What one?

[Pogue]

I need people to help convince me as to their particular opinion on the left. I am still flirting between Marx Leninism, Trotsykism, many forms of Left Communism, Democratic Socialism (of the Bennite kind), Anarcho Syndicalism/Anarcho Communism, etc. So I have these questions.

1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?
2) How can a revolution bring about a new society?
3) How is a revolution democratic?
4) How is violent revolution justifiable or any other kind feasable?
5) How can we have a true communist/anarchist society with so many selfish and evil people around (namely fascists).

Plus any other general reasons for subscribing to a particular strand of leftism comrades can come up with. I know it asks alot, but this is just one thread and it'd be appreciated.

Those 5 questions are just my main ones, any arguments for and against particular strands is required.

[hekmatista]

Organizing your search around questions like the five cited is more productive than searching for the "one true faith." I congratulate you on that approach. There are plenty of grouplets looking for warm bodies and they all (OK, not all) do some useful work, despite what they think of each other. More later.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

I need people to help convince me as to their particular opinion on the left. I am still flirting between Marx Leninism, Trotsykism, many forms of Left Communism, Democratic Socialism (of the Bennite kind), Anarcho Syndicalism/Anarcho Communism, etc. So I have these questions.

Pleased to answer them comrade.


1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?Well what usually happens when left wing parties get big and take state power is one of two things. A. They stay radical and get annihilated via coup or external invasion. Allende in Chile is a pretty good example. B. Power corrupts them and the structures of the state itself push them towards adopting a reformist political program which leads to a loss of revolutionary fervor and eventual cooptation into power. The British Labour party is a good example of this.




2) How can a revolution bring about a new society? Rather simple, a mass social movement against all oppression initiates a general strike, mutinies abound within the military and the workers arm themselves into militias to defend against state repression. This sounds all very difficult and it is, but I would say it’s worth it. A good example of this is Catalonia in 1936. A modern industrial society was organized by the CNT, and kept true to its ideals, only faltering when the Stalinists stabbed them in the back. Though the POUM stood by us (thanks soft trots!).


3) How is a revolution democratic? It’s democratic because truly revolutionary groups are run on democratic principles and the revolution is made by the majority of the society, otherwise it would just be another coup. So to give you an example, in the Ukraine there was a mass anarcho-communist movement that took over much of the country. Decisions were made by councils of workers and community assemblies.


4) How is violent revolution justifiable or any other kind feasable? There is no real way to bring about a non oppressive, non exploitative society without some bit of violence. The state and the capitalists will always react with overwhelming force if their interests are threatened. The Paris Commune was the first real worker’s revolution. The “democratic” French government killed 25,000 people retaking the city. Those who make revolutions halfway, dig their own graves.


5) How can we have a true communist/anarchist society with so many selfish and evil people around (namely fascists). You gotta ask yourself why those people behave how they behave. Is it something essential to human nature? Studying history I think it’s safe to say that humans are pretty malleable and that we are capable of great evil and great good. Though I think the common denominator is that societies of great inequality of wealth and/or little democratic decision making tend to have the most violence and anti social behavior.

Our revolutionary struggle is a school to unlearn much of this behavior. When we work together to fight for own daily concerns (like wage cuts) we not only fight for material interests, but we also change the way we view each other. We learn to trust each other and to trust in collective action. Those sort of small transformations take regular working folk and radicalize them into militants for the class war.


Plus any other general reasons for subscribing to a particular strand of leftism comrades can come up with. I know it asks alot, but this is just one thread and it'd be appreciated.
I would say that Social Anarchism aka Class Struggle Anarchism is the way to go. It has a track record of victories that are relatively untarnished, unlike every Marxist revolution. Its main failure has been the inability to fight the Stalinists who tend to stab us in the back. However, I’m not so worried with most Marxist Leninism tailing off these days. Anarchism also is a very flexible tradition, one that does not name itself after people but after various tactics (eg anarcho-syndicalism). We try to view the world as it actually exists and move from there. Proper anarchists are not dogmatic. Anarchism also does not get lost in economic reductionism. We don’t think everything has to do with class only, but that race and patriarchy deserve independent analysis, in addition to how all three are always intertwined.

So yeah hope I helped you out. Feel free to ask follow up questions.

[BobKKKindle$]

1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?

Socialists recognize that radical change in the way society is organized cannot occur through existing political institutions, because the bourgeoisie will not be willing to surrender control without some form of armed struggle. However, Socialists still stand in elections, because electoral participation is an effective strategy. If a Socialist candidate is elected to an official position, they can gain access to a platform, from which to spread radical ideas to a broader audience, and make demands to expose the inability of capitalism to meet the needs of the working class. This will enable the workers to break away from reactionary ideas which identify other workers as responsible for material deprivation, and develop class consciousness, which is an important prerequisite for any revolutionary struggle. Lenin:


...participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.

LWC: Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm)

[Hyacinth]

1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?
Not that I’m a great fan of Fidel, but there is a quote by him which I think sums up quite nicely as to what the problem with participation in bourgeoisie parliaments is:

"It is neither right nor proper to delude the peoples with that vain and enchanting illusion that from the ruling classes, who entrenched themselves in the most important offices, who held in their hands the monopoly of education and the great information media, who dispose over inexhaustible economic resources – to delude the people that they can – in legal ways, which do not exist, and have never existed – take the power away from these classes, the power which will be defended by the oligarchies and monopolies by fire and sword, with the force of their police and armies."

[mikelepore]

Socialists recognize that radical change in the way society is organized cannot occur through existing political institutions, because the bourgeoisie will not be willing to surrender control without some form of armed struggle.

I would say it that somewhat differently.

Revolutionary change cannot occur "through" political institutions because revolutionary change is essentially an economic act, the workers "moving in" and physical taking control of the industries. Therefore it has to be some kind of industrial organization of workers that actually establishes socialism.

But the fact that "the bourgeoisie will not be willing to surrender control without some form of armed struggle" is precisely what a victorious socialist political movement can deal with most effectively. When the political arm of the socialist movement takes control of the state, then implementing socialism will now be the law, impeding socialism will be the crime, socialists will now have the police department, the thugs of the deposed ruling class will be the hunted criminals. The "officialdom" of society's formal institutions has to be inverted in this way.

The industrial organization of labor establishes socialism, which is an economic act. The political organization of labor shields the industrial organization so that it can do its job.

[Ghaile]

What will you do with the bourgeois? Argue with them? Try to convince them? But this will have no effect upon them at all. Us Communists do not in the least idealize the methods of violence. But we, the Communists, do not want to be taken by surprise, we cannot count on the old world voluntarily departing from the stage, they see that the old system is violently defending itself, and that is why we Communists say to the working class: Answer violence with violence; do all you can to prevent the old dying order from crushing you, do not permit it to put chains on your hands, on the hands with which you will overthrow the old system. As you see, the Communists regard the substitution of one social system for another, not simply as a spontaneous and peaceful process, but as a complicated, long and violent process. Communists cannot ignore facts.

The Communists base themselves on rich historical experience which teaches that obsolete classes do not voluntarily abandon the stage of history. Recall the history of England in the seventeenth century. Did not many say that the old social system had decayed? But did it not, nevertheless, require a Cromwell to crush it by force?

[OI OI OI]

1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?

Most of them are reformist. They have the minimum program and not the maximum program. (Minimum program is for example free healthcare , free education etc , and maximum program is the abolition of capitalism through a revolutionary process). Although reforms are good and we as communists fight for transitional demands(ie reforms) we have also a maximum program which as I said is revolution. The leadership of most of the left wing parties in the parliament are bureaucrats who will play a counter revolutionary role in a revolutionary period, because they only want to ease capitalism not abolish it. This has been demonstrated countless of times in History .



2) How can a revolution bring about a new society

It abolishes the old forms of the relations of the workerss to the means of production. The means of production become for us Bolshevik - Leninists(Trotskyists) , nationalized with workers control. This is a transition period from capitalism to communism called socialism. The officials are democraticaly ellected by the workers and recallable at any time , while the bureaucratic tasks rotate so everyone becomes a "bureaucrat". If everyone is a bureaucrat then no one is a bureaucrat said Engels. This society ensures that all the minimum demands are met plus there is no exploitation(wage - slavery). It is a new society qualitatively higher than capitalism and its paving the way for communism . Which will mean a qualitative leap for humans (Communism =classless , stateless society).



3) How is a revolution democratic?

It is excecuted by the majority ie the working class, in alliance with the peasants and some elements of the petty bourgeoisie (while the main class is the proletariat).
The dictatorship of the proletariat is itself a democratic term. Proletariat= the majority so dectatorship of the proletariat is dictatorship of the many = democracy.


4) How is violent revolution justifiable or any other kind feasable?

It is justifiable becauser the bourgeoisie will not welcome the workers that want to expropriate them . Such naive thoughts had the Utopian Socialists which MArx crushed. The bourgeoisie is going to attack, either by using the police and the army (or at least the elements of the police and the army who did not side with the proletariat) , a section of the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat that will not side with the proletariat , and using them they will try to crush the workers movement by financing the creation of fascist gangs. So the proletariat needs to fight back in order to seize power. A violent revolution reduces itself to the self defence of the proletariat to the attacks of the bourgeoisie in order for the proletariat to seize power(ie revolution).



5) How can we have a true communist/anarchist society with so many selfish and evil people around (namely fascists).

Through a transitional period called socialism. Don't forget that material conditions shape conciousness so all those "evil and selfish" people are a product of capitalism. They are not imherently evil . So socialism will gradualy wipe out the "evilness" and create the wy for a communist society(also communist and anarchist society is the same , the anarchists though believe that we can go there right away and not have a transitional period called socialism). So there is no human nature. And this tempoary "human nature" will be wiped out under socialsim gradualy.


Thats all I hope that helped

[Pogue]

So if we had an anarchist revolution there'd be no socialist period?

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

So if we had an anarchist revolution there'd be no socialist period?

No state socialism, though there would be some kind of transition, where we figure out what plans and blueprints work the best. But this would not involve conscription, jailing all other leftists etc.

[OI OI OI]

So if we had an anarchist revolution there'd be no socialist period?

Most anarchists I ve met say no. Now I think some believe that a transitional period will come into place but they are a minority from what I know of. Thats the main reason why I am not an anarchist.

The transitional period us Trotskyists talk about is a period with a nationalized planned economy with democratic planning through the workers councils of course, elected and recallable officials , rotation of the bureaucratic tasks and freedom of discussion debate and political freedom .

[Kropotesta]

Most anarchists I ve met say no. Now I think some believe that a transitional period will come into place but they are a minority from what I know of. Thats the main reason why I am not an anarchist.
All anarchists believe in a transitional stage.

[OI OI OI]

No state socialism, though there would be some kind of transition, where we figure out what plans and blueprints work the best
Until you figure out the plans and blueprints and waste all of this time planning how the society is going to be built you are going to be crushed by the capitalists and external threats. Without a scientific plan developped before the actual revolution I don't think a post revolutionary society is viable.
At least we agree that we need a transitional period. And please don't call socialism (as i mean it ) state socialialism. The old state is crushed and the new state is a workers state (Democraticaly controlled by the workers as opossed to Stalin's USSR) . So at least call it "workers state socialism:)".


But this would not involve conscription, jailing all other leftists etc.
We agree on that also. But we have already a plan of what socialism is going to look like (of course this plan is adjustable to the objective conditions) but your idea of the post revolutionary society is something very vague very general etc. And by wasting time debating that among the workers after the revolution will result to a crushed revolution!

[Dros]

1) What is wrong with left wing parties in parliamentary democracy?

Which parties?

One must proceed from a materialist understanding of the state. The state is an organization of class rule. As such, even bourgeois democracy is fundamentally incapable of breaking with the overall interests of the Bourgeoisie as a class. That is why all that can be one through Parliamentary structures is reform. Reformation of this capitalist system will not and can not lead to a revolutionary and radically different future. Reform can lead to "benefits" for exploited people, usually created by imperialist exploitation and appropriation of foreign capital through imperialism. But better wages and shorter hours are not substitutes for a really emancipatory new world where all of those forms of exploitation are actually abolished.


2) How can a revolution bring about a new society?

How do you mean?

A revolutionary movement seizes state power and begins to rework and rebuild society on a socialist/communist basis from the bottom up, working to destroy all class relations, all the production relations on which they're built, all the social relations built on the class relations, and all the ideology latent within those social relations (these are called the Four Alls).


3) How is a revolution democratic?

The revolution is governed by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (see sig). The DoP will be a radically new kind of democracy, proletarian democracy.


4) How is violent revolution justifiable or any other kind feasable?

Again, what do you mean?

It's justifiable because it is the only alternative to this system.


5) How can we have a true communist/anarchist society with so many selfish and evil people around (namely fascists).

Selfishness is by no means inherent to humans and is by no means something that will ruin a collective mode of production. Remember, these behaviors are the products of the environment and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it's inherent.

[trivas7]

No state socialism, though there would be some kind of transition, where we figure out what plans and blueprints work the best. But this would not involve conscription, jailing all other leftists etc.
How do you decide all those plans? And when you've figured out your plans and blueprints do you envision them being carried out without coercion in a perfectly democratic process? Excuse me, don't mean to come off cheeky.

[trivas7]

All anarchists believe in a transitional stage.
Wow -- where's that in Bakunin, Stirner, Proudhon?

[gla22]

All anarchists believe in a transitional stage.
The transitional stage is the only fundamental difference between communism and anarchism.

[Niccolò Rossi]

The transitional stage is the only fundamental difference between communism and anarchism.

No it's not. The most fundamental of all differences, that is what separates Marxism from Anarchism is their definition and analysis of the state.

Anarchists define the state in the manner of the mainstream political scientists. To them the state is a centralised, hierarchical, governing institution which maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force.

The Marxists on the other hand define the state as being an organ of one class's repression of other classes.

This difference is fundamental to take note of. The Marxist notion of a worker's state and the Anarchist 'transitional period' are not mutually exclusive.

This is why what Kropotesta said above is important. The Anarchists, like the Marxists, see a transitional period as necessary. The only difference is they do not define this 'transitional period' as having a state apparatus.

[Kropotesta]

The transitional stage is the only fundamental difference between communism and anarchism.
How the transitional stage takes place, that is. Anarchists advocate a federalised, decentralised system for the transitory stage, opposed to a centralised state.

[Kropotesta]

Wow -- where's that in Bakunin, Stirner, Proudhon?
To quote Proudhon- "Anarchy Is Order: Creating the New World in the Shell of the Old". For me that implies a transitory stage. However a lengthy description of it, I reccommend Peter Kropotkins
The Conquest of Bread (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html)

[trivas7]

To quote Proudhon- "Anarchy Is Order: Creating the New World in the Shell of the Old". For me that implies a transitory stage. However a lengthy description of it, I reccommend Peter Kropotkins
If this is as specific re Proudhon's transition period you're reading into him something that's not there IMO. My point was that Kropotkin was the only anarchist theorist that mentions a transition period. Another reason for me anarchism is not implementable.

[Kropotesta]

If this is as specific re Proudhon's transition period you're reading into him something that's not there IMO. My point was that Kropotkin was the only anarchist theorist that mentions a transition period. Another reason for me anarchism is not implementable.
The Proudhon quote only displays what I read into him meaning, so I understand if you disagree.
Kropotkin was not the only anarchist that has written of the transitory stage, Malatesta and Berkman, among many others, have written of such a transitory period:
Malatesta- "the post-revolutionary period, in the period of reorganisation and transition, there might be 'offices for the concentration and distribution of the capital of collective enterprises', that there might or might not be titles recording the work done and the quantity of goods to which one is entitled." However, he stressed that this "is something we shall have to wait and see about, or rather, it is a problem which will have many and varied solutions according to the system of production and distribution which will prevail in the different localities and among the many . . . groupings that will exist." He argued that while, eventually, all groups of workers (particularly the peasants) while eventually "understand the advantages of communism or at least of the direct exchange of goods for goods," this may not happen "in a day." If some kind of money was used, then it people should "ensure that [it] truly represents the useful work performed by its possessors" rather than being "a powerful means of exploitation and oppression" is currently is.

Basically Malatesta, an anarchist-communist, advocates organisation towards anarchist-collectivism as a transitory stage to anarchist-communism.

[trivas7]

The Proudhon quote only displays what I read into him meaning, so I understand if you disagree.
Kropotkin was not the only anarchist that has written of the transitory stage, Malatesta and Berkman, among many others, have written of such a transitory period:
Malatesta- "the post-revolutionary period, in the period of reorganisation and transition, there might be 'offices for the concentration and distribution of the capital of collective enterprises', that there might or might not be titles recording the work done and the quantity of goods to which one is entitled." However, he stressed that this "is something we shall have to wait and see about, or rather, it is a problem which will have many and varied solutions according to the system of production and distribution which will prevail in the different localities and among the many . . . groupings that will exist." He argued that while, eventually, all groups of workers (particularly the peasants) while eventually "understand the advantages of communism or at least of the direct exchange of goods for goods," this may not happen "in a day." If some kind of money was used, then it people should "ensure that [it] truly represents the useful work performed by its possessors" rather than being "a powerful means of exploitation and oppression" is currently is.

Basically Malatesta, an anarchist-communist, advocates organisation towards anarchist-collectivism as a transitory stage to anarchist-communism.
Thanks for this. You know the more I read posts like this the more inclined I am to think that despite the rhetoric anarchists in practice differs little in its ends to what I envision as communism as a Marxist. I.e., any differences are in degree not kind.

[Kropotesta]

Thanks for this. You know the more I read posts like this the more inclined I am to think that despite the rhetoric anarchists in practice differs little in its ends to what I envision as communism as a Marxist. I.e., any differences are in degree not kind.
Well some Marxists have libertarian ideas similar to anarchists- libertarian Marxists.
By the way, what do you identify as?

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Well some Marxists have libertarian ideas similar to anarchists- libertarian Marxists.
By the way, what do you identify as?

I think trivias identifies as cool :cool: