Michael Parenti on "Actually Existing Socialism"

[The Intransigent Faction]

So, I decided to revisit this lecture on YouTube:

+ YouTube Video

He has a lot of useful things to say, save the direction he went about 17 minutes in. I don't understand how someone apparently well-versed in history can make the argument that supporters of actually-worker-controlled means of production are guilty of "ahistorical idealism." I don't understand how he can be so dismissive of the very real obstruction of such democratic movements by self-declared socialists running a centralized, bureaucratic system.

How exactly does he justify the assumption that centralize bureaucracy in the form of a one-party state helps socialists resist counter-revolution better than a spontaneous democratic movement? The latter seems like it would be much harder to hijack from within, or to leave disorganized by virtue of being "headless."

Any thoughts?

[willowtooth]

So I listened to the whole thing it was an interesting lecture but as to your question of ahistorical idealism its obvious he's referencing anti-soviet leftists and those critical of stalinism. He saying that your "Headless spontaneous democratic movement" has never happened in any large and/ or meaningful scale. you cant even say that some small country for 10 or 20 years were able to govern themselves in this way, even if they were eventually taken down by some external force or even internal mistakes. That the USSR made incredible advances in a short time, and they were much better off than any capitalist or imperial regime.

Since it has never happened in history and is based purely on a set of ideals it is therefore ahistorical idealism, especially if your not just advocating for it but are in fact criticizing leftists for not doing things in this way as if it were a reasonable achievement and that those in charge simply chose not too for some nefarious reasons. As you see OWS and the arab spring would be considered headless they have not made any gains. Wall st is just as crooked and corrupt as it was before the Americans have elected a NY billionare on the promise that he would lower taxes for the rich and regulations for all industries including Wall st. Northern africa is in shambles between Tunisia and Syria there isn't any place you can say is truly better off, or even being led by a somewhat socialist government. So criticizing the USSR and similar governments for not being headless or democratic and spontaneous, you might as well criticize Stalin for not being able to fly or shoot lightning from his fingertips.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Thanks, but I know what he said. I watched it, too. That's not what I was asking.

I don't understand how someone apparently well-versed in history can make the argument that supporters of actually-worker-controlled means of production are guilty of "ahistorical idealism." I don't understand how he can be so dismissive of the very real obstruction of such democratic movements by self-declared socialists running a centralized, bureaucratic system.

OWS really isn't relevant at all here.

you cant even say that some small country for 10 or 20 years were able to govern themselves in this way, even if they were eventually taken down by some external force or even internal mistakes.

10-20 years seems like an arbitrary number...but this is exactly what happened, just over a shorter timespan (and oddly enough, the USSR was part of that external force in Spain and the Ukraine, and anywhere else Leninists seized or strategically suppressed the momentum of spontaneous democratic revolutions). He briefly talks about the Workers' Opposition, but how does he justify the claim that adoption of their platform would make the fledgling USSR more, not less, vulnerable to those pushing for capitalism (the same question is applicable to the seizing or suppression of spontaneous democratic movements elsewhere)?

[willowtooth]

Thanks, but I know what he said. I watched it, too. That's not what I was asking.



OWS really isn't relevant at all here.



10-20 years seems like an arbitrary number...but this is exactly what happened, just over a shorter timespan (and oddly enough, the USSR was part of that external force in Spain and the Ukraine, and anywhere else Leninists seized or strategically suppressed the momentum of spontaneous democratic revolutions). He briefly talks about the Workers' Opposition, but how does he justify the claim that adoption of their platform would make the fledgling USSR more, not less, vulnerable to those pushing for capitalism (the same question is applicable to the seizing or suppression of spontaneous democratic movements elsewhere)?

Im not saying I neccessarily agree with him but he goes into great detail in his book "Blackshirts and Reds" here's an old revleft thread about it:

Decentralization vs. Survival
For a people’s revolution to survive, it must seize state power and use it to (a) break the stranglehold exercised by the owning class over the society’s institutions and resources, and (b) withstand the reactionary counterattack that is sure to come. The internal and external dangers a revolution faces necessitate a centralized state power that is not particularly to anyone’s liking, not in Soviet Russia in 1917, nor in Sandinista Nicaragua in 1980.

Engels offers an apposite account of an uprising in Spain in 1872-73 in which anarchists seized power in municipalities across the country. At first, the situation looked promising. The king had abdicated and the bourgeois government could muster but a few thousand ill-trained troops. Yet this ragtag force prevailed because it faced a thoroughly parochialized rebellion. “Each town proclaimed itself as a sovereign canton and set up a revolutionary committee (junta),” Engels writes. “[E]ach town acted on its own, declaring that the important thing was not cooperation with other towns but separation from them, thus precluding any possibility of a combined attack [against bourgeois forces].” It was “the fragmentation and isolation of the revolutionary forces which enabled the government troops to smash one revolt after the other.”

Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency–which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution. Ideally, it would be a fine thing to have only local, self-directed, worker participation, with minimal bureaucracy, police, and military. This probably would be the development of socialism, were socialism ever allowed to develop unhindered by counterrevolutionary subversion and attack. One might recall how, in 1918-20, fourteen capitalist nations, including the United States, invaded Soviet Russia in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The years of foreign invasion and civil war did much to intensify the Bolsheviks’ siege psychology with its commitment to lockstep party unity and a repressive security apparatus. Thus, in May 1921, the same Lenin who had encouraged the practice of internal party democracy and struggled against Trotsky in order to give the trade unions a greater measure of autonomy, now called for an end to the Workers’ Opposition and other factional groups within the party. “The time has come,” he told an enthusiastically concurring Tenth Party Congress, “to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it: we have had enough opposition.” Open disputes and conflicting tendencies within and without the party, the communists concluded, created an appearance of division and weakness that invited attack by formidable foes.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/11...on-Bolshevists

[The Intransigent Faction]

Some of that is familiar from the lecture, though it seems a few things were added.
I've heard similar points before. It's certainly true that fragmented and isolated revolutionaries will see limited accomplishments at best. Even unions struggling for reforms in a fragmented and uneven system of local negotiations face this problem, let alone a revolutionary movement.

However, I'm not sure how appropriate that example is for many places (including Spain) today, given the extent of transportation and communication networks which would significantly affect cooperation between autonomous local groups...and given that most critics of Leninism of the sort Parenti's referring to here would point to the Soviet Union itself as an example of that very lesson: a revolution which remains contained or encircled will fail, one way or another. We've also seen what happens to workers who rely on bureaucracy for direction and the police/military for protection. There's no effective substitute for a working class which can uphold socialism in the face of adversity, and as long as working class activity isn't directed by workers themselves, any clearly identifiable representative will present a specific target for reactionaries within and without a workers' state.

Whether one believes a vanguard is necessary or not, I'm just not sure it necessarily provides any inherent advantages as protection from counterrevolution. Of course, while local, self-directed worker participation is preferable given the nature of the goals of socialism, and its viability would render a vanguard not only unnecessary but harmful, it's easy to see how that's not a likely possibility in the near future. Not to mention that efforts toward it have been, let's be generous and say "largely unsuccessful."

[willowtooth]

Some of that is familiar from the lecture, though it seems a few things were added.
I've heard similar points before. It's certainly true that fragmented and isolated revolutionaries will see limited accomplishments at best. Even unions struggling for reforms in a fragmented and uneven system of local negotiations face this problem, let alone a revolutionary movement.

However, I'm not sure how appropriate that example is for many places (including Spain) today, given the extent of transportation and communication networks which would significantly affect cooperation between autonomous local groups...and given that most critics of Leninism of the sort Parenti's referring to here would point to the Soviet Union itself as an example of that very lesson: a revolution which remains contained or encircled will fail, one way or another. We've also seen what happens to workers who rely on bureaucracy for direction and the police/military for protection. There's no effective substitute for a working class which can uphold socialism in the face of adversity, and as long as working class activity isn't directed by workers themselves, any clearly identifiable representative will present a specific target for reactionaries within and without a workers' state.

Whether one believes a vanguard is necessary or not, I'm just not sure it necessarily provides any inherent advantages as protection from counterrevolution. Of course, while local, self-directed worker participation is preferable given the nature of the goals of socialism, and its viability would render a vanguard not only unnecessary but harmful, it's easy to see how that's not a likely possibility in the near future. Not to mention that efforts toward it have been, let's be generous and say "largely unsuccessful."

You're criticizing MLism as legitimate course for revolution in a first world country and you are correct, that some of the inherent aspects of marxist leninist theory wouldn't work in a 1st world country not then and most certainly not now. But that wasn't the point of ML-ism, the point was to bring about revolution in a developing country and prepare for a war with more developed capitalist 1st world countries. His point is that the queen still sits on her throne in England and if it werent for the Bolsheviks and whatever the worst crimes committed by Lenin, or Stalin were, another Russian Czar mightve taken control and still be around today theres no reason why they couldn't. Then all of their crimes wouldve been written off with the oh so frequently used natural forces of the market.

You can sort of mistake it for apologism because you can say the same of everyone from george washington to hitler to kim jong-il but I think he's really making the argument that anarchists can sometimes be right wing apologists that they swallow up all the fascist propaganda that Stalin or Mao did this or that, and they end up spewing garbage that wouldve been considered right wing in the 1700's. In order to avoid being accused of violence, and too maintain somekind of moral superiority in their arguments. He's really just saying that "pure socialism" is a no true scotsman fallacy

[ckaihatsu]

[I]f it werent for the Bolsheviks and whatever the worst crimes committed by Lenin, or Stalin were, another Russian Czar mightve taken control and still be around today theres no reason why they couldn't. Then all of their crimes wouldve been written off with the oh so frequently used natural forces of the market.

Good point.

You can sort of mistake it for apologism because you can say the same of everyone from george washington to hitler to kim jong-il but I think he's really making the argument that anarchists can sometimes be right wing apologists that they swallow up all the fascist propaganda that Stalin or Mao did this or that, and they end up spewing garbage that wouldve been considered right wing in the 1700's. In order to avoid being accused of violence, and too maintain somekind of moral superiority in their arguments.

I haven't seen the video -- yet -- but *my* critique of anarchists is that they're far too *localist* in their outlook, and seem to be aching for a carved-out, insulated localist solution (wherever they themselves happen to reside) to what really is a *global* problem, that of capitalism.

Their moralism is fine, versus the empirical reality of capitalism's social ills, but in terms of what's *globally* required from a post-capitalist political economy, they fall flat and can't even address potential *economics* for such a context.

He's really just saying that "pure socialism" is a no true scotsman fallacy

I'll be so immodest as to propose that I've addressed the 'pure socialism' issue with a *comprehensive*, or 'engineered' approach, meaning a *model* for such a needed political-economy:


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

[The Intransigent Faction]

You're criticizing MLism as legitimate course for revolution in a first world country and you are correct, that some of the inherent aspects of marxist leninist theory wouldn't work in a 1st world country not then and most certainly not now. But that wasn't the point of ML-ism, the point was to bring about revolution in a developing country and prepare for a war with more developed capitalist 1st world countries. His point is that the queen still sits on her throne in England and if it werent for the Bolsheviks and whatever the worst crimes committed by Lenin, or Stalin were, another Russian Czar mightve taken control and still be around today theres no reason why they couldn't. Then all of their crimes wouldve been written off with the oh so frequently used natural forces of the market.

You can sort of mistake it for apologism because you can say the same of everyone from george washington to hitler to kim jong-il but I think he's really making the argument that anarchists can sometimes be right wing apologists that they swallow up all the fascist propaganda that Stalin or Mao did this or that, and they end up spewing garbage that wouldve been considered right wing in the 1700's. In order to avoid being accused of violence, and too maintain somekind of moral superiority in their arguments.

No, I wasn't just referring to first-world countries. I thought I made that clear. I asked how he justifies the assumption that the Workers' Opposition and other socialists had to be suppressed because their way of doing things would somehow make workers vulnerable. I know *what he said*. I asked *how he justifies it*, and as far as I can see, it's just by making certain unfounded assumptions contrary to the reality of workers' international struggle even in the USSR's time.

As for the "No True Scotsman," that would require an ad hoc changing of the definition of socialism. If anyone's guilty of that, it's MLs---BUT, that's fine, What he was saying was that it's a semantic issue and even if you concede that what the USSR had didn't fit the true definition of socialism, this departure and redefining of the term was (in his view) historically necessary. He doesn't really get into why it's necessary in this lecture, beyond saying "Well, Lenin thought internal debate made them look weak."

[(A)]

You're criticizing MLism as legitimate course for revolution in a first world country and you are correct, that some of the inherent aspects of marxist leninist theory wouldn't work in a 1st world country not then and most certainly not now. But that wasn't the point of ML-ism, the point was to bring about revolution in a developing country and prepare for a war with more developed capitalist 1st world countries. His point is that the queen still sits on her throne in England and if it werent for the Bolsheviks and whatever the worst crimes committed by Lenin, or Stalin were, another Russian Czar mightve taken control and still be around today theres no reason why they couldn't. Then all of their crimes wouldve been written off with the oh so frequently used natural forces of the market.

You can sort of mistake it for apologism because you can say the same of everyone from george washington to hitler to kim jong-il but I think he's really making the argument that anarchists can sometimes be right wing apologists that they swallow up all the fascist propaganda that Stalin or Mao did this or that, and they end up spewing garbage that wouldve been considered right wing in the 1700's. In order to avoid being accused of violence, and too maintain somekind of moral superiority in their arguments. He's really just saying that "pure socialism" is a no true scotsman fallacy

Great job in pointing out exactly why developing country's were not suppose to lead the world wide workers revolution. Russia had to develop capitalism before it could develop socialism. The idea may have sounded great at the time but we now know that capitalism had a long way to go. In trying to reach socialism Lenin wrote the book on how to create a capitalistic totalitarian regime. Bakunin wrote as much directly about Marxism and pulled off a "prophetic" call greater then even marx's by calling the result of the U.S.S.R before it was even founded.

Firstly Anarcho-pacifism is a clear oxymoron. Most Anarchists are against the legitimacy of violence; not violence itself. We are against the idea that violence perpetrated by the state to force consent is different then the violence used by lets say a rapist to force sex on his victim. Against the idea that one form of violence is legitimate where as other are not.

• Stealing bread is a crime
• Confining someone for not paying tax is justice
• Sleeping on the street is a fineable offense
• Extorting the homeless and destroying their shelters is justified

So no Anarchists are not against violence; just people thinking that violence used by those in power is somehow legitimate.

Secondly even if Stalin, Mao, Castro and all other Authoritarian Marxist's where innocent of the crimes they are accused of; they still would be the founders of systems of violent social & economic oppression that rivaled the most nationalistic and imperialistic nations on the planet. The U.S.S.R advanced so quickly not because of the socialism it never achieved but because of the immense totalitarian political power held by the Ruling class over the nations working class. Imagine if America had nationalized their industry like Russia. They would have colonized mars or beyond by now by their dictatorial control over the working class. Centralism works great for the few that control the working class.

[willowtooth]

No, I wasn't just referring to first-world countries. I thought I made that clear. I asked how he justifies the assumption that the Workers' Opposition and other socialists had to be suppressed because their way of doing things would somehow make workers vulnerable. I know *what he said*. I asked *how he justifies it*, and as far as I can see, it's just by making certain unfounded assumptions contrary to the reality of workers' international struggle even in the USSR's time.

As for the "No True Scotsman," that would require an ad hoc changing of the definition of socialism. If anyone's guilty of that, it's MLs---BUT, that's fine, What he was saying was that it's a semantic issue and even if you concede that what the USSR had didn't fit the true definition of socialism, this departure and redefining of the term was (in his view) historically necessary. He doesn't really get into why it's necessary in this lecture, beyond saying "Well, Lenin thought internal debate made them look weak."

Saying "no true socialist would've suppress the opposition", is the no true scotsman fallacy. Let me ask you if the workers opposition was so strong at the time why was it taken over at all? The very fact that it was taken over by Leninists proves that it was breakable. Im not sure what you think wouldve happened alternatively, are you saying without these other socialists being suppressed that the revolutions would've continued infinitely and spread all over the world? What is the alternative history that your saying would've happened?

I dont think Parenti is happy with the USSR and the history of the soviet union. If anything he's saying the revolution would've spread further than it did if there weren't so many on the left opposing stalinism for these various crimes. The workers opposition was essentially arguing for anarchosyndaclism, the rejection of that at the time is one thing, and the rejection of it as a theory entirely and throughout human history is another. Advocating for it today is different than condemning others for not adopting it back then.

Now, I dont know Parenti's exact justification, I've been reading some of his work and i can't exactly find it (He's not so famous that he can't answer a nicely worded detailed email maybe you should ask him directly?) but i imagine it would just be a reiteration of Lenin's overall arguments against syndicalism and trade unionism

https://www.marxists.org/archive/tro...s/4-errors.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lozovsky/1924/14.htm
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictiona...arty+Bolshevik
http://busin.biz/library/history/Bla...%20Parenti.pdf

[willowtooth]

Great job in pointing out exactly why developing country's were not suppose to lead the world wide workers revolution. Russia had to develop capitalism before it could develop socialism. The idea may have sounded great at the time but we now know that capitalism had a long way to go. In trying to reach socialism Lenin wrote the book on how to create a capitalistic totalitarian regime. Bakunin wrote as much directly about Marxism and pulled off a "prophetic" call greater then even marx's by calling the result of the U.S.S.R before it was even founded.

Firstly Anarcho-pacifism is a clear oxymoron. Most Anarchists are against the legitimacy of violence; not violence itself. We are against the idea that violence perpetrated by the state to force consent is different then the violence used by lets say a rapist to force sex on his victim. Against the idea that one form of violence is legitimate where as other are not.

• Stealing bread is a crime
• Confining someone for not paying tax is justice
• Sleeping on the street is a fineable offense
• Extorting the homeless and destroying their shelters is justified

So no Anarchists are not against violence; just people thinking that violence used by those in power is somehow legitimate.

Secondly even if Stalin, Mao, Castro and all other Authoritarian Marxist's where innocent of the crimes they are accused of; they still would be the founders of systems of violent social & economic oppression that rivaled the most nationalistic and imperialistic nations on the planet. The U.S.S.R advanced so quickly not because of the socialism it never achieved but because of the immense totalitarian political power held by the Ruling class over the nations working class. Imagine if America had nationalized their industry like Russia. They would have colonized mars or beyond by now by their dictatorial control over the working class. Centralism works great for the few that control the working class.

this post reminds me of this scene from the movie wall st for some reason