kromando33
9th January 2008, 07:37
Marxism does not 'promise' utopia as left opportunists seems to suggest, in reality it's these left-liberals and the intellectually-over giddy anarchists and 'democratic' socialists that are the political equivalents of snake oil salesmen, with nice bombastic empty rhetoric but no practical analysis of reality which only material dialectics can provide. It's quite the opposite actually, Marxist socialism does not promise anything overnight, it promises nothing straight away but reality, truth and a practical process to change that scientific proof. Marxism is analysis of material conditions and how those material conditions mold reality, thus the disproportionate wealth gap naturally causes class struggle. Marxism is the unflinching desire to see reality unclouded by any ideological or spiritual delusions, to see it wholly and completely materially.
Marxism is thus not an ideological which are spiritual but a science. Analysis of reality tells us unequal material conditions cause class struggle, at the moment in most countries of the world the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois(capitalist class)' have control, and thus that state exists to serve that class specifically, all it's legal framework and institutions exist solely to protect that class. The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is literally the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois' 'turned on it's head', the workers overthrow the bourgeois in a revolution and replace their dictatorship with their own. This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society. This process (socialism) requires an amount of self-criticism in society. As Marx this process of socialism would result in either the victory of one class or the contending ruin of both.
Modern 'reformist' leftism, like social democracy, is simply false because it assumes that the bourgeois power can remain intact (and indeed grow) while socialism can be built. This is false because it does not understand that the bourgeois dictatorship exists as the purest example of classist self-interest. And though eager to shroud it's dictatorship in decorative niceties such as 'civil freedoms', 'personal freedom' and the 'rule of law', the bourgeois dictatorship will as quickly dispense with these superficialities if their power is threatened by the working class.
Fundamentally then, building socialism and class struggle are indeed mutually indispensable, if not the same concept. Building a society based upon the overthrow of all existing social relations into a classless and completely free society; ie socialism, can only be achieved when the bourgeois class enemies of communism are liquidated. Communism is essence cannot exist if parts of society oppose it, the society is so interdependent that it will only truly exist when the states of mind of the populace have experienced this revolution. Socialism is therefore the class struggle, characterized by an imperfect implementation of collectivist ideals, whereby the class enemies are liquidated by every part of society. Marx's conclusion is that the proletarianization of the working class breeds communistic relations, that is that socialism spells communism. Try to imagine it like this:
Bourgeois dictatorship - Can be at varying degrees, whether social democratic 'New Deal' societies, which shows the bourgeois is weak and is trying to bribe the proletariat, or even radical free market 'globalized' economies, whereby the bourgeois is in much greater control; both representing the bourgeois state in different clothing differing on how well or badly is to doing in the class struggle against organized labor - that is in repressing the working class.
Proletarian dictatorship - Can be effectively judged by it's prosecution of the class struggle, generally as socialism moves further along the bourgeois will become more and more desperate in tactics to dislodge the dictatorship, the kulaks would be a good example of this. Even beyond this they may infiltrate the party, as happened in China and the USSR. Generally the proletarian dictatorship is at it's most vulnerable by revisionist and deviationist tendencies in it's own parties, will threaten to usurp the state and replace it with the bourgeois one, thus counter-revolution and revolution.
Marxism is thus not an ideological which are spiritual but a science. Analysis of reality tells us unequal material conditions cause class struggle, at the moment in most countries of the world the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois(capitalist class)' have control, and thus that state exists to serve that class specifically, all it's legal framework and institutions exist solely to protect that class. The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is literally the 'dictatorship of the bourgeois' 'turned on it's head', the workers overthrow the bourgeois in a revolution and replace their dictatorship with their own. This worker's state is socialism, a process by which the proletarian dictatorship represses the bourgeois and liquidates them from society, this is class struggle, and communism can only be achieved once these bourgeois reactionary people and tendencies are weeded out of society. This process (socialism) requires an amount of self-criticism in society. As Marx this process of socialism would result in either the victory of one class or the contending ruin of both.
Modern 'reformist' leftism, like social democracy, is simply false because it assumes that the bourgeois power can remain intact (and indeed grow) while socialism can be built. This is false because it does not understand that the bourgeois dictatorship exists as the purest example of classist self-interest. And though eager to shroud it's dictatorship in decorative niceties such as 'civil freedoms', 'personal freedom' and the 'rule of law', the bourgeois dictatorship will as quickly dispense with these superficialities if their power is threatened by the working class.
Fundamentally then, building socialism and class struggle are indeed mutually indispensable, if not the same concept. Building a society based upon the overthrow of all existing social relations into a classless and completely free society; ie socialism, can only be achieved when the bourgeois class enemies of communism are liquidated. Communism is essence cannot exist if parts of society oppose it, the society is so interdependent that it will only truly exist when the states of mind of the populace have experienced this revolution. Socialism is therefore the class struggle, characterized by an imperfect implementation of collectivist ideals, whereby the class enemies are liquidated by every part of society. Marx's conclusion is that the proletarianization of the working class breeds communistic relations, that is that socialism spells communism. Try to imagine it like this:
Bourgeois dictatorship - Can be at varying degrees, whether social democratic 'New Deal' societies, which shows the bourgeois is weak and is trying to bribe the proletariat, or even radical free market 'globalized' economies, whereby the bourgeois is in much greater control; both representing the bourgeois state in different clothing differing on how well or badly is to doing in the class struggle against organized labor - that is in repressing the working class.
Proletarian dictatorship - Can be effectively judged by it's prosecution of the class struggle, generally as socialism moves further along the bourgeois will become more and more desperate in tactics to dislodge the dictatorship, the kulaks would be a good example of this. Even beyond this they may infiltrate the party, as happened in China and the USSR. Generally the proletarian dictatorship is at it's most vulnerable by revisionist and deviationist tendencies in it's own parties, will threaten to usurp the state and replace it with the bourgeois one, thus counter-revolution and revolution.