Lyev

Hi, in a recent thread about Trotskyism I tried to make the same point in a "discussion" with Red_Cat, etc.:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...8&postcount=40

As a general rule, and this is quite obvious, we should try to reach the workers that work within the system. But our method depends on circumstances. Hypothetically, or when we look back in time, we shouldn't give the regime unconditional support just because it has nationalized the economy, plans production and operates through soviets that offer (limited) participation by the working class. If it's possible to struggle for a political change, something which Trotsky argued for, we should use the soviets to achieve it. But we shouldn't have illusions in those who effectively control them. Most of the time factories and soviets were led by bureaucrats.

It's like doing union work. We shouldn't support the unions uncritically or unconditionally because the union bureaucrats are in charge of them. However, we should refrain from working within them to reach the rank and file.

I'll give an example. In Cuba councils still exist. In the USSR soviets were still official state organs. They offer possibilities for people of various backgrounds to participate in 'politics'. But this is just formal (the form is the council-form in this particular case). You could compare this to the Soviet economy which was a collective economy in form. But all these forms were emptied from their original, revolutionary contents. The bureaucracy uses these organs to advance their programme of exploitation. This makes "soviets" and "collective economy" or "planned economy" relative cheap concepts - fig leaves to cover the bureaucratic dictatorship over society.. Free education, recallability, the freedom of movement, democratic planning, etc., etc., will help people to develop themselves both socially and politically, making them conscious beings instead of "wage slaves" or "sheep" (from the electoral point of view).

Engels called the Paris Commune both a democratic republic and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Both seems to oppose each other (democracy and dictatorship), but like Luxemburg once wrote in her polemic against the Bolshevik party in 1918 the (democratic) republic is the form of the proletarian dictatorship (the "social kernel" in her words). By democratic republican principles I mean the basic principles advanced by the Commune and Marx and Engels.

They offer the opportunity for humanity to participate consciously (unlike formal participation in former socialist countries like Poland or Cuba). The socialist revolution makes the distinction between super and sub structure obsolete because there's no real ruling class. Of course the first days or years will see violent struggles and will force the working class to rule, but the class as a whole cannot rule without the principles that will support the whole of humanity.

What do you think of the last part?