Serious Questions About Bolshevism

[The Idler]

Isn't the question what room in scientific socialism is there for ideologies or dogma based on what particular individuals did? The answer is none! This includes for Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism and yes even Marxism. So yes Alet, 'Marxist' is not a term desirable for us to use and why the SPGB have used the term Marxian instead.

[Blake's Baby]

Which is a semantic quibble. Is what Marx said unchallengeable? No, whether you use the term 'Marxist' or 'Marxian'. Or following Stalinist ('Stalinian'?) practice, 'Marxite'.

The problem is treating political theory as dogma, not what you call it.

[Alet]

Isn't the question what room in scientific socialism is there for ideologies or dogma based on what particular individuals did? The answer is none! This includes for Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism and yes even Marxism. So yes Alet, 'Marxist' is not a term desirable for us to use and why the SPGB have used the term Marxian instead.

What a ridiculous quibble. The fact that ideologies are not reducible to individuals is, especially for us communists, a banal truism. If one desires to make a distinction between "Marxist" and "Marxian", fine, I actually don't really care, but (or because) that's a purely ethical decision which is practically irrelevant. You won't eradicate actual subconscious, ideological mindsets, such as the notion that individuals constitute ideologies, by imposing fancy terms.

[The Idler]

No its not just semantic. I hear Marxsplaining or Leninsplaining in debates particularly between tendencies quite often. It's argument from authority and what this topic is all about. Lars Lih often seems to argue over the individual of Lenin and his thoughts as if that reflects on communism generally. Using Marxian not Marxist won't eradicate it, but it will help.

[Alet]

No its not just semantic.

I hear Marxsplaining or Leninsplaining in debates particularly between tendencies quite often.

So this is your justification? It's "not just semantic" because self-proclaimed Marxists fail to understand their favored ideology? Quasi-consumerist worship of political idols might be a problem even among the radical Left, it is indeed very real. However, this is not the controversy. The controversy is this: "You won't eradicate actual subconscious, ideological mindsets, such as the notion that individuals constitute ideologies, by imposing fancy terms." My point is that SPGB's distinction doesn't mean shit for them because this is not how ideology works - if these pseudo-intellectuals read "Marxian", they will nevertheless read "Marxist" for the simple reason that these terms are not connoted differently - well, at least not outside of SPGB's political culture.

[The Idler]

So this is your justification? It's "not just semantic" because self-proclaimed Marxists fail to understand their favored ideology? Quasi-consumerist worship of political idols might be a problem even among the radical Left, it is indeed very real. However, this is not the controversy. The controversy is this: "You won't eradicate actual subconscious, ideological mindsets, such as the notion that individuals constitute ideologies, by imposing fancy terms." My point is that SPGB's distinction doesn't mean shit for them because this is not how ideology works - if these pseudo-intellectuals read "Marxian", they will nevertheless read "Marxist" for the simple reason that these terms are not connoted differently - well, at least not outside of SPGB's political culture.

No, this is the controversy, not just personality cults as you seem to be arguing against, but arguing any individual points the way such as the quote you repeated
If it is now the task of Communists to continue in Lenin’s footsteps, this can only be fruitful if they attempt to establish the same active relation to him as he had to Marx.

[Alet]

No, this is the controversy, not just personality cults as you seem to be arguing against, but arguing any individual points the way such as the quote you repeated
If it is now the task of Communists to continue in Lenin’s footsteps, this can only be fruitful if they attempt to establish the same active relation to him as he had to Marx.

The point you miss here is that Lukacs is not making an argument of authority but, quite the contrary, he explains why Leninism is actually irreducible to Lenin himself. That Lenin was a partisan of a wider tradition that we have to carry on is the significant essence of Lukacs' text. I mean, you don't even have to read the whole chapter, just read the sentence you have quoted: "If it is now the task of Communists to continue in Lenin’s footsteps, this can only be fruitful if they attempt to establish the same active relation to him as he had to Marx." The "active relation" Lenin had to Marx was not an uncritical worship of an abstract idol. Instead, he recognized the "unmechanical" nature of the practical implications of Marxism. It is exactly this recognition what justifies the legacy of Leninism. Lukacs is not arguing that Leninism is a kind of panacea you can apply to the here and now, but that our task is to do what Lenin would do if he was living in our context. That is not to idolize Lenin, of course, he didn't possess any special features or innate abilities that impede our task to "be Lenin". The point is very simple: Lenin represented a whole tradition, he was a personified theory or method. When, therefore, Lukacs says that we have to do what Lenin has done, he does not mean that we are supposed to mimic him but that we have to learn from him, as he understood how to apply the unmechanical practice of dialectics. We are not talking about Lenin as an individual anymore, in other words.

[Alet]

And furthermore, I don't see how this is connected to your proposal that we should use the term "Marxian" instead of "Marxist".

[ckaihatsu]

Strictly from experience I've been under the impression that 'Marxian' is the more-*academic* term....

[Guardia Rossa]

Strictly from experience I've been under the impression that 'Marxian' is the more-*academic* term....

I though it was more related to Communist Economics?

[ckaihatsu]

I though it was more related to Communist Economics?

Time to lay down your cards regarding 'communist economics', then -- what's your impression / reference here -- ?

[Guardia Rossa]

reference

Articles of "Marxian Economics", books on "Marxian Economics", etc...

I haven't really seen the word much out of the economist context.

[ckaihatsu]

Articles of "Marxian Economics", books on "Marxian Economics", etc...

I haven't really seen the word much out of the economist context.

May I gently remind that all of those are bullshit, and that you may soon feel the irresistible urge to revisit *my own* work on the topic....


A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

[Guardia Rossa]

May I gently remind that all of those are bullshit

I'm afraid that until I finish my "Dialectical Materialism 101" course I won't be able to look into anything resembling economics.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm afraid that until I finish my "Dialectical Materialism 101" course I won't be able to look into anything resembling economics.

Yeah, lemme help you through that real quick so you can get onto more pressing matters.... (heh)

Chapter 6

European feudalism

Merchants from the great Islamic cities such as Cairo and Cordoba travelled widely 1,000 years ago. 87 Any who made their way to the royal courts of northern Europe must have been shaken by the conditions they found.

The land was divided between warring baronies, often separated from each other by dense woodlands or marshes. Each was a virtually self contained economy, its people depending almost entirely on what was produced on its lands. For the peasants this meant a diet dominated by bread and gruel, and clothing spun and woven in their own homes out of rough wool or flax . It also meant devoting at least two fifths of their energies to unpaid work for the lord, either in the form of labour or goods in kind. As serfs, the peasants did not have the freedom to leave either the land or the lord.

The living standard of the lordly family was much higher, yet it too was restricted to what the peasants could produce. The lords’ castles were crude, built of wood and surrounded by wood and mud palisades, ill protected against the elements. Their clothing, much more abundant than the peasants’, was hardly any smoother on the skin, and the lords were rarely more cultured. They needed expertise in horseriding and the use of weapons to hold their lands against other lords and to punish recalcitrant peasants; they did not need to be able to read and write, and most did not bother to learn. When the lords with larger estates wanted to keep written records, they turned to the small social group which had preserved the knowledge of reading and writing—the thin layer of literate monks and clergy.

There were a few products—salt, iron for plough tips, knives and the lords’ weapons—which came from traders. But these were very different from the wealthy merchant classes of the eastern civilisations, being akin to bagmen or tinkers as they tramped through forest paths and along barely recognisable mud-caked roads.

There were few towns, and ‘entire countries, like England and almost all the Germanic lands, were entirely without towns’. 88 The towns that did exist were little more than administrative centres for the bigger barons or religious establishments, and were made up of a few houses clustered around a castle, monastery or large church. Yet this most backward extremity of the great Eurasian continent was eventually to become the birthplace of a new civilisation which would overwhelm all the rest.

There have been all sorts of explanations for this transformation, ranging from the wondrous, through the absurd, to the obscene. Some ascribe it to the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ tradition, although the Christian side of this certainly did not show any merits during the last years of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages in Europe or the stagnation of Byzantium. Others ascribe it to the climate which allegedly encourages ‘work’ and ‘enterprise’, 89 which makes one wonder how the first great civilisations were able to flourish. The obscene attempt to explain it in terms of the alleged ‘racial’ superiority of the Europeans falls at the first hurdle given that they were backward for so long. Another line of thinking ascribes the rise of Europe to ‘contingent’ factors—in other words, it was an accident. There was the fortuitous emergence of a series of great men, according to traditional mainstream history; there was the lucky rise of Calvinism and the ‘Protestant ethic’, according to followers of the German sociologist Max Weber; there was the chance outcome of clashes between peasants and lords in 15th century England which left neither victorious, according to some North American academics. 90

The backward go forward

All these accounts miss an obvious point. Europe’s very backwardness encouraged people to adopt new ways of wresting a livelihood from elsewhere. Slowly, over many centuries, they began to apply techniques already known in China, India, Egypt, Mesopotamia and southern Spain. There was a corresponding slow but cumulative change in the social relations of society as a whole, just as there had been in Sung China or the Abbasid caliphate. But this time it happened without the enormous dead weight of an old imperial superstructure to smother continued advance. The very backwardness of Europe allowed it to leapfrog over the great empires.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 140-141

[Guardia Rossa]

I should actually be sleeping now to wake up early and go to school well-rested and not like a fucking zombie... (Heh)

That was actually in my buy list. I'm actually going to buy a Kindle or Kindle-esque as soon as I pile up the cash (And do some PDF downloading).

[ckaihatsu]

I should actually be sleeping now to wake up early and go to school well-rested and not like a fucking zombie... (Heh)

That was actually in my buy list. I'm actually going to buy a Kindle or Kindle-esque as soon as I pile up the cash (And do some PDF downloading).

Yeah, that one is pretty essential....

Android tablets are now under fifty bucks, so....

(Look at my shit. Do it now.) (heh)

[Burzhuin]

Question: "
What did Marx mean by a global communist revolution and how does that compare and contrast with Leninist policies/theories which were focused on regions and individual countries? What justification would Leninists give for this policy of Leninism? (In other words, did Leninist policy maintain Marx´s understanding or did it modify it in some way?)"
With all due respect to Marx his experience was Europe based related. But looked at political map of the World at his time. It was several developed European countries (UK, France, Germany, etc) and colonies. Until 1861, according to my knowledge, he never mentioned Americas. Russian Empire and China were feudal countries. More or less European countries were on the same level. So, as I understand, Marx expected that European countries will start revolution and that bring colonies along.

When Lenin wrote his works the Russia made giant leap toward capitalism. But still far behind Germany, UK, France, etc. So new reality required new theory.

It is simplified and very sketchy answer.

[Guardia Rossa]

Android tablets are now under fifty bucks, so...

Do I look like a fucking yankee (No offense to yankees)? Dollar just doubled in Brazil. From 2 to 4 per Reais. And my salary is shit.

[ckaihatsu]

Do I look like a fucking yankee (No offense to yankees)? Dollar just doubled in Brazil. From 2 to 4 per Reais. And my salary is shit.

Sorry, then -- around here you can even find computers at thrift stores, so good luck anyway.