communism, ideology vs necessity/self interest abd san niss

[black magick hustla]

i've been bothered lately by some proclamations in the forum that a worker communist can't desert "communism" because its survival depends on it etc., as opposed to petit bourgeois intellectuals etc. it bothers me because i think its a bit dishonest, because it comes from this idea that communist workers become communist because of their state and material conditions. i don't think this is true, at all, actually.

in the 1930s there was an american council communist called sam moss who wrote the following very interesting article, http://www.lettersjournal.org/moss.html . he argued that "communism" in the working class was acquired by a particular set of what he called "worker intellectuals", but that the accepted idea that communist militants are like an organic arm of the class is more or less wrong. i think its a very interesting idea, because i do also think that nobody, especially in this particular epoch in the west, becomes a communist because of "self interest", or "self preservation". in fact, in many ways it is quite stupid to be a communist, you will be blacklisted, in some places you will be thrown to jail/prison/tortured, you will have this weird ideological deadweight on your shoulders and you won't be able to function as a normal human being. if one does the math and the statistics, one probably finds out that it is better to not be a communist at all, no matter your socio economic background.

i think this whole, i am a communist because i am a worker, is a bigger part of this weird identity-politics like doctrine that has been adopted by some pro revolutionaries. there is this fake, constructed identity of what means to be a worker that is articulated by some pro-revs, it is also connected to this idea that there is such thing as a "working class consciousness" which is of course more or less reductionist. the only thing that pretty much workers share in times of class peace is pretty much just their relation to the economy.

my point is that communists are not the "working class" nor an extension of it, at least in a historical materialist sense. the working class creates its own organs and ways of fighting, and most of the time the people in those organs are not really communists, except in some specific historic situations, in a very vague sense.

[black magick hustla]

he reason for the apparent difference of objectives between the revolutionary groups and the working class is easy to understand. The working class, concerned only with the needs of the moment and in general content with its social status, reflects the level of capitalist culture - a culture that is "for the enormous majority a mere training to act as a machine." The revolutionists, however, are so to speak deviations from the working class; they are the by-products of capitalism; they represent isolated cases of workers who, because of unique circumstances in their individual lives, have diverged from the usual course of development in that, though born of wage slaves, they have acquired an intellectual interest, that has availed itself of the existing educational possibilities. Though of these, many have succeeded in rising into the petty-bourgeoisie, others, whose careers in this direction were blocked by circumstances have remained within the working class as intellectual workers. Dissatisfied with their social status as appendages to machines, they, unable to rise within the system, rise against it. Quite frequently cut off from association with their fellow workers on the job, who do not share their radical views, they unite with other rebellious intellectual workers and with other unsuccessful careerists of other strata of society, into organizations of changing society. If, in their struggle to liberate the masses from wage slavery, they seem to be acting from the noblest of motives, certainly it doesn't take much to see that when one suffers for another he has only identified that other's sorrow with his own. But whenever they have the chance to rise within the existing society they, with rare exceptions, do not hesitate to abandon their revolutionary objectives. And when they do so, they offer sincere and sound logic for their apostasy, for, "Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas change with every change in his material existence?" Sports in the development of capitalism, the revolutionary organizations, small ineffectual, buzzing along the flanks of the broad masses, have done nothing to affect the course of history either for good or ill. Their occasional periods of activity can be explained only by their temporary or permanent forsaking of their revolutionary aims in order to unite with the workers immediate demands and then it was not their own revolutionary role that they played, but the conservative role of the working class. When the workers achieved their objectives, the radical groups lapsed again into impotence. Their role was always a supplementary, and never a deciding one.

sam moss

[piet11111]

I am a communist and i am a worker if i was bourgeois i doubt i would be a communist.

I also recognize that communism is in my own self interest and incidentally that of my working class comrades.
And i think that any working class comrade that has a thorough understanding of capitalism and its effects on the proletariat can not help but become a communist.

That being a communist while in the minority is not in my immediate interest does not make me wrong for pointing out the many ways capitalism is fucking us over to enrich the bosses.

After all "being determines consciousness" and i am sure we will all be learning a lot from our Greek comrades very soon as they are about to discover the meaning of "socialism or barbarism"

[black magick hustla]

I am a communist and i am a worker if i was bourgeois i doubt i would be a communist.

maybe, but you are not a communist because of "self preservation", i think.

And i think that any working class comrade that has a thorough understanding of capitalism and its effects on the proletariat can not help but become a communist.

that is an opinion, really. i am sure there are a lot of working class autodidacts that choose to not be communists.

That being a communist while in the minority is not in my immediate interest does not make me wrong for pointing out the many ways capitalism is fucking us over to enrich the bosses.

nobody is saying that

After all "being determines consciousness" and i am sure we will all be learning a lot from our Greek comrades very soon as they are about to discover the meaning of "socialism or barbarism"

yea, but i am sure the mayority of people that will riot/fight there will not be "communists".

[9]

I agree with a lot of your original post, but I have a question on this

The working class, concerned only with the needs of the moment and in general content with its social status

Ironically this sounds sort of like Lenin in What is to be Done. At any rate, if this is the case, then isn't the implication that the working class is not a revolutionary class?

[black magick hustla]

I agree with a lot of your original post, but I have a question on this

Ironically this sounds sort of like Lenin in What is to be Done. At any rate, if this is the case, then isn't the implication that the working class is not a revolutionary class?

i am not really a sam mossist, so i dont agree with that. i just find the whole idea of "worker intellectuals" interesting. i think the working class fights because of "necessesity", now necessity is a very flexible word. the article assumes that capitalism can keep delivering demands, and therefore have a content working class, i think that is pretty optimistic lol

[Искра]

I think that there's was difference between 19th century (or whatever) when mass worker parties started to amerge and when first unions fought for better working conditions that with today. First of all, communism doesn't mean the same thing as it did back then and also, system is using a lot of more ideological weapons than it used to. I could also mention left wing of capital and their false promises etc. and also this decades of counter-revolution (almost a century...).

Also, it's quite naive to believe that workers in 19th cenutry become communists just because of "self-interest" or that they knew everything for what do their parties stand for.

I believe that there are allways different ways for someone to become communist. Sure, right now most of the communists are nerds like you and me or some old people (or some smelly ass crusties/hippies) i.e. people who got attracted to these ideas, but as class struggle will go on there'll be more and more people who will get attracted to certian ideas. All all that is partly based in "material conditions" (i.e. people are pissed off because they are on the dole and they see an answer in your ideas).

[Ostrinski]

If worker's self interest isn't what legitimizes communism, then communism is irrelevant.

[Искра]

That's true, but I don't think that workers care about communism in anyway. Their self interest goes more with what Lenin called "trade union concience".

[9]

Their self interest goes more with what Lenin called "trade union concience".

I think Lenin discovered pretty soon after he wrote that that he was wrong, and that under the right circumstances, the working class is a revolutionary force without needing to be imbued with communist consciousnesses from without.

[Искра]

Of course, I agree. But I was talking about this period where there are no "right circumstances" in which workers self interest is pretty rooted in reformism and leftists are trying to score points from that...

There's nice quote from Luxemburg (and I don't usually go with whole this quotes thing, cause it's kind of stupid, but I like this one) how in event of mass strike nice and quiet father becomes the most militant revolutionary. I believe that this is quite true and you can actually see something of that in OWS struggles, Greece etc.

[black magick hustla]

If worker's self interest isn't what legitimizes communism, then communism is irrelevant.

"self interest" struggle is what brings about communism at the end, but it certainly isn't what "legitimizes" it.

[gorillafuck]

it's kind of weird how the same people that assert that the only legitimate commies are the ones who are out of just self interest are the same people who will ream people out for not knowing the same gender theory theoretical intricacies as them.

[Franz Fanonipants]

i think that asserting that communism is the only ideology a "conscious" worker will come to is pretty problematic, so it makes sense but

[9]

it's kind of weird how the same people that assert that the only legitimate commies are the ones who are out of just self interest are the same people who will ream people out for not knowing the same gender theory theoretical intricacies as them.

Really...? I have never noticed this parallel... It seems like the sort of people who are into the whole artificial working class identity politics thing are the last people who would go on about 'gender theory'...

[gorillafuck]

Really...? I have never noticed this parallel... It seems like the sort of people who are into the whole artificial working class identity politics thing are the last people who would go on about 'gender theory'...

it's not done only by them, but I've definitely noticed it.

I have no issue with gender theory stuff by the way. I just find it funny when someone who has a working class self interest or die attitude about communism also talks about social stuff which most people do not have a self-interest in.

[9]

Eh, I cant really respond, as I am not too sure what you are referring to.

[gorillafuck]

it is something I have seen. maybe you have not.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I've been thinking about this very subject lately. Specifically about people who aren't living hand-to-mouth in some dirty factory somewhere but are none-the-less attracted to communism. Like me. It's not really in my "self-interest" to support communist politics, but I still do, for reasons that are admittedly connected to ideology more than anything else. I try to make meaning out of an existence that more often than not seems pretty meaningless. Honestly often I'm severely tempted to just throw my hands up in the air and proclaim my eternal ignorance.

The only hope for communism ever to exist though is self-interest, if I know anything it's that. If it comes from "missionary work" than it'll succumb to the same rot that we all know and love: corruption, decay, thousands of equally insignificant left-wing orgs and parties, etc.

[black magick hustla]

i think the problem is that hipsters try to acknowledge they are "against morality" and therefore, the only amoral way to be a communist is if they make some dumb myth about self interest. While communism will come through necessity I think, its ultimate legitimacy rests in moral/human/ethical assumptions. men don't deserve to be treated like rats or be cold, hungry, and miserable.