" -- radically democratic to the core.

The only legitimate purpose of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is to crush the remnants of the old ruling class; it cannot be legitimately used as an instrument of ideological/political struggle within the working class itself.

The introduction of communist forms of decision-making, production, and distribution should begin immediately following the revolution itself and proceed with all deliberate speed to full communism.

And we'll see how we do. :)

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[shadows]

Lenin's words are so often taken out of context. State capitalism? Well, during the strategic retreat called NEP, state capitalism seemed a step forward. After all, civil war, invasion, and the resultant destruction of much of the working class in Russia proved a formidable obstacle to constructing socialism, in an already lagging economy. I suppose the Party became a sort of substitute for the working class when the class seemed nearly nonexistent, and while the European working class parties stumbled in their revolutionary mission.

[Severian]

(Severian): "The objective of a Leninist party is to lead the class, not substitute for it."
(Anarchist Tension): "Then why did that happen?"

Excuse me, but you claimed to be summarizing Leninist "aims." You originally posted: "A Leninist political organisation will create a government controlled by this revolutionary party. That is it's aim. It's objective is to seize control of the state and then reorganise society on "behalf" of the workers."

So I pointed out that is not, in fact, its objective. If you want to claim that Leninist organization inevitably leads to bad stuff, regardless of intentions, that's a different claim. Which one is it?

IMO the degeneration of the Russian Revolution can be explained primarily by objective conditions, including the economic and cultural underdevelopment of Russia , and the fact that it was besieged by a hostile capitalist world where other revolutions had been put down. The revolutionary classes were exhausted and careerists flooded the party membership. The most conscious elements of the class, the only people who were still trying to keep the revolution going, were all in the party...and they lost, not surprisingly given the conditions described above.

IMO the example of the Cuban Revolution shows this ain't inevitable. That's also a partial answer to Redstar's question, what have we won.

Democracy within the party line, not outside it. Party line that is dictated by your leadership more to the point.

BS. In the Bolshevik party in Lenin's time, the party line was debated and voted on by the membership. Including when the party was in power.

Let's just miss out the leader part then.

My point is, that's impossible. I've belonged to groups (usually single-issue coalitions) that had little to no structure, were so determined to be "non-hierarchical" that they didn't even have a chairperson for a meeting, etc. Nevertheless, they had de facto leaders. Unelected leaders who could not be held responsible by the membership.

Severian: "and organizations without centralism willy-nilly let individual leaders do whatever they please, regardless of the will of the ranks."
AT: "That says allot for your faith in the masses."

Yer missing the point again. Let's assume an organization composed of the most conscious people in the world. It doesn't matter. Without centralization, any member of the organization can do as they please. That includes the leaders. We see this all the time with capitalist and social-democratic parties - and, it seems to me, anarchist groups. Their platforms and programs are almost wholly irrelevant. The leaders define their own program.

So you are admitting that in a transitional society "The revolutionary parties leadership becomes even more powerful, the followers become more obedient and the mandate becomes the only acceptable mandate to exist."

Uh, no, danger does not equal inevitability. I'm admitting that can happen.

Anarchism advocates the collectivisation of aspects of society....of course we can't suddenly have a communist world,

You haven't answered the question: what kind of transition stages does anarchist theory envision? Anarchism seems to me to ignore the problem. The difference between communism and anarchism, after all, is that anarchism advocates the immediate abolition of the state.

If you're going to attack the Leninist concept of how to organize the early stages of a transition towards a classless society, shouldn't you put forward an alternative?

No. The Popular Front was a broad revolutionary coalition, including CNT members, but on analysis it's platform and tactical functioning was primarily directed by Stalinists who adopted bourgeois methods to crush opposition.

Uh...sounds to me like there was nothing "revolutionary" about that "broad coalition", then. IIRC its capitalist as well as Stalinist members strongly denied that it was revolutionary. Probably some of the social democrats as well. But I'm drifting.

Your "no" suffices. Since no revolutionary government emerged, Spain is not a counterexample to my statement that ""Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments."

Redstar, in his post, seems to admit that in fact this has never happened. Let me just point out, then, that has been plenty of opportunity for it to happen.

Over the last century or so, all over the world, there have been a fair number of spontaneous workers' uprisings, without centralized revolutionary leaderships, all over the world, over the last century or so. A lot more spontaneous uprisings than Leninist-led uprisings, that's for sure. A fair number of these spontaneous uprisings have been victorious, in the sense of bringing down governments. A whole wave of them across Eastern Europe in 1990, to name one dramatic example. It's fairly clear that it's more than coincidence, then, that the privileged classes always hold on to power in the wake of this kind of uprising.

We have one (1) example of a revolutionary workers' party taking power and afterwards being turned into an instrument of counterrevolution and rule of a privileged bureaucracy.

Which kind of example is more likely to be avoidable?

If you analyse the situation in Spain in terms of gains made by workers, it is evidently clear that the anarchists were a success.

Funny, somehow I thought Franco won the civil war. And that the workers in Barcelona were crushed even before that. Doesn't sound like a success to me.

The word government is loosely defined. Anything can be defined as a government.

Marxists try to have more precise definitions...I guess i'm really talking about the state (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state) here. If you're going to advocate it's abolition, probably you could use a fairly precise definition of it as well.

They controlled the media, acceptable attitudes, propaganda, food, the army, police force, morality and purpose.

I said, the economic and cultural conditions. Lenin did not have a magic wand he could wave and make everyone literate or bring electricity instantly to every village.

I didn't say that.

You said, "Someone who controls the means of production et al is not a worker." It seemed like a blanket statement. Certainly there were no specifics or facts anywhere in sight.

Severian): "And a revolutionary party doesn't have to look like a classless society."
(Redstar): "The kind of political organization that you build and function in -- regardless of what you name it -- generates and encourages certain kinds of behavior and stifles or otherwise discourages certain other kinds of behavior.

What we do is, in large measure, who we are...and a pretty good predictor of what we will do in the future.

If we actually want a classless society "after the revolution", then our revolutionary movement had better support that behavior...or else we'll get something entirely different from what we want."

Regardless of what we want, we're not going to have a classless society immediately after the revolution. (Back to the transition stages...though your version of the very short transition to communism strikes me as not so much anarchist as Khmer Rouge; to ban people from teaching religion to their children, for example, would take a large repressive machine.)

And the kind of behavior that would be appropriate in a classless society is not compatible with survival in the world of today.

Nevertheless, a Leninist party does discourage certain kinds of behavior that are a liability both in the struggle both today and in the transition to socialism: selfishness and material greed, for example.

Redstar: "The only legitimate purpose of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is to crush the remnants of the old ruling class; it cannot be legitimately used as an instrument of ideological/political struggle within the working class itself."

I agree. When that starts to happen, it's a warning sign that the dictatorship of the proletariat may be becoming a dictatorship of some privileged group over and against the proletariat.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 4 2005, 05:48 PM
I think we all should be able to agree that people don't know what they need. If one believes communism is the only hope for the earth and humanity, one must also accept that the overwhelming majority who does not believe in or even understand communism, does not know what they need.

Having said that, I think the notion of a vanguard party is one of several ways to get the job done. I find the notion of a vanguard party a bit arrogant with each party claiming to be the vanguard and such. The point is, workers need to understand communist ideas.
Good points. And it's possible, of course, that I was unfair to someone's opinions reported secondhand. My intent was simply to comment on the ideas reported by Paradox, realizing that in their original form they might or might not be tripe.

But as you say a Leninist party isn't necessary if one's goal is solely to conduct propaganda for communism; the old-time, shapeless social-democratic parties were pretty effective at propaganda. Lenin's comment, in "What is to be Done", about the need for socialist consciousness to be brought into workers' struggles from outside, woulda been commonplace to social-democrats of the time in a number of countries.

And in the revolutionary crisis, when a Leninist party does become necessary, a lot more people had better understand the need for socialism; the best party could do little otherwise.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Over the last century or so, all over the world, there have been a fair number of spontaneous workers' uprisings, without centralized revolutionary leaderships...It's fairly clear that it's more than coincidence, then, that the privileged classes always hold on to power in the wake of this kind of uprising.[/b]

That's an "inevitability" hypothesis that may be worth considering.

Are there alternative hypotheses?

What of, for example, the "general" level of consciousness of the working class as a whole?

You'll recall the words of Lenin himself...


...the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organization embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries...the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts...that an organization taking in the whole proletariat cannot direct exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard.

The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky's Mistakes, December 30, 1920.

Let's say that Lenin's reservations were valid in his time and, it would follow, at the level of even the most developed capitalist countries of that time.

Is that something that "must" be true in perpetuity?

Is there something "within" the working class as a whole or that is "always" characteristic of objective conditions that results in the working class "always" being "divided, degraded, and corrupt"?

With the consequence that spontaneous working class uprisings "must always" fall short of actually overthrowing the capitalist class.

I frankly think that such a perspective would be deeply a-historical. What we've seen is that the revolutionary consciousness of the class as a whole rises to a certain level and then falters, failing to carry the revolution through to a definitive conclusion -- the complete overthrow of the old ruling class.

Back when the bourgeoisie was a revolutionary class, it anticipated this trajectory on many occasions...coming "oh so close" to smashing the feudal order only to fall back and allow the old aristocracies to retain their grip on the levers of power -- or choosing some "business-friendly" despot to do the actual ruling.

Why should not the failures of 20th century spontaneous working class uprisings be a very similar phenomenon? I would surmise that most working people in the last century, even in the midst of a revolutionary upheaval when power was "there for the taking", did not believe "in their guts" that they themselves were "fit to rule".

Just as the rising bourgeoisie prostrated themselves endlessly before fools and rogues with a title of nobility...before finally developing the confidence to brush aside the old aristocracy for good.

Is it possible for the working class to develop that confidence in its fitness to rule? Can that happen in the waning decades of capitalism itself?

If not, why not?

Just because it has not yet happened is not a very strong reason.

Things change.


We have one (1) example of a revolutionary workers' party taking power and afterwards being turned into an instrument of counterrevolution and rule of a privileged bureaucracy.

Yes (accepting for the sake of argument your very truncated definition of a "revolutionary workers' party).

And we have zero examples of a "revolutionary workers' party" taking power and leading a successful transition to communism.

We have, as you say, more failures than you do...because we've had more "at-bats". But both of us have the same batting average: .000


Regardless of what we want, we're not going to have a classless society immediately after the revolution.

Nor did I say otherwise.


redstar2000
If any transitional "state" is thought necessary at all, it should be a "Paris Commune-type" -- radically democratic to the core....

The introduction of communist forms of decision-making, production, and distribution should begin immediately following the revolution itself and proceed with all deliberate speed to full communism.

I thought what I said there was pretty clear.


Nevertheless, a Leninist party does discourage certain kinds of behavior that are a liability both in the struggle both today and in the transition to socialism: selfishness and material greed, for example.

I agree that such is often (though not always) the case.

But Leninist parties also highly value and reward obedience to the party's central organs.

In addition, they frequently (though not always) couple this with a "cult of personality" centered around a "great leader".

Those are behavioral patterns that are clearly incompatible with the revolutionary transformation of society. Over time, they generate a false "picture of the world".

The Leninist attempts to convince working people to rebel and throw off the rule of their capitalist masters...but his/her own behavior sends an entirely different message -- obedience to "the good master" is a "virtue" and should be "cultivated".

In some cases, as noted, the "personality cults" of leading capitalist politicians, media figures, etc. are ruthlessly (and justifiably) attacked...but the Leninist's behavior regarding his/her own "leading personality" sends, once more, an entirely different message. "Personality cults" are "ok" as long as you pick "the right personality".

Action that is taken within such a framework is almost certain to be futile because it's based on a false understanding of material reality.

If we wish the working class to become rebellious, then first of all, we must demonstrate that by our own behavior. A superstitious reverence for authority is "the kiss of death" for a revolutionary organization.

If we wish to assist our class to develop the confidence in its own fitness to rule, we must first of all refrain from elevating any of our own to the status of "Moses"...much less "God".

"Moses" was a myth.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 09:17 PM
And we have zero examples of a "revolutionary workers' party" taking power and leading a successful transition to communism.

Sounds like a much higher standard for one side of the comparison than the other.

We do have, IMO, an example of a government which has, for about 45 years, acted fairly consistently in the interests of the working class, both in seeking to get as close to socialism as possible under the conditions, and attempting to aid revolutions in other countries whenever possible.

While that revolution was not led by a Leninist party - indeed the July 26th movement didn't initially set socialist goals - it was definitely led by a centralized organization which, as early as 1957, defined a member as "one who abides by the discipline of the organization, belongs to one of its bodies, and is willing to make the greatest sacrifices to achieve the revolutionary objectives, i.e., who feels deeply the revolutionary ideals for which he’s sworn “Freedom or death” to achieve." link (http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6807/680750.html) Some of those phrases sound very familiar from the Bolshevik-Menshevik split and a certain resolution by Lenin.

As for the rest of your post, earlier in this thread I've previously pointed out why democracy and centralism are not counterposed. Conscious, voluntary discipline is needed for any kind of workers' struggle, even the most basic strike - everybody has to go on strike including those who voted not to.

[shadows]

As capital is conscious of its collective interests, and is willing to sacrifice individual capitalists for the benefit of the whole bourgeoisie, so the proletariat in its struggle with the enemy class must adopt at least partially that enemy's modus operandi, particularly if the proletariat is to be effective in contesting the bourgeoisie on its terrain. The false consciousness of much of the proletariat, esp. in places like the USA and Europe, flows from the effectiveness of 'democracy' - i.e., bourgeois democracy, the freedom of the market. Don't Marxists, as communists, need to do better than this sort of 'democracy,' which is economically determined and obfuscatory? That is, it deludes the proletariat and buys off a segment of it. A vanguard is the repository of class consciousness when the class lacks direction and awareness of itself as a class. Spontaneity of the working class is unreliable, and easily (as history has demonstrated) dead-ends in temporary sectoral gains (trade unionism pure and simple). Lenin's point was that the vanguard acts for the totality of the class, even for rights of minorities belonging to the bourgeoisie when these can impact the working class.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Conscious, voluntary discipline is needed for any kind of workers' struggle, even the most basic strike - everybody has to go on strike including those who voted not to.[/b]

This is a not uncommon metaphor; a proletarian revolution is "like" a strike.

Except that's not really true. The normal strike in capitalist society is "ceremonial" much more than substantive. The union leadership calls a "strike vote" (union members usually can't do that) or calls the strike itself (members of some unions don't even get to vote on whether or not to strike). The union leadership can call off the strike and even offer the bosses unconditional surrender...and rarely can the membership do anything about that. The union leadership decides if a contract should be put before the membership for ratification -- in some unions, a summary of the contract made by the leadership is all the members get to vote on...the full text may become available or not long after the strike is over. (There was one union -- I think it could have been the United Mine Workers, but I'm not sure -- that at least at one time kept the current contract on file in their Washington D.C. headquarters...and if you were a union miner, you had to actually go to Washington to read it!)

Does this bureaucratic ritual really have anything in common with proletarian revolution? Aside from involving large numbers of organized workers, I mean?

Doesn't a genuine proletarian uprising have an entirely different character from the periodic dance of "capital & labor"?

If there's any parallel in capitalist society with proletarian revolution, it seems to me that the logical choice is the wildcat strike. In a way, it's a "miniature" version of the revolution itself...it's "outside official channels", has its own spontaneous leadership emerge directly from the workers themselves, formulates its own demands, etc.

Being a direct expression of working class determination, there is no question of "discipline" as an "abstract virtue" -- people know what they want and are determined to fight for it.

This would apply as well to spontaneous occupations, of course.


shadows
As capital is conscious of its collective interests, and is willing to sacrifice individual capitalists for the benefit of the whole bourgeoisie, so the proletariat in its struggle with the enemy class must adopt at least partially that enemy's modus operandi, particularly if the proletariat is to be effective in contesting the bourgeoisie on its terrain.

That sounds plausible...but the "effectiveness" of that approach has not been demonstrated. We have a long history in the west, involving hundreds of vanguard parties, with almost every possible variant of the Leninist paradigm...with nothing to show for it.

The only successful Leninist revolutionary was Lenin himself...and even his success soured rather quickly.

I might add that contesting the bourgeois "on its terrain" is a sucker's bet...strategies based on electioneering or otherwise infiltrating the bourgeois state apparatus always come to grief.

Our "terrain" consists of the workplaces and the streets...we win there or we don't win at all, ever.


Don't Marxists, as communists, need to do better than this sort of 'democracy,' which is economically determined and obfuscatory?

Obviously! It's fake...and we should be telling our class that over and over again.

Oddly enough, very few Leninist parties do that -- it's considered "ultra-left".


A vanguard is the repository of class consciousness when the class lacks direction and awareness of itself as a class.

Sometimes. But most of the time they are, at best, museums of earlier and (sooner or later) unsuccessful efforts.

In our own day, we see people try to "apply" Lenin and Trotsky (or Lenin and Mao) to contemporary conditions...again, with almost nothing to show for their efforts. The "class consciousness" that they preserve is only a memory.


Spontaneity of the working class is unreliable, and easily (as history has demonstrated) dead-ends in temporary sectoral gains (trade unionism pure and simple). Lenin's point was that the vanguard acts for the totality of the class, even for rights of minorities belonging to the bourgeoisie when these can impact the working class.

It claims to "act for the totality of the class" -- that's not quite the same thing as actually doing it.

Further, if working class spontaneity has been "unreliable" (thus far), what can we say of all the Leninist vanguards?

Has even one of them "shown us the way forward"? Has even one of them ever formulated a clear, consistent, and principled strategy that has paid off?

To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht...

Those who lead the workers into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.

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[The Feral Underclass]

Two things. First of all I feel a sense of hostility in your posts. If I have given off that impression in mine, then I apologise, but if we are to continue let us try and look at this as something other than a competition.

Secondly, is it possible for you to use the "quote" option. It makes life easier when replying.


Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 02:12 AM
If you want to claim that Leninist organization inevitably leads to bad stuff, regardless of intentions, that's a different claim.
That's precisely what I have been asserting, highlighting its objectives as the cause of that.


BS. In the Bolshevik party in Lenin's time, the party line was debated and voted on by the membership. Including when the party was in power.

Membership of what? The Bolshevik party? If so, I don't think this constitutes a refutation.


Nevertheless, they had de facto leaders. Unelected leaders who could not be held responsible by the membership.

How is that possible?


Without centralization, any member of the organization can do as they please.

Why? An organisation has a platform and objectives and within that tactics decided on democratically. A member of an organisation is volunteering to be apart of those objectives and tactics by being a member and therefore it defies logic for them then to work against this.


We see this all the time with capitalist and social-democratic parties - and, it seems to me, anarchist groups.

Anarchist groups are usually broad based collectives, that isn't the same as someone "doing as they please."


Their platforms and programs are almost wholly irrelevant.

Can you elaborate on this?


The leaders define their own program.

Also this?


Uh, no, danger does not equal inevitability.

Thus far it has actually. In every instance.

Of course you claim this to be economic and cultural, I disagree.


I'm admitting that can happen.

Well it has. Every time.


what kind of transition stages does anarchist theory envision?

I did answer the question. The Spanish anarchists are the best example of the beginning of transition.

The transition to communism is when you use communist idea's to organise yourself.


Anarchism seems to me to ignore the problem.

That isn't true. We just aren't as neurotic as Marxists about it. We have faith in people.


The difference between communism and anarchism, after all, is that anarchism advocates the immediate abolition of the state.

You mean the difference between Marxism and anarchism?


If you're going to attack the Leninist concept of how to organize the early stages of a transition towards a classless society, shouldn't you put forward an alternative?

You're choosing not to listen.

When you take control of society you begin to organise it like the society you inevitably want to create, not like the society you inevitably want to destroy.


Uh...sounds to me like there was nothing "revolutionary" about that "broad coalition", then.

Which is what I said.


Your "no" suffices. Since no revolutionary government emerged, Spain is not a counterexample to my statement that ""Spontaneous" uprisings, without a strong, centralized revolutionary party, don't lead to revolutionary governments."

A Plenum of local collectives organising production and political unity can very easily be defined as a government.


Redstar, in his post, seems to admit that in fact this has never happened.

I haven't seen redstar2000 define what a revolutionary government is?


Over the last century or so, all over the world, there have been a fair number of spontaneous workers' uprisings, without centralized revolutionary leaderships, all over the world, over the last century or so. A lot more spontaneous uprisings than Leninist-led uprisings, that's for sure. A fair number of these spontaneous uprisings have been victorious, in the sense of bringing down governments. A whole wave of them across Eastern Europe in 1990, to name one dramatic example. It's fairly clear that it's more than coincidence, then, that the privileged classes always hold on to power in the wake of this kind of uprising.

Are we talking about mass working class uprisings here or bourgeois rebelliousness in places like the Ukraine?


Funny, somehow I thought Franco won the civil war.

Yes we know that, you were even kind enough to point out the reason why. However, I don't see what relevance this has to my point?


And that the workers in Barcelona were crushed even before that. Doesn't sound like a success to me.

Yes, betrayal will never result in anything positive. If you read 'Homage to Catalonia' or 'Anarchism in Action' you will see there that in terms of gains and theory anarchism was a success. The revolution however, was not.


Marxists try to have more precise definitions...I guess i'm really talking about the state (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state) here. If you're going to advocate it's abolition, probably you could use a fairly precise definition of it as well.

That is the definition of a state. Not a government.

"The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it is only in a society which is divided between hostile social classes that the state exists."

Although I don't necessarily disagree with this definition, the difference between Marxist and anarchist analysis of the state is the actual material and psyhological effects and conditions created through the perpetration of it.


I said, the economic and cultural conditions. Lenin did not have a magic wand he could wave and make everyone literate or bring electricity instantly to every village.

This is your justification for Lenin's oppressive government? The fact he didn't have a magic wand?


It seemed like a blanket statement. Certainly there were no specifics or facts anywhere in sight.

I suppose it does, for someone who is deliberately trying to be facetious. I think it was clear to you what I saying.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 7 2005, 10:43 AM

BS. In the Bolshevik party in Lenin's time, the party line was debated and voted on by the membership. Including when the party was in power.

Membership of what? The Bolshevik party? If so, I don't think this constitutes a refutation.
You said: "Party line that is dictated by your leadership more to the point." If it's voted on by the membership, that is different and opposite to being dictated by the leadership. In other news, water is wet and the sky appears blue.



Uh...sounds to me like there was nothing "revolutionary" about that "broad coalition", then.

Which is what I said.

No, you said the opposite: that the Popular Front was a "broad revolutionary coalition."

These are two of many examples of how you're so confused you're unable to say whatever it is you mean, and have no idea what you did say. You don't even know whether you're saying one thing or the opposite. Enough.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 08:40 AM

If there's any parallel in capitalist society with proletarian revolution, it seems to me that the logical choice is the wildcat strike. In a way, it's a "miniature" version of the revolution itself...it's "outside official channels", has its own spontaneous leadership emerge directly from the workers themselves, formulates its own demands, etc.

Being a direct expression of working class determination, there is no question of "discipline" as an "abstract virtue" -- people know what they want and are determined to fight for it.
Nonsense. In any strike, discipline is enforced, by various means, on anyone who doesn't want to join it.

The difference is, in a wildcat strike there is no strike vote - in my experience, there usually is in an "official" strike, and usually a vote on whether to accept a contract before returning to vote. If it's up to the officials to decide these things, there probably won't be a strike.

In a wildcat strike, usually an active minority - dare I say, a vanguard? - throws up a picket line or otherwise calls out the rest of the workers.

[shadows]

Memory is not to be derogated, for as (I think) Freud commented, 'the child is father to the man.' Memory allows continuity. Continuity is not bad, but replication can be sterile. Adaptation involves two processes: assimilation (this is the memory part) and accommodation (this being more creative). Discrete events are interpreted in light of prior events, to which the new events are more or less alike or dissimilar; when we act within the logic of those perceptions/interpretations, we find that new strategies are sometimes required if desired outcomes are to materialize. Here is the accommodative portion. The vanguard party cannot simply refer to Lenin's words as wisdom, but as a memory that lives and as it lives adapts to new conditions. True, it is likely that few self-professed vanguard organizations adequately discharge this 'duty,' and remain locked in memory (maybe even 'false memory'). But that fact doesn't negate the need for a vanguard in the revolutionary process. It seems to me that idealist metaphysics, seeing things one-sidedly and in isolation, is all that 'spontaneity' can, at best perhaps, produce. That is not enough. Dialectics tries to capture the internal motor of change, within things and events. The virtue of a vanguard is more than its ability to bring together diverse elements of the struggle; also, it is to analyze, adapt, and direct from the vantage of the totality.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)In a wildcat strike, usually an active minority - dare I say, a vanguard? - throws up a picket line or otherwise calls out the rest of the workers.[/b]

Accounts that I have read suggest that wildcat strikes begin in some immediate outrage by the bosses directed against a sub-group of workers (people in a particular department). The workers there talk about the outrage amongst themselves, agree to walk, and then "spread the word" to other departments...if this is effectively done, a drift or march to the gate begins within hours. The picket line is the last thing to go up...when everyone who's coming out is already out.

I would not object to using the word "vanguard" to describe the workers who initiated the wildcat...except that it would merely confuse people. Those rebellious workers have no ambitions (presumably) to secure for themselves a plush chair in the Ministry of Central Economic Planning or some other bureaucracy. They are not running for a seat in parliament or even the official leadership of the local. They are not and do not aspire to be politicians.

The old IWW had a slogan: An injury to one is an injury to all!

The wildcat strike brings it back to life.


shadows
True, it is likely that few self-professed vanguard organizations adequately discharge this 'duty,' and remain locked in memory (maybe even 'false memory'). But that fact doesn't negate the need for a vanguard in the revolutionary process.

Few? Try none.

I agree that such does not constitute "the end of the dispute"...if it could nevertheless be demonstrated that there actually is a "need for a vanguard in the revolutionary process" -- a formal, self-designated vanguard party, that is.

As noted above, I'm sure there will be a multitude of "informal" and spontaneous "vanguards"...but that's not really the same thing.

In this thread, we're talking about people who claim a "special expertise" in making revolution and leading the transition from capitalism "through socialism" to communism. All the rest of us are supposed to follow them the way we follow "doctors' orders".

If their claims were justified by historical experience, then we'd be very foolish indeed to ignore them.

But they are "doctors" whose patients always die.

Even when the operation was "a success".


The virtue of a vanguard is more than its ability to bring together diverse elements of the struggle; also, it is to analyze, adapt, and direct from the vantage of the totality.

Yet inspite of their "mastery of the dialectic", they still fail.

In the west, they fail miserably. If you gathered all the members of all the self-proclaimed vanguard parties in the U.S. together, you couldn't fill a small minor league ball park.

I'm not a fan of "dialectics" myself...I think it's all 19th century mysticism.

But if there were anything to it, then according to its own terms, it would manifest itself universally -- meaning that even a spontaneous uprising could achieve, at least in principle, a de facto understanding of the totality of their struggle.

Unless, of course, you wish to argue that "dialectics" is the private domain of philosophy professors and "great leaders".

That would be ok with me -- I'd gladly leave that pompous nonsense to those two groups...they are, after all, uniquely qualified to appreciate it.

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[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 07:12 PM
(We have one (1) example of a revolutionary workers' party taking power and afterwards being turned into an instrument of counterrevolution and rule of a privileged bureaucracy.
It occurs to me I made an error here.

There's one other example: Grenada. The counterrevolutionary break was sharper - a coup - the Stalinist regime was shorter-lived, and the counterrevolution was carried out by an preexisting faction tracing back to a Stalnist organization that had merged into the New Jewel Movement. Nevertheless, it's similar to Soviet example in that a revolutionary party in power was taken over by apparatchiks.

Other anticapitalist revolutions - China, Eastern Europe, Korea, Vietnam - were led by already-Stalinized parties. In Nicaragua, Algeria, maybe some other cases, the revolution did not advance to ending capitalism economically, and capitalist political power was restored within a decade or so. And then there's Cuba.

[The Feral Underclass]

I responded to your last post aimed at me, but it was deleted when the board went down. I will repost it in time.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 10:10 PM
You said: "Party line that is dictated by your leadership more to the point." If it's voted on by the membership, that is different and opposite to being dictated by the leadership.
By asserting this you are claiming that Lenin and Trotsky would have given in to any demand that the membership had voted on without uttering a word?

So you are claiming that when the membership decided on something opposite to that of the leadership, those in control would have happily accepted it, regardless of any line they were trying to maintain?

The idea of Leninism is that the workers are not "class conscious" enough to make those decisions. By 1923 the Communist Party membership was 3.5 million. Are you claiming that each and every person in that number had a vote on central issues such as defence, econmics and home policy?

Are the workers capable of making decisions or aren't they? Which is it?

Why was it, when the Kronstadt sailors and workers gave their demands to increase workers democracy Lenin and Trotsky decided to blow them up with artillary shells?

Also, why did the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks split in the first place?


No, you said the opposite: that the Popular Front was a "broad revolutionary coalition."

It was a broad revolutionary coalition. The CNT-FAI and POUM were both revolutionary organisations. Anarchist and trotskyist alike.


You don't even know whether you're saying one thing or the opposite.

The confusion has absolutely nothing to do with me.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 13 2005, 05:06 AM


No, you said the opposite: that the Popular Front was a "broad revolutionary coalition."

It was a broad revolutionary coalition. The CNT-FAI and POUM were both revolutionary organisations. Anarchist and trotskyist alike.

Oh, so now it's revolutionary again. But when I said "Uh...sounds to me like there was nothing "revolutionary" about that "broad coalition", then." you said "Which is what I said." So it's a broad revolutionary coalition with nothing revolutionary about it.

But you say the confusion has nothing to do with you.


By asserting this you are claiming that Lenin and Trotsky would have given in to any demand that the membership had voted on without uttering a word?

Uh, no, they both participated in debate, sometimes on different sides. Freedom of speech is part of democracy, y'know. Redstar recently quoted from a 1920 Lenin article that was part of one of those debates, directed against Trotsky.

Which faction won, had its line adopted, got a majority in the leadership: that was decided by a vote of the membership (electing delegates to the party congress.)


The idea of Leninism is that the workers are not "class conscious" enough to make those decisions

There you go with your straw man again. Your idea of Leninism does not equal a Leninist idea.


By 1923 the Communist Party membership was 3.5 million. Are you claiming that each and every person in that number had a vote on central issues such as defence, econmics and home policy?

Yes, that's what I'm claiming. most of those members anyway, there were provisional membership categories and so forth, as mentioned at the beginning of this thread.. Also, I'm claiming it about the years before 1923 - that was the year Stalin began consolidating his power.


Why was it, when the Kronstadt sailors and workers gave their demands to increase workers democracy Lenin and Trotsky decided to blow them up with artillary shells?

All governments use force to put down armed rebellions and military mutinies so this doesn't really say anything about how democratic the early Soviet government, much less the Communist Party, was. So this seems like an attempt to change the subject.

But in reality, the demands of the Kronstadt sailors - who were mostly post-1917 recruits from the peasantry - had more to do with increasing free trade than workers' democracy.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 13 2005, 07:33 PM--> (Severian @ Feb 13 2005, 07:33 PM) Oh, so now it's revolutionary again. [/b]
Look mate. You asked; was the Popular Front government a revolutionary government? The answer is no.

Was it a coalition of revolutionary organisations? Yes it was!


But you say the confusion has nothing to do with you.

I don't think I can be any more clear.



By asserting this you are claiming that Lenin and Trotsky would have given in to any demand that the membership had voted on without uttering a word?

Uh, no, they both participated in debate, sometimes on different sides. Freedom of speech is part of democracy, y'know. Redstar recently quoted from a 1920 Lenin article that was part of one of those debates, directed against Trotsky.

That didn't answer my question. If those in the party decided on something that went against Lenin's ideas about governing, would he have adopted them? Would this be the case in any future revolutionary period?


Which faction won, had its line adopted, got a majority in the leadership: that was decided by a vote of the membership (electing delegates to the party congress.)

I have no reason to believe that these Party delegates had any authority over Lenin or that if they had decided on things opposite to that of the Party, Lenin would have accepted it. Which is my point.



The idea of Leninism is that the workers are not "class conscious" enough to make those decisions

There you go with your straw man again. Your idea of Leninism does not equal a Leninist idea.

So the workers can achieve class conscious within a capitalist society? It can't be both can it? If my understanding of Leninism is incorrect, then clarify.


Yes, that's what I'm claiming.

Then you're absurd.


All governments use force to put down armed rebellions and military mutinies so this doesn't really say anything about how democratic the early Soviet government, much less the Communist Party

They were all members of the Bolshevik Party and petitioned the Soviet with democratically accepted demands only to be out manoeuvred by the Party stooges under Lenin's command. Then when they took up arms to defend their rights to democracy, they were killed.


But in reality, the demands of the Kronstadt sailors - who were mostly post-1917 recruits from the peasantry - had more to do with increasing free trade than workers' democracy.


Originally posted by Kronstadt [email protected]
THE PETROPAVLOVSK RESOLUTION (see article "Kronstadt 1921").

"Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the general meeting of ships' crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation there we resolve:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants.

2. To give freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, to anarchists and left socialist parties.

3. To secure freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant organisations.

4. To call a non- Party conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and Petrograd province, no later than 10 March 1921.

5. To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labour and peasant movements.

6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those being held in prisons and concentration camps.

7. To abolish all political departments, since no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the state for such purposes. Instead, cultural and educational commissions should be established, locally elected and financed by the State.

8. To remove all road block detachments immediately.

9. To equalise the rations of all working people, with the exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health.

10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers.

11. To give peasants full freedom of action in regard to the land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without employing hired labour.

12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution.

13. To demand that the press give all our resolutions wide publicity.

14. To appoint an itinerant bureau of control.

15. To permit free handicraft production by ones own labour."

Pertichenko, Chairman of the Squadron Meeting.

Perepelkin, Secretary.

Unreasonable? I think not.


Severian
So this seems like an attempt to change the subject.

I am trying to demonstrate that your defence of Lenin as a champion of workers democracy is greatly misplaced, and the reality is that Lenin not only required absolute control but accepted it as inevitable in order to propagate his own political agenda, regardless of the will of those who followed him; under the pretext of doing it all "on behalf of the workers."

I see no reason why this should, will or can be any different in the future.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 14 2005, 03:21 AM
That didn't answer my question. If those in the party decided on something that went against Lenin's ideas about governing, would he have adopted them?


Well, that's a little clearer about Spain - I understand what you've been trying to say, though I still don't know why you brought up Spain at all, or how an organization that joins a bourgeois government can be revolutionary.

It's not a hypothetical question: Lenin was outvoted on the Brest-Litovsk treaty for example. In hindsight, the other factions' policies were completely unrealistic...but they were carried out.

e won the "trade union controversy", probably the bitterest Communist factional dispute in the early Soviet period....by a vote at a party congress, where the delegates were elected by the party membership based on their positions on the disputed issue.

People who are careless about truth sometimes say the Workers' Opposition, one of the factions which lost that debate and vote, was "crushed" afterwards, but they're full of it. Nothing happened to its members or leaders....in fact, one of its most prominent leaders, Kollontai, was later part of the Stalin faction.


So the workers can achieve class conscious within a capitalist society?

Yes, obviously, workers achieved enough class consciousness under capitalism to overthrow it. Relevance?

Your ideas about Leninism are incorrect but it's not my responsibility to correct them all...read a book by Lenin or, if that's too much trouble, stop pretending you know what he advocated.


They were all members of the Bolshevik Party

Evidence to support this extraordinary claim about the Kronstadt sailors?

As for their list of demands: Points 8,11, and 15 all relate to free trade. Which says something about the class content of their demands for democracy and Soviets without Bolsheviks: basically Kronstadt was part of an upsurge of peasant discontent around this time, including the Tambov revolt led by Antonov.

Maybe adopting the NEP earlier could have prevented this, but the workers' state remains the more progressive side regardless of its tactical mistakes.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 15 2005, 08:02 PM--> (Severian @ Feb 15 2005, 08:02 PM) Your ideas about Leninism are incorrect but it's not my responsibility to correct them all... [/b]
One of the main tenet's of the vanguardist theory which Lenin proposed is that the general working class are unable to gain class consciousness within the framework of capitalist society because the ruling class control such a monopoly on power, thus a vanguard of "intellectuals" is necessary to propagate for and ultimately lead a working class revolution.

By lead, that means seize the administration of a centrally controlled state for the perpetration of the political agenda. I say intellectuals, because the general [working class] population have no real grasp on the theoretical insights of such an action.

The relevance it has is that you were claiming the working class, in the context of the Russian revolution were all inclusive in the decision making process and with that I assume you also conclude that any future revolutionary activity would be the same?

My argument is claiming that this is not only impossible, but not what Lenin proposed.

Where you say "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is the entire working class, which I’m sure was what Marx advocated, Lenin says that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not that at all, but the dictatorship of one political party, a "...vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organizing their social life..." (1)


read a book by Lenin or, if that's too much trouble, stop pretending you know what he advocated.

I have read and participated enough in Leninism to understand it's principles. But thank you for your concern.



They were all members of the Bolshevik Party

Evidence to support this extraordinary claim about the Kronstadt sailors?


Some of those who joined the call for those demands wrote letters, a teacher Denissov wrote: "'I openly declare to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee…I no longer consider myself a member of the Party. I support the call issued by the workers of Kronstadt. All power to the Soviets, not to the Party.'!" (2)

A military group assigned to the special company dealing with discipline also issued a declaration:


[i]Originally posted by [email protected]
'We, the undersigned, joined the Party believing it to express the wishes of the working masses. In fact the Party has proved itself an executioner of workers and peasants. This is revealed quite clearly by recent events in Petrograd. These events show up the face of the Party leaders. The recent broadcasts from Moscow show clearly that the Party leaders are prepared to resort to any means in order to retain power.

'We ask that henceforth, we no longer be considered Party members. We rally to the call issued by the Kronstadt garrison in its resolution of 2nd. March. We invite other comrades who have become aware of the error of their ways, publicly to recognise the fact.

'Signed: Gutman, Yefimov, Koudriatzev, Andreev. ('Izvestia' of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, 7th. March 1921)'. (3)


Severian
As for their list of demands: Points 8,11, and 15 all relate to free trade.

I agree that Point 15 was a little unusual but too allow freedom of movement and peasant control over their land was, I thought, the point of a revolution of this nature.

(1) State and Revolution - Chapter One: The Eve of the Revolution
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/work...rev/ch02.htm#s1 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch02.htm#s1)

(2+3) The Kronstadt Commune: [Chapter] Effects on the Party Rank and File
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/mett/party4.html

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
People who are careless about truth sometimes say the Workers' Opposition, one of the factions which lost that debate and vote, was "crushed" afterwards, but they're full of it. Nothing happened to its members or leaders....in fact, one of its most prominent leaders, Kollontai, was later part of the Stalin faction.

"Crushed" would definitely be rhetorical "over-kill".

Rendered powerless and irrelevant would be accurate, though.

Kollontai ended up as the Soviet ambassador to Sweden. I have no idea what happened to the others...presumably they became minor functionaries in the political equivalent of Siberia.

Certainly the trade unions, the last "vehicles" for any genuine expression of working class sentiments, were rendered utterly impotent.

I don't see how anyone could deny that.

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[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 17 2005, 08:46 AM
Where you say "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is the entire working class, which I’m sure was what Marx advocated, Lenin says that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not that at all, but the dictatorship of one political party, a "...vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organizing their social life..." (1)
Wow, you're almost as good as Redstar with the out-of-context misleading quotes. A sentence fragment! Nice work!

If you read the entire sentence, it becomes apparent that Lenin's describing the party, not the dictatorship. So you're assuming what you set out to prove, that the two are the same. This is known as "begging the question".


By educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organizing their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie.

Or are you trying to make a big deal out of the statement that the party is "capable of assuming power"? That's merely what I said before, that classes hold power by means of parties in the modern world. Nobody in this thread has been able to give an example of the working class "assuming power" otherwise.

As for Kronstadt, you say:


Some of those who joined the call for those demands wrote letters, a teacher Denissov wrote: "'I openly declare to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee…I no longer consider myself a member of the Party. I support the call issued by the workers of Kronstadt. All power to the Soviets, not to the Party.'!" (2)

Etc.

You successfully proved that some of those participating in the rebellion claimed to be party members or ex-party members. That's hardly the same as what you said, that the Kronstadt sailors were "all members of the Bolshevik Party". You didn't even give anything that would permit an estimate of how many were. I doubt it was many. Party members were needed elsewhere - the navy was an almost completely inactive front in the Civil War.

At first, I thought your bizarre claim might be merely a careless mistake...apparently not, if you're still trying to defend it.

In any case, I'm not sure what would give a local unit of a party, finding itself in a minority nationally, the right to take up arms and force the rest of the party to accept its views. What concept of democracy is that?

Here's a couple articles which give some actual facts about Kronstadt, one of them drawing on recently declassified material from the Soviet archives:
first article (http://www.marxist.com/History/russia_peasants.htm)

second article (http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html)

Redstar, it was you who said the Workers' Opposition had been crushed. link to post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=32686&st=0&#entry499547) So we can just keep in mind, in future, that when Redstar is prone to "rhetorical overkill" and when he says "crushed" he means, lost a vote, policies they opposed were adopted, and they were appointed to minor posts.

There is no democratic right to always get what you want. The only way to get that is personal dictatorship.

[redstar2000]

I've been wounded by my own rhetoric! :o

Fair enough...here's the exchange.


Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Trotskyist "unreal" criticism: Trotsky himself was certainly not unreal. He helped led a real revolution, remember? He knew how it was done.[/b]

And my response...


redstar2000
And undone. First you hire some Czarist generals, then you crush the Workers' Opposition, then...

Point to Severian. :(


So we can just keep in mind, in future, that when Redstar is prone to "rhetorical overkill" and when he says "crushed" he means, lost a vote, policies they opposed were adopted, and they were appointed to minor posts.

Agreed...people should call me on my rhetorical excesses just as they should call anyone else here for the same error.

But I can't promise too much in the way of repentance; personality cults do bring out my "excessive" responses with remarkable frequency. :P

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[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 17 2005, 09:33 PM--> (Severian @ Feb 17 2005, 09:33 PM) If you read the entire sentence, it becomes apparent that Lenin's describing the party, not the dictatorship.[/b]
Yes, I know. That's precisely why I gave the quote.

I didn't take anything out of context. I missed out fifteen words which had no relevance to the context of my point.

I was demonstrating what the party/vanguard was for and how, in that case, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot mean the entire working class.


Nobody in this thread has been able to give an example of the working class "assuming power" otherwise.

I have given you an example of this being the case. Spain.


You successfully proved that some of those participating in the rebellion claimed to be party members or ex-party members. That's hardly the same as what you said, that the Kronstadt sailors were "all members of the Bolshevik Party".

Yes, I did run away with myself there a little. It was unfair of me to say, and probably wholly unprovable, that all the Kronstadt workers and sailors were members of the Bolshevik party. Nevertheless, the disillusionment was valid.


In any case, I'm not sure what would give a local unit of a party, finding itself in a minority nationally, the right to take up arms and force the rest of the party to accept its views. What concept of democracy is that?

Did you read the demands?


1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants.


12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution.

How can you say that these things are undemocratic? They fought to allow revolutionary left political prisoners freedom and the ability for trade unions to assemble.


10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers.

Are you saying that this point is unjustified and undemocratic?


Severian
Here's a couple articles which give some actual facts about Kronstadt, one of them drawing on recently declassified material from the Soviet archives:
first article (http://www.marxist.com/History/russia_peasants.htm)

second article (http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html)

Nowhere in those articles do they refute the demands made by the workers and sailors of Kronstadt?

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 19 2005, 03:59 AM


Nobody in this thread has been able to give an example of the working class "assuming power" otherwise.

I have given you an example of this being the case. Spain.
Oh, fuck, here we go around the circle again. Two posts ago you finally admitted there was no revolutionary government in Spain. Now it's an example of the working class taking power again. I'm not going to go through the whole rigmarole of trying to get you to clarify yourself again.

I'm just going to state the fact: the capitalists retained state power in Spain. Elements of "dual power" existed: workers' militia and so forth alongside the capitalist government. As in Russia between the February and October revolution.

But as usual when workers miss an opportunity to crush the capitalist state....the state crushed them. The lack of a revolutionary party, and the anarchist doctrine that workers should not take power because all governments are bad, were two of the factors contributing to this defeat.

As for Kronstadt, now that you've finally retracted your bizarre claim that the sailors were all party members, the whole thing's clearly irrelevant to the question of the Bolshevik Party's line was decided. Which is how you originally brought it up.

I've already given my opinion of the Kronstadt demands, There's no need to further discuss something that's been hashed to death for decades, and has not been given any connection to the rest of this thread. You're just throwing any piece of mud you can grab in the general direction of the early Soviet government.

As for the Lenin quote, once it becomes clear that he was simply describing the role of the party, there's nothing so awful about that statement to any reasonable person. Leading, teaching, guiding do not equal dictating.

Really, trying to twist "State in Revolution" into a call for the dictatorship of a few leaders is just incredibly false. Only someone completely blinded by preconceptions could read it that way. Quite the opposite, Lenin's whole point in projecting a new, workers' state is to emphasize the participation of broad layers of working people in the business of state administration.

Incidentally, you said a while back:

The relevance it has is that you were claiming the working class, in the context of the Russian revolution were all inclusive in the decision making process and with that I assume you also conclude that any future revolutionary activity would be the same?

My argument is claiming that this is not only impossible, but not what Lenin proposed.

If you think something's impossible, you can hardly blame Lenin or his party for failing to bring it about.

That's true of Redstar as well; he usually argues that objective conditions caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. It's fairly inconsistent, then, to turn around and blame it on the way the Bolshevik Party was organized.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
That's true of Redstar as well; he usually argues that objective conditions caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. It's fairly inconsistent, then, to turn around and blame it on the way the Bolshevik Party was organized.

Not exactly.

I argue that objective material conditions both created Lenin's organizational perspective and imposed stern limits on what he could achieve with that organization.

I don't "blame Lenin" or Trotsky or Stalin, etc. in a "moral sense"...I think they were all doing what they sincerely believed would advance communism.

If "blame" is to be apportioned, it belongs primarily to communists in the "west"...who took the Bolshevik claims at face value in the face of all the objective evidence against them.

How in the hell could they imagine that democratic centralism, however appropriate it might have been for struggle against the Czarist autocracy, would have any conceivable effectiveness in the advanced capitalist countries?

Ok, it had some effectiveness...through the 20s and say into the 30s.

Since then, it's crashed and burned everywhere in the "west"...or, the same thing, become thoroughly reformist.

And yet, incredibly, people still "believe in it" like some kind of magical talisman. I'll bet you that right this minute, somewhere in the western world, another small group of people is reverently reading What Is To Be Done? and saying to each other, "yeah, let's do it that way."

Arrrgh! :o

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[Ele'ill]

Seeing how none of us were around to experience these historical moments and the events surrounding them, aren't opposing historical views based apon the material you read?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 12:59 AM
Seeing how none of us were around to experience these historical moments and the events surrounding them, aren't opposing historical views based upon the material you read?
Um...how else would we know about anything that happened long before we were born?

In a literate society, it's sort of a basic assumption that reading widely in a particular subject confers knowledge of it.

Would you care to argue otherwise???

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[Ele'ill]

Wasn't really my point, my point was when you argue history, you are simply arguing an authors point of view, as you yourself did not actually do the historical research and form an opinion based on it. atleast not to the degree that the actual historian/author did. So basically you start out reading certain authors that cater to your particular ideology, and form your opinions base on that. Not that this neccisarily means the author or you are incorrect. I just find it interesting when people argue history.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Mari3L
So basically you start out reading certain authors that cater to your particular ideology, and form your opinions based on that.

No, you read a wide variety of historians with a wide variety of views and then you decide which of these accounts seem to you to make the most sense.

In fact, you have to make a considerable effort to get, for example, "the Marxist view" (or views) of various historical events -- the bourgeois view is "standard" and you have to hunt for dissenting accounts.


I just find it interesting when people argue history.

That's nice; we'd hate to bore you.

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[Ele'ill]

No, you read a wide variety of historians with a wide variety of views and then you decide which of these accounts seem to you to make the most sense.


Yes, and after this point you have formed an ideology that you stand by. Isn't further reading going to be done in light of this? Would you read something positive about bush, or the WTO? Many are arguing over the shoulders of rival historians or non-historical authors.


That's nice; we'd hate to bore you.

I actually wasn't refering to this thread.

[shadows]

Either there is a relationship between what an author writes and the author's perceptions of real events, or there isn't. If there isn't, then words simply weave an account free of reality, a narrative that becomes its own reality. The Marxist view of ideology assumes a connection between words and perception of events.

Lenin experienced the betrayal of 1914 as, in Zizek's understanding, "shattering." Lenin's 'utopia' derived from his persistence of vision, which guided his understanding of events, and led to the Bolshevik seizure of power. None other than Krupskaya averred: "'I am afraid it looks as if Lenin has gone crazy.'" (Neil Harding, Leninism, 1996) Lenin, despite the backwardness of Russia, and the war, and the defection of the old Marxist parties, persisted. The vanguard possessed this persistence, maybe this persistence of vision is what constitutes a vanguard, not in a Marxist-Leninist sense but in an existentialist way. Against Kautsky, Lenin, and before him Luxemburg, derided objectivism: "those who wait for the objective conditions of the revolution to arrive will wait for ever - such a position of the objective observer (and not of an engaged agent) is itself the main obstacle to the revolution." (Zizek, Revolution at the Gates, 2002) And: "'Lenin' is not the nostalgic name for old dogmatic certainty; quite the contrary, the Lenin who is to be retrieved is the Lenin whose fundamental experience was that of being thrown into a catastrophic new constellation in which the old co-ordinates proved useless, and who was thus compelled to reinvent Marxism." Today, Lenin worship negates Lenin. But respect for Lenin's engagement provides lessons in how we perceive events: the vanguard of the old parties can be respected as a form of engagement without guarantees. Today's forms of engagement should learn from but not ape the past, as Lenin diverged from the practices of the old Social Democratic parties in forging a new form, the vanguard.

[Severian]

Heck, when I started researching Tibet, I had to form an opinion in the almost total absence of anything I would consider Marxist on the subject.

I started out just idly curious, and had to read about five books from different sides before I felt wholly confident to triangulate on the basic facts. And then, heck, I'd gone that far, might as well keep going....anyway, the point is, it's possible to read and form an opinion even when there's no sources with that opinion.


Would you read something positive about bush, or the WTO?

Yes, of course. Heck, I'd rather read an article from the Financial Times of London than most leftist papers. The bosses don't need to lie to their peers so much y'know....

This reminds me vaguely of Baudrillard's crap about "how do you know the Gulf War really happened". (Maybe some other postmodernist? Whatever.)

Yes, critical thinking is hard. Yes, everyone is biased. No, critical thinking is not impossible, nor is arriving at something like the truth.

[Ele'ill]

I was not accusing anyone in particular. I just find it fascinating that so many people do in fact fall into this trap, and argue for their author rather than from a rational, self researched point of view.

[Severian]

I didn't think you were "accusing anyone in particular"...rather that you seemed to be saying it was universal.

[The Feral Underclass]

Once again my post was lost during the crash, so I will have to repost it at some point :(