Of course not. Nor the urban bachelor that serves coffee in some metropolis have much to do psychologically with an indian worker rioting in some auto factory. Nor the white kid that grew up in a middle class union home has much to do psychologically with the black kid that has a crack addicted mom and his friends shoot some fuckers to push dope. We can play that stupid game all you want.
No one said all workers listen to the same music or drink in the same bar or even speak the same language. But that doesn't matter. What they have in common is their relation to the means of production and society.
When the bosses go on the attack, workers can come together on the same side of the barricades, regardless of any of that.
Who did battle in the auto plants of Michigan? "Polish-Americans" from Detroit, "blacks" from the south and "hillbillies" from Appalachia. Workers all.
Who waged war in the coal fields of West Virginia? White and black miners (as the saying goes, everyone is black after a shift underground).
Look at the reports of Turkish and Kurdish workers together during the recent Tekel strike. The St. Louis commune with white workers who undoubtedly had racist ideas taking up the cause of black workers. The Coal Creek War, with southern white workers freeing black inmates being used to replace them.
Etc., etc., etc.
And therein lies the point.
Workers aren't bound by ideological strings, taste in music, but by what are ultimately common conditions of life and position in society. And although they have differences among themselves, they share this essential commonality, whether or not they are conscious of it at any given time, that will and must emerge in times of open class conflict.
And while they may chill with different groups of friends after work, they all know what it's like to sell their labor power to survive, to be exploited, to be a cog in the bosses machine, etc. And ultimately, their only way out of all of this is through a working class revolution that abolishes capitalism.
The petty-bourgeois communists on the other hand take up their political positions for whatever personal reason (careerism, idealism, guilt, to "serve the people," because they're angry at mommy and daddy, etc.), and can jettison it like their CD collection whenever they tire of it. Not to mention that were an actual proletarian revolution to break out, it's goals would surpass their own of "a more humane society," and in fact encroach on their material interests.
The worker is free to abandon communist politics... but escaping wage-slavery isn't so easy.
:shrugs:, what you are talking about is not really historical materialism, but some weird marxified form of vulgar psychology.
:shrugs: I don't even know what you're talking about most of the time because your posts are muddled and meandering, with topics that change throughout, sometimes mid-sentence.
It was Marx who developed "historical materialism," with Engels proclaiming at his grave that it was one of his two great discoveries.
What did these two "discoverers" say and do in practice?
Marx specifically rejected official leadership positions time and time again. "'Victor Le Lubez … asked if Karl Marx would suggest the name of someone to speak on behalf of the German Workers.’ Marx himself was far too bourgeois to be eligible so he recommended the emigre tailor Johann Georg Eccarius…'" – Karl Marx: A Life. Francis Wheen.
"Citizen Marx has just been mentioned; he has perfectly understood the importance of this first congress, where there should be only working-class delegates; therefor he refused the delegateship he was offered in the General Council." – Geneva Congress of the First International, James Carter.
"Lawrence moved that Marx be President for the ensuing twelve months; Carter seconded that nomination. Marx proposed Odger: he, Marx, thought himself incapacitated because he was a head worker and not a hand worker." – The General Council of the First International: Minutes.
Marx and Engels argued against members of the petty-bourgeoisie leading workers. "The International Working Men's Association, based upon the principle of the abolition of classes, cannot admit any middle class Sections.'” - Engels, Resolutions of the Hague Congress of the International Working Men's Association
"... the I.W.M.A., according to the General Rules, is to consist exclusively of 'workingmen's societies' .... the General Council was some months ago precluded from recognizing a Slavonian section exclusively composed of students ... the General Council recommends that in future there be admitted no new American section of which two-thirds at least do not consist of wage laborers." - Resolution of the IWMA on the Split in the U.S. Federation
"If people of this kind from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first condition is that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should whole-heartedly adopt the proletarian point of view. But these gentlemen, as has been proved, are stuffed and crammed with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In such a petty-bourgeois country as Germany these ideas certainly have their own justification. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. If these gentlemen form themselves into a Social-Democratic Petty-Bourgeois Party they have a perfect right to do so; one could then negotiate with them, form a bloc according to circumstances, etc. But in a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. If reasons exist for tolerating them there for the moment, it is also a duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. The time, moreover, seems to have come." - Engels
Some of that "weird marxified form of vulgar psychology" I suppose.
:shrugs:, stalin's whole central committee was made of workers more or less.
The Bolshevik's central committee was absolutely dominated by the petty-bourgeoisie. After the civil war the "Lenin Levy" brought a flood of workers into the ranks of the party, but where they? Many of the most militant workers had been killed off in the struggles after the revolution. Those who remained, and made it through "War Communism," were largely conservative, trying to stay alive and support their families. They entered the party for self-preservation (at a rare time in history when being a "communist" actually expanded your opportunities). They were very easily manipulated by the bureaucrats who controlled the reins, brought in to fill the gaps and perfect the state apparatus.
What you are talking about is not really petit bourgeois individual "communists" but careerists and party bureaucrats in general.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. People trained by their conditions of life not only to "lead," manage, boss around, etc., but who also expect it as rightfully and naturally theirs.
The petit bourgeois happens to generally be better equipped financially and in terms of skills to overtake this organizations, but any one of any class background who ends up taking those positions and becoming professional community organizers/radicals/partyheads/petit bourgeois overseers whatever the fuck is the current flavor of little lenins today, is bound more or less to be like that.
Right. The petty-bourgeoisie socialists and their organizations (which unfortunately suck in some working people). They are training houses for careerists of all stripes. They develop "leadership" skills, propaganda skills, and even the "nuts and bolts" stuff like making posters, newspapers, videos, websites, speeches, etc., that "normal" workers by and large don't have much experience in. That's a part of the danger.
We are talking really, however, about mass movements, when the class is in conflict, not small reading council communist circles, which is what I have been alluding to all the time.
And? People were armed in the street of Bolivia chanting "workers to power" before Morales and co. swept in to head things off at the pass. The same kind of activity (and worse) can be found throughout history.
The groups are small now but that doesn't mean they are not dangerous for the simple of fact of their skills, underlying motives and what they can become in times of open conflict.
The role of the petty-bourgeoisie in socialist movements has been demonstrated time and time again through history. Here's a hint: it ain't a good one.
THis is why I said class matters in the macroscopic, structural level, as opposed to trying to map the destiny of a particular individual and its psychology, especially someone as weird to be part of a council communist circle/wpa/tinyleftsect is a bit silly. Some dude who's daddy owns some stupid bookstore or whatever that happens to read marx in a circle with you is very different from talking about, say, may 1968 and the influence of party bureacrats.
A good comparison is statistics. Statistics are more or less useless when your sample size is tiny, however the useability of it increases as the sample size increases. In physics, we use statistical mechanics to talk about 10^23 atoms, not the trajectory of one atom. Historical materialism is a theory of history, not a theory of individuals.
Trying to decipher this, all I can come up with is the argument you always make about "class breaking down on the individual level" or whatever. Frankly, it makes no sense.
If there is a working class then there must be working people, and vice versa. And just as the existence of a bag of rice requires the existence of individual grains of rice, the existence of a petty-bourgeois class requires the existence of petty-bourgeois individuals.
Classes make history. But if we are indeed materialists, then we must recognize that class isn't a political position or program. The "working class" doesn't suddenly emerge out of thin air when a group of various and random people get together around the "good idea" of "communism." It objectively exists as a necessary aspect of capitalist society, and has itself the ingrained task to abolish that society in order to liberate itself.
