"Workers' state" - never spoken of!

[Lamanov]

I was quite surprised to learn how Marx used the term "workers' state", so spoken of as a "marxist formula", only twice, and both times in a way for which we cannot say to be "theoretic" in any serious way, and far from an "Orthodox Marxist" or Leninist manner to which it is attatched. If you try to look into his writings for a similar term "proletarian state", here too you will be even more "dissapointed" to learn that he never used it. Anyway, first time he "spoke of it" was in a historic analytical fashion, and it comes up quite unexplained and used only in a retrospective way, in his Class Struggles in France in 1850:


Originally posted by Marx+ The Class Struggles in France--> (Marx @ The Class Struggles in France)The National Assembly had itself forbidden the coalition of the workers against its bourgeois. And the clubs — what were they but a coalition of the whole working class against the whole bourgeois class, the formation of a workers' state against the bourgeois state? Were they not just so many constituent assemblies of the proletariat and just so many military detachments of revolt in fighting trim — what the constitution was to constitute above all else was the rule of the bourgeoisie.[/b]

Another time he uses it yet 22 years later, in one of his disputes with Bakunin, or to be exact, in a Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy, in a defansive conotation, in which he makes a move to distance himself from it:


[email protected] Conspectus of Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy'
...As little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor...

and look down on the whole common workers' world from the height of the state. They will no longer represent the people, but themselves and their pretensions to people's government. Anyone who can doubt this knows nothing of the nature of men.

If Mr Bakunin only knew something about the position of a manager in a workers' cooperative factory, all his dreams of domination would go to the devil. He should have asked himself what form the administrative function can take on the basis of this workers' state, if he wants to call it that.

But those elected will be fervently convinced and therefore educated socialists. The phrase 'educated socialism'...

...never was used.

... 'scientific socialism'...

...was only used in opposition to utopian socialism...

[Purple italics are Bakunin, bold and underline emphasis added]

[Monty Cantsin]

Conspectus of Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy' is a good text it dispells alot of myths about Marx. though there's plenty of other letters and so that do the same.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Look what his good friend said:


Originally posted by Engels
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state....But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by CompañeroDeLibertad+Feb 15 2006, 10:18 PM--> (CompañeroDeLibertad @ Feb 15 2006, 10:18 PM) Look what his good friend said:


Engels
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state....But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune. [/b]
I disagree with this. Historically the communards couldnt really "win" as the rest of the country did not follow. Secondly, the communards did have what could be considered a "state", yet they still lost. With todays technology we do not really have to worry about military defeats (which seems to be the reason of the failure, not because they didnt defeat the capitalists). You dont need a state to execute reactionaries. :lol:

[Floyce White]

I say all the time that "Marx-ism" is only somewhat related to Marx's ideas. Marx himself warned people not to call themselves his "followers," "humble servant," or "Marxist." "Marx-ism" is whatever you want it to mean. Saying this, the word "Marx-ism" has acquired a meaning through its mass usage. It currently means the same thing as "Marxism-Leninism." "Marx-ism" is a dogmatic application of "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "lower phase of communism," applied to the opportunism of the USSR, China, and so on.

As with any person of upper-class family origins, we must take Marx's ideas with a grain of salt. I often tell new comrades to start their reading with The Communist Manifesto. At the same time, I tell them to notice that Marx used the word "class" in an extremely loose manner. You can't divorce someone's ideas from his or her social background. No one--and I mean absolutely no one--is "above class."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So what class was Marx when his children starved to death and he had to pawn his clothes for paper to write on?

[chebol]

"Marx-ism" is whatever you want it to mean.

And this is the kind of opportunism that Marx was referring to when he said "If that is marxism, then I am not a marxist".

[Floyce White]

CompañeroDeLibertad: "So what class was Marx when his children starved to death and he had to pawn his clothes for paper to write on?"

If Marx couldn't get a job because of his public political activism, that's no different from what millions of other activists face. How's Marx so special? Lots of bourgeois opposition party activists also face that. We must avoid the ad hominem fallacy that says that "good intentions" and "selflessness" can invalidate solid theory whenever you want it to.

Income does not determine class. Family ownership or non-ownership of things used by others determines class. Marx chose to abandon his family ways. Fine. But he had a choice I never did. At what point in his life did he "become a worker?" 40? 60? It's a fantasy game--and I'm not playing.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So no matter what class you were born into, that's your class for life? There's no such thing as becoming "proletarianized"? I beg to differ.

You're right of course, income doesn't determine class, but what exactly was Marx's relation to the means of production as his children starved?

What was Fidel's relation to the means of production when he served as a free defense lawyer for his comrades and fellow activists, to the extent that all the furniture in his home was repossessed and he couldn't afford to feed his family?

[Severian]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 15 2006, 07:11 PM
I was quite surprised to learn how Marx used the term "workers' state", so spoken of as a "marxist formula", only twice,
Why were you surprised?

The terminology goes back to Trotsky, mostly. It was sometimes used by Lenin, but not that often. It refers to the same stage of social evolution as "dictatorship of the proletariat."

Just as a point about research methods, not everything Marx ever wrote is part of the Marxists Internet Archive. I'm guessing that's what you searched to reach this conclusion. Not that I'm disputing the conclusion.

[Floyce White]

CompañeroDeLibertad: "...what exactly was Marx's relation to the means of production as his children starved?"

I don't see any problem in denying admission to the workers' party of persons of petty-bourgeois family origins. They can do lots of important and responsible work toward overthrowing capitalism anyway. Whether or not these failed bourgeois and rebellious bourgeois ever became proletarianized can best be determined when their children are well into adulthood. People have class as families, not individuals.

Petty bourgeois will always ask for favors, special consideration, exceptions, get in front of the line, a little more, to be the speaker for a group, and so on. Workers are trained from birth to go along, don't rock the boat, endure humiliation, serve others, wait their turn, and defer to the outspoken and pushy, bossy types. Petty bourgeois know that other capitalists do exactly the same and won't say a word, and they know that workers will cow as always. That's why they don't belong in a workers' party. The very request for us to make a special consideration is itself proof that they do not belong.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I agree with you (and Marx) that the petty bourgeois don't belong in workers' organizations, but I think we have a radically different idea of class.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 16 2006, 02:15 AM
I agree with you (and Marx) that the petty bourgeois don't belong in workers' organizations,
Where did Marx express this view? Did he call for Engels to be kicked out of the International?

Rather late in its existence, after the headquarters had been moved to New York, and during a factional conflict with petty-bourgeois elements led by Victoria Woodhull, the International did adopt a rule...that no new section be admitted unless two-thirds of its members were workers.

Article 2.

Considering that the I.W.A., according to the General Rules, is to consist exclusively of "workingmen's societies" (see Article 1, Article 7, and Article 11 of the General Rules);

That, consequently, Article 9 of the General Rules to this effect: "Everybody who acknowledges and defends the principles of the I.W.A. is eligible to become a member", although it confers upon the active adherents of the International who are not workingmen the right either of individual membership or of admission to workingmen's sections, does in no way legitimate the foundation of sections exclusively or principally composed to members not belonging to the working class;

That, for this very reason, the General Council was some months ago precluded from recognizing a Slavonian section exclusively composed of students;

That according to the General Regulations V, I, the General Rules and Regulations are to be adapted "to local circumstances of each country";

That the social conditions of the United States, though in many other aspects most favorable to the success of the working-class movement, peculiarly facilitate the intrusion into the International of bogus reformers, middle-class quacks, and trading politicians.

For these reasons, the General Council recommends that in future there be admitted no new American section of which two-thirds at least do not consist of wage laborers.

source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/03/us-splits.htm)

Advocate a worker-only membership policy if you like; just don't bodysnatch Marx in support of it.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook. These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In a country as petty-bourgeois as Germany, there is certainly some justification for such ideas. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. If the gentlemen constitute themselves a Social-Democratic petty-bourgeois party, they are fully within their rights: in that case we could negotiate with them and, according to circumstances, form an alliance with them, etc. But within a workers’ party they [petty bourgeoisie] are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come. How the Party can suffer the authors of this article to remain any longer in their midst seems to us incomprehensible. But should the Party leadership actually pass, to a greater or lesser extent, into the hands of such men, then the Party will be emasculated no less, and that will put paid to its proletarian grit.

- Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, Circular Letter to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Bracke and Others

[chebol]

Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook.

That is, that they change their class allegiance, their class consciousness.

The particular circular you quote from also says (immediately after the above):


These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas.

However, this is in specific reference to Bebel et al, and more generally to those petty-bourgeois elements who do not adopt "the proletarian outlook"! It does not rule out the entrance of people of such a background from attaining membership, but refers to the dangers of unguarded acceptance of anyone who professes to support the proletarian movement, but retains alien class prejudices, and recommends the removal of such "adulterating elements".

It does NOT suggest that people of petty-bourgeois background ought not be granted membership of proletarian organisations, but rather suggests the conditions under which such membership may be acceptable.

[Floyce White]

I personally don't want them around. Period. No condition is acceptable to me. If I were in a workers' party and some of them were allowed in, I'd quit.

I think a lot of poor people know exactly what I mean.

Some poor people are going to quit in disgust when a few well-meaning persons of petty-bourgeois background are allowed in. I'd rather the poor people who hate the rich stay. And we all know that the real purpose of admitting the well-born is to dominate over and push aside the low-born.

Every fiber of my being says it's wrong.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

And mine as well, along with every member of the Free People's Movement and Communist League.

I'll say one thing, the majority of people in the FPM had never been in another communist organization before. After learning what communism and class struggle was about, many who I've talked to just thought it was common sense that communist groups be made up only of workers. When told that most parties had more petty bourgeois members than proles, they were outright shocked.



It does NOT suggest that people of petty-bourgeois background ought not be granted membership of proletarian organisations, but rather suggests the conditions under which such membership may be acceptable.

Did you read the first few lines and stop?

"But within a workers’ party they [petty bourgeoisie] are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come."

Tell that doesn't say the petty bourgeoisie shouldn't be allowed in proletarian organizations.

[Severian]

Context, bubba. Context makes the difference between understanding Marx's ideas and quoting Marx like the Bible.

From that paragraph alone, it's clear Marx is talking about people who are not only petty-bourgeois, but hold and advocate petty-bourgeois ideas; if you read that paragraph in the context of the letter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm), (it's in section III) it's even clearer that he's talking about the advocates of openly petty-bourgeois ideas.

And of course your claim that your group is more proletarian than others is a big pile of political quakery due to the way you define "proletarian" - As documented in this thread. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=42258&hl=) You define proletarian as anyone who works for a wage or salary; by that definition, most members and even most leaders of left groups are proletarians. Most members of the RCP and ISO, even.

Sorry to those who aren't in the CC; you probably won't be able to access that thread. Wasn't my decision to move that thread back inside the CC.

[chebol]

CdL, you talking to yerself?

I agree, it's a shock (or it is to begin with) that unfortunately, the membership of communist organisations aren't overwhelmingly working class in their origin. This is the challenge we face- to convice the majority of humanity.

The point, however, is that in the face of NOT having mass working class appeal, we must make do with whoever truly supports the proletarian movement.

The whole point of the abovementioned circular was to warn against those petty-bourgeois "socialists" who HAD NOT CHANGED THEIR CLASS PERSPECTIVE, and maintained those prejudices. That is, those who REMAINED petty-bourgeois, for all intents and purposes.

This is NOT to say that someone from a petty-bourgeois background CANNOT accept a proletarian outlook. In fact, that is EXACTLY what Marx and Engels are suggesting- that such a thing is possible, desirable, and actual. But they are warning against those of a petty-bourgeois background who do NOT change their petty-bourgeois outlook, and therefore REMAIN to all intents and purposes petty-bourgeois.

THESE are the people who cannot be tolerated, not anyone of such a background.

You need to learn to distinguish between someone's politics and their parents.

[redstar2000]

Topic 42258, eh?

That was messy, wasn't it?

For those who cannot access it, Severian (through his usual diligent internet research) attempted to prove that the Communist League "came from" a long series of obscure Trotskyist splinter groups with rather dubious reputations...among the few people who'd ever heard of them at all.

Because he was pissed that Miles labeled him "petty bourgeois".

Well, Miles has labeled me "petty bourgeois" as well...but for some reason it never occurred to me to investigate the "dark background" of the CL.

Insofar as Severian had a substantive point, it seemed to be that there are some groups that claim to be "proletarian only" without real justification; that, in fact, this claim serves only to justify the accusation of "petty bourgeois" directed against anyone who disagrees with them.

Of course, he then cut the ground from beneath his own feet by claiming that the Socialist Workers' Party (U.S.) was the only "real proletarian" party here...a claim so outrageous that anyone who has actually seen their membership in action would howl in laughter. They actually tried to recruit me back in '64...and they looked and acted about as "proletarian" as the Young Republicans. :lol:

If there's a lesson to be learned from Topic 42258, it might well be that "proletarian only" is not some kind of political "blank check" or "license to say anything".

It's an appealing organizational perspective to those of us who weary of petty bourgeois pretensions, but it's not a guarantee of a revolutionary outlook.

As I've said before, there are plenty of "proletarian churches"...but that doesn't mean that they're any more "progressive" than any other churches.

All churches are reactionary!

The technical definition of a proletarian in the Marxist paradigm is one who must sell his/her labor power to a capitalist in order to survive, who must therefore generate surplus value that must be incorporated into capital.

This "leaves out" all public employees as well as employees of "non-profit" organizations.

Over the last century, we've obviously made some pragmatic "adjustments" to that technical definition.

For example, it's customary to exclude employees that have on-going authority over other employees. The foreman is not usually considered a proletarian...much less the CEO.

In Marx's time, the service sector was relatively small and unproductive; now it's large and produces services that are commodities like any other. I don't see how service workers in general could be reasonably considered other than proletarian.

Public employees may be productive or unproductive...it really depends on what they actually do.


Originally posted by chebol
You need to learn to distinguish between someone's politics and their parents.

I think there's enough evidence around to indicate that how we were raised does have an enormous influence on "what we become".

In upper-class families, kids are taught that they were "born to rule".

In middle-class families, kids are taught that "upward mobility" is their "destiny" and "downward mobility" is the "unforgivable sin".

In working class families, kids are taught what their parents think are "the best ways to survive" -- like automatic "deference to superiors", for example.

Another example: job security "takes preference" over all other priorities.

That's not to argue that we are "prisoners" of our up-bringing...but I don't see how anyone could fail to acknowledge that the way we were raised does have a major impact on, for example, the politics we go on in later life to embrace.

And, of course, families are not "monolithic" entities. If a working class family has one rebellious member, that might serve to create in a child's mind a "different image" of what it means to be working class.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I learned from my maternal grandmother -- a "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II and a union shop steward until her retirement at 62 -- that I didn't have to settle for "deference to authority" or "job security" at any price. I didn't get that many ideas from her...but I really liked her attitude!

It's easy enough for a middle class or upper class adult to learn the terminology of proletarian revolution...and even some of the ideas.

But do they "feel it in their guts"?

In most cases, I don't think they do. After all, the middle or upper class person can almost always "go home again" (back to their class) if all this "revolution stuff" doesn't pan out. The life of a working class person doesn't really change that much either way; it's "the daily grind" regardless of your politics. Revolutionary politics adds a dimension to what would otherwise be a meaningless life of toil.

It's a way for us to say to ourselves that we matter!

Something that middle and upper class people already have "built in" to their consciousness.

It makes a big difference.

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

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 05:41 AM
From that paragraph alone, it's clear Marx is talking about people who are not only petty-bourgeois, but hold and advocate petty-bourgeois ideas; if you read that paragraph in the context of the letter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm), (it's in section III) it's even clearer that he's talking about the advocates of openly petty-bourgeois ideas.
Actually, it depends on how you define how one attains a "proletarian viewpoint". Being a materialist, and understanding that social being determines consciousness, I understand that to mean that one must actually become a part of the working class. Now, you're willing to hold on to your bourgeois idealism and believe that if one just has "good thoughts" (i.e., thinks they have a "proletarian viewpoint") they can be a healthy part of a revolutionary organization; you are welcome to do so. Just don't be dishonest and call that a proletarian party. Call it what it is: a petty-bourgeois liberal therapy group.

Miles

[Martin Blank]

And it goes deeper....

Only a few years before, Engels wrote a letter to August Bebel about the role of the petty bourgeoisie in the class struggle.


To begin with, they adopt the high-sounding but historically false Lassallean dictum: in relation to the working class all other classes are only one reactionary mass. This proposition is true only in certain exceptional instances, for example in the case of a revolution by the proletariat, e.g. the Commune, or in a country in which not only has the bourgeoisie constructed state and society after its own image but the democratic petty bourgeoisie, in its wake, has already carried that reconstruction to its logical conclusion.

By itself, it's pretty damaging to the "Marxism" of the 20th century's self-described "socialists" and "communists", like Severian. But let's also understand what Engels meant when he said that one of the instances when "in relation to the working class all other classes are only one reactionary mass" -- i.e., "a country in which not only has the bourgeoisie constructed state and society after its own image but the democratic petty bourgeoisie, in its wake, has already carried that reconstruction to its logical conclusion."

What is that logical conclusion? If we go by Marx and Engels' writings, especially during the period of the 1848-1850 revolutions, that "reconstruction" is the establishment of what we commonly call a bourgeois democracy. To wit:


The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They therefore demand above all else a reduction in government spending through a restriction of the bureaucracy and the transference of the major tax burden into the large landowners and bourgeoisie [a nominally progressive income tax]. They further demand the removal of the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital through the establishment of public credit institutions and the passing of laws against usury [federal loans and subsidies for farmers, Small Business Administration, FHA, Freddie Mac, etc.], whereby it would be possible for themselves and the peasants to receive advances on favourable terms from the state instead of from capitalists; also, the introduction of bourgeois property relationships on land through the complete abolition of feudalism. In order to achieve all this they require a democratic form of government, either constitutional or republican, which would give them and their peasant allies the majority; they also require a democratic system of local government to give them direct control over municipal property and over a series of political offices at present in the hands of the bureaucrats.

The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance [the estate tax], and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state [at one time, the New Deal reforms; now reduced to public services like garbage collection, water works, public lighting, post office, etc.]. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures [unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, Medicare, Social Security, etc.]; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable.

(Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm), March 1850 -- boldface and brackets are mine)

If such a system as above, which has been the standard in virtually all Great Power imperialist states throughout most of the 20th century, means that "in relation to the working class all other classes are only one reactionary mass", what does that say about those left organizations that are replete with non-proletarians?

Draw your own conclusions.

Miles

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 09:20 AM
For those who cannot access it, Severian (through his usual diligent internet research) attempted to prove that the Communist League "came from" a long series of obscure Trotskyist splinter groups with rather dubious reputations...among the few people who'd ever heard of them at all.

The most hillarious part of Severian's Snipe Hunt™, however, was that, try as he might, he wasn't even close. In the end, he looked like a two-bit McCarthyite wannabe with a (still) bruised ego.

Miles

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Care to respond Severian?

[Severian]

I don't see any need for that. On the one hand, people who can read the thread, can read the thread. And I can't very well repost its content for the rest of the board membership, can I? That'd just be moved back into the CC, at best.

As for the Marx and Engels quotes, they're out of context and not particularly relevant to the question in dispute.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 09:28 PM
As for the Marx and Engels quotes, they're out of context and not particularly relevant to the question in dispute.
Such a blithe and condescending dismissal can only be read one way: as an admission of defeat. And I would also argue that they are quite relevant to the "question in dispute". Class matters -- especially when it comes to the class character of a given state.

Miles

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 02:38 AM
I disagree with this. Historically the communards couldnt really "win" as the rest of the country did not follow. Secondly, the communards did have what could be considered a "state", yet they still lost.
And we could all draw up different conclusions. Some will say its because the Blanquist and Prodhunist strains respected "the right of property" so they didn't use the banks to their advantages, the Blaquist model didn't involve the masses, and that the Prodhunists acted to late to move onto Versallies-- this doesn't necessarily mean this all resulted to faluire because of a workers state.
I dunno what to make of it, its too far away in the past to draw up conclusions. But, we all know were capable of moblizing into action.


With todays technology we do not really have to worry about military defeats (which seems to be the reason of the failure, not because they didnt defeat the capitalists). You dont need a state to execute reactionaries. :lol:
Hmmm, this technology you speak of, please elabourate!

What are we to make of this hazy idea of a workers state into the 21st century?

It is rather odd that Marx only spoke of this idea twice, and never really defined it.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 19 2006, 11:57 PM
What are we to make of this hazy idea of a workers state into the 21st century?

It is rather odd that Marx only spoke of this idea twice, and never really defined it.
Well, let's be clear on this: It seems that DJ-TC's issue is more with a specific term Marx used (or, in this case, did not use much), and not much more else. So, OK, fine, Marx only used the term "workers' state" twice, and more or less only as a rhetorical shorthand. Marx never used the term "workers' republic" either.

But, if someone uses one of these terms as a synonym for "dictatorship of the proletariat", does it really matter if Marx used them or not? Or is this an attempt to argue that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not a state?

Miles

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 05:06 AM
But, if someone uses one of these terms as a synonym for "dictatorship of the proletariat", does it really matter if Marx used them or not? Or is this an attempt to argue that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not a state?
I just don't know!

Semantics confuse everything. There isn't a clear and presise definition of a "Democracy" as opposed to a "Republic", and then theres this thing known as a "Democratic-Republic".

Someone somewhere will accuse their opponent who doesn't use their semantics of trying to twist the situtation to their advantage.

In short we all know we want the abolishment of private property, the working class in control of the means of production (which will lead to the end of class-antagonisms), bottom-up organization, universal suffrage, and representatives who are revokable at all times!

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As for the Marx and Engels quotes, they're out of context and not particularly relevant to the question in dispute.

It seems to me that they're completely relevant; but the observer is free to make her own judgement.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by EL KABLAMO+Feb 20 2006, 12:30 AM--> (EL KABLAMO @ Feb 20 2006, 12:30 AM)Semantics confuse everything.[/b]

Well, there's my candidate for Understatement of the Year. ;)


Originally posted by EL [email protected] 20 2006, 12:30 AM
There isn't a clear and presise definition of a "Democracy" as opposed to a "Republic", and then theres this thing known as a "Democratic-Republic".

A republic, as an abstract concept, is a representative administration. A workers' republic, which is the concept brought down to the real world and refracted through the lens of class society, is a republic where workers are the elected representatives. Democracy, in the context of a workers' republic, is not a mere form of governance, but a practice that is imbued in every aspect of society.

In terms of a "state", if we go by the communist conception, then what are we really talking about? Armed bodies enforcing a particular social system and the class that defines it. A state is a tool, by this definition and in this case, that puts down any attempts by the capitalists to re-take power. In that sense, the work of a state is more of an ad hoc thing, since we're talking about using it against a minority class, and they will (hopefully) not have the numbers to mount any kind of consitent challenge.


Originally posted by EL [email protected] 20 2006, 12:30 AM
Someone somewhere will accuse their opponent who doesn't use their semantics of trying to twist the situtation to their advantage.

It always happens. This is why I always -- and I mean ALWAYS! -- groan when I see yet another "Socialism vs. Communism" or "What is Socialism" thread.


EL [email protected] 20 2006, 12:30 AM
In short we all know we want the abolishment of private property, the working class in control of the means of production (which will lead to the end of class-antagonisms), bottom-up organization, universal suffrage, and representatives who are revokable at all times!

Exactly. Now, if we can get most workers to agree on how to get from where we are to the point where we make that real,...

Miles

[Severian]

I was kinda surprised to find that Marx actually did say some things about the question in dispute - which, may I remind those who seem to have forgotten, is whether workers' parties should exclude all individuals who are not workers. The proposal was made in the First International - by the Proudhonists, not by Marx.

An article by Francis Wheen defending Marx against the claim he was anti-worker. (http://marxmyths.org/francis-wheen/article.html)

Here's the relevant sections, containing all the relevant quotes:

Now there seems to be a slight paradox here. Marx himself was indisputably a bourgeois intellectual. By joining the Council was he not in danger of diluting the proletarian purity which he so admired? To answer the question we need to look more closely at the composition of the International. The General Council consisted of two Germans (Marx and Eccarius), two Italians, three Frenchmen and twenty-seven Englishmen – almost all of them working class. It was a muddled mélange: English trade unionists who cared passionately about the right to free collective bargaining but had no interest in socialist revolution; French Proudhonists who dreamed of utopia but disliked trade unions; plus a few republicans, disciples of Mazzini and campaigners for Polish freedom. They disagreed about almost everything – and particularly about what role, if any, the enlightened middle classes should be allowed to play in the International. In a letter to Engels two years after its foundation, Marx reported an all-too-typical contretemps:

By way of demonstration against the French monsieurs – who wanted to exclude everyone except ‘travailleurs manuels’, in the first instance from membership of the International Association, or at least from eligibility for election as delegate to the congress – the English yesterday proposed me as President of the General Council. I declared that under no circumstances could I accept such a thing, and proposed Odger [the English trade union leader] in my turn, who was then in fact re-elected, although some people voted for me despite my declaration.

The minute-book for this meeting records that Marx ‘thought himself incapacitated because he was a head worker and not a hand worker’, but it is not quite as simple as that. (His desire to get on with writing Capital may have exerted a stronger tug at the sleeve.) A few years later, when a doctor called Sexton was proposed for membership, there were the usual mutterings about ‘whether it was desirable to add professional men to the Council’; according to the minutes, however, ‘Citizen Marx did not think there was anything to fear from the admission of professional men while the great majority of the Council was composed of workers.’ In 1872, when there were problems with various crackpot American sects infiltrating the International, it was Marx himself who proposed – successfully – that no new section should be allowed to affiliate unless at least two-thirds of its members were wage labourers. [See earlier in this thread for the text of this rule - S]

In short, while accepting that most office-holders and members must be working class, Marx was unembarrassed by his own lack of proletarian credentials: men such as himself still had much to offer the association as long as they didn’t pull rank or hog the limelight. Engels followed this example, though as an affluent capitalist he was understandably more reluctant to impose himself. After selling his stake in the family firm and moving down to London in 1870, he accepted a seat on the General Council almost at once but declined the office of treasurer. ‘Citizen Engels objected that none but working men ought to be appointed to have anything to do [with] the finances,’ the minutes record. ‘Citizen Marx did not consider the objection tenable: an ex-commercial man was the best for the office.’ Engels persisted with his refusal – and was probably right to do so. As the Marxian scholar Hal Draper has pointed out, handling money was the touchiest job in a workers’ association, for charges of financial irregularity were routine ploys whenever political conflict started; and a Johnny-come-lately businessman from Manchester would have been an obvious target for any ‘French monsieurs’ who wanted to stir up trouble.

......

Marx himself missed the Geneva Congress, yet still managed to dominate the proceedings. When the French Proudhonists issued their well-rehearsed protest against middle-class socialists (‘all men who have the duty of representing working-class groups should be workers’), William Randal Cremer defended the record of the few non-manual workers on the General Council. ‘Among those members I will mention one only, Citizen Marx, who has devoted his life to the triumph of the working classes.’ The baton was then taken up by James Carter of the Journeymen Hairdressers:

Citizen Marx has just been mentioned; he has perfectly understood the importance of this first congress, where there should be only working-class delegates; therefore he refused the delegateship he was offered in the General Council. But this is not the reason to prevent him or anyone else from coming into our midst; on the contrary, men who devote themselves completely to the proletarian cause are too rare for us to push them aside. The middle class only triumphed when, rich and powerful as it was in numbers, it allied itself with men of science ...

After this barber-shop testimonial even the leader of the Proudhon faction, Henri Tolain, felt obliged to congratulate the absent hero. ‘As a worker, I thank Citizen Marx for not accepting the delegateship offered him. In doing that, Citizen Marx showed that workers’ congresses should be made up only of manual workers.’ Citizen Marx had not intended to show anything of the kind, and there is no evidence that he stayed away from Geneva to avoid offending proletarian sensibilities. A more likely explanation is that he didn’t wish to endure tedious harangues from the French exclusionists when he could have a few days’ uninterrupted work on Capital.

Emphasis added to highlight Marx's statements.

I might add that the Proudhonists were political fakers, who opposed even workers organizing and striking for higher wages. Some things don't change; their "worker only" proposal is still a mask for political fakers who want to use it as a club in factional debate. By proclaiming themselves more proletarian than thou.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by CommunistLeague+--> (CommunistLeague)But, if someone uses one of these terms as a synonym for "dictatorship of the proletariat", does it really matter if Marx used them or not?[/b]

Yes, because such people usually call themselves "Marxists", and call on Marx.


CommunistLeague
Or is this an attempt to argue that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not a state?

It was not my original intention, but it makes you think about it when you
actually analyze what he really wrote. I, personally, already conceive of "DOP" as an anti-state practice, turned against the bourgeoisie as well as against any form of separate power.

This necessarily escaped the 19th ct. analysis, although we can see it in embryonic form in Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire, where he writes about the state apparatus taking on a more autonomous shape.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 03:19 AM
An article by Francis Wheen defending Marx against the claim he was anti-worker. (http://marxmyths.org/francis-wheen/article.html)

Is this the best you can come up with? Ramblings from a British bourgeois journalist (scratch that -- not a journalist, a "columnist")? I knew you were desperate, but COME ON!

Miles

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 10:56 PM
Ramblings from a British bourgeois journalist (scratch that -- not a journalist, a "columnist")?

His autobiography of Marx is very good though.
______

I actually think the extract posted by Severian, sort of backs up Miles arguments in a weird way.

Basically, I think both Marx and Engels were embarrassed by their own class background and both realised there was something wrong with "Middle Class Socialists".

To overcome this, Marx kinda' deluded himself by calling himself a "head worker" and saying that "hand workers" were more important - it's almost as if he really didn't want to admit that he was from "bourgeois stock".

Engels on the other hand, consciously chose to keep out of the "important stuff" - as if he realised that that was a working class "job".

It's almost as if both men considered themselves to "lesser communists" because of their class background. Certainly the way they treated Weitlin (sp?) the fool shows they considered "working class communists" almost above reproach from "Middle Class Socialists".

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

His autobiography of Marx is very good though.

How did a columnist write an autobiography of Marx?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 20 2006, 11:28 PM

His autobiography of Marx is very good though.

How did a columnist write an autobiography of Marx?

:blush:

It was a biography, my mistake.

I also commented on it here....

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45019

[Severian]

Originally posted by CommunistLeague+Feb 20 2006, 04:56 PM--> (CommunistLeague @ Feb 20 2006, 04:56 PM)
[email protected] 20 2006, 03:19 AM
An article by Francis Wheen defending Marx against the claim he was anti-worker. (http://marxmyths.org/francis-wheen/article.html)

Is this the best you can come up with? Ramblings from a British bourgeois journalist (scratch that -- not a journalist, a "columnist")? I knew you were desperate, but COME ON!

Miles [/b]
With several relevant quotes from Marx and the minutes of the International Workingmen's Association.

But I never knew a Spart who could admit they're wrong, even to themselves; they just keep hollering until you walk away.

You're like the Black Knight in Monty Python: "It's just a flesh wound! Come back, I'll bite your legs off!"

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 20 2006, 05:16 PM
I actually think the extract posted by Severian, sort of backs up Miles arguments in a weird way.

Basically, I think both Marx and Engels were embarrassed by their own class background and both realised there was something wrong with "Middle Class Socialists".
You betcha. But that's not the question in dispute.

Wheen's article, and the IMWA's rule on new sections needing to have two-thirds worker membership, and the whole history of the IMWA and Marx and Engels' role in it......all show that Marx and Engels thought it was important to build an organization which was proletarian in the decisive majority of its membership and leadership.

And I agree with them 100%.

That wouldn't be nearly so important if there wasn't "something wrong with "Middle Class Socialists"" - or, I'd put it, something unreliable.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 20 2006, 07:30 PM--> (Severian @ Feb 20 2006, 07:30 PM)With several relevant quotes from Marx and the minutes of the International Workingmen's Association.[/b]

And if this was the mid-19th century, you'd still be wrong on this point. After all, you have made clear time and again that you have no problem with admitting any amount of petty bourgeois into a so-called "proletarian party", yesterday or today.

If Marx and Engels, at a time when it was entirely possible for elements of the petty bourgeoisie to de-class and join the proletarian movement without necessarily breaking their previous class relations, still felt the need to restrict the number of them allowed into the movement, still thought of them as an "adulterating element", still saw them as part of "one reactionary mass", then what does that mean for today, when the petty bourgeoisie can no longer be de-classed for any appreciable period of time?

This is not about Talmudic contests over what Marx said. I use the Marx quotes to illustrate a point of method that has developed since Marx's time. They show a direction, a dynamic, but are not the be-all and end-all. The petty bourgeoisie of today is not the petty bourgeoisie of 1850 or 1880. The development of capitalist class relations have stabilized the petty bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie artificially maintains them as an appendage of their class. Moreover, that development has closed off the possibilities of being de-classed, short of extracting one's self from the social and economic relations of society and joining the lumpen classes.

Those changes, which were recognized by communist theoreticians in the first half of the 20th century but never fully explored, demand an analysis. We have made that analysis, and these are the conclusions we have drawn. Can you say the same? No. You're like the "True Socialists", mechanically applying concepts and constructs from a century ago, and half a world away, to today's conditions -- and all the while trying to re-fight old battles and re-live old glory.

It's kinda sad, really. But, to each their own.


Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 07:30 PM
But I never knew a Spart who could admit they're wrong, even to themselves; they just keep hollering until you walk away.

Gee, Severian, I didn't know you were in the Sparts. Explains a lot, I would say.


[email protected] 20 2006, 07:30 PM
You're like the Black Knight in Monty Python: "It's just a flesh wound! Come back, I'll bite your legs off!"

You're a looney.

Miles