Social Democracy and the bogging down of Marxism: was Engels a main proponent?

[Bilan]

I recently picked up (As in, literally picked up off my shelf, as I've had this for months) the Class Struggle in France, and upon reading the introduction by Engels, I came accross this gem:



After the war of 1870-71, Bonaparte vanished from the stage and Bismarck’s mission was fulfilled, so that he could now sink back again to the position of an ordinary Junker. The period, however, was brought to a close by the Paris Commune. A perfidious attempt by Thiers to steal the cannon of the Paris National Guard sparked off a victorious rising. It was shown once more that in Paris none but a proletarian revolution is any longer possible. After the victory power fell, quite of itself and quite undisputed, into the hands of the working class. And once again it was proved how impossible even then, twenty years after the time described in our work, this rule of the working class still was. On the one hand, France left Paris in the lurch, looked on while it bled to death from the bullets of MacMahon; on the other hand, the Commune was consumed in unfruitful strife between the two parties which split it, the Blanquists (the majority) and the Proudhonists (the minority), neither of which knew what was to be done. The victory which came as a gift in 1871 remained just as unfruitful as the surprise attack of 1848.
It was believed that the militant proletariat had been finally buried with the Paris Commune. But, completely to the contrary, it dates its most powerful resurgence from the Commune and the Franco-Prussian War. The recruitment of the whole of the population able to bear arms into armies that henceforth could be counted only in millions, and the introduction of fire-arms, projectiles and explosives of hitherto unprecedented yield, completely transformed all warfare. This revolution, on the one hand, put an abrupt end to the Bonapartist war period and ensured peaceful industrial development by making any war other than a world war of unprecedented cruelty and absolutely incalculable outcome an impossibility. On the other hand, it caused military expenditure to rise in geometrical progression and thereby forced up taxes to exorbitant levels and so drove the poorer classes of people into the arms of socialism. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the immediate cause of the mad competition in armaments, was able to set the French and German bourgeoisie chauvinistically at each other’s throats; for the workers of the two countries it became a new bond of unity. And the anniversary of the Paris Commune became the first universal holiday of the whole proletariat.
The war of 1870-71 and the defeat of the Commune transferred the centre of gravity of the European workers’ movement in the meantime from France to Germany, as Marx had foretold. In France it naturally took years to recover from the blood-letting of May 1871. In Germany, on the other hand, where industry — fostered, in addition, in positively hothouse fashion by the blessing of the French milliards 45’ — developed at increasing speed, Social-Democracy experienced a still more rapid and enduring growth. Thanks to the intelligent use which the German
workers made of the universal suffrage introduced in 1866, the astonishing growth of the party is made plain to all the world by incontestable figures: 1871, 102,000; 1874, 352,000; 1877, 493,000 Social-Democratic votes. Then came recognition of this advance by high authority in the shape of the Anti-Socialist Law[456] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n456); the party was temporarily broken up, the number of votes dropped to 312,000 in 1881. But that was quickly overcome, and then, under the pressure of the Exceptional Law, without a press, without a legal organisation and without the right of association and assembly, rapid expansion began in earnest: 1884, 550,000; 1887, 763,000; 1890, 1,427,000 votes. The hand of the state was paralysed. The Anti-Socialist Law disappeared; the socialist vote rose to 1,787,000, over a quarter of all the votes cast. The government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their expedients — uselessly, pointlessly, unsuccessfully. The tangible proofs of their impotence, which the authorities, from night watchman to the imperial chancellor had had to accept — and that from the despised workers! — these proofs were counted in millions. The state was at the end of its tether, the workers only at the beginning of theirs.
But, besides, the German workers rendered a second great service to their cause in addition to the first, a service performed by their mere existence as the strongest, most disciplined and most rapidly growing socialist party. They supplied their comrades in all countries with a new weapon, and one of the most potent, when they showed them how to make use of universal suffrage.
There had long been universal suffrage in France, but it had fallen into disrepute through the way it had been abused by the Bonapartist government. After the Commune there was no workers’ party to make use of it. It had also existed in Spain since the republic ‘45’ but in Spain election boycotts had been the rule for all serious opposition parties from time immemorial. The experience of the Swiss with universal suffrage was also anything but encouraging for a workers’ party. The revolutionary workers of the Latin countries had been wont to regard the suffrage as a snare, as an instrument of government trickery. It was different in Germany. The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had again taken up this point. Now that Bismarck found himself compelled to introduce this franchise as the only means of interesting the mass of the people in his plans, our workers immediately took it in earnest and sent August Bebel to the first, constituent Reichstag. And from that day on they have used the franchise in a way which has paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all countries. The franchise has been, in the words of the French Marxist programme, transformé de moyen de duperie qu'il a été jusquici en instrument d'emancipation — transformed by them from a means of deception, which it was before, into an instrument of emancipation.[458] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm#n458) And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough. But it did more than this by far. In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings. Of what avail was their Anti-Socialist Law to the government and the bourgeoisie when election campaigning and socialist speeches in the Reichstag continually broke through it?
With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, however, an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation, and this method quickly took on a more tangible form. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer the working class still further levers to fight these very state institutions. The workers took part in elections to particular diets, to municipal councils and to trades courts; they contested with the bourgeoisie every post in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had a say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers’ party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.
For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had changed fundamentally. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, had become largely outdated.



Source. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm)

(just as a side note, in my edition, which was printed in the 30's in Russia, it says, "rebellion in the old style, the street fight with barricades, which up to 1848 gave everywhere the final decision, was to a considerable extent obsolete")



Apart from containing gross errors, namely that "street fighting (and barricades) were obsolete), is this not evidence of Engels conversion to Social Democracy?

Another text I was reading furthered this, (although, this text was slightly shit, and I found problems with it, too), but its point on this was interesting:




"After the celebrated congress in 1891, when the leaders of the Youth were expelled from the Social Democratic Party for hurling accusations, similar to those Lenin hurled at the "opportunists" and the "Kaytskytes" later on, they formed another party with its own organ: der Socialist of Berlin. In its inception this movement was extremely dogmatic and exhibited ideas almost identical to those of the present day Community Party. For example, if one reads Teisler' book Parliamentarianism and the Working Class one will encounter concepts identical to those expressed by Lenin in the State and Revolution. The independent socialists at that time, like the Russian Bolsheviks and members of the German Communist Party, rejected the principles of democracy and refused to participate in the bourgeois Parliament on the grounds that this was reformism.
...

"It is impossible to characterise the methods of the old social democracy. On this point Lenin said nothing and neither did his German friends. The majoritarian socialists have to evoke this detail to prove that they are true representatives of Marxism. Whoever knows a little bit of history will agree with them, Marxism is responsible for having orientated the working class towards parliamentary action and mapping out the evolutionary path to be followed by rh German Social Democracy. Only when this is understood will it be seen that the load of social liberation goes beyond Marxism..."



From:Marx & Anarchism by Rudolf Rocker.



Thoughts?

[Herman]

Thoughts?

The founder of Spanish Socialism, Pablo Iglesias, also shared the same belief. Universal suffrage is indeed a strong weapon, and I see no indication in this passage that he became a "modern" social democrat. More likely he believed that parliaments offered the opportunity to defend worker's gains, while not being too hopeful of their role towards a socialist society.

When he mentions rebellion, he probably refers to the way revolutions were conducted in 1848. Notice he refers specifically to "street fighting with barricades" (and he mentions "rebellion in the old style", not rebellion outright). He doesn't discard violent revolution. He does say that the 1848 revolutions were tactically conducted in a wrong way (e.g. street fighting with barricades).

[Bilan]

The founder of Spanish Socialism, Pablo Iglesias, also shared the same belief.

What do you mean the founder of Spanish socialism?



Universal suffrage is indeed a strong weapon, and I see no indication in this passage that he became a "modern" social democrat. More likely he believed that parliaments offered the opportunity to defend worker's gains, while not being too hopeful of their role towards a socialist society.

In both cases, he's wrong. Parliaments are not places of proletarian power; they are institutions of bourgeois rule.
Rudolf Rocker, in the Methods of Anarcho Syndicalism:


the point of attack in the political struggle lies, not in the legislative bodies, but in the people. Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced on parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labour as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organisations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance.
Even in these countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict these rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace.
Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution. One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being. This is not only true in private life, it has always been the same in political life as well.

The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.

Anarcho-Syndicalism, Chapter 5 (http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as5.html)



When he mentions rebellion, he probably refers to the way revolutions were conducted in 1848. Notice he refers specifically to "street fighting with barricades" (and he mentions "rebellion in the old style", not rebellion outright). He doesn't discard violent revolution. He does say that the 1848 revolutions were tactically conducted in a wrong way (e.g. street fighting with barricades).

This is speculation. He says 'rebellion in the old style', indeed. I somewhat think in the new style (as opposed to the old) refers to, within the confines of the bourgeois political system.

[Tower of Bebel]

As if marxism was responsible for the orientation of the workers towards parliamentary action that would kill it's revolutionary character. As if every worker supported marxism in the first place and only waited for the moment that would allow them to vote for it. With our without marxism many workers would still demand universal suffrage. Keep in mind that Europa also had christian-democratic movements that fought for universal suffrage and progressive-liberal movements that did the same.
BTW, "Everyone who knows a bit of history..." - vox populi?

And indeed the first text doesn't attack the concept of rebellion itself, it does away with the old tactics of street barricades that were set up to defeat the government army which would then miraculously lead to the victory of the proletarian revolution. Yet this only worked for bourgeois-democratic revolutions because the masses who set up these barricades were systematicly betrayed or got isolated (look at France 1789, 1792, 1830, 1848, 1871).

Of course, in Germany and Russia revolutionaries also set up barricades, but their main weapon was nation-wide propaganda, stikes, parliamentary action if possible, and so on.

[Bilan]

As if marxism was responsible for the orientation of the workers towards parliamentary action that would kill it's revolutionary character. As if every worker supported marxism in the first place and only waited for the moment that would allow them to vote for it. With our without marxism many workers would still demand universal suffrage. Keep in mind that Europa also had christian-democratic movements that fought for universal suffrage and progressive-liberal movements that did the same.
BTW, "Everyone who knows a bit of history..." - vox populi?

I'm not ignoring the importance of universal suffrage, what i am trying to see is what people think of the idea that Marxism was bogged down in Social Democracy by its founders, not by its followers.


And indeed the first text doesn't attack the concept of rebellion itself, it does away with the old tactics of street barricades that were set up to defeat the government army which would then miraculously lead to the victory of the proletarian revolution.

Of course, in Germany and Russia revolutionaries also set up barricades, but their main weapon was nation-wide propaganda, stikes, parliamentary action if possible, and so on.

Does 'Old Style Rebellion' negate any of those things? (except Parliamentary action)

[Herman]

What do you mean the founder of Spanish socialism?

Well, the same way Marx and Engels founded Scientific Socialism. What I meant is that Pablo Iglesias was a marxist who, along with several other workers and intellectuals, created the second socialist party of the world, after the German social-democratic party. He's seen in Spain as the founder of Spanish socialism, even by the Communist Party.




In both cases, he's wrong. Parliaments are not places of proletarian power; they are institutions of bourgeois rule.
Rudolf Rocker, in the Methods of Anarcho Syndicalism:



Anarcho-Syndicalism, Chapter 5 (http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as5.html)

Good thing i'm not an anarchist then :)

But seriously, Pablo Iglesias, like many other prominent socialists of the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, did not believe parliaments to be the way to socialism. They thought that it could help the workers gain some rights in the short-term and as long as it was useful to the workers. Here:


"El PSOE viene a buscar aquí (al Parlamento), a este cuerpo de carácter eminentemente burgués, lo que de utilidad pueda hallar, pero la totalidad de su ideal no está aquí. La totalidad ha de ser obtenida de otro modo. Mi partido está en la legalidad mientras ésta le permita adquirir lo que necesita; fuera cuando ella no le permita alcanzar sus aspiraciones. [...] Debemos, viendo la inclinación de este régimen por S.S, comprometernos para derribar ese régimen. Tal ha sido la indignación por la política del Gobierno del Sr. Maura en los elementos proletarios que nosotros hemos llegado al extremo de considerar que antes de S.S. suba al Poder debemos ir hasta el atentado personal" (pag 439-443 Diario de Sesiones 7-7-1910).

"The PSOE comes here to find within this parliament, a bourgeois parliament in character, whatever usefulness it has, but the totality of its ideal cannot be found here. The ideal must be obtained another way. My party is currently legal, as long as legality allows it to obtain its necessities; outside when she (the party) cannot reach for its aspirations. We must, seeing the inclination by the S.S. regime, dedicate ourselves to bringing down that regime. So much has been the indignation, by the policies of Mr. Maura's government, to the proletarian elements, that we have gone to the extreme consideration that, before the S.S. takes power, we must use the personal attempts (to life)." -Rough translation

Here are a few clearer quotes by him regarding parliaments and universal suffrage:


"nosotros defendemos el sufragio universal por ser un excelente medio de agitación y propaganda para nuestras ideas, pero le negamos la virtud de poder por sí mismo emancipar a la clase proletaria."

"We defend universal suffrage as an excellent means for agitation and propaganda for our ideas, but we deny it the virtue of power by itself to emancipate the proletarian class"


"es cierto que aspiramos a llevar repesentantes de nuestras ideas al municipio, a la diputación y al parlamento, pero jamás hemos creido, ni creemos que desde allí pueda destruirse el orden burgués y establecer el orden social que nosotros defendemos.

"It's true that we aspire to bring representatives of our ideas to the municipalities, as deputies and to the parliament, but we have never believed, and we don't believe that from there we can destroy the bourgeois order and establish the social order which we defend".


This is speculation. He says 'rebellion in the old style', indeed. I somewhat think in the new style (as opposed to the old) refers to, within the confines of the bourgeois political system.

Of course not. He mentions "rebellion in the old style". How would it be a rebellion to join the bourgeois parliament? He's obviously referring to revolutionary tactics.

[Tower of Bebel]

Does 'Old Style Rebellion' negate any of those things? (except Parliamentary action)

"Old Style" is like the Paris Commune: Revolt -> Commune -> try to beat back goverment troops. There was almost no coordination between town and countryside, and also limited coordination between Capital and other cities. New Style is much more coordinated, not only because of parties that are involved but also because of Trade Unions, newspapers , national organisations of soviets, ..., etc. that makes it possible to minimize isolation and garantee more succes.

One of the most succesful aspects of the October Revolution was the fact that the Bolsheviks kept an eye on the revolutionary spirit of the more backward regions outside the main cities. Timing is important and that is a lesson learned from the mistakes of the Communards back in 1871.
Remember the July-days of 1917 when the Bolsheviks didn't want the workers of Petrograd to take control of the city. The countryside needed some more time to come to the same conclusion as the workers of Petrograd. If the workers would have been able to take control most other regions wouldn't have supported this move, as many soviets still believed in the Provisional Goverment.

I think that this lesson from the Commune (and the July-days in 1917) made the distinction between Old and New Style possible.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Problems with “Social Democracy”

When Russian Marxism emerged, it came in the form of “social democracy,” modeled after the German experience. Although this classical “social democracy” was a far cry from the liberal and economistic “social democracy” of today, the theoretical underpinnings of the former were rife with serious problems from the outset, which will be explained in the following deconstruction of key parts of Chapter 5 of Kautsky’s The Class Struggle.

The interest of the working-class is not limited to the laws which directly affect it; the great majority of laws touch its interests to some extent. Like every other class, the working-class must strive to influence the state authorities, to bend them to its purposes.

Great capitalists can influence rulers and legislators directly, but the workers can do so only through parliamentary activity. It matters little whether a government be republican in name. In all parliamentary countries it rests with the legislative body to grant tax levies. By electing representatives to parliament, therefore, the working-class can exercise an influence over the governmental powers.

[…]

The proletariat is, however, more favorably situated in regard to parliamentary activity.

[…]

The proletariat is, therefore, in a position to form an independent party. It knows how to control its representatives. Moreover, it finds in its own ranks an increasing number of persons well fitted to represent it in legislative halls.

Whenever the proletariat engages in parliamentary activity as a self-conscious class, parliamentarism begins to change its character. It ceases to be a mere tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This very participation of the proletariat proves to be the most effective means of shaking up the hitherto indifferent divisions of the proletariat and giving them hope and confidence. It is the most powerful lever that can be utilized to raise the proletariat out of its economic, social and moral degradation.

The proletariat has, therefore, no reason to distrust parliamentary action; on the other hand, it has every reason to exert all its energy to increase the power of parliaments in their relation to other departments of government and to swell to the utmost its own parliamentary representation.

All of the above – albeit within the context of the lapsing of the Anti-Socialist Laws shortly following the dismissal of the “Iron Chancellor” Bismarck – is an expression of the then-newfound parliamentary reductionism on the part of Kautsky, in part because of his “apocalyptic predestinationist” belief that capitalism would soon collapse because of a crisis either in the here and now or on the horizon, which would “explain away” his revisionist conclusions that no real revolutionary theory was needed and that only a Rabocheye Dyelo-style “economism” (albeit only in the polemical sense) was necessary. For him, the “union of the labor movement and socialism” – the central theme of this thesis – culminated in a mere parliamentarian “Socialist Party”: the social-democratic party. It is unfortunate that his most well-known disciple, when he scrambled to “find” the earliest traces of Kautsky’s transformation from the real founder of “Marxism” to an anti-proletarian “renegade” – and then committed his “findings” to The State and Revolution – did not find the answers right under his proverbial nose.

On another note, even the word “democracy” in “social democracy” raises serious concerns. First, Kautsky entertained fetishes of “pure” (bourgeois) democracy, hence the aforementioned parliamentary reductionism. Therefore, the question to ask is: “social democracy” for whom? That is, was this “social democracy” for the working class, for the petit-bourgeoisie, or for the bourgeoisie? History has irrevocably answered that question. Second, it would appear that Kautsky, in spite of what he said about educated proletarians, was the intellectual forerunner of modern sectoral chauvinism (the application of the word “proletarian” to only those who work strictly to produce commodities, thus separating them from the rest of the working class) – hence the need for the confused “social democracy” and not the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (which will be revisited upon as a term later in the thesis):

The Socialist movement has, in the nature of things, been from the beginning international in its character. But in each country it has at the same time the tendency to become a national party. That is, it tends to become the representative, not only of the industrial wage-earners, but of all laboring and exploited classes, or, in other words, of the great majority of the population. We have already seen that the industrial proletariat tends to become the only working-class. We have pointed out, also, that the other working-classes are coming more and more to resemble the proletariat in the conditions of labor and way of living. And we have discovered that the proletariat is the only one among the working-classes that grows steadily in energy, in intelligence, and in clear consciousness of its purpose. It is becoming the center about which the disappearing survivals of the other working-classes group themselves. Its ways of feeling and thinking are becoming standard for the whole mass of non-capitalists, no matter what their status may be.

As rapidly as the wage-earners become the leaders of the people, the labor party becomes a people’s party. When an independent craftsman feels like a proletarian, when he recognizes that he, or at any rate his children, will sooner or later be thrust into the proletariat, that there is no salvation for him except through the liberation of the proletariat – from that moment on he will see in the Socialist Party the natural representative of his interests.

We have already explained that he has nothing to fear from a socialist victory. In fact such a victory would be distinctly to his advantage, for it would usher in a society that would free all workers from exploitation and oppression and give them security and prosperity.

But the Socialist Party represents the interests of all non-capitalist classes, not only in the future, but in the present. The proletariat, as the lowest of the exploited strata, cannot free itself from exploitation and oppression without putting an end to all exploitation and oppression. It is, therefore, their sworn enemy, no matter in what form they may appear; it is the champion of all the exploited and oppressed.

Third, this is rather surprisingly the forerunner to Lenin’s historically validated theory of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. The key problem with Kautsky’s formulation here is that it is best applied only during the beginning of the capitalist mode of production in any particular nation-state, and not during towards the end, when a proper socialist revolution occurs.

One can only wonder about the petit-bourgeois and lumpen elements – non-bourgeois classes – who flocked to the fascist causes, as well as wonder about modern “social democracy” (that is, “social democracy” for the bourgeoisie) being the direct result of not orienting the classical “social democracy” in the most advanced capitalist countries to the working class only. Lenin wrote a rather lengthy work attacking populism, titled What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats. Today, it is more apt to comment on what the populist “social-democrats” are – and how they fight the working class!

[Bilan]

Herman, Rakunin and Richter, thanks for the responses. :)

[PRC-UTE]

Defiitely a lot of Marxists would use select passages from Marx and/or Engels to jsutify reformism, and I suppose that's what Lenin wanted to offer a response to in State and Revolution; to re-affirm Marxism as a revolutionary theory.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Defiitely a lot of Marxists would use select passages from Marx and/or Engels to jsutify reformism

Agreed. I haven't read it extensively, and not read much on in quite a while, but it would seem that Engels, toward the end of his life, was advocating a form of social democracy.

His "ABCs of Communism" are pretty interesting to look at and make connections between that list and modern ideas of social democracy.

Likewise, it would seem that social democracy has had a greater positive impact on people's lives than has Marxist-Leninism and certainly more than orthodox Marxism.

TGOW

[mikelepore]

Engels was right, and there is no reformism or "social democracy" anywhere in what he wrote. What Engels wrote was uncompromisingly revolutionary. The only way for the working class to take possession of the means of production is first to get working class representatives elected in large numbers to political offices.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Engels was right, and there is no reformism or "social democracy" anywhere in what he wrote. What Engels wrote was uncompromisingly revolutionary. The only way for the working class to take possession of the means of production is first to get working class representatives elected in large numbers to political offices.

Comrade, if you mean "political offices" to mean traditional political offices, that is exactly what I have argued against in my response above and in my "United Social Labour" article. I think you haven't distinguished between state power (parliaments, executives, cops, judges, etc.), workers' power (soviets, workplace committees, communal councils, workers' militias, etc.), and state administration (civil bureaucracy).

The first is to be smashed utterly (ie, militant revolution). The second is to be elevated as the replacement for the first (it is here where social-proletocrats may adopt "parliamentary tactics" and "conquer" the soviets and other organs of workers' power). The third - state administration - is to be transformed (and it is here where Marxists differ from anarchists).

[mikelepore]

Jacob said:


parliaments, executives, cops, judges, etc
to be smashed utterly

Personally, I no longer believe that those institutions can be smashed. I believe that a classless society will have to reduce those things to about one percent of their current size, and then, what remains, even the most perfect society of the future will have to keep forever. However, my previous post was about what Marx and Engels believed, and they believed that those things are to be ended completely. And not smashed, but caused to "die out." Whether I take Marx's and Engels' position (100 die-out) or my own position (99 percent die-out), either way, socialists have to be in the legislature in order to do it. Whomever takes control of the law-making body will define what kind of economic relationships shall exist. The only other option is for the working class to declare literal war against the state, with your and my revolutionary membership cards against the state's flame throwers and bazookas. In defining a socialist program there are exactly two options: either the socialists will get elected to the legislature or millions of workers will be massacred. The latter isn't actually an option, because, if that option were selected as the program, then the working class would never be recruited into the socialist movement in the first place, and capitalism would simply continue for another two centuries. That leaves the civilized method of the ballot as the only option.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade, considering how easily the Russian state collapse during the social-democratic "October Revolution" (November 7, 1917), there are TONS of ways to weaken the capitalist state machinery such that, by the time the working class "declares literal war against the state," power will be "left in the streets for Social Proletocracy to pick up." :)


Whomever takes control of the law-making body will define what kind of economic relationships shall exist.

Ever heard of Augusto Pinochet? :( At this revolutionary point, the bourgeoisie could care less about the legality of the "parliamentary road to power," and will VIOLENTLY attempt to suppress the revolution. Either way, there WILL be blood spilled.

This is why, in spite of your references to Marx in my Social Proletocracy thread, there will have to be aggravation of the class struggle along with the transition to socialism (public humiliations, show trials, executions, "corrective labour," etc.).

[Bilan]

(public humiliations, show trials, executions, "corrective labour," etc.).

That is disgusting. What a horrid thing to advocate.

[Bilan]

Engels was right, and there is no reformism or "social democracy" anywhere in what he wrote. What Engels wrote was uncompromisingly revolutionary. The only way for the working class to take possession of the means of production is first to get working class representatives elected in large numbers to political offices.

There were of course hints of social democratic tendencies within what Engels said. It's blatant in the text.
Furthermore, the methods in which the working class can gain power are not limited to the bourgeois political system. Any one with a basic knowledge of the different revolutionary theories should know that.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That is disgusting. What a horrid thing to advocate.

The Spider and the Fly (http://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1881/spider.htm)

Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm)

"Having overthrown the bourgeoisie and conquered political power, the proletariat has become the ruling class; it wields state power, it exercises control over means of production already socialised; it guides the wavering and intermediary elements and classes; it crushes the increasingly stubborn resistance of the exploiters."

The above make crystal clear the need to aggravate the class struggle along with the transition to socialism, thereby forcibly liquidating the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie, while peacefully eliminating other non-proletarian classes (proper lumpenproles who indeed wish to assimilate into the proletariat).



But then again, you're an anarchist, who opposes such STATE measures (refer back to my thread attacking anarchism)... :p

[mikelepore]

There were of course hints of social democratic tendencies within what Engels said. It's blatant in the text.

Perhaps there are and I overlooked them. I thought the writers here were refering to the use of electoral politics, which has nothing to do with being a social democrat, except the trivial similarity that all social movements that would like to be successful will have to wrestle to grab control of political offices, and the social democrats are one more social movement, so it has do so also. But it would be bad logic to say that Engels proposed winning political offices and therefore Engels is a social democrat. That would be of the form: A implies Q, B implies Q, therefore A implies B.



Furthermore, the methods in which the working class can gain power are not limited to the bourgeois political system. Any one with a basic knowledge of the different revolutionary theories should know that.

I guess you mean the lessons that we can learn from all of the revolutions that have resulted in the majority of the people being in democratic control of the means of production. Let's see - how many of those were there? .. oh, yeah - zero.

***

Universal suffrage changed what revolutionary process means. It means that, while the state is still the ruling class's instrument of oppression, as before, there is now a new reason why it continues to be that. That reason it: the oppressed class has a habit of explicitly approving it when asked annually to approve it. The exploitation of the people requires the expressed consent of the victims in order to continue. Under these circumstances, socialist education of the working class means clarification of the reasons why the people should withdraw their consent to property institutions that now have their consent.

***

After universal suffrage is established, the workable path to building socialism is now this: the workers need to establish a large workplace organization as well as an uncompromising political party ... each waits for a signal from the other, the workplace organization waits for the political victory of the party, the party waits for the sufficient size of the workplace organization ... the workers' party acquires control of political offices, it implements whatever mandate or constitutional amendment is required to transfer ownership of the industries ... the workplace organization enforces that mandate by physically taking, holding and operating the industries.

[mikelepore]

bourgeoisie could care less about the legality of the "parliamentary road to power," and will VIOLENTLY attempt to suppress the revolution. Either way, there WILL be blood spilled.

Way to totally ignore the fact that, in the U.S. at least, the commander of the army is a publicly elected office.

(What, there's an 800 pound gorilla in the living room? Where? I don't see it!)

How could a Marxist *not care* whether, on the day that the workers are seizing the means of production, the army looks to receive its orders from a commander who happens to be a capitalist or from a commander who happens to be a Marxist ?!?

There are enough people in this forum who are confused about political strategy that - this is my doctor prescription for all my brothers and sisters - everyone here should read "As to Politics" by Daniel De Leon.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Personally, I no longer believe that those institutions can be smashed. I believe that a classless society will have to reduce those things to about one percent of their current size, and then, what remains, even the most perfect society of the future will have to keep forever.

Good analysis. I have always felt that we on the Left are frequently too naive on these issues.


In defining a socialist program there are exactly two options: either the socialists will get elected to the legislature or millions of workers will be massacred.

Indeed.


After universal suffrage is established, the workable path to building socialism is now this: the workers need to establish a large workplace organization as well as an uncompromising political party ... each waits for a signal from the other, the workplace organization waits for the political victory of the party, the party waits for the sufficient size of the workplace organization ... the workers' party acquires control of political offices, it implements whatever mandate or constitutional amendment is required to transfer ownership of the industries ... the workplace organization enforces that mandate by physically taking, holding and operating the industries.

Hear! Hear! This is the way to go. The Left needs to find a place for "liberal" democratic institutions (ie. parliaments, congresses, etc) and either combine or find a common ground with socialist democratic institutions (which have yet to be created). Some sort of armistice between the two is needed.

In the West, at least, I see almost no possibility of this "violent revolution" that is so pronounced; it is all very romantic and captivating, but simultaneously naive and unrealistic.

I do not wish to convey a sort of "fatalism" about socialist change, but I do not believe that such widespread violence will nor can achieve the ends we all wish; and I do not believe it will. The West is not 1917 Russia, and it is not 1930's Spain.

TGOW

[Bilan]

The Spider and the Fly (http://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1881/spider.htm)

Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm)

"Having overthrown the bourgeoisie and conquered political power, the proletariat has become the ruling class; it wields state power, it exercises control over means of production already socialised; it guides the wavering and intermediary elements and classes; it crushes the increasingly stubborn resistance of the exploiters."

That does not equate to any of the disgusting shit you advocate.



The above make crystal clear the need to aggravate the class struggle along with the transition to socialism, thereby forcibly liquidating the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie, while peacefully eliminating other non-proletarian classes (proper lumpenproles who indeed wish to assimilate into the proletariat).

I actually find this creepy and disgusting. This is not about me being an anarchist and you being "prolecrat", but about the methods of defeating the bourgeoisie - which are acceptable, and which are not.

You display no ethical integrity what so ever, and employ methods of humilation and suffering as means to gain - something that only the most despicable scum of human history use. These methods you advocate are no longer acceptable. They are part of the old world; the world we seek to part with, not reaffirm.

The working class is not going to support your show trials - do they support the ones in the US "terrorist prisons", like the one in Guantanomo bay right now? Have a fucking guess - your humiliation, or any of that.

Disgusting. Honestly, Richter.

[Hyacinth]

I actually find this creepy and disgusting. This is not about me being an anarchist and you being "prolecrat", but about the methods of defeating the bourgeoisie - which are acceptable, and which are not.

You display no ethical integrity what so ever, and employ methods of humilation and suffering as means to gain - something that only the most despicable scum of human history use. These methods you advocate are no longer acceptable. They are part of the old world; the world we seek to part with, not reaffirm.

The working class is not going to support your show trials - do they support the ones in the US "terrorist prisons", like the one in Guantanomo bay right now? Have a fucking guess - your humiliation, or any of that.
Care to elaborate on which methods are acceptable and which are not?

I’m not in favour of many of the examples that JR gave, though hardly for ethical reasons, more so due to practical reasons. As far as I’m concurred the worst of the lot (war criminals, politicians, real bastard exploiters) should be tried and executed, and the rest should simply have their property confiscated. I don’t have much taste for “corrective labour camps” or any of the like. And the reason that I favour execution is simply because it removes such elements from society without the reestablishment of prisons (something that I don’t think that we ought to do).

Moreover, we’re fighting an enemy that is not above using such “unethical” means against us, frankly I think it at the height of folly to deny ourselves a useful tool.

[Mather]

Proper Tea is Theft:

What methods do you consider ethical to prevent counter-revolution and to defend the revolution and the working class from the enemy bourgeois class?

If during a revolution or in the aftermath of one, elements of the old bourgeois class tried to take back their lost power and position of privilege, especially if such a counter-revolutionary attack involved violence by the old bourgeois class and it's supporters, what way and what methods would you propose be employed?

You do not have to be a vanguardist and/or a leninist to support repressive measures against the bourgeoisie and reactionary/counter-revolutionary elements.

What if such measure to combat counter-revolution were carried out democratically by factory/workplace councils, community councils and other non-statist and non-vanguardist entities?

Would you still oppose that?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Care to elaborate on which methods are acceptable and which are not?

I’m not in favour of many of the examples that JR gave, though hardly for ethical reasons, more so due to practical reasons. As far as I’m concurred the worst of the lot (war criminals, politicians, real bastard exploiters) should be tried and executed, and the rest should simply have their property confiscated. I don’t have much taste for “corrective labour camps” or any of the like. And the reason that I favour execution is simply because it removes such elements from society without the reestablishment of prisons (something that I don’t think that we ought to do).

Moreover, we’re fighting an enemy that is not above using such “unethical” means against us, frankly I think it at the height of folly to deny ourselves a useful tool.

Comrade, the "aggravation of the class struggle along with the transition to socialism" as a phrase is a leftover from my "Marxist-Leninist" days. Stalin, unfortunately, said "along with the development of socialism," failing to remember that proper socialism has only the proletariat (and NOT "workers, peasants and the intelligentsia").

That you've criticized PTiT's "ethical" stance only goes to show his petit-bourgeois "ethics" (I wonder what his stance is in regards to idealistic anarchist "propaganda-by-the-deed"/TERRORISM :rolleyes: ). Both your stance and mine are based on Marxist "utility" (though mine has the benefit of highlighting the legacy of Magnitogorsk ;) :D ), but without the bourgeois fetish for it. :)




The working class is not going to support your show trials - do they support the ones in the US "terrorist prisons", like the one in Guantanomo bay right now? Have a fucking guess - your humiliation, or any of that.

Show trials are only one aspect of this aggravation. ALL means have to be employed. Chinese-style public humiliation is key in every case in the first stage of proletocracy, the dictatorship of the proletariat (which, in spite of my work-in-progress, does aptly describe a martial-law situation employing "state terror").


You do not have to be a vanguardist and/or a leninist to support repressive measures against the bourgeoisie and reactionary/counter-revolutionary elements.

True, but one has to have a statist inclination to support the MOST EFFECTIVE of transition-period repressive measures against outright class enemies, class traitors, and serial non-political criminals (serial killers and the like).

[Hyacinth]

You do not have to be a vanguardist and/or a leninist to support repressive measures against the bourgeoisie and reactionary/counter-revolutionary elements.
Indeed (and incidentally, despite the avatar, I’m *not* a Leninist)


Both your stance and mine are based on Marxist "utility" (though mine has the benefit of highlighting the legacy of Magnitogorsk), but without the bourgeois fetish for it.
Huh? I was just using the term "useful" in the everyday sense of it, but with reference here to revolutionary ends, that is all. In any case, elaborate.


True, but one has to have a statist inclination to support the MOST EFFECTIVE of transition-period repressive measures against outright class enemies, class traitors, and serial non-political criminals (serial killers and the like).
What do you mean by “statist” here? A lot depends on that. For instance I don’t see why such measures against the old ruling class cannot be implemented by newly created democratic worker’s organizations that don’t resemble the state institutions of the old regime (i.e. the police, the military, etc.).

Would, say, a worker’s militia here count as a statist institution? What about community policing instead of the sort of police force that we presently have? Etc.

[Hyacinth]

Also, I would have imagined that the most effective means by which to deal with reactionaries, serial killers, rapists, etc. would be a bullet (or the guillotine). I don’t see how statist measures would be any more effective or efficient in implementing such measures.

[Bilan]

Proper Tea is Theft:

What methods do you consider ethical to prevent counter-revolution and to defend the revolution and the working class from the enemy bourgeois class?

Methods which don't employ the barbaric tactics used by tyrants, past and present.
And for each reactionary, a different method will be needed.
For ones who violently resist, I think the answer is obvious.
For those who don't, it's not. It can't just be thrown up in the air and decided like that.




If during a revolution or in the aftermath of one, elements of the old bourgeois class tried to take back their lost power and position of privilege, especially if such a counter-revolutionary attack involved violence by the old bourgeois class and it's supporters, what way and what methods would you propose be employed?

Violence. Stoping them by any means necessary.




What if such measure to combat counter-revolution were carried out democratically by factory/workplace councils, community councils and other non-statist and non-vanguardist entities?

I would still find public humiliation, public executions and show trials barbaric.

[Devrim]

Proper Tea is Theft,
There are certain currents that view Engels as a move towards reformism. The ICC argues against them in Vol. ! of their book on the history of Communism:


There are many currents today who think that to claim the mantle of revolutionary communism means throwing off the garments of Social Democracy - disowning the whole period from Marx’s death until World War I (at least) as a kind of Dark Age, or an evolutionary blind alley in the road that leads from Marx to themselves. Councilists, modernists, anarcho-Bordigists like the Groupe Communiste Internationaliste and a host of other swamp-inhabiting sub-species insist that far from adding anything to our understanding of the communist revolution, the Socialist parties were no more than instruments for integrating the proletariat into bourgeois society. They “prove” this in the main by pointing to Social Democracy’s parliamentary and trade union activities, but at the same time they usually inform us that the very goal of these parties - the society which they most frequently referred to as “socialism” - was in reality no more than a form of state capitalism. In short, the parties which call themselves “socialist” today - Blair’s Labour party, Mitterand’s or Gonzales’ Socialist parties - are indeed the legitimate heirs of the Social Democratic parties of the 1880s, 90s and 1900s. For some of these “anti-social-democratic” currents, authentic communism was only restored by the likes of Lenin and Luxemburg after World War I, the definitive death of the Second International and the betrayal of its parties. Others, more “radical”, have discovered that the Bolsheviks and the Spartacists were themselves no more than left social democrats: the first true revolutionaries of the 20th century were thus the left communists of the 20s and 30s. But since there is a direct line of continuity between the social democratic lefts (ie not only Lenin and Luxemburg, but also Pannekoek, Gorter, Bordiga and others) and the later communist left, our ultra-radicals often play safe by identifying none but themselves as the century’s first real communists. What’s more, this remorseless retrospective radicalism is applied to the precursors of Social Democracy as well: initially to Engels who, we are told, never really grasped Marx’s method and certainly became a bit of an old reformist in later life; then, not infrequently, the axe falls on Marx himself, with his tedious insistence on “bourgeois” notions like science, or historical progress and decline. By a strange coincidence, the final discovery is often this: that the true revolutionary tradition lies with the fiery insurrectionism of the Luddites or ... Mikhail Bakunin.


http://en.internationalism.org/ir/084_commy12.html

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Marx and Engels weren't opposed to using parliament as a platform to spread class-consciousness, there's nothing new here.

[Module]

Methods which don't employ the barbaric tactics used by tyrants, past and present.
And for each reactionary, a different method will be needed.
For ones who violently resist, I think the answer is obvious.
For those who don't, it's not. It can't just be thrown up in the air and decided like that.What's been decided? They're options that may need to be used. As you said - nobody is going to support something like that unless it's necessary.


Violence. Stoping them by any means necessary.What if it's not simply a case of the individuals, but their ideas? 'Public humiliations, show trials, "corrective labour," etc.' may be necessary means to combat these ideas also, depending on the situation.
You've already mentioned you expect to use violence (or if not explicitly here you have elsewhere). In reference to executions - do you not think that deaths will occour, intentionally, through violence? If so, why do you deny execution may be necessary in some cases? (This is more a question of curiosity rather than a direct attack)


I would still find public humiliation, public executions and show trials barbaric.Within the context of revolution (I don't necessarily agree with Jacob's 'transition to socialism' thing, as I think I've mentioned elsewhere) things considered barbaric in other circumstances may become necessary.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Indeed (and incidentally, despite the avatar, I’m *not* a Leninist)

Comrade, don't "bend the stick" too far. ;)


Huh? I was just using the term "useful" in the everyday sense of it, but with reference here to revolutionary ends, that is all. In any case, elaborate.

Well, the city of Magnitogorsk was a rather unconventional "gulag" (unlike the dam projects, the mining projects, etc.) of steel production facilities: a "factory gulag." It also played a key role in WWII.


What do you mean by “statist” here? A lot depends on that. For instance I don’t see why such measures against the old ruling class cannot be implemented by newly created democratic worker’s organizations that don’t resemble the state institutions of the old regime (i.e. the police, the military, etc.).

Hmmm, I did mention workers' militias as a replacement for the police.

However, the military per se will still be needed (remember, they're more sympathetic than the property-defending police) to "export revolution."


Would, say, a worker’s militia here count as a statist institution? What about community policing instead of the sort of police force that we presently have? Etc.

For me, it does count as "statist," especially when tied to the civic bureaucracy (if the soviets make laws and basic regulations, the civic bureaucracy goes into that "devil" within the "details"). Where anarchists and Marxists really have problems with each other is "state administration" (as opposed to "state power" and "workers' power"): the civic bureaucracy.

[MarxSchmarx]

Where anarchists and Marxists really have problems with each other is "state administration" (as opposed to "state power" and "workers' power"): the civic bureaucracy.

I agree. Terms like "workers' power" and "state power" are vacuous and opaque. At best they are emotive slogans. Whenever possible, we need to talk about concrete implementation questions rather than in vague terms.

[Hyacinth]

I’m not so sure that anarchism has an issue with administration per se, perhaps with a hierarchical bureaucracy. Administration and coordination of some sort of necessary in any advanced society, that being said the question is in how you administer and coordinate things. For example, I would be reluctant to place any real power in the hands of coordinators; I would much prefer it their role is purely advisory. Workers would have a veto over any of their proposals in practice, that is, they could simply refuse to carry them out. The administrators/coordinators/or whatever you want to call them would not possess any traditional state powers (i.e. police, military, etc.) by which they could enforce their decisions. (I have further thoughts about the more detailed composition of such administrative bodies, but to get into that would be off-topic)

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ http://www.revleft.com/vb/trots-and-others-t72296/index.html

Since you spoke of coordinators, comrade, I argued in the thread above that, while they need to be kept on a leash, they need to be HIGHLY PAID (in this case, have more value added to their labour-voucher compensation if "Left Social Proletocracy" comes into effect) in order to do their jobs without seeking under-the-table BS.

To hell with Lenin's April Theses about near-egalitarian compensation!

The Second Communist Manifesto is woefully underrated in terms of reading. :( ]


I agree. Terms like "workers' power" and "state power" are vacuous and opaque. At best they are emotive slogans. Whenever possible, we need to talk about concrete implementation questions rather than in vague terms.

Comrade, I have actually defined the two terms, neither of which encompass the civil bureaucracy:

State power - parliaments, executives, police, military, traditional courts, etc. [To be smashed except perhaps for the military, for the sake of spreading revolution]

Workers' power - soviets, workplace committees, communal councils, workers' militias, revolutionary courts/tribunals, etc. [To be "conquered" by "parliamentary" means by Social Proletocracy]



These three terms - state power, workers' power, and state administration - are what separate the "democratic socialists" from the political revolutionaries, as well as the Marxists from the anarchists.

[trivas7]

^^ Jacob, I am unclear why you distinguish state administration from state power. Couldn't those functions be effectively taken over by workers' power? I assume you mean those things like inter-soviet coordinating committees, neighborhood grievance committees, food kitchens, air and border patrol, etc.

[mikelepore]

As for "crushing the stubborn resistance of the exploiters", the best way for a victorious socialist revolution to do that, the way that preserves civil liberties, is to prosecute them, not for what they are thinking, but for what they actually do. If they commit arson, they should receive whatever the penalty is for commiting arson. If they hit someone with a stick, they should receive whatever the penalty is for hitting someone with a stick. Socialism will be the law. When the deposed rulers and their lackeys commit insurrection against socialism, let each individual's actions comprise the indictments. If all they did was speak and write, it was their right to do so. There will be no need for an age of repression. Democracy can come out of it, whereas democracy can never come out of repression. The method has to be consistent with the goal.

Lenin completely screwed up here. The first thing he did upon attaining power was to have randomly selected hostages, personally innocent or not, rounded up and executed. With that his entire country was sent in the direction of decades of repression. I believe Lenin's concept of revolution was based very little on Marx, and based very much on Robespierre and Marat, who thought the measure of "revolution" is how many people get executed.

The transition has to be in accord with the goal. The most civilized and ethical methods ever conceived have to be used to implement socialism, otherwise the result will be a new kind of class rule that pretends to be socialism.

[trivas7]

I agree. Terms like "workers' power" and "state power" are vacuous and opaque. At best they are emotive slogans. Whenever possible, we need to talk about concrete implementation questions rather than in vague terms.
I don't agree. A gun point at your head isn't vague or emotive (albeit an emotional experience). This is state power. IMO it's those "civic" and administrative functions that seem vague and optional.

[Hyacinth]

I don't agree. A gun point at your head isn't vague or emotive (albeit an emotional experience). This is state power. IMO it's those "civic" and administrative functions that seem vague and optional.
Doesn't it depend on who's pointing the gun on whether it is state power or not?

[chimx]

I don't see how Engels can be faulted for "bogging down" Marxism with an advocacy of a social democratic praxis, since Karl Marx himself made similar remarks regarding full worker suffrage.

[MarxSchmarx]

Quote:
Originally Posted by trivas7 http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?p=1177582#post1177582)
I don't agree. A gun point at your head isn't vague or emotive (albeit an emotional experience). This is state power. IMO it's those "civic" and administrative functions that seem vague and optional.

Doesn't it depend on who's pointing the gun on whether it is state power or not?



Moreover, not all state power is coercive in this sense. Consider the "bully pulpit" enjoyed by the executive or the head of state - the press and bureaucracy serve as a giant megaphone. Or the power to decide what to teach in primary school. Neither of these involve the use of force, but I would argue that this is still within the coercive bounds of state activity. To be sure, these are "optional" in some sense, but so is "choosing" to go to jail.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade, that's why workers' power needs to replace state power, but on the other hand, there are reasons why state administration (civil bureaucracy) should remain.

[trivas7]

Moreover, not all state power is coercive in this sense. Consider the "bully pulpit" enjoyed by the executive or the head of state - the press and bureaucracy serve as a giant megaphone. Or the power to decide what to teach in primary school. Neither of these involve the use of force, but I would argue that this is still within the coercive bounds of state activity. To be sure, these are "optional" in some sense, but so is "choosing" to go to jail.
Propaganda, ideological re-education and state TV I consider civil administration, not state power, unless it's coerced. And IMO they are not optional.

[Tower of Bebel]

"Old Style" is like the Paris Commune: Revolt -> Commune -> try to beat back goverment troops. There was almost no coordination between town and countryside, and also limited coordination between Capital and other cities. New Style is much more coordinated, not only because of parties that are involved but also because of Trade Unions, newspapers , national organisations of soviets, ..., etc. that makes it possible to minimize isolation and garantee more succes.

One of the most succesful aspects of the October Revolution was the fact that the Bolsheviks kept an eye on the revolutionary spirit of the more backward regions outside the main cities. Timing is important and that is a lesson learned from the mistakes of the Communards back in 1871.
Remember the July-days of 1917 when the Bolsheviks didn't want the workers of Petrograd to take control of the city. The countryside needed some more time to come to the same conclusion as the workers of Petrograd. If the workers would have been able to take control most other regions wouldn't have supported this move, as many soviets still believed in the Provisional Goverment.

I think that this lesson from the Commune (and the July-days in 1917) made the distinction between Old and New Style possible.
I quote myself because I must add the fact that the proletariat is in itself an "international" class ("workers have no country"), whereas the lumpenproles of the early 19th century were not.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Have we ever thought that maybe Marx and Engels need to be updated?

TGOW

[Bilan]

You should read Maurice Brinton. :)

[trivas7]

Have we ever thought that maybe Marx and Engels need to be updated?

Here's an update:

http://www.amazon.com/Limits-Capital-New-David-Harvey/dp/1844670953/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214367867&sr=8-4

[Die Neue Zeit]

You should read Maurice Brinton. :)

I even mentioned him in my Chapter 3 section "Beyond the Labour Movement." :)

[Bilan]

He rulz.