The circle spirit is useless - long live Leninism

[peaccenicked]

In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust back to the "lower depths" of utter destitution, savagery, and degeneration, the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class. Neither the senile rule of the Russian autocracy nor the senescent rule of international capital will be able to withstand this army. It will more and more firmly close its ranks, in spite of all zigzags and backward steps, in spite of the opportunist phrase-mongering of the Girondists of present-day Social-Democracy, in spite of the self-satisfied exaltation of the retrograde circle spirit, and in spite of the tinsel and fuss of intellectualist anarchism. "Lenin 'one step forward two steps back
Marx said"History repeats itself the first time is tragedy,
the second time it is farce.''
Vox at every step evokes unconsciously the ''circle spirit''. It is the height of amateurishness and deserves to be buried in 'the dustbin of history'.
Those who pretend not to be leaders in the real world lead us down the path of police infiltration while sounding of
phrases that deny the revolutionary structure of our movement. They are doomed to the sidelines as they cannot stand the disipline of being a revolutionary.

[vox]

Okay, peacenicked, gloves off.

Since when did the bourgeoisie become anarchists? Just where is this fairy world of which you speak? You want to embrace Marxism, but not Maxist methodology, right? If you did, you would see that the capitalists AS WELL AS the proletariat are in a destructive relationship.

However, for you, this relationship is one-sided, as if there is a relationship of one. How bizarre.

What form would your "organization" take? Would peacenicked by its leader, by any chance? You write that "the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation," which is another way of saying that if a worker doesn't agree with your ideology, or if a worker doesn't agree with the way your "material" organization is material constructed, that is, the worker would like to have some say, then your reply is a great FUCK YOU to the worker, is that it?

Of course it is, for that's what you wrote.

Peacenicked, you've revealed yourself here as not only cheap and vulgar Leninst scum but also as the enemy of the working class. You position yourself as the high-minded savior of those too stupid to think for themselves and demand "ideological unification" to make sure that no one challenges your obscene power mongering. In peacenicked's world there can be NO DISSENT, for if there is, you are AN ENEMY!

What rubbish. What vain-streaked, masturbatory, ego-filled rubbish.

You may accuse me of anything you wish, but I say that we've tried your ideas, and found them LACKING. Would you have a New Siberia for the workers who dissented, peacenicked? Would you, too, limit Art in the name of Peacenicked Realism?

Where the worker is controlled by a Party that demands obediance, the worker is NOT FREE.

Where the worker labors for the Party in place of the capitalist, the worker is NOT FREE.

Where the worker must succumb to the capricious dictates of a party that claims the interest of the worker, the worker is NOT FREE.

That's the world that peacenicked posits.

I propose a different world, in which the labor of each is the labor of all. Rather than a shredding of the working class, as peacenicked proposes, I submit a unification of humanity in mutual labor, without the Party telling us what is right and what is wrong. Rather than listening to the "unified idealism" of a party with the material power to back up what they say, I propose DEMOCRACY, where the workers themselves have a say.

Peacenicked talks a good talk, it's true, but in the end it's the same old line: do what the Party tells you to do--it's in your best interests. As if the working class is too stupid to know its best interests.

What a terrible, horrible, confined and constricted world he proposes.

vox

[peaccenicked]

Gloves off.
Go and fight with your own shadows,
because all you have done is inverted a shadow of my position and boxed with it. Until you learn to argue with my real position. I refuse to reply.
incidently.
THE ABC OF COMMUNISM
Bukharin & Preobrazhensky (1919)
§5. THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF OUR PROGRAMME
We have already said that it is wrong to manufacture a programme out of our own heads, and that our programrne should be taken from life. Before the time of Marx, those who represented working-class interests were apt to draw fancy pictures of future paradise, without troubling to ask themselves whether this paradise could ever be reached, and without seeing the right road for the workers and peasants to follow. Marx taught us another way. He examined the evil, unjust, barbaric social order which still prevails throughout the world, and studied its structure. Precisely after the manner in which we might study a machine, or, let us say, a clock, did Marx study the structure of capitalist society, in which factory owners and landowners rule, while workers and peasants are oppressed. Let us suppose we have noticed that two of the wheels of our clock are badly fitted, and that at each revolution they interfere more and more with one another's movements. Then we can foresee that the clock will break down and stop. What Marx studied was not a clock, but capitalist society; he examined it thoroughly, examined life under the dominion of capital. As the outcome of his researches, Marx recognized very clearly that capitalism digging its own grave, that the machine will break down, and that the cause of the break-down will be the inevitable uprising of the workers, who will refashion the whole world to suit themselves.
Marx's chief instruction to all his followers was that they should study life as it actually is. Thus only can a practical programme be drawn up. It is self-evident, therefore, why our programme begins, with a description of the capitalist regime.

The capitalist regime has now been overthrown in Russia. What Marx prophesied is being fulfilled under our very eyes. The old order is collapsing. The crowns are falling from the heads of kings and emperors. Everywhere the workers are advancing towards revolution, and towards the establishment of soviet rule. In order fully to understand how all this has come about, it is necessary to be thoroughly well acquainted with the nature of the capitalist system. Then we shall realize that its breakdown was inevitable. Once we grasp that there will be no return of the old system and that the victory of the workers is assured, we shall have full strength and confidence as we carry on the struggle on behalf of the new social order of the workers.


§13. FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTIONS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
We must now examine whether capitalist or bourgeois society is well or ill constructed. Anything is sound and good when the mutual adaptation of its parts is entirely satisfactory. Let us consider the mechanism of a clock. It works accurately and freely if all the cog-wheels are properly adjusted one to another.
Let us now look at capitalist society. We can perceive without difficulty that capitalist society is far less soundly constructed than it appears to be at the first glance. On the contrary, it exhibits grave contradictions and disastrous flaws. In the first place, under capitalism the production and distribution of goods is quite unorganized; 'anarchy of production' prevails. What does this mean? It means that all the capitalist entrepreneurs (or capitalist companies) produce commodities independently of one another. Instead of society undertaking to reckon up what it needs and how much of each article, the factory owners simply produce upon the calculation of what will bring them most profit and will best enable them to defeat their rivals in the market. The consequence often is that commodities are produced in excessive quantities - we are talking, of course, of pre-war days. There is then no sale for them. The workers cannot buy them, for they have not enough money. Thereupon a crisis ensues. The factories are shut down, and the workers are turned out into the street. Furthermore, the anarchy of production entails a struggle for the market; each producer wants to entice away the others'customers, to corner the market. This struggle assumes various forms: it begins with the competition between two factory owners; it ends in the world war, wherein the capitalist States wrestle with one another for the world market. This signifies, not merely that the parts of capitalist society interfere with one another's working, but that there is a direct conflict between the constituent parts.

THE FIRST REASON, THEREFORE, FOR THE DISHARMONY OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS THE ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION, WHICH LEADS TO CRISES, INTERECINE COMPETITION, AND WARS.

THE SECOND REASON FOR THE DISHARMONY OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS TO BE FOUND IN THE CLASS STRUCTURE OF THAT SOCIETY. Considered in its essence, capitalist society is not one society but two societies; it consists .of capitalists, on the one hand, and of workers and poor peasants, on the other. Between these two classes there is continuous and irreconcilable enmity; this is what we speak of as the class war. Here, also, we see that the various parts of capitalist society are not merely ill-adapted to one another, but are actually in unceasing conflict.

Is capitalism going to collapse, or is it not? The answer to the question depends upon the following considerations. If we study the evolution of capitalism, if we examine the changes it as undergone in the course of time, and if we perceive that its disharmonies are diminishing, then we can confidently wish it long life. If, on the other hand, we discover that in the course of time the various parts of the capitalist machine have come to clash with one another more and more violently, if we discern that the flaws in the structure are becoming positive chasms, then is time to say, 'Rest in peace'.

We have now, therefore, to study the evolution of capitalism.


Try reading it again.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 3:34 pm on Mar. 3, 2002)