On social-proletocratism and its main proponent

[Led Zeppelin]

[Too bad Trotsky of all Marxists in that period NEVER wrote anything on the merger formula. Then again, he knew squat about party-building. :( ]

Yeah, Trotsky knew squat about party-building, unlike you who knows everything about party-building to the minutest details, which is why you are now the head of a huge party, or why you will be head of such a huge party in the near future.

The Left-Opposition and 4th International will pale in comparison to your great social-proletocratic party! That much is certain!

Your snipes against Trotsky are unoriginal and absurd, while your deification of Kautsky is just sad and shows how you employ a double standard when looking at these two figures. Somehow in your mind the person who betrayed the workers' movement and attacked the proletarian revolution in Russia is more relevant and superior to the person who was actually a leader of that proletarian revolution and advanced the theory of revolutionary Marxism. The latter you attack all the time here, relying on falsifications and myths (http://www.revleft.com/vb/errors-trotsky-and-t78770/index2.html), while the former you defend most vehemently even when history has already cast its judgement on him and the verdict has been clear; he was a reactionary and enemy of the workers' movement.

This says enough about your "social-proletocratism", and what it's worth.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ If you wish to remain in your broad economism, feel free to do so. :)


Yeah, Trotsky knew squat about party-building, unlike you who knows everything about party-building to the minutest details, which is why you are now the head of a huge party, or why you will be head of such a huge party in the near future.

The wavering conciliationist wasn't the head of any party when it mattered most: BEFORE the Russian revolutions.


The Left-Opposition and 4th International will pale in comparison to your great social-proletocratic party! That much is certain!

Considering that the future SPD has to be a "simultaneously transnational, social-revolutionary, class-strugglist, and working-class-only 'party' of at least the vast majority of the working class," I agree with you. :)


Your snipes against Trotsky are unoriginal and absurd, while your deification of Kautsky is just sad and shows how you employ a double standard when looking at these two figures.

Look who isn't being materialistic here ("deification")! :rolleyes: If I were "deifying" the true founder of "Marxism" (and you have my work as evidence), why were there criticisms of "a complete, integral world outlook," "exclusively through parliamentary activity" (if you're interested in getting past your broad economism and considering "participatory democracy," let me know), and "not a revolution-making party" (he compromised on the size of the revolutionary party one moment and talked about "an all-embracing Social Democracy" the next)? :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

history has already cast its judgement on him and the verdict has been clear; he was a reactionary and enemy of the workers' movement



The revolutionary party series by Comrade Mike Macnair of the CPGB-PCC (now a most "profoundly true and important" pamphlet or book):

Floundering towards Eurocommunism (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/612/lcr.htm)
While Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire theorists flounder towards Eurocommunism, the SWP’s Alex Callinicos can only answer them with evasion. In the first of a number articles, Mike Macnair discusses revolutionary strategy

Revolutionary strategy and Marxist conclusions (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/613/economism.htm)
In the second in a series of articles, Mike Macnair continues his examination of right-moving Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire theorists and the response of the SWP’s Alex Callinicos

Reform coalition, or mass strike? (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/618/McNair%20-%20Strategy3.htm)
In the third article in this series, Mike Macnair examines the basis of two contending strategies for working class advance

The revolutionary strategy of centrists (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/620/macnair.htm)
In the fourth article in this series, Mike Macnair turns his attention to Kautsky’s perspective of patient organisation and party building in the years before World War I. There were undoubted strengths in this strategy. But fatal flaws too


Down to 1914, Russian Bolshevism was a tendency within the centre, not a tendency opposed to it [...] Without the centre tendency’s international unity policy there would have been no RSDLP; without the lessons the Bolsheviks learned from the international centre tendency, there could have been no mass opening of the Bolshevik membership in 1905, no recovery of the party’s strength through trade union, electoral and other forms of low-level mass work in 1911-14, and no Bolshevik political struggle to win a majority between April and October 1917.

[...]

It is important to be clear that the movement that the centre tendency sought to build was not the gutted form of the modern social-democracy/Labourism, which is dependent on the support of the state and the capitalist media for its mass character. The idea was of a party which stood explicitly for the power of the working class and socialism. It was one which was built up on the basis of its own resources, its own organisation with local and national press, as well as its own welfare and educational institutions, etc.

[...]

The centre’s strategy of patience was more successful than the other strategies in actually building a mass party. Its insistence on the revolution as the act of the majority, and refusal of coalitionism, was equally relevant to conditions of revolutionary crisis: the Bolsheviks proved this positively in April-October 1917, and it has been proved negatively over and over again between the 1890s and the 2000s. However, because it addressed neither the state form, nor the international character of the capitalist state system and the tasks of the workers’ movement, the centre’s strategy proved to collapse into the policy of the right when matters came to the crunch.

War and revolutionary strategy (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/621/macnair.htm)
Mike Macnair puts the record straight on Lenin’s call for defeatism and insists on the necessity of the left taking the democratic question of arms seriously

Communist strategy and the party form (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/622/macnair.htm)
Mike Macnair examines the Leninist ‘party of a new type’ and disentangles its advantages and shortcomings from the necessity of splitting from the Second International

Unity in diversity (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/624/macnair.htm)
How does the concept of the united front fit into the struggle for a Communist Party? Mike Macnair continues his examination of strategy


The split between communists, loyal to the working class as an international class, and coalitionist socialists, loyal to the nation-state, will never be ‘healed’ as long as communists insist on organising to fight for their ideas. The policy of the united workers’ front is therefore an essential element of strategy in the fight for workers’ power.

But this policy can only make sense as part of a larger struggle for unity in diversity. And this struggle is a struggle against - among other things - the Trotskyists’ concept of the united front.

The minimum platform and extreme democracy (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/625/macnair.htm)
Under what conditions should communists participate in government? Mike Macnair revisits the strategic problem of authority


We saw in the fourth article in this series that the Kautskyan centre, which deliberately refused coalitions and government participation, was able to build up powerful independent workers’ parties (Weekly Worker April 13). In the sixth article we saw that the post-war communist parties could turn into Kautskyan parties, and as such could - even if they were small - play an important role in developing class consciousness and the mass workers’ movement (Weekly Worker April 27). This possibility was available to them precisely because, though they sought to participate in government coalitions, the bourgeoisie and the socialists did not trust their loyalty to the state and used every means possible to exclude them from national government.

The Kautskyans were right on a fundamental point. Communists can only take power when we have won majority support for working class rule through extreme democracy. ‘Revolutionary crisis’ may accelerate processes of changing political allegiance, but it does not alter this fundamental point or offer a way around it. There are no short cuts, whether by coalitionism or by the mass strike.

The present task of communists/socialists is therefore not to fight for an alternative government. It is to fight to build an alternative opposition: one which commits itself unambiguously to self-emancipation of the working class through extreme democracy, as opposed to all the loyalist parties.

Political consciousness and international unity (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/626/macnair.htm)
What is the link between national and international revolution? What is the role of the workers’ international? Mike Macnair continues his series on communist strategy

Comintern and the Trotskyists (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/628/macnair.htm)
What sort of international does the workers’ movement need? Mike Macnair looks at the negative lessons of previous attempts


Imitating the Russians was not utterly disastrous, as attempts to imitate the Maoists in more developed countries were in the 1960s and 1970s. This is attributable to the fact that most of what the Russians endeavoured to teach the Comintern in 1920-23 was in fact orthodox Kautskyism, which the Russians had learned from the German SPD. But there were exceptions. The worker-peasant alliance was utterly meaningless in the politics of the western communist parties before 1940, and after 1945 was a force for conservatism, as the European bourgeoisies turned to subsidising agriculture.

The ‘Bolshevisation’ of the communist parties, and the savage polemics against Kautsky and others over “classless democracy”, which became part of the common inheritance of ‘official communism’, Maoism and Trotskyism, deeply deformed these movements. In the end, the Bonapartist-centralised dictatorship of the party bureaucracy produced kleptocrats in the USSR and the countries that copied it. In the western communist parties and the trade unions associated with them, it produced ordinary labour bureaucrats with more power to quash dissent than the old socialist bureaucracy had had (a feature gratefully copied by the social democratic right). In the Trotskyist and Maoist groups, it produced petty patriarchs and tinpot dictators whose interests in holding onto their jobs and petty power were an effective obstacle to unity. It thus turned out to be in the interests of … the capitalist class.

Moreover, casting out “the renegade Kautsky” cut off the communists from the western European roots of their politics. Lenin and his co-thinkers’ transmission of the inheritance of the Second International into Russian politics became Lenin’s unique genius on the party question, feeding into the cult of the personality of Lenin (and its successors …). Perfectly ordinary western socialist political divisions, pre-existing the split in the Second International, had to be cast in Russian terms. Communists began to speak a language alien to their broader audiences, the language that has descended into today’s Trot-speak.

Republican democracy and revolutionary patience (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/629/macnair.htm)
Mike Macnair concludes his series on communist strategy by throwing down the challenge to the existing left


In this sense ‘Kautskyism’ means the struggle for an independent workers’ party, intimately linked to independent workers’ media, trade unions, cooperatives and so on, and for - at least symbolic - internationalism. On the other hand, it means the struggle against the ideas of short cuts to power that evade the problem of winning a majority, through coalitionism or ‘conning the working class into taking power’ via the mass strike. These are positive lessons for today’s left.

[...]

This strategic orientation demands patience. The fundamental present problem is that after the failures of the strategies of the 20th century, in the absence of a Marxist strategic understanding, most socialists are socialists by ethical and emotional commitment only. This leads to the adoption of ‘get-rich-quick’ solutions that enter into the capitalist politicians’ government games.

This is the trouble with the idea that the Ligue should join a new gauche plurielle project rather than addressing seriously the question of unity with Lutte Ouvrière; with Rifondazione’s decision to participate in the Olive Tree government; with the PDS’s participation in a coalition with the SDP in Berlin; with the SSP’s orientation to an SNP-led coalition for independence; with Respect. The result is not to lead towards an effective workers’ party, but towards another round of brief hope and long disillusionment.

A different sort of impatience is offered by those who split prematurely and refuse partial unity in the hope of building their own ‘Leninist party’: the decision of the far-left platforms (Progetto Comunista and Proposta) to split prematurely from Rifondazione; the SAV’s split orientation in the WASG-PDS fusion process; the splits of the Socialist Party and Workers Power from the Socialist Alliance; and the refusal of much of the left of the SA to work as a minority in Respect. We find that, although these sects sell themselves as ‘revolutionary’, when they stand for election either to parliaments or in unions their policies are broadly similar to the coalitionists. They are still playing within the capitalist rules of the game.

The left, in other words, needs to break with the endless series of failed ‘quick fixes’ that has characterised the 20th century. It needs a strategy of patience, like Kautsky’s: but one that is internationalist and radical-democratic, not one that accepts the existing order of nation-states.

[Led Zeppelin]

^^^ If you wish to remain in your broad economism, feel free to do so. :)

A charge of economism coming from the guy who wants to work with neo-fascists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/popular-vs-united-t88559/index.html) and proposes "worker buyouts".

Don't make me laugh.


The wavering conciliationist wasn't the head of any party when it mattered most: BEFORE the Russian revolutions.

You are not now, nor will you ever, be the head of any party or organization of significance.

Trotsky was in the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet during the 1905 revolution, and performed many revolutionary activities before and during that whole period.

You do nothing.

This is the difference between a Marxist and a "social-proletocrat".


Considering that the future SPD has to be a "simultaneously transnational, social-revolutionary, class-strugglist, and working-class-only 'party' of at least the vast majority of the working class," I agree with you. :)

Your sarcasm detector must be off...or perhaps you are really so delusional as to believe that one day this deformed invention of yours will become a strong political movement.

In either case, it's sad.


Look who isn't being materialistic here ("deification")! :rolleyes: If I were "deifying" the true founder of "Marxism"

Yes, Marx was of course not the true founder of Marxism, it was obviously Kautsky.

We got it all wrong folks, read Jacob Richter's work for more!


(and you have my work as evidence)

Neither I nor anyone else who has more things to do than to mentally masturbate over school-boy-like written "works" will ever read them.

You're not left with a lot of people when deducing them.


why were there criticisms of "a complete, integral world outlook," "exclusively through parliamentary activity" (if you're interested in getting past your broad economism and considering "participatory democracy," let me know), and "not a revolution-making party" (he compromised on the size of the revolutionary party one moment and talked about "an all-embracing Social Democracy" the next)? :rolleyes:

See, this is all gobbledygook to any sane person.

Normal people do not understand (or, rather, do not care enough to understand) what you mean with your invented terms, they will never care enough to do so. Do you know why, Jacob? Because you are irrelevant.

You have done nothing in your life for the actual movement in practical terms. All you have done is sit behind your computer and write "works", and then tell others on internet forums to read your "works" because only by doing so can they leave behind their "backward ways".

Your isolation from the actual real-world movement has lead you to propose things like an alliance with neo-fascists. It has lead you to believe in the delusion that someday you will become a great theoretical leader of a great political movement because you "know the way". It has lead you to believe that you have discovered something which everyone had missed before, and why? Because you are just so smart and special, I mean, you invent your own terms so why can't you discover that Kautsky was actually the founder of Marxism and that "social-proletocratism" will be the movement of the future?

I am sick and tired of you and your school-boy ways. I thought you'd grow out of it, but jesus christ it's been almost a year now and you're still spouting off this crap. It's just embarrassing now Jacob, and I'm going to expose you for what you really are. I am going to say out loud what the vast majority of members here are thinking (and I know they're thinking it because I've spoken to them), and I'm going to keep saying it until you finally get off that armchair and actually do something instead of thinking you are some kind of "leader of the movement" because you write idiotic articles and books which are mostly comprised of terms that you have invented yourself, quotes of others and just...gobbledygook.


The revolutionary party series by Comrade Mike Macnair of the CPGB-PCC (now a most "profoundly true and important" pamphlet or book):

It's not "profound", it's not "true", and it's not "important".

I keep having to burst bubbles here today but it has to be done.

No one gives a shit about the CPGB. No one gives a shit about Ben Seattle. No one gives a shit about social-proletocratism. No one gives a shit about Kautsky. No one gives a shit about dynamic-materialism. No one gives a shit about Lars Lih.

Or wait, no, let me rephrase that; no one besides you and a handful of other people give a shit.

[The Douche]

^^^^ Yikes...

Can you link me to the discussion where working with neo-fascists is proposed?

[Led Zeppelin]

Sure: Link (http://www.revleft.com/vb/popular-vs-united-t88559/index.html)

I have added it to my previous post as well.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Great. This thread degenerates into slanderous idiocy on a question that was hastily shot down. :rolleyes:


proposes "worker buyouts"

Read the damn article, and then compare that reform demand to the vulgar "reform" demand for ending privatization and what not.


You are not now, nor will you ever, be the head of any party or organization of significance.

Neither was Kautsky (and perhaps even Wilhelm Liebknecht). Whoever said I was ambitious on the leadership front? :)

On the other hand, Comrade Chegitz is higher up in his party's pecking order (SP-USA, now with the "social-democratic" minority as a holdout tendency) than you will ever be in yours. :)


Your sarcasm detector must be off...or perhaps you are really so delusional as to believe that one day this deformed invention of yours will become a strong political movement.

In either case, it's sad.

It's a necessity, because this party model provides nothing less than the high organization needed for political and social revolution in modern times (HINT: even mass parties directing bigger but clearly less organized social movements isn't enough).

Your last sentence there betrays nothing less than blatant opportunism and contempt for the ability of workers to organize beyond social movements and even "workers' councils."


I'm going to expose you for what you really are. I am going to say out loud what the vast majority of members here are thinking (and I know they're thinking it because I've spoken to them)

Probably those who are stuck in typical orthodoxy to begin with (I suppose that you spoke only to fellow Trots :rolleyes: ) :)

[It's sad that you've made this "personal" by resorting to cheap attacks against me as a person because you really do not have any substantial counter-remarks.]


and I'm going to keep saying it until you finally get off that armchair and actually do something instead of thinking you are some kind of "leader of the movement"

Read the above: Whoever said I was ambitious on the leadership front? :rolleyes:


No one gives a shit about the CPGB. No one gives a shit about Ben Seattle. No one gives a shit about social-proletocratism. No one gives a shit about Kautsky. No one gives a shit about dynamic-materialism. No one gives a shit about Lars Lih.

Or wait, no, let me rephrase that; no one besides you and a handful of other people give a shit.

Your loss.

[Led Zeppelin]

^^^ Great. This thread degenerates into slanderous idiocy on a question that was hastily shot down. :rolleyes:

Indeed, this thread has indeed degenerated into your idiocy, and I shall split the discussion between us to prevent it from being derailed further.


Read the damn article, and then compare that reform demand to the vulgar "reform" demand for ending privatization and what not.

No.


Neither was Kautsky (and perhaps even Wilhelm Liebknecht). Whoever said I was ambitious on the leadership front? :)

No, no, you didn't get what I meant.

You are never going to be of any relevance whatsoever.


On the other hand, Comrade Chegitz is higher up in his party's pecking order (SP-USA, now with the "social-democratic" minority as a holdout tendency) than you will ever be in yours. :)

I don't care about Chegitz as I'm sure he doesn't particularly care about me. You just wanted to drag him into this discussion to compensate for the fact that you do nothing in your life regarding actual revolutionary activity.

That is not going to work, Jacob. You can't expect to post on a revolutionary leftist message board, invent your own terms, attack other revolutionaries, and then not be criticized yourself for not actually doing anything yourself. And no, writing "books" is not doing something, at least not when you're doing it.

Oh, yeah, and I'm not in any organization, I do revolutionary activity independently, while working with various organizations. See, unlike you I don't expect or want to be at the head of a political movement, I'm not that delusional. I live in the real world.


It's a necessity, because this party model provides nothing less than the high organization needed for political and social revolution in modern times (HINT: even mass parties directing bigger but clearly less organized social movements isn't enough).

Your last sentence there betrays nothing less than blatant opportunism and contempt for the ability of workers to organize beyond social movements and even "workers' councils."

This isn't about workers, this is about you.

Don't think you can equate the ideology that you have created out of garbage left over from the past century to any section of the workers' movement. Your ideology only consists of you and a few other people that I can count on one hand. When I attack that ideology, I am not attacking anything of political worth, I am attacking you, and most importantly, I'm doing so in the most justified manner.

My criticism is nothing but your lack of real activity. If you didn't pretend to be so important and all-knowing, I would not have criticized you for this, but since you are doing this, there is no option left but to burst the bubble of your delusions of grandeur.

When you start posting about your ideological movement actually doing something, then, perhaps then, can we take you seriously. Before then, you are nothing but a political joker. For all the flaws that the various ideological tendencies have, ranging from Maoism to Hoxhaism, they at least do shit in real life!


Probably those who are stuck in typical orthodoxy to begin with (I suppose that you spoke only to fellow Trots :rolleyes: ) :)

No, everyone from every tendency who I have spoken to has said this.

Most people here know that you consist of nothing but hot air, Jacob, it's only you who don't.


[It's sad that you've made this "personal" by resorting to cheap attacks against me as a person because you really do not have any substantial counter-remarks.]

Read the above: Whoever said I was ambitious on the leadership front? :rolleyes:

Your loss.

I have no counter-remarks?!?

Do you think I care enough about you as a person to attack you?!?!

No, my criticism is based on reality. Why don't you respond to my criticism? Why don't you explain why you don't do anything in real life, even though you've been "involved" with Marxism for years? Why don't you explain that you believe you will become the next Kautsky without doing any revolutionary activity because "that's how he did it? Why don't you explain why you keep attacking revolutionary like Trotsky for things that you let others like Kautsky off the hook? Why don't you explain why you keep slandering revolutionaries while you yourself proposed an alliance between us and neo-fascists?

No, Jacob, I attack you for those things, not for you as a person. You are so dull and uninteresting that it would not even occur to me to attack you as a person!

But you're right, let's lay off the insults. Let's try to keep it to the substance. You respond to my criticisms of you, and I'll respond to your rebuttals in due kind. I will not insult you or your character if you will give me the same courtesy. Let's try to peel this orange of what you call "social-proletocratism" and see what we uncover.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Although I have said I wouldn't respond to most of the above, I would like to comment on one particular comment worth discussing further:


You can't expect to post on a revolutionary leftist message board, invent your own terms, attack other revolutionaries, and then not be criticized yourself for not actually doing anything yourself. And no, writing "books" is not doing something, at least not when you're doing it.

Oh, yeah, and I'm not in any organization, I do revolutionary activity independently, while working with various organizations. See, unlike you I don't expect or want to be at the head of a political movement, I'm not that delusional. I live in the real world.

I would like to say that the fetish for individual activism is a bad thing (so sorry, I cannot promote individual activism, since it relies too much on spontaneity). However, your situation is understandable, given the non-responsiveness of the various circle-sects:


This idea of real unity around basic principles has been lost amongst the various circle-sects (be they Marxist, class-strugglist anarchist, pareconist, or whatever), each with extended “principles” (tactics and historical questions) and each – even with their sorry states today – willing to engage only in half-hearted unity with one another through “workers’ united fronts.” Worse, this has resulted in a rise of individual activism and a further diseconomy of scale. This modern equivalent of the local circle spirit that predated the existence of the RSDLP must be put to an end.

Meanwhile, I believe that Comrade Chegitz lamented recently about the deficit of theoretical knowledge on the part of many SP-USA comrades. :(

[Lynx]

I'm interested in Jacob's work and have read it. It never occurred to me to find fault with the person who wrote it.

[Led Zeppelin]

I would like to say that the fetish for individual activism is a bad thing (so sorry, I cannot promote individual activism, since it relies too much on spontaneity). However, your situation is understandable, given the non-responsiveness of the various circle-sects:

There is no "fetish", you don't do anything at all, and as far as I know you never have.


I'm interested in Jacob's work and have read it. It never occurred to me to find fault with the person who wrote it.

No offense but you belong to those irrelevant group of people that I can count on one hand.

"Social-proletocracy" does not exist as a real political movement of any significance, and never will. It is the invention of a person who has hardly ever (or never) been active in the revolutionary movement in real life. It is the invention of a person who believes he is the next Kautsky. There is really nothing more that needs to be said.

[Lynx]

No offense but you belong to those irrelevant group of people that I can count on one hand.

"Social-proletocracy" does not exist as a real political movement of any significance, and never will. It is the invention of a person who has hardly ever (or never) been active in the revolutionary movement in real life. It is the invention of a person who believes he is the next Kautsky. There is really nothing more that needs to be said.
If that concludes the basis for your opinion and your prediction for the future, then I suppose yes, that part of the discussion is ended. I do not find your opinion persuasive or relevant.

[Led Zeppelin]

I do not find your opinion persuasive or relevant.

I do not find your opinion of my opinion persuasive or relevant, so that ends that.

But hey, good luck with social-proletocratism, or living in a bubble, just don't be surprised when it suddenly pops and you're flung back into reality.

[Lynx]

Someone develops an idea, some people find it interesting, and we work on it. It may or may not come to fruition, or it becomes part of the learning process. I assumed everybody does this. Wondering who else gives a shit sounds like a recipe for accepting the status quo.

[Random Precision]

Jacob Richter thinks he has discovered some new sort of Marxism that will enable the workers movement to finally be successful. The reality is that all he has done is lump together a bunch of disparate theories, concepts and code-words from different tendencies with stuff he made up himself and expects it to form a unique, coherent theory of revolution. This ranges from calling social-democrats "social-fascists" (Stalinist buzzword) to expecting those same social-democrats to form a united organization with revolutionaries. And to top it off he sets up Karl Kautsky as the "founder" of Marxism, ignoring that the Second International he led was reformist and rotten to the core even before his "apostasy". The only difference between Kautsky and Ebert, Bernstein, Bauer and Jaurès was that he was the last to admit he had abandoned the proletarian cause. Although I suppose a totally irrelevant tendency requires a totally irrelevant idol to worship.

I am going to quote Mao Zedong for the first, and hopefully last, time in my life. He said: "Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice." This is something that Jacob should tattoo on his forehead. His online theoretical ramblings, disconnected from activism and from the working class, will get him and anyone else who falls in behind him absolutely nowhere.

[black magick hustla]

I just want to say that theory comes with discussion. its not the musings of just one person. otherwise they are not worth to defent.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Jacob Richter thinks he has discovered some new sort of Marxism that will enable the workers movement to finally be successful. The reality is that all he has done is lump together a bunch of disparate theories, concepts and code-words from different tendencies with stuff he made up himself and expects it to form a unique, coherent theory of revolution.

I didn't "discover" anything. :glare:

Your second sentence is much more accurate, but the only thing "new" that I added was a long-missing emphasis on language as a means of connecting with the workers' movement. If non-linguistic contributions seem "new," it is only because I took some basic concepts and methodologies, extended the former's logic a bit further, and "turned right-side up" the latter.


This ranges from calling social-democrats "social-fascists" (Stalinist buzzword) to expecting those same social-democrats to form a united organization with revolutionaries.

Nowhere I did advocate working with "social-democratic" scum in a united organization! The "revolutionary reformists" of which I speak are a very tiny but class-strugglist minority on the left, a minority that manages to get past the economism (at least in the narrow sense) plaguing so much of the left, including both Cliffite and Grantite economism.


And to top it off he sets up Karl Kautsky as the "founder" of Marxism, ignoring that the Second International he led was reformist and rotten to the core even before his "apostasy". The only difference between Kautsky and Ebert, Bernstein, Bauer and Jaurès was that he was the last to admit he had abandoned the proletarian cause. Although I suppose a totally irrelevant tendency requires a totally irrelevant idol to worship.

You can thank Cyril Smith's Marx at the Millennium and Gilles Dauve's The Renegade Kautsky and His Disciple Lenin. The former, while overly critical, recognized Kautsky as the founder, while the latter was the first work to rediscover the theoretical closeness of Kautsky and Lenin (despite your protestations).

You have yet to respond to Chegitz Guevara in the "Maoists are socialists" thread. :)


I am going to quote Mao Zedong for the first, and hopefully last, time in my life. He said: "Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice." This is something that Jacob should tattoo on his forehead. His online theoretical ramblings, disconnected from activism and from the working class, will get him and anyone else who falls in behind him absolutely nowhere.

"Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement."

I'm not implying idealism here, because most of my "conclusions" are based on current events and the puzzle pieces that are today's disconnected worker struggles (one group calls for such and such radical-reform demands beyond "daily struggles," not knowing of other groups' calls for other radical-reform demands or of "intellectual-based" radical-reform demands). Which circle-sect is, at present, even bothering "to shape the struggles of the working class into a class-conscious, unified whole, thereby making that class struggle of the working class aware of its historic aim and capable of choosing the best means to attain this aim"? None, because they're only capable of thinking like "ordinary workers" and not like "socialist theoreticians."


But in order that working men may succeed in this more often, every effort must be made to raise the level of the consciousness of the workers in general; it is necessary that the workers do not confine themselves to the artificially restricted limits of “literature for workers” but that they learn to an increasing degree to master general literature. It would be even truer to say “are not confined”, instead of “do not confine themselves”, because the workers themselves wish to read and do read all that is written for the intelligentsia, and only a few (bad) intellectuals believe that it is enough “for workers” to be told a few things about factory conditions and to have repeated to them over and over again what has long been known.

[Devrim]

You can thank Cyril Smith's Marx at the Millennium and Gilles Dauve's The Renegade Kautsky and His Disciple Lenin. The former, while overly critical, recognized Kautsky as the founder, while the latter was the first work to rediscover the theoretical closeness of Kautsky and Lenin (despite your protestations).

To be far to Dauve he didn't think that Kautsky was a revolutionary. He thought Lenin was revolutionary when he acted against the ideas of Kautskyism.

Devrim

[JimmyJazz]

Can someone please summarize Social-Proletocracy for me?

[Die Neue Zeit]

1) The establishment of ever-increasing amounts of what many radical political liberals call “participatory democracy,” which goes beyond the current and degenerating “representative democracy” in regards to a highly engaged and highly active citizenry;
2) The revolutionary (as opposed to reformist) extension of this “participatory democracy” to socioeconomic affairs (that is, the implementation of neither state-capitalist ownership nor state-capitalist control, but rather the implementation of social ownership and social control);
3) The revolutionary worker-class-strugglist emphasis of the two features above (that is, at the expense of other classes, such as the bourgeoisie); and
4) In addition to these features of a more direct but still ordinary proletocracy, the “pre-communist” social abolition of both wage slavery and capital through the full, non-circulable credit of individual labour (albeit after income deductions or non-income, “Lassallean” taxation “for the common funds” pertaining to strategic socio-technological development, infrastructure, retirees and the disabled, etc.).

[Die Neue Zeit]

To be fair to Dauve he didn't think that Kautsky was a revolutionary. He thought Lenin was revolutionary when he acted against the ideas of Kautskyism.

Devrim

I don't think that Kautsky was a revolutionary-Marxist theorist, either, even though I, unlike most in the current orthodoxy, acknowledge that he actually flirted with revolutionary-Marxist theory as pioneered by his most well-known disciple (not me :rolleyes: ). Such flirtation was only possible because Kautsky was responsible for THE pioneering, "profoundly true and important" combination of Marx's and Engels' scientific socialism with Bebel's and Liebknecht's German Social Democracy (hence "Marxism" = pre-renegade "Kautskyism"), again something that most in the current orthodoxy (including Dauve), as well as some outside of it (including Smith) refuse to acknowledge, even if the price is perpetual theoretical deficiency.

[Devrim]

again something that most in the current orthodoxy (including Dauve), as well as some outside of it (including Smith) refuse to acknowledge, even if the price is perpetual theoretical deficiency.

I hardly think Dauve is the 'orthodoxy'. He is an obscure figure, who has some popularity amongst anarchists in the English speaking world.

I think he comes from the Italian left tradition, which he has merged with the tradition of the German left, hardly 'orthodox'.

Devrim

[Niccolò Rossi]

I think he comes from the Italian left tradition, which he has merged with the tradition of the German left, hardly 'orthodox'.

Devrim I believe it's the other way round. At least according to Theorie Communiste, Dauve was "trying to spice up the ultra-left with an injection of Bordigism".

[Devrim]

Devrim I believe it's the other way round. At least according to Theorie Communiste, Dauve was "trying to spice up the ultra-left with an injection of Bordigism".

Maybe you are right. I don't really know him. I met him once about 20 years ago. I always had the idea that he was involved with the people around 'İnvarience', and that where he came from originally.

I don't think the quote disagrees with that. What to you think of Theorie Communiste'?

Devrim

[Niccolò Rossi]

I always had the idea that he was involved with the people around 'İnvarience', and that where he came from originally.

You may well be right, though I can't find anything to confirm that.


What to you think of Theorie Communiste'?

To be honest I'm not knowledgeable on them enough to form an opinion, after all very very little of work is available in English, at least from what I can see. What I can say, however, is that if you call Dauve "obscure", I wouldn't like to think what that makes TC...

What about yourself, what are your opinions regarding TC?

[Led Zeppelin]

Here's something fun about Lenin's opinion of Kautsky and his view on his previous (that is, before the betrayal) admiration of him.

Lenin admitted that he was wrong about Kautsky all along, while Rosa Luxemburg was right:



The capitulation of German Social Democracy on August 4, 1914, was entirely unexpected by Lenin. It is well known that the issue of the Vorwärts with the patriotic declaration of the Social Democratic faction was taken by Lenin to be a forgery by the German general staff. Only after he was absolutely convinced of the awful truth did he subject to revision his evaluation of the basic tendencies of the German Social Democracy, and while so doing he performed that task in the Leninist manner, i.e., he finished it off once for all.

On October 27, 1914, Lenin wrote to A. Shlyapnikov: “I hate and despise Kautsky now more than anyone, with his vile, dirty, self-satisfied hypocrisy ... Rosa Luxemburg was right when she wrote, long ago, that Kautsky has the ‘subservience of a theoretician’ – servility, in plainer language, servility to the majority of the party, to opportunism” (Leninist Anthology, Volume 2, p.200, my emphasis) [ibid., Volume 35, October 27, 1914].

[...]

...Lenin deemed it necessary at the end of 1914 to inform one of his colleagues closest to him at the time that “now,” at the present moment, today, in contradistinction to the past, he “hates and despises” Kautsky. The sharpness of the phrase is an unmistakable: indication of the extent to which Kautsky betrayed Lenin’s hopes and expectations. No less vivid is the second phrase, “Rosa Luxemburg was right when she wrote, long ago, that Kautsky has the ‘subservience of a theoretician.’ ...” Lenin hastens here to recognize that “verity” which he did not see formerly, or which, at least, he did not recognize fully on Rosa Luxemburg’s side.

[...]

In his article A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship (October 1920), Lenin, touching upon questions of the Soviet state and the dictatorship of the proletariat already posed by the 1905 revolution, wrote: “While such outstanding representatives of the revolutionary proletariat and of unfalsified Marxism as Rosa Luxemburg immediately realized the significance of this practical experience and made a critical analysis of it at meetings and in the press,” on the contrary, “... people of the type of the future ‘Kautskyites’ ... proved absolutely incapable of grasping the significance of this experience ...” [ibid., Volume 31, October 20, 1920]. In a few lines, Lenin fully pays the tribute of recognition to the historical significance of Rosa Luxemburg’s struggle against Kautsky – a struggle which Lenin himself had been far from immediately evaluating at its true worth.
Hands off Rosa Luxemburg! (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/06/luxemberg.htm)

Rosa Luxemburg was involved in the struggle against Kautsky directly, and could see in reality how he really was. Lenin was far removed form the German Social-Democratic inter-party struggles and therefore he could not get the same view of Kautsky as Rosa did.

But this is all beside the point. I would like one person who adheres to this social-proletocracy to tell me what they do in practical activity, that is, in real life. Besides proposing things on the internet, besides "writing books", besides "urging the movement to do something by writing stuff on internet forums", what do you do?

I know of the Left-Communists here that they are active in real life and have been active. I know of the Anarchists here that the are active and have been. I know the same of the Maoists, Hoxhaists, Trotskyists, etc. They don't just "talk the talk", they actually walk the walk too.

Now, tell me given all this that it is even remotely possible for this creation of social-proletocracy of ever being of any relevance to the workers' movement. Nevermind the theoretical arguments against it (and trust me, there are a lot of those, and they by themselves suffice to refute it), but just focus on the practical argument. Did Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, Engels etc. just "drop out of the sky" and become theoreticians out of nowhere? Is it really possible that Jacob Richter is going to end up the same as they did?

Look, I'm happy when people have goals in their life to work towards, but if you're aim is to become a "theoretical leader of the workers' movement" and be at the head of a huge workers' movement, while you don't do any practical activity in real life and your only work towards that aim is writing stuff on the internet (disregarding the content of that stuff, though if we didn't it wouldn't make the case any better...) then you don't have your priorities straight. You end up proposing and thinking about things like working with neo-fascists because you are isolated from the movement itself. I am worried that eventually Jacob will end up on the other side of the barricades...not that he's already present at our side right now.

Your ideas and theories need to be tested in real life to see how much worth they have. And that should be done not in the hopes of someone else doing it for you because you have a brilliant theoretical mind (which let's be honest; you don't), but it should be done by yourself so that you can know what works and what doesn't. If you are really serious about this social-proletocracy thing then you should go out and do something with it, in real life practical activity.

There is a lot of theoretical criticism I have of that creation, in my opion it's wholly pointless and irrelevant because all that it consists of is the combination of invented terms that are substitutes for concepts that already existed before, if those terms/concepts were not altered slightly to be made wholly pointless or are based on misunderstandings of past terms/concepts.

But, hey, if you are really serious about this, and if this movement really gets going, who am I to criticize it? My aim is not to shoot down this thing, it's to have it tested in the real world and see if it gets shot down there or not. I am pretty much 100% sure that it will, but if it won't, then that's all the better.

[Tower of Bebel]

The degeneration of Kautsky as a marxist theoretician and the struggle of Luxemburg against him started off just after 1909/10.

During this period a clear diversion began to appear between a left and right wing within the SPD. While the left wing was revolutionary but badly organized the right wing was opportunist and well organized within both the party and state apparatus. Kautsky feared a split within the workers movement. His fears were based on the fact that at that moment every honest marxist knew that wars and revolutions were only a few years, maybe a few months away. This compelled him to take up a centrist position and keep both wings together. This was a huge tactical mistake, and it affected his theories from then on. Ultimately, I think, it was the death of Bebel (1913) which opened possibilities for the right wing to end the theoretical, unquestioned and immensely popular rule of the center and marginalize the left wing. At that time it was clear that not Kautsky had controlled the party but Bebel, who had protected and used Kautsky as theoretical foundation of the party.

Kautsky's polemical, yet opportunist and confusing works of the post-war period are based on his tactical mistakes and the fact that Lenin argued for a split within the workers movement. Kautsky, once the principle theoretician of workers' unity, proletarian independence and anti-sectarianism was put aside by the right wing and his disciple Lenin spread a revolution based on a workers' and peasants' unity, while it was born from a semi-feudal country and lead by a party accused of dictatorial methods. Even worse: his disciple urged for a split! No wonder Kautsky's post-war publications were infested with hate, confusion, indirect opportunism, etc. And in the end (since the early 20's) he became senile.

The so called Kautskyists on this board don't support the renegade Kautsky. They support the Kautsky before 1909/10. They talk about "Lih's Kautsky" and also "Lih's Lenin". It is the Kautsky who in 1909 a book called The Road to Power, a book which foresaw a coming era of wars and revolutions and which urged the 2nd International to prepare for that moment and take power.

[Led Zeppelin]

Lenin and most - if not all - other Bolsheviks did not consider Kautsky a "renegade" before 1914. They sided with Kautsky against Luxemburg even.

And as I just showed, Lenin admitted that he was wrong in that and that Luxemburg was right all along.


Kautsky was thé theoretician of workers' unity, proletarian independence and anti-sectarianism and his disciple Lenin who spread a revolution based on a workers' and peasants' unity, born from a semi-feudal country and with a party accused of dictatorial methods urged for a split!

No he wasn't. Kautsky was the theoretician of betrayal, reformism, and social-democratic imperialism.

Lenin, Trotsky and other Marxists were his "disciples" only insofar as he struggled against Bersteinism and other such revisionist tendencies, that is, only insofar as his theoretical work was actually correct. That has nothing to do with them being his "disciples", because they all rejected their so-called "teacher" pretty soon afterwards. You can say that they were also the disciples of Plekhanov, what difference does it make? Should I now go out and deify Plekhanov because he used to write interesting things which were correct and influenced Lenin and Trotsky?

My point was aimed at that. I knew that they (or he) didn't support the renegade Kautsky but only the Kautsky who was inevitably headed that way given his (and read this carefully!); "subservience of a theoretician’ – servility, in plainer language, servility to the majority of the party, to opportunism." Does that criticism sound a bit familiar?

[Tower of Bebel]

No he wasn't. Kautsky was the theoretician of betrayal, reformism, and social-democratic imperialism.

How could he be the theoretician of "betrayal, reformism, and social-democratic imperialism" when you just said that they (Bolsheviks) "were his "disciples" only insofar as he struggled against Bersteinism and other such revisionist tendencies, that is, only insofar as his theoretical work was actually correct"? He did struggle against Bernstein, one of his closest comrades:

“This same Kautsky wrote 15 years ago, at the beginning of the Bernstein affair, that if opportunism changed from a mood to a tendency, a split would be on the order of the day.”

[Led Zeppelin]

How could he be the theoretician of "betrayal, reformism, and social-democratic imperialism" when you just said that they (Bolsheviks) "were his "disciples" only insofar as he struggled against Bersteinism and other such revisionist tendencies, that is, only insofar as his theoretical work was actually correct"?

I was talking about his overall theoretical legacy, not just the part that you and others who like him want to pick out.


He did struggle against Bernstein, one of his closest comrades:

Yes, I know, I said that.

Again, what's your point? "You can say that they were also the disciples of Plekhanov, what difference does it make? Should I now go out and deify Plekhanov because he used to write interesting things which were correct and influenced Lenin and Trotsky?"

This whole idea of "going back to the sources that influenced the person who was right!" is absurd and a waste of time, especially when you then try to whitewash a whole period of one of those sources and raise him to the level of "founder of Marxism".

By that logic, when you are reading Marx, you should also by necessity read Rousseau, because actually it was Rousseau who was "the founder of Marxism", or perhaps it was Hegel? Or Montesquieu? Or Feuerbach? Or...? Well, jeeze, what's the point of reading Marx, who was the correct and full expression of all of those sources of thought combined, when you could be going back to the sources and deify the people who influenced him?

That is exactly what Jacob and other "Kautskyites" are doing, and it's sad, pointless, and...just sad.

By the way, I'm not saying that it's pointless to read Rousseau, Feuerbach, Montesquieu, Kautsky, Plekhanov etc. obviously they wrote some interesting things that are worth reading, if they didn't they wouldn't have influenced people like Marx, Engels, Lenin etc.

For example, I read Plekhanov's The Development of the Monist View of History recently and it was very good and educational for me. I'm also interested in reading things by Kautsky, just as I am interested in reading things by Rousseau and others.

But you see, the difference between me and "Kautskyites" is that I don't deify or overstate his importance. I recognize that he made many errors, even before he was branded a renegade by Lenin, as Luxemburg demonstrates. I also recognize that he was destined to betray the working-class and that he was partly responsible for "the historic crime of reformism", which resulted in the working-class having to pay for it "with more wars and revolutions". This is why I do not try to "reinvent Plekhanovism" or "Kautskyism" and why no one tries to "reinvent Rousseauism" or any other "ism" that history has cast away in favor of the more true expression of that "ism", which in the case of Kautsky is revolutionary Marxism, or Leninism if you will.

And there's no need to "reinvent" that, it already exists.

[Devrim]

To be honest I'm not knowledgeable on them enough to form an opinion, after all very very little of work is available in English, at least from what I can see. What I can say, however, is that if you call Dauve "obscure", I wouldn't like to think what that makes TC...

What about yourself, what are your opinions regarding TC?

I don't know much about them. They are quite obscure. I think they had some debate with the people around Aufhaben, but I don't know much about them at all.

I have just looked them up, and Libcom seems to have more English stuff than their own site.

http://libcom.org/library/theorie-communiste

Devrim

[Tower of Bebel]

I don't think that social-proletocracy is an existing or conscious current on Revleft. Nobody but Jacob has called him or herself a social-proletocrat. Yet some community members have shown similar views to Jacob on different aspects of both his works and his posts. Some members sometimes appreciate what he does, though his style is somewhat difficult, weird or annoying depending on the person who's reading it; but that doesn't mean that there is a clear ideological distinction between these comrades and those who don't support Jacob. If social-proletocracy existed then it would also be a living ideology within the CPGB; it would also be a part of several writers who publish their writings on the internet.

It took me weeks to understand what he was trying to write, it will take months to understand what he is actually writing. I agree with several of his contributions, though his views on both Trotsky and the Permanent Revolution were never really that persuasive to me. I still think some of his (early) remarks (on the Permanent Revolution) were wrong because they were possibly inspired by his stalinist past and a misunderstanding of the context.

[Lynx]

Until I complete the reading of the materials referenced by his work and additional materials, I don't feel I can do a proper critique. Having his work discussed does help.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I hardly think Dauve is the 'orthodoxy'. He is an obscure figure, who has some popularity amongst anarchists in the English speaking world.

I think he comes from the Italian left tradition, which he has merged with the tradition of the German left, hardly 'orthodox'.

Devrim

By "orthodoxy," I mean to imply the prevalent notion that Lenin broke with pre-renegade Kautsky as early as such-or-such year, when in fact any sort of "break" occurred only after 1920 or so.

I've had the privilege of reading more of Mr. Lih's work in this regard (e-mail). Before 1918 or so, Lenin was so sure of Kautsky's conditions for revolution. Uncertainly creeped in from then on until the 20s, and when he did make his partial break with pre-renegade Kautsky (a short work of his in 1923 refers to doing things the textbook way "a la Kautsky"), he still made his break on the basis of Kautsky-Ideas-Shared-by-Lenin (KISLs).

I say "partial" because, on the foreign front, as CPGB comrade Mike Macnair said, the Comintern was transmitting "orthodox Kautskyism" (Lenin's LWC work in 1920, which you are all too familiar with when dismissing him as a counter-revolutionary by that point, was the basis of this transmission, since he recalls the merger formula).

In short, somebody wrote to the effect that "Lenin hated Kautsky because he loved Kautsky's books." Lars Lih concluded his paper by using this note in posing the question of rediscovering the historical Lenin.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't think that social-proletocracy is an existing or conscious current on RevLeft. Nobody but Jacob has called him or herself a social-proletocrat. Yet some community members have shown similar views to Jacob on different aspects of both his works and his posts. Some members sometimes appreciate what he does, though his style is somewhat difficult, weird or annoying depending on the person who's reading it; but that doesn't mean that there is a clear ideological distinction between these comrades and those who don't support Jacob. If social-proletocracy existed then it would also be a living ideology within the CPGB; it would also be a part of several writers who publish their writings on the internet.

It took me weeks to understand what he was trying to write, it will take months to understand what he is actually writing.

Am I that bad a communicator work-wise? :( I know my work has to be a step up from my "click my links" ( ;) ) posting style, but... :(

[Don't worry, comrade: I'm not offended in the slightest by your constructive remarks.]


I agree with several of his contributions, though his views on both Trotsky and the Permanent Revolution were never really that persuasive to me. I still think some of his (early) remarks (on the Permanent Revolution) were wrong because they were possibly inspired by his stalinist past and a misunderstanding of the context.

I also didn't expect you to agree with me on my replacement of the base-superstructure analysis with the geocentric model in Chapter 1 (suggested by comrade PRC-UTE). ;)

Now, on to your other comments above:


Kautsky, once the principle theoretician of workers' unity, proletarian independence and anti-sectarianism was put aside by the right wing and his disciple Lenin spread a revolution based on a workers' and peasants' unity, while it was born from a semi-feudal country and lead by a party accused of dictatorial methods. Even worse: his disciple urged for a split! No wonder Kautsky's post-war publications were infested with hate, confusion, indirect opportunism, etc. And in the end (since the early 20's) he became senile.

Your quote of Lenin's 1915 work above on Kautsky's own advocacy of a split brilliantly indicates his senility. Dare I say, though, that the senility probably began with his vulgar centrism (as opposed to revolutionary "centrism") after 1909. I mean, this was the same Kautsky who, as the true founder of "Marxism," heaped praise on the revolutionary potential of the Russian working class from The Slavs and Revolution until about 1907-1908. This, plus the works of "late Marx" and Engels, thoroughly demolishes the bourgeois polit-sci caricatures of the "classical" Marxist position on czarist Russia, which the renegade later on resorted to ("Bolshevism this," "Bolshevism that")!


Again, what's your point? "You can say that they were also the disciples of Plekhanov, what difference does it make? Should I now go out and deify Plekhanov because he used to write interesting things which were correct and influenced Lenin and Trotsky?"

Actually, you're off the mark here. Trotsky wasn't much of a disciple of anybody, I'm afraid. On the other hand, Lenin wasn't influenced much by Plekhanov, precisely because that poor man's Kautsky became an opportunist so early. His only theoretical use was his struggle against Narodism. From Lars Lih:


Moira Donald informs us that “when Lenin died in 1924 his library contained more works by Kautsky than by any other author, Russian or foreign, apart from his own work. Surprisingly, perhaps, of the eighty-nine titles listed, more were official Soviet publications dating from 1918 onwards than were published abroad or in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution.”

In an unpublished essay of mine written some years back, I recently came across this epigram: “Lenin hated Kautsky because he loved Kautsky’s books.” Shocking as this fact will be for many people, we will eventually have to accept it and use it in our quest for the historical Lenin.

[Lynx]

Is there any criticism regarding dynamic minimum demands?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Dave Searles popped into the other thread.


Why don't you explain that you believe you will become the next Kautsky without doing any revolutionary activity because "that's how he did it"? Why don't you explain why you keep attacking revolutionaries like Trotsky for things that you let others like Kautsky off the hook?

[...]


Kautsky, once the principle theoretician of workers' unity, proletarian independence and anti-sectarianism was put aside by the right wing and his disciple Lenin spread a revolution based on a workers' and peasants' unity, while it was born from a semi-feudal country and lead by a party accused of dictatorial methods. Even worse: his disciple urged for a split! No wonder Kautsky's post-war publications were infested with hate, confusion, indirect opportunism, etc. And in the end (since the early 20's) he became senile.

The so called Kautskyists on this board don't support the renegade Kautsky. They support the Kautsky before 1909/10. They talk about "Lih's Kautsky" and also "Lih's Lenin". It is the Kautsky who in 1909 a book called The Road to Power, a book which foresaw a coming era of wars and revolutions and which urged the 2nd International to prepare for that moment and take power.

No he wasn't. Kautsky was the theoretician of betrayal, reformism, and social-democratic imperialism.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/rediscovering-lenin-t97390/index.html (Sorry for the late response, but the profoundly true and important utterances in that article came equally late)


Lenin’s second decade, 1904-14, was the one in which Bolshevism as such was developed. Although Kautsky sided with the Mensheviks at the very beginning of the party split (not for ideological reasons, but because he thought Lenin was personally responsible for the split), it soon became clear that, when it came to the issues that really divided the two factions - the different readings of the class forces in Russia - Kautsky sided entirely with the Bolsheviks. So much so that Kautsky became a sort of honorary Bolshevik. If you want to get an idea of Kautsky’s role during this period, read Lenin’s generous and (more to the point) accurate description at the beginning of the section on Kautsky in State and Revolution.

Kautsky continued to be important for Lenin in his third decade (1914-24). By the way, Kautsky was regarded as part of the radical wing of the party at least until 1910, when he and Rosa Luxemburg fell out. At that time, Lenin sided with Kautsky (and I don’t think he ever changed his mind about who was right in 1910). As against Luxemburg, Kautsky said that the socialist party should not act as if a revolutionary situation existed when it didn’t, but that a revolutionary situation was sure to come very soon. From Lenin’s point of view, the very revolutionary situation that Kautsky had predicted did in fact come to pass in 1914. He was therefore infuriated with Kautsky when the latter did not act as he had promised. But again, this anger was a sign of Lenin’s loyalty to what had once been the shared outlook of the two men. As I put it once, Lenin hated Kautsky because he loved Kautsky’s books.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/broad-economism-t97399/index.html


Occasionally someone has attempted to oppose the political struggle to the economic, and declared that the proletariat should give its exclusive attention either to the one or the other. The fact is that the two cannot be separated. The economic struggle demands political rights, and these will not fall from heaven. To secure and maintain them, the most vigorous political action is necessary.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/socio-income-democracy-t92929/index.html


Continuing with the grossly underrated minimum section of the equally underrated Erfurt Program, that last particularly historic demand for what I call “socio-income democracy” goes a long way to highlight the broad economism infecting many (if not most) traditional Marxists, class-strugglist anarchists, left-communists, class-strugglist pareconists, and others on the “anti-capitalist” left, even those in favour of the “directional demand” approach. Now, the conventional Trotskyist who adheres to the transitional method (thus upholding the first major critique of the original minimum-maximum programmatic approach) may protest at this charge of broad economism and point to the Transitional Programme, but why was this demand missing from that 1938 document?

[Led Zeppelin]

Please don't necro threads. If you want to discuss something start a new one, but please don't quote me because I'm not interested in debating this issue any longer.

Thread closed.