Julius Caesar: the lost people's history of the Tribal Assembly?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Caesar was willing to make himself the sole ruler of the empire over the Senate. In class terms this was a conflict within the aristocracy - Caesar, by moving to supreme power, was decapitating the Senate politically. This was a natural outcome of the breakdown of power-sharing between the ruling class of the empire that had caused the protracted political crisis of the Republic. Octavian was able to create a solution that gave a vestigial role to the Senate and thereby secure their support. If you seriously think that Caesar's endgame would have been substantially different from Octavian's, you are fantasizing. We are talking about a brutal aristocrat and general whose populism was paper-thin, and you have not dealt with either the problems of the slave system or the empire.

Re. Julius Caesar vs. Octavian: Again, Julius Caesar would have realized the political Anti-Republic relative to liberal republicanism. Again, this political Anti-Republic is also against the Benevolent Tyrant model. Again, here's why: Julius Caesar would have been the Autocracy, but the empowered Tribal Assembly would have been the Democracy, and no Benevolent Tyrant model likes Democracy. The Senate, representing "Aristocracy" (Oligarchy), would be gone. Any patronage that the Tribal Assembly would have engaged in would have been with Caesar alone, rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Plato's Republic economically plus the political Anti-Republic (as described above) would have been the ideal pre-industrial society, since it took the chattel slave class(es) Haiti to figure things out about political organization beyond mob riots.

Demarchy is a solution to what, precisely? What was needed in Russia was the revitalization of democracy, not appointments by lottery. Randomly appointing people to various offices is the kind of oddball middle-class theory usually dreamt up by groups like the Green Party.

Elections facilitate incumbency and skew "representation" such that "representative" bodies are not statistically representative of the population.

The PSUV is not a workers' party, in any sense, because it is not based on the working class and its institutions. It is a state party, primarily based upon the Venezuelan state bureaucracy - which remains a bourgeois state. It is in no way based on the petite bourgeoisie, and there is nothing whatsoever scientific about your characterization of it.

You just claim it isn't simply because you can't fathom any kind of workers party that doesn't have extensive tred-iunion links.

[graymouser]

Re. Julius Caesar vs. Octavian: Again, Julius Caesar would have realized the political Anti-Republic relative to liberal republicanism. Again, this political Anti-Republic is also against the Benevolent Tyrant model. Again, here's why: Julius Caesar would have been the Autocracy, but the empowered Tribal Assembly would have been the Democracy, and no Benevolent Tyrant model likes Democracy. The Senate, representing "Aristocracy" (Oligarchy), would be gone. Any patronage that the Tribal Assembly would have engaged in would have been with Caesar alone, rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Plato's Republic economically plus the political Anti-Republic (as described above) would have been the ideal pre-industrial society, since it took the slave class(es) Haiti to figure things out about political organization beyond mob riots.

Caesar was the prototype for what Marxists later identified as Bonapartism: a powerful ruler who overcomes the existing state institutions by leaning upon the middle classes to establish their own supremacy.

The supposed power given to the Assembly would have been contingent entirely upon Caesar's authority; thus the Assembly would have been totally dependent upon Caesar personally, and could in no way have represented "democracy' (with or without Random Capitalization). It would have been a captive Assembly, to an even greater degree than the vestigial Senate was under Augustus, incapable of forming anything other than a rubber stamp against Caesar. The plebeians did not have the resources to act independently, with the Tribunate having failed them decades earlier and the fact that Caesar would have been rich enough to crush the mob if they revolted against him. Power in the late Republic was imperial power, based around conquest and the command of the provinces.

Fundamentally Caesar's victory meant the victory of the same social forces that won out under Augustus: a demagogic leader lording it over the aristocracy, who nonetheless ultimately profit immensely from the imperial system. The idea that it could have been transformed into some kind of idyllic democracy is either fantasy or delusion.

Elections facilitate incumbency and skew "representation" such that "representative" bodies are not statistically representative of the population.

Let me ask you something: do you participate in any actual movement work? The way you write, it really seems like you deal primarily in a world of very strange absolutes. The idea of demarchy is just a historical curiosity, like some of the more esoteric theories that Green Party types tend to pontificate about, and there is no way in hell that a democratic socialist movement would ever implement it after the revolution.

You just claim it isn't simply because you can't fathom any kind of workers party that doesn't have extensive tred-iunion links.

The term "petit-bourgeois workers' party" has no meaning. A bourgeois workers' party is one that is organically linked to the workers' movement in some way - typically through the trade unions - but carries a program that accepts, fundamentally, bourgeois rule. The petite-bourgeoisie, particularly, do not have coherent unity or interests as a class, and the idea of a "petit-bourgeois workers party" is totally meaningless, just a random string of shibboleths.

In terms of who the actual composition of the PSUV, its core is not workers at all but the state bureaucracy, which was enrolled...well..bureaucratically. Whole groups of people were basically told they were part of the party. It is controlled not by the unions or any other workers' institutions, but this same bureaucratic layer. As such it cannot be sociologically considered a workers party even in the sense that the bourgeois workers' parties are.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Caesar was the prototype for what Marxists later identified as Bonapartism: a powerful ruler who overcomes the existing state institutions by leaning upon the middle classes to establish their own supremacy.

Caesarism /= Bonapartism. Equating the two was a historical mistake (siding with gentlemen's history) but also a contemporary political mistake for the Third World. That's why Trotskyism has no roots outside of Sri Lanka, as opposed to Maoism (despite its flaws on the "national bourgeoisie").

Bonapartism denies independent working-class organization and also maintains the bourgeoisie. Caesarism as I've defined it seeks to destroy that class, even if it opposes proletarian supremacy (but I'm optimistic that we can at least wring from it politico-ideological independence).

The supposed power given to the Assembly would have been contingent entirely upon Caesar's authority; thus the Assembly would have been totally dependent upon Caesar personally, and could in no way have represented "democracy' (with or without Random Capitalization). It would have been a captive Assembly, to an even greater degree than the vestigial Senate was under Augustus, incapable of forming anything other than a rubber stamp against Caesar.

Not unless the Assembly itself was filled with those who formed Caesar's class base of political and military support. Caesar is just one man, and would have been nothing without that base.

I'm certain that on some key issues the Assembly would have gone along with Caesar, but being just one man, and especially a military commander, even Caesar couldn't handle every single domestic question facing the Roman Republic or its parts.

The idea of demarchy is just a historical curiosity, like some of the more esoteric theories that Green Party types tend to pontificate about, and there is no way in hell that a democratic socialist movement would ever implement it after the revolution.

And every movement that repeats the mistake of elections, magnified especially in a multi-tier council model, will suffer the same fate. Paul Cockshott noted this from his own political activism in past years. Ditto with Kojin Karatani.

The term "petit-bourgeois workers' party" has no meaning. A bourgeois workers' party is one that is organically linked to the workers' movement in some way - typically through the trade unions - but carries a program that accepts, fundamentally, bourgeois rule. The petite-bourgeoisie, particularly, do not have coherent unity or interests as a class, and the idea of a "petit-bourgeois workers party" is totally meaningless, just a random string of shibboleths.

The urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie may not have any radical socioeconomic agenda, but they sure have lots of political potential. Trotsky's strategic mistake in his Permanent Revolution was not recognizing this, which Stalin used effectively to hurl the "contempt for the peasantry" accusation.

In terms of who the actual composition of the PSUV, its core is not workers at all but the state bureaucracy, which was enrolled...well..bureaucratically. Whole groups of people were basically told they were part of the party. It is controlled not by the unions or any other workers' institutions, but this same bureaucratic layer. As such it cannot be sociologically considered a workers party even in the sense that the bourgeois workers' parties are.

How's that different from the so-called "political class" dominating the Labour party?

[graymouser]

Caesarism /= Bonapartism. Equating the two was a historical mistake (siding with gentlemen's history) but also a contemporary political mistake for the Third World. That's why Trotskyism has no roots outside of Sri Lanka, as opposed to Maoism (despite its flaws on the "national bourgeoisie").

Not to be too flip, but you missed Bolivia. For the most part Trotskyism has been stymied, often physically as in Vietnam, by Stalinism and the Stalinists have had a tremendous amount more resources to spread their ideas.

And Caesarism is different from Bonapartism mostly in that it was based upon much earlier forms of class society, slavery and a vast empire, all of which make any attempt to use it as a "strategy" for the Third World some sort of bizarre joke.

Bonapartism denies independent working-class organization and also maintains the bourgeoisie. Caesarism as I've defined it seeks to destroy that class, even if it opposes proletarian supremacy.

There was no bourgeoisie in the Roman Republic, so there is certainly no basis whatsoever for your idea of a "progressive" Caesarism in actual history. The aristocracy was not a bourgeoisie, and was in no way existentially threatened by Caesar.

As for the idea of third world authoritarian "Caesarist" leaders being a viable strategy, rather than proletarian revolution, it is a fundamentally first world chauvinist prescription. Who the hell are you to say that what the third world people need is a benevolent Caesar?

Not unless the Assembly itself was filled with those who formed Caesar's class base of political and military support. Caesar is just one man, and would have been nothing without that base.

If you can honestly say that, you understand nothing of ancient Roman society. Caesar was the richest man in the world. If the plebeian masses of Rome would not suffice, you honestly think he wouldn't have been able to crush them in turn?

I'm certain that on some key issues the Assembly would have gone along with Caesar, but being just one man, and especially a military commander, even Caesar couldn't handle every single domestic question facing the Roman Republic or its parts.

Again, his role would have been fundamentally similar to that of Augustus because the class forces behind Roman society would have been extremely similar. You've done nothing but evade and attempt to deny that fundamental fact.

And every movement that repeats the mistake of elections, magnified especially in a multi-tier council model, will suffer the same fate. Paul Cockshott noted this from his own political activism in past years. Ditto with Kojin Karatani.

Why should I care what Paul Cockshott says? Or Kojin Karatani? The problems with past movements weren't that they had elections, it was mostly with the lack of a revolutionary party, or in the case of the Soviet Union, lack of a world socialist revolution.

The urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie may not have any radical socioeconomic agenda, but they sure have lots of political potential. Trotsky's strategic mistake in his Permanent Revolution was not recognizing this, which Stalin used effectively to hurl the "contempt for the peasantry" accusation.

This is close to repeating the Stalinist lie. Trotsky was quite explicit that the peasantry had potential only if led by the proletariat. The same goes for the urban petite bourgeoisie. None of that makes the idea of a "petit bourgeois workers party" even somewhat coherent, or demonstrates how it could possibly apply to the PSUV.

How's that different from the so-called "political class" dominating the Labour party?

There are no organic or historic links between the Venezuelan working class and the PSUV. There are links between the trade unions and the Labour Party, which are the only reason that socialists can honestly call for critical support to it. We can say of Labour, "This is supposed to be your party, let's see it take up the real interests of the working class." The PSUV has no such claim; it is a cross-class party, explicitly.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not to be too flip, but you missed Bolivia. For the most part Trotskyism has been stymied, often physically as in Vietnam, by Stalinism and the Stalinists have had a tremendous amount more resources to spread their ideas.

Pardon me re. Bolivia, then. Sri Lanka is the more obvious example.

I took into account the "physical" interaction (nice euphemism there) Third World Trots had to endure when I made my statement. However, I don't think Vietnam was the rule.

The Maoists and official Communists certainly had more resources, but let's look even to Portugal. The ex-Trotskyist Macnair said that the Portuguese workers turned to the official Communists because they had a political program well beyond labour disputes or illusions of growing political struggles out of economic ones.

And Caesarism is different from Bonapartism mostly in that it was based upon much earlier forms of class society, slavery and a vast empire, all of which make any attempt to use it as a "strategy" for the Third World some sort of bizarre joke.

Fine, if you want to be more accurate and precise with words, let's just say "Modern Caesarism" or "New Caesarism" for the new anti-bourgeois politics.

Bonapartism denies independent working-class organization and also maintains the bourgeoisie. Caesarism as I've defined it seeks to destroy that class, even if it opposes proletarian supremacy (but I'm optimistic that we can at least wring from it politico-ideological independence).

There was no bourgeoisie in the Roman Republic, so there is certainly no basis whatsoever for your idea of a "progressive" Caesarism in actual history. The aristocracy was not a bourgeoisie, and was in no way existentially threatened by Caesar.

As for the idea of third world authoritarian "Caesarist" leaders being a viable strategy, rather than proletarian revolution, it is a fundamentally first world chauvinist prescription. Who the hell are you to say that what the third world people need is a benevolent Caesar?

In the Third World, the ranks of urban small business owners give the ranks of the proletariat a numerical run for their money. The ranks of the rural petit-bourgeoisie ("peasantry" or otherwise) definitely outnumber the ranks of the proletariat. Moreover, there are the proper lumpenproletariat existing outside the legal wage-labour system (in many of these countries, prostitution is illegal, for example, and ditto with low-level gangster work in the drug trade). Then there are the coordinators in the private sector and in the public sector bureaucracy.

It would be political suicide to assume in arrogance that the proletariat is magically entitled to leading these other classes in a Third World political revolution. That's why there's the "National Petit-Bourgeoisie," the thoroughly anti-bourgeois elements of the petit-bourgeoisie, and their tactics of people's war, Focoism, PDPA-style military coups (see Afghanistan) - and also the figurative "March on Rome."

As long as we can wring from the Caesarist movement politico-ideological independence for the working class in building the inevitable proletarian opposition, the proletariat in the Third World can wait for its turn in the second stage, and I say this as a worker.

The funny thing about this advocacy of Third World Caesarism / Managed Democracy / Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie, btw, is that it's no longer tied to the older question of escaping feudal relations like the old Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry was.

Why should I care what Paul Cockshott says? Or Kojin Karatani? The problems with past movements weren't that they had elections, it was mostly with the lack of a revolutionary party, or in the case of the Soviet Union, lack of a world socialist revolution.

In the days of the pre-war SPD, elections helped breed careerists who had an incumbency advantage.

This is close to repeating the Stalinist lie. Trotsky was quite explicit that the peasantry had potential only if led by the proletariat.

Trotsky was horribly wrong. The peasantry may have had no social potential, but they definitely had political potential irrespective of the political organization of the proletariat.

The same goes for the urban petite bourgeoisie.

It's funny that, in Maoist theory discussions, they defend New Democracy on the same basis that Trotsky does, that somehow the New Democracy is "led by the proletariat."

I'm just being more honest about practice, in that the Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie requires proletarian independence but not proletarian leadership.

Sidenote on demarchy: I advocate demarchy as a necessary component of the DOTP itself, not as a necessary component of the Third World Caesarism / Managed Democracy / Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie.

None of that makes the idea of a "petit bourgeois workers party" even somewhat coherent, or demonstrates how it could possibly apply to the PSUV.

In a Caesarian revolution based on the dominance of a managed multi-party system, something like the PSUV would occupy the space of the Party of Order. Just look at its stance on violent video games. It would take the national security apparatus lead in "going Kremlin" on any bourgeois or liberal opposition.

There are no organic or historic links between the Venezuelan working class and the PSUV. There are links between the trade unions and the Labour Party, which are the only reason that socialists can honestly call for critical support to it. We can say of Labour, "This is supposed to be your party, let's see it take up the real interests of the working class." The PSUV has no such claim; it is a cross-class party, explicitly.

Where I'm coming from, one key component of politico-ideological independence is a workers-only voting membership policy. This is a much stronger "link" with the rest of the working class than any tred-iunion affiliation shit.

In fact, the pre-war SPD grew because of this, and the tred-iunion affiliation shit came later in the 1900s.

Labour is as cross-class a party in demographics as the PSUV is.

[graymouser]

DNZ:

I have to note that there is no content about Roman history in your latest reply, and as such I think we've managed to go completely off-topic from, you know, the actual subject of this thread. I'd be interested with pursuing the third world Caesarism concept in a separate thread but I don't want to drag this one completely off-topic.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There was no bourgeoisie in the Roman Republic, so there is certainly no basis whatsoever for your idea of a "progressive" Caesarism in actual history. The aristocracy was not a bourgeoisie, and was in no way existentially threatened by Caesar.

The progressive nature of Caesarism is precisely the existential threat his politics posed to the aristocracy. You didn't address how he allegedly didn't pose such threat.

If you can honestly say that, you understand nothing of ancient Roman society. Caesar was the richest man in the world. If the plebeian masses of Rome would not suffice, you honestly think he wouldn't have been able to crush them in turn?

The notion of Caesar being the richest man in the world contradicts his enacted Maximum on Allowable Personal Wealth of 15,000 drachmas. Now, of course, if you're referring to his access to state coffers to sustain a certain level of lifestyle, like the privileges of Soviet bureaucrats during the Stalin era, then that's another story.

As for crushing in turn, you can only bribe so many.

[Kléber]

Of course there was class struggle in Ancient Rome. What there was not was a bourgeoisie; a proletariat; any socialist perspective for the downtrodden masses. So class struggle in Ancient Rome was class struggle between other classes, not between proletariat and bourgeoisie; and for different aims, not for either the survival of capitalism or its revolutionary suppression.

Again, I never mentioned the bourgeoisie, and I never said that Roman society was capitalist, so I wonder how long you can continue to beat up this straw man. There was actually an urban and mercantile bourgeoisie in the ancient Mediterranean but it was small and had little power. There was a proletariat as well, the term comes from the Latin proletarii meaning propertyless, these were urban workers who mainly inhabited the slums of cities like Rome, and most of whom were perennially unemployed due to the lack of large-scale industry - thus they could not seize control of any means of production and establish new social relations.

The most acute class contradiction in classical antiquity was between slaves and slaveowners. This contradiction continues to the present day on a much smaller scale, the primary contradiction in the world is now between labor and capital, but the struggle against modern slavery is entirely revolutionary. The struggle against slavery is just as old as slavery itself, but it did not become revolutionary at a certain date when socialism became achievable. It was, is and will always be revolutionary for slaves to resist and overthrow their masters - that is why we all stand in the tradition of Spartacus.

Any materialist take on ancient Roman history must start from realising this; superimposing modern concepts into it is bogus, and leads to anachronic and a-historic conclusions, such as "Caesar's crimes" or "Caesar's radicalism".

Any materialist take on history must cover the whole of history, not just the last two centuries. It is not some kind of modern prejudice to feel disgust at Caesar's massacres of the Gauls. Even among the literate Roman elite, sentiments were recorded in writing which deplored the inequalities and barbarity of Rome. As the story goes, the populist demagogue Quintus Sertorius decided to rebel after witnessing a delegation of Iberian chiefs get betrayed and murdered by the Roman legions.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The most acute class contradiction in classical antiquity was between slaves and slaveowners. This contradiction continues to the present day on a much smaller scale, the primary contradiction in the world is now between labor and capital, but the struggle against modern slavery is entirely revolutionary. The struggle against slavery is just as old as slavery itself, but it did not become revolutionary at a certain date when socialism became achievable. It was, is and will always be revolutionary for slaves to resist and overthrow their masters - that is why we all stand in the tradition of Spartacus.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/album.php?albumid=845

Explain then, why it took so long for the chattel slave class(es) to figure out how to organize politically for the long-term (and by "so long," I mean the absence of something long-lasting before the Haiti uprising)?

[Luís Henrique]

Caesarism /= Bonapartism. Equating the two was a historical mistake (siding with gentlemen's history) but also a contemporary political mistake for the Third World.

There isn't, and there cannot be, anything like "Caesarism" in the Third World.

There is no longer slavery, which was what Caesarism was based upon. There aren't de jure aristocracies that could be "abolished" as Caesar intended to do to the senatorial class. Third world armies (and the legions were essential to Caesar's strategy) do not represent the plebs, but rather the bourgeoisie or landed oligarchy.

The left populism we see in countries like Bolivia or Venezuela isn't a form of Caesarism; it is a completely different phenomenon, which must be discussed on its own, not by doing what Marx criticises in the first paragraph of the 18th Brummaire.

Luís Henrique

[Dimentio]

Long live our liberator! GREAT DEAD CTULHU!

[Die Neue Zeit]

There isn't, and there cannot be, anything like "Caesarism" in the Third World.

Comrade Zanthorus called this suggested phenomenon a "Caesar Mark II." I'd only counter with the suggestion "Caesar 2.1."

I also called it "New Caesarism" or "Modern Caesarism" in addition to "Third World Caesarism."

Besides, Luxemburgists and Trots had/have their "Spartacists."

There is no longer slavery, which was what Caesarism was based upon. There aren't de jure aristocracies that could be "abolished" as Caesar intended to do to the senatorial class.

But there are the dispossessed classes on one side and the bourgeoisie and comprador petit-bourgeoisie on the other.

Third world armies (and the legions were essential to Caesar's strategy) do not represent the plebs, but rather the bourgeoisie or landed oligarchy.

OK, so tackling the issue of Third World armies is a big challenge. Nevertheless, one can't claim that the PDPA military coup in 1970s Afghanistan was reactionary.

The left populism we see in countries like Bolivia or Venezuela isn't a form of Caesarism; it is a completely different phenomenon, which must be discussed on its own, not by doing what Marx criticises in the first paragraph of the 18th Brummaire.

I agree with you, but precisely because it fits in my critique that more steps need to be taken in Venezuela especially before I can say that Hugo Chavez is truly emulating the Julius Caesar of people's history. In fact, Alexander Lukashenko is closer to that than Chavez at the moment.

Long live our liberator! GREAT DEAD CTULHU!

The first sentence would be applicable to the personality cult of the Caesar figure. The second part, well, not so much.

[graymouser]

The progressive nature of Caesarism is precisely the existential threat his politics posed to the aristocracy. You didn't address how he allegedly didn't pose such threat.

The existential threat is a fabrication of a single, remarkably sloppy author (not historian). For instance: Parenti argues that Caesar was appointed imperator perpetuus and not dictator by the Senate. This is abject nonsense - imperator was a title of acclamation by an army, meaning "commander," and was given after a significant victory. The Senate had no power to make Caesar an imperator. (It didn't come to mean "emperor" until over a century after Caesar was murdered.) It did, however, make Caesar dictator perpetuo, which along with Caesar's other titles, effectively turned the dictatura into a monarchy.

Parenti's defense of Caesar as a popularis is mistaken in two important senses. First, the real difference between the optimates and the populares cannot be summed up broadly as a question of program. (The Gracchi did really have a more egalitarian version of Rome in mind, but their vision was drowned in blood.) The optimates acted through the Senate and the populares through the plebeians, and that was the key difference between them. And second, it doesn't adequately account for the stratification of the plebeians. There were a number of rich plebeians in the class of equites who were essentially the nouveaux riches of the fledgling empire - these were the strongest supporters of Caesar's rise to power.

Finally, this is a false conception of the "people." Even if we accepted that Caesar stood for the plebeians, he would not stand for the slaves, the freedmen (liberti) or peasants - who were not generally citizens. The proletarii and the other plebs, including the equites who were the rising class throughout most of the late Republic and the early Empire, represented only a portion of the Roman "people," and generally not the oppressed classes amongst them. The equites were ambitious and had more in common with the aristocrats than the proletarii.

The notion of Caesar being the richest man in the world contradicts his enacted Maximum on Allowable Personal Wealth of 15,000 drachmas. Now, of course, if you're referring to his access to state coffers to sustain a certain level of lifestyle, like the privileges of Soviet bureaucrats during the Stalin era, then that's another story.

The Roman concept of wealth was not limited to drachmas (a Greek and not a Roman unit of currency). Caesar limited cash holdings to 60000 sesterces, but this was simply a measure to prevent hoarding as it did not limit wealth in land, slaves and other holdings. This was a perpetual struggle of the Empire; cash in that period did not function as capital, and large holdings needed to be made as productive as the slave system made possible. So if you were hoarding cash it meant you weren't working slaves to death in the mines and the fields. More than that, the state in 49 BC was having a liquidity crisis. To portray Caesar's law as revolutionary only proclaims your ignorance of Roman history.

As for crushing in turn, you can only bribe so many.

Caesar's power was based on the legions and he had already marched on Rome. It is ludicrous to say he wouldn't have done so again.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The existential threat is a fabrication of a single, remarkably sloppy author (not historian).

He's as "sloppy" (and high in "shock value") as Marx was about "primitive accumulation" (Harvey is more correct about ongoing accumulation by dispossession).

For instance: Parenti argues that Caesar was appointed imperator perpetuus and not dictator by the Senate. This is abject nonsense - imperator was a title of acclamation by an army, meaning "commander," and was given after a significant victory. The Senate had no power to make Caesar an imperator. (It didn't come to mean "emperor" until over a century after Caesar was murdered.) It did, however, make Caesar dictator perpetuo, which along with Caesar's other titles, effectively turned the dictatura into a monarchy.

You'll have to cite the page number.

Parenti's defense of Caesar as a popularis is mistaken in two important senses. First, the real difference between the optimates and the populares cannot be summed up broadly as a question of program. (The Gracchi did really have a more egalitarian version of Rome in mind, but their vision was drowned in blood.) The optimates acted through the Senate and the populares through the plebeians, and that was the key difference between them. And second, it doesn't adequately account for the stratification of the plebeians. There were a number of rich plebeians in the class of equites who were essentially the nouveaux riches of the fledgling empire - these were the strongest supporters of Caesar's rise to power.

The equites weren't the ones swelling the ranks of the Roman military, but the proletarii and peasants.

Finally, this is a false conception of the "people." Even if we accepted that Caesar stood for the plebeians, he would not stand for the slaves, the freedmen (liberti) or peasants - who were not generally citizens. The proletarii and the other plebs, including the equites who were the rising class throughout most of the late Republic and the early Empire, represented only a portion of the Roman "people," and generally not the oppressed classes amongst them. The equites were ambitious and had more in common with the aristocrats than the proletarii.

Parenti conceded the point about slaves, but I'm pretty sure the peasants were citizens (you know, serving in the military to gain citizenship). Maybe he meant "proletarii" in a broader sense: the proper proletarii, the peasants, and the liberti?

[graymouser]

He's as "sloppy" (and high in "shock value") as Marx was about "primitive accumulation" (Harvey is more correct about ongoing accumulation by dispossession).

No, Parenti is far worse in this regard than Marx was as a historian. I find it shocking that anybody takes his book seriously. Its only possible appeal is to use its initial ad hominem attacks on actual historians to justify distortion that borders on falsificationism.

You'll have to cite the page number.

Sure. Page 163. Parenti claims that the Senate made Caesar imperator, not dictator. He is wrong, both in his description of the differences and in the fact that imperator was not a title that the Senate could have conferred upon Caesar - it was only made possible by acclimation from a general's troops on the field. The Senate made Caesar the dictator for life, among certain other titles that effectively ceded power directly to him.

The equites weren't the ones swelling the ranks of the Roman military, but the proletarii and peasants.

Maybe in the ranks, but so what? There was a tremendous class conflict between the plebeian equites who were becoming richer and more entrenched in the state machinery and the patricians who held state power through the Senate. Caesar, although himself a patrician, represented to a significant degree the ambitions of the equites toward greater autonomy and power. They saw their chance with him. Your whole fantasy about the concilium plebis becoming the ruling power in Rome through Caesar falls apart when you understand that the plebs were stratified into classes, and the concilia would have been dominated by the powerful equites and used as a rubber stamp for an absolute ruler just as the Senate under the Emperors was.

Parenti conceded the point about slaves, but I'm pretty sure the peasants were citizens (you know, serving in the military to gain citizenship). Maybe he meant "proletarii" in a broader sense: the proper proletarii, the peasants, and the liberti?

Well, that "broader sense" would be ahistorical and wrong. The proletarii by definition were separate from the peasants, they were literally capite censi, head count, because they didn't own anything. If they had land to farm they wouldn't have been proletarii, now would they?

As for the slaves, if you miss them you miss the whole point on ancient democracy. The proletarii could never have taken on any progressive role as long as there were slaves who could be worked mercilessly, with no avenue for redress of any kind, for only the cost of sustenance (plus a purchase price at the beginning). That's why real leftists consider the Spartacus uprising much more important than any of the penny-ante reforms proposed by Julius Caesar.

This book belongs in the dustbin of history, and as long as you use it in your thinking that's where you'll be headed as well.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So how come Gramsci wrote that "Caesar and Napoleon I are examples of progressive Caesarism, Napoleon III and Bismarck of reactionary Caesarism"? He was on to something, something that was partially concluded upon only in 2003 and definitively concluded upon only late last year.

[Jose Gracchus]

Gramsci's characterizations are something apart from you offering a Third World left-populist strongmanism (so long as they offer some check-list of requirements) in favor of workers' power, I'm afraid. Furthermore, you seem to implicitly deny the possibility that the models for "Third World Caesarism" you provide perhaps are in essence opposed to your prime condition for it as a progressive option: working class politico-ideological (and organizational, I'm assuming) independence. Third World (and General) left-populism seeks to blunt and turn aside development of the proletariat as a class-for-itself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Gramsci's characterizations are something apart from you offering a Third World left-populist strongmanism (so long as they offer some check-list of requirements) in favor of workers' power, I'm afraid. Furthermore, you seem to implicitly deny the possibility that the models for "Third World Caesarism" you provide perhaps are in essence opposed to your prime condition for it as a progressive option: working class politico-ideological (and organizational, I'm assuming) independence.

"Organizational" is subsumed under "political." Also, I didn't deny that possibility at all, since each of those models meet only part of my check list. In fact, Lassalle is the one that definitely meets the "working-class politico-ideological independence" criterion, but he wasn't a state strongman.

Third World (and General) left-populism seeks to blunt and turn aside development of the proletariat as a class-for-itself.

I did state at least one key cause of this blunting: not being thoroughly anti-bourgeois (which then basically means being a Bonapartist at best). I think I said this in other threads, but if not I'll state it here: Maoists are the ones best-positioned to adopt this "Third World Caesarism." They need to dump their "national bourgeoisie" and comprador petit-bourgeoisie practice and their baseless "under the leadership of the working class" rhetoric.

Moreover, I also think they're the ones most capable of making sure that the "managed democracy" party system rules above any charismatic strongman hand-waving to the public while intimidating the bureaucracy and judiciary for the sake of "autonomous peasant goals, that is to say, patriarchalism, the setting up of an absolute ruler, a cult of personality whether it's of Lenin or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe" (Macnair).

[Red Commissar]

So how come Gramsci wrote that "Caesar and Napoleon I are examples of progressive Caesarism, Napoleon III and Bismarck of reactionary Caesarism"? He was on to something, something that was partially concluded upon only in 2003 and definitively concluded upon only late last year.

I don't have anything to add here but it's useful to see Gramsci's bit on "Caesarism" in the piece from his prison notebooks rather than from that line. I'll provide that bit here for anyone interested:

Caesar, Napoleon I, Napoleon III, Cromwell, etc. Compile a catalogue of the historical events which have culminated in a great 'heroic' personality.

Caesarism can be said to express a situation in which the forces in conflict balance each other in a catastrophic manner; that is to say, they balance each other in such a way that a continuation of the conflict can only terminate in their reciprocal destruction. When the progressive force A struggles with the regressive force B, not only may A defeat B or B defeat A, but it may happen that neither A nor B defeats the other -that they bleed each other mutually and than a third force C intervenes from outside subjugating what is left of both A and B. In Italy, after the death of Lorenzo il Magnifico, this is precisely what occurred.

But Caesarism -although it always expresses the particular solution in which a great personality is entrusted with the task of 'arbitration' over a historico-political situation characterised by an equilibrium of forces heading towards catastrophe does not in all cases have the same historical significance. There can be both a progressive and a regressive form of Caesarism; the exact significance of each form can, in the last analysis, be reconstructed only through concrete history, and not by means of any sociological schema. Caesarism is progressive when its intervention helps the progressive force to triumph, albeit with its victory tempered by certain compromises and limitations. It is regressive when its intervention helps the regressive force to triumph -in this case too with certain compromises and limitations, which have, however, a different value, extent, and significance than in the former. Caesar and Napoleon I are examples of progressive Caesarism. Napoleon III and Bismarck of regressive Caesarism. The problem is to see whether in the dialectic 'revolution/restoration' it is revolution or restoration which predominates; for it is certain that in the movement of history there is never any turning back, and that restorations in toto do not exist. Besides, Caesarism is a polemical-ideological formula, and not a canon of historical interpretation. A Caesarist solution can exist even without a Caesar, without any great 'heroic' and representative personality. The parliamentary system has also provided a mechanism for such compromise solutions. The 'Labour' governments of MacDonald were to a certain degree solutions of this kind; and the degree of Caesarism increased when the government was formed which had MacDonald as its head and a Conservative majority. IS Similarly in Italy from October 1922 until the defection of the 'Popolari', and then by stages until 3 January 1925, and then until 8 November 1926, there was a politicohistorical movement in which various gradations of Caesarism succeeded each other, culminating in a more pure and permanent form -though even this was not static or immobile. Every coalition government is a first stage of Caesarism, which either mayor may not develop to more significant stages (the common opinion of course is that coalition governments, on the contrary, are the most 'solid bulwark' against Caesarism).

In the modern world, with its great economic-trade-union and party-political coalitions, the mechanism of the Caesarist phenomenon is very different from what it was up to the time of Napoleon III. In the period up to Napoleon III, the regular military forces or soldiers of the line were a decisive element in the advent of Caesarism, and this came about through quite precise coups d'etat, through military actions, etc. In the modern world trade-union and political forces, with the limitless financial means which may be at the disposal of small groups of citizens, complicate the problem. The functionaries of the parties and economic unions can be corrupted or terrorized, without any need for military action in the grand style -of the Caesar or 18 Brumaire type: The same situation recurs in this field as was examined in connection with the Jacobin/1848 formula of the so-called 'permanent revolution' Modern political technique became totally transformed after 1848; after the expansion of parliamentarism and of the associative systems of union and party, and the growth in the formation of vast state and 'private' bureaucracies (i.e. politico-private, belonging to parties and trade unions); and after the transformations which took place in the organization of the forces of order in the wide sense -i.e. not only the public service designed for the repression of crime, but the totality of forces organized by the state and by private individuals to safeguard the political and economic domination of the ruling classes. In this sense, entire 'political' parties and other organizations economic or otherwise -must be considered as organs of political order, of an investigational and preventive character.

The generic schema of forces A and B in conflict with catastrophic prospects -i.e. with the prospect that neither A nor B will be victorious, in the struggle to constitute (or reconstitute) an organic equilibrium, from which Caesarism is born (can be born) is precisely a generk hypothesis, a sociological schema (convenient for the art of politics). It is possible to render the hypothesis ever more concrete, to carry it to an ever greater degree of approximation to concrete historical reality, and this can be achieved by defining certain fundamental elements.

Thus, in speaking of A and B, it has merely been asserted that they are respectively a generically progressive, and a generically regressive, force. But one might specify the type of progressive and regressive force involved, and so obtain closer approximations. In the case of Caesar and of Napoleon I, it can be said that A and B, though distinct and in conflict, were nevertheless not such as to be 'absolutely' incapable of arriving, after a molecular process, at a reciprocal fusion and assimilation. And this was what in fact happened, at least to a certain degree (sufficient, however, for the historico-political objectives in question i.e. the halting of the fundamental organic struggle, and hence the transcendence of the catastrophic phase). This is one element of closer approximation. Another such element is the following: the catastrophic phase may be brought about by a 'momentary' political deficiency of the traditional dominant force, and not by any necessarily insuperable organic deficiency. This was true in the case of Napoleon III. The dominant force in France from 1815 up to 1848 had split politically (factiously) into four camps: legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, Jacobin-republicans. The internal faction struggle was such as to make possible the advance of the rival force B (progressive) in a precocious form; however, the existing social form had not yet exhausted its possibilities for development, as subsequent history abundantly demonstrated. Napoleon III represented (in his own manner, as fitted the stature of the man, which was not great) these latent and immanent possibilities: his Caesarism therefore has a particular coloration. The Caesarism of Caesar and Napoleon I was, so to speak, of a quantitative/ qualitative character; in other words it represented the historical phase of passage from one type of state to another type -a passage in which the innovations were so numerous, and of such a nature, that they represented a complete revolution. The Caesarism of Napoleon III was merely, and in a limited fashion, quantitative; there was no passage from one type of state to another, but only 'evolution' of the same type along unbroken lines.

In the modern world, Caesarist phenomena are quite different, both from those of the progressive Caesar/Napoleon'I type, and from those of the Napoleon III type -although they tend towards the latter. In the modern world, the equilibrium with catastrophic prospects occurs not between forces which could in the last analysis fuse and unite -albeit after a wearying and bloody process -but between forces whose opposition is historically incurable and indeed becomes especially acute with the advent of Caesarist forms. However, in the modern world Caesarism also has a certain margin -larger or smaller, depending on the country and its relative weight in the global context, for a social form 'always' has marginal possibilities for further development and organizational improvement, and in particular can count on the relative weakness of the rival progressive force as a result of its specific character and way of life. It is necessary for the dominant social form to preserve this weakness: this is why it has been asserted that modern Caesarism is more a police than a military system.

It would be an error of method (an aspect of sociological mechanicism) to believe that in Caesarism -whether progressive, regressive, or of an intermediate and episodic character the entire new historical phenomenon is due to the equilibrium of the 'fundamental' forces. It is also necessary to see the interplay of relations between the principal groups (of various kinds, socio-economic and technical-economic) of the fundamental classes and the auxiliary forces directed by, or subjected to, their hegemonic influence. Thus it would be impossible to understand the coup d'etat of 2 December [1852] without studying the function of the French military groups and peasantry.

A very important historical episode from this point of view is the so-called Dreyfus affair in France. This too belongs to the present series of observations, not because it led to 'Caesarism', indeed precisely for the opposite reason: because it prevented the advent of a Caesarism in gestation, of a clearly reactionary nature. Nevertheless,the Dreyfus movement is characteristic, since it was a case in which elements of the dominant social bloc itself thwarted the Caesarism of the most reactionary part of that same bloc. And they did so by relying for support not on the peasantry and the countryside, but. on the subordinate strata in the towns under the leadership of reformist socialists (though they did in fact draw support from the most advanced part of the peasantry as well). There are other modern historico-political movements of the Dreyfus type to be found, which are certainly not revolutions, but which are not entirely reactions either at least in the sense that they shatter stifling and ossified state structures in the dominant camp as well, and introduce into national life and social activity a different and more numerous personneL These movements too can have a relatively 'progressive' content, in so far as they indicate that there were effective forces latent in the old society which the older leaders did not know how to exploit -perhaps even 'marginal forces'. However, such forces cannot be absolutely progressive, in that they are not 'epochal'. They are rendered historically effective by their adversary's inability to construct, not by an inherent force of their own. Hence they are linked to a particular situation of equilibrium between the conflicting forces both incapable in their respective camps of giving autonomous expression to a will for reconstruction.

It must be remembered though that due to the way he was writing in prison, he often did a lot of doublespeak and vague references to get by censors. What he really means is sometimes harder to comprehend.

As Quintin Hoare notes in the compilation of the prison works on this section:

As is clear from another note (PP, p.189) this term was suggested to Gramsci by the analogy commonly drawn in Fascist Italy between Caesar and Mussolini. Gramsci pours scorn on the "Theory of Caesarism", on the idea that Caesar "transformed Rome from a city-state into the capital of the Empire"- and by implication on the idea that Mussolini had effected a similar transformation in the status of modern Italy

Before in the introduction Hoare sums up his intent

"Caesarism" for Gramsci, is a concept which does not merely refer to fascism, but can have a wider application- e.g. to the British National Government of 1931, etc.; it is thus not identical to Marx's concept of "Bonapartism", although it is clearly related to it. "Caesarism" represents a compromise between two "fundamental" social forces, but 1. "The problem is to see whether in the dialectic 'revolution/restoration' it is revolution or restoration which predominates", and 2. "It would be an error of method to believe that in Caesarism... the entire new historical phenomenon is due to the equilibrium of the 'fundamental' forces. It is also necessary to see the interplay of relations between the principal groups... of the fundamental classes and the axuiliary forces directed by, or subjected to, their hegemonic influence." Thus, in the specific case of the fascist regime in Italy, the problem, in Gramsci's eyes, is 1. to analyse the "passive revolution" which fascism perhaps represents, and 2. to analyse the specificity of the social forces which produced it- i.e. rejecting absolutely the crude equation fascism=capitalism.

[graymouser]

So how come Gramsci wrote that "Caesar and Napoleon I are examples of progressive Caesarism, Napoleon III and Bismarck of reactionary Caesarism"? He was on to something, something that was partially concluded upon only in 2003 and definitively concluded upon only late last year.

Gramsci was very rarely "onto" anything - he used oblique language because he was in prison and could not write in straightforward Marxist terms. His "Caesarism" is most probably a substitution for Bonapartism, which is after all the framework in which Marxists understand Napoleon I, Napoleon III, and Bismarck. The point of his writing on "Caesarism" was primarily to critique Mussolini and not to praise Caesar.

Considering the company Gramsci puts Caesar in, you cannot take anything too significant from it; Napoleon I was not a tremendous "progressive" man of history, but rather the original Bonapartist who transformed the French Republic into an Empire.