Originally posted by matiasm+--> (matiasm)...but redstar, who would you support to push the Communist Manifesto to North America?[/b]
We have to do it ourselves of course.
In fact, the whole idea of a "great leader" fundamentally contradicts the communist project -- that all political and economic power must be in the hands of ordinary people.
... I don't see the people, the proletarians of the U.S. revolt for communism in the near future.
Neither do I.
But how do we expect people to even begin to grasp communist ideas ever if all we do is just hype the radical bourgeois "flavor of the month"?
I know there's a tendency to regard politics as a kind of "continuum"...you know, "moderate" socialist -> "radical" socialist -> communist -> anarchist.
The thing about communism and anarchism is that they represent a radical rupture with all the traditional forms of politics characteristic of class societies.
When you start talking about the abolition of wage-labor, the abolition of classes, the abolition of the state, etc., you're talking about stuff that has never been done.
You're "outside" the realm of all traditional forms of politics.
It really is a "new world"...not just the "old world" with a fresh coat of red paint.
Now it's true that there are lots of people who would be quite happy with just the "red paint"...especially in North America where the "paint" has all turned gray and is peeling off in chunks.
We call that reformism and most lefties in these parts are exponents of one or another kind of reformism.
Sad. :(
But if we consider ourselves to be (or want to become) revolutionaries, then it logically follows that we must criticize reformism in the harshest possible terms.
Even if that upsets people.
Which it does. :lol:
One of the ways you can always recognize reformism is that there's always some guy "in the front of the room" and "everyone agrees" that the sun shines out of his ass. :o
In a genuine revolutionary movement, there's a whole parade of people that "you never heard of"...a constant "coming and going" of "leaders" who are not even regarded as particularly "important".
People are far more concerned with real change than with personalities.
Indeed, the very idea of a "great leader" provokes scornful laughter.
As it should!
Originally posted by bloody_capitalist_sham+--> (bloody_capitalist_sham)I do not think that it is Chavez that people like; it’s more that the people of Venezuela are pushing Chavez further in his reforms.[/b]
Yes, that's probably happening.
But we should recognize the limits of such a process. To the extent that ordinary Venezuelans act directly in their own class interests, they may compel the Chavez government to deepen and extend social democratic reforms.
Just as in the U.S. in the 1930s, for example, when industrial workers organized first and only then did the Roosevelt administration decide to "make it legal".
From North America, I don't think we have any reliable way of telling how extensive popular pressure on Chavez is. In fact, it might be difficult to measure even if we were in Venezuela.
But I think we should be clear that there's no evidence at this point that the masses there "want" a revolution or are even conscious of what that would entail.
Having read neither Marx nor Bakunin, they are still in the process of learning how to read.
Also the rejection of neo-liberalism, even if it’s just towards a kind of social democracy that has the name of socialism might help revitalise leftist ideas around the world.
Disputable.
It's a question that's often come up: what's the effect on people who "get their hopes up" about proposed reforms when the reforms either don't materialize or don't, in fact, turn out to make that much difference?
In Latin America, reforms will make a difference in very basic and fundamental ways.
But how about North Americans or Europeans who "emotionally identify" with Venezuela?
What happens when they discover that things are really just the same?
In the last century, the Leninists claimed that this would "radicalize" people. That when people "learned" that reforms were "inadequate", they'd "push on" to a "revolutionary perspective".
In my opinion, that's been falsified.
What I observe as a consequence of reformist struggles is that people become demoralized and ultimately cynical about any possibility of changing the world in significant ways.
If we want communist (not just vaguely "leftist") ideas to be "revitalized", then I think we have to first make people familiar with what those ideas would mean...and realize ourselves that it will take a very long time to do that.
There's no "quick fix".
At the moment we need all the credibility we can get.
A truism. But we won't get any by "hitching our wagon" to popular reformists. The American Communist Party tried that with Roosevelt...and it did them no damn good at all. They thought they were going to "use" the reformists; and instead, the reformists used them and then threw them to the McCarthy-ite wolves.
Originally posted by FULL METAL JACKET
Who can American socialists look up to in America?
No one. We need to break a habit that may be 15,000 years old! In all of the history of class society, people have been "looking up" for someone to "lead them out of bondage".
Ain't no such animal.
We do it ourselves or it won't ever get done.
[email protected]
Revolution does not need arms to be a revolution.
Umm...yes, it almost always does.
Sorry about that.
Atlas Swallowed
He may not be the perfect Communist; in fact he is not a Communist, but some of us find the idea of being told what to do and think by a small band of anal retentive intellectuals repulsive.
And some, like yourself, resent being told that you should actually think about stuff very upsetting.
Can't be helped. :(
If you imagine left politics is like a "reality" dummyvision show and you just want to be left alone to cheer for your favorite contestant, fine.
On this board, it's actually expected of you to learn how to think coherently and rationally about political realities.
If that strikes you as "anal retentive", too bad. :lol:
http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif