| Theory |
|
Sweeping Up the Trash at St. Avakian's February 9, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
The Leninist-Maoist paradigm is not easy to argue with. Between resorting to "dialectical" mysticism and the Words of the Prophet (Chairman Bob), they are "the slippery eels" of American "left" politics. Their only rivals, as far as I can see, are the almost equally slippery folks at the Workers' World Party.
Thus it falls to me, self-appointed janitor of American Marxism, to do all I can to rid us of this enormous pile of reeking garbage.
I wouldn't mind a little help.
==========================================
quote:
If Mao had died in 1935, or Lenin had been captured in July 1917, it would have been a huge setback for our class -- literally a world historic setback...they were key in leading the revolutions, and in the way they turned out. And were indispensable.
I think this represents a "great man" theory of history that even serious bourgeois historians abandoned in the first decade of the last century.
Marx and Engels would have laughed at the notion of "personal indispensability", of course.
They didn't even apply it to themselves; I think there's a letter of Marx extant where he specifically says that if he had not lived, someone else would have made his discoveries. Whenever scientific knowledge reaches a certain level, someone is going to take the next step.
Who it is appears to be largely a matter of chance.
Had there been no Lenin, there still would have been a bourgeois revolution in February 1917 (Marx and Engels predicted it back in the late 1870s--though they thought it would happen a lot sooner than it did).
There still would have been revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist ideas...as well as the presence of many individuals that we know of today. (Can you picture Stalin and Trotsky and Martov and Kollentai "fighting it out" in front of the Petrograd Soviet?)
We don't know if a socialist revolution would have been attempted, of course, much less how it would have developed in the absence of Lenin's personal influence. We don't get the chance to re-run history with a different variable.
But the idea that the "great motions" of human history are in some sense the product of the presence or absence of "indispensable men" is, from a materialist standpoint, untenable.
Leaders do not make history--history makes leaders.
quote:
But when you have a comprehensive revolutionary thinker, a leader who makes crucial needed breakthroughs in theory -- it is very important that they are known to the people...And I really think we are extremely lucky to have a Bob Avakian today, at this moment.
Well, I'm happy for you that you think you have found your "Moses" who will lead you "out of bondage" and into "the promised land".
But in the last few weeks I have seen many "Quotations of Chairman Bob" put forward by several supporters (members?) of the "Revolutionary Communist Party"...and, frankly, I've seen nothing more than Maoist clichés and pragmatic observations that many people on the left have made.
Where is the "crucial breakthrough" in "theory"? What has this guy said that is genuinely innovative?
Perhaps it sounds "fresh" to people who haven't read Mao or Stalin or even Lenin...I couldn't say.
But always risking the labels of "jaded" and "cynical", I've heard it all before...many times.
Would you really like to read something "fresh" and "new"...something that might be a theoretical "breakthrough" on the mechanism of how communist (not socialist, communist) society could really "work"?
Go to this site and read some of the stuff about "demarchy"...
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/
This fellow--Brian Martin--is not even a revolutionary, except in a very fuzzy and vague way. He's an academic...with all the limitations that implies.
But in the idea of "demarchy", he may well have "hit on something" that no one anticipated--how to develop managerial expertise without the "managerial mystique" that leads--as you know--to the restoration of capitalism.
Of course, he has no wish to be "cherished" as a ***LEADER***.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 2, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
[Avakian] writes for the masses, to contribute to the revolutionary process in the real world, not to publish cute little papers for conferences to circle-jerk too and then go back to a classroom and train the next middle class.
Well, if you want to argue that Avakian is a reasonably-skilled popularizer of Maoist ideology, I won't quarrel with you about that.
In fact, I would agree with your sense of priorities; writing "for the people" is more important than writing for a small number of "intellectuals", revolutionary or otherwise. I had a number of frustrating experiences with communist "grouplets" over that very issue...that a revolutionary newspaper has to be primarily directed to the working class and written in language that they are familiar with.
I didn't have much luck--in fact, none at all. Lefties in America mostly like just to talk to each other...so that's what I end up doing too.
But it also seems to me that theory that can't be communicated to the working class in ordinary language is...not very good theory.
There are dozens of books available today that explain the most complicated areas of science in language that's readily accessible to ordinary people of normal intelligence.
There's really no excuse for the deliberately obscure...except, perhaps, the inflation of the author's self-esteem.
quote:
But that historical materialist approach does not deny the need for leaders, parties, pathbreaking thinkers, epoch-defining ideas, great movements of conversion and ideological change.
No, it doesn't deny the "need", it places those things in their proper position...as derivative phenomena.
If, for example, you say that revolution A succeeded because of the positive qualities of leader X while revolution B failed because of the negative qualities of leader Y, you really haven't explained anything.
The real reason Comrade X was successful is that the objective material conditions for his success were present. The real reason Comrade Y failed was because the objective conditions were not present.
The reason it looks otherwise is because of our own limitations. Suppose you pick up to read a fat, detailed history of the Russian Revolution. What do you find? Mostly, you find a record of the words and acts of individuals...that's the easiest thing for the historian to document.
Objective material conditions are much more difficult to figure out--at the time and even long afterwards. And yet that's what governs not only the behavior of the "famous" or "historically significant" personalities but also the behavior of millions of people that determine the outcome.
Have you ever read how the February 1917 revolution began? It started in a line of women waiting to buy bread. Furious at the delays and the poor rations, they went to their husbands' workplaces and demanded that a mass strike begin at once!
It did. Five days later, three centuries of Czarist autocracy were history.
Didn't anyone remember to write down their names? Those women who made a revolution, I mean.
And what would have happened if the flour deliveries that morning in Petrograd had been a little faster, so that the bread-line moved faster and there was more bread to hand out?
And what if, etc.?
Change some of the material conditions and Lenin dies of old age in Switzerland. Change a few others, and Rosa Luxemburg becomes the first Reichschancellor of the Socialist Republic of Germany.
Material reality prevails...and the rest is froth on the waters.
quote:
Or that the specific approach, line, decisions and capacities of specific leaders can't have a decisive effect at times.
I think you misunderstand what Marx and Engels would have meant by the phrase "decisive effect" (I'm not sure they ever actually used that phrase in this context, but ok, say they did.)
When we say that some person had a "decisive effect" on something, what are we actually saying?
They proposed a course of action that people accepted and acted on which resulted in an abrupt and favorable change in a struggle.
Or, "Grant defeated Lee at Richmond, sealing the fate of the Confederacy".
Grant rode his "decisive effect" into the White House...but if you've ever read any serious books that look at the objective material conditions prevailing in the U.S. in 1860, you know that the confederacy was doomed even if the generals of the union army had been selected at random.
It's really the same thing in revolutionary politics; this or that leader looks "brilliant" in retrospect because he won. Those other leaders look "stupid" because they lost.
Was Che Guevara "brilliant" in Cuba and "stupid" in Bolivia?
If the counter-revolution had won in Russia's civil war, would we be sitting around now talking about what a fuckup Lenin was?
When we "Monday-morning-quarterback" previous revolutions, successful and unsuccessful, how much of what we say was known before the coin-toss to begin the game?
quote:
So yeah, if our movement is crushed, SOMEONE (sooner or later) will build another one. If our leaders are killed, SOMEONE (sooner or later) will try to take up the thread. But who knows when? Or how?
Who knows "when" or "how" anything?
There's no such thing as a "method" for predicting the future in useful detail.
Most so-called "revolutionary" groups never get off the ground. A small number do better. And even smaller number do very well and approach the actual threshold of insurrection. Of those, a tiny number actually succeed...at least temporarily.
When you take the first step on the "road to revolution", the odds against you are enormous. The chances that you will avoid blundering in some crucial way are very small. IF you have correctly understood objective reality, then the odds shift in your favor in a dramatic way.
But it's no piece of cake. Be reminded that neither Lenin nor anyone else realized as late as 1916 that the end of Czarism was at hand. If memory serves me correctly, Lenin addressed a meeting in Switzerland in which he said that he did not expect to live to see the revolution.
Bad call.
quote:
And isn't it fucked up, and upside down, to tell people "Aw it doesn't matter much if they kill your precious and beloved leaders, cuz there will always be someone new, sooner or later?" Isn't that exactly the wrong thing to tell the people? Doesn't it piss on their desire for change now? Their hopes? Their efforts?
"Precious and beloved leaders"??? Is this North Korea we've stumbled into...or the Third Reich?
Anyway, it is always correct to tell the people the truth as best you understand it. Sometimes, the truth may be discouraging...so be it.
Encouraging false "hopes" and unrealistic "desires" is a disastrous "strategy".
If people ever find out that you've lied to them--even "for their own good--they will never forgive you!
Nor should they!
quote:
I mean we were lucky to have a Marx, a Lenin, a Mao -- and now a thinker like Avakian...Isn't such leadership a key component of a successful revolution?
Marx, yes. Lenin and Mao, no. Who's Avakian?
As to successful revolutions, the figures you named are all 0 for 4.
So the answer to your question is: no.
quote:
Lenin for example talks openly about the value of "wise men" at the helm of the revolutionary movement.
Well, of course he does! He thought he was one.
What leader of any political persuasion has not claimed to be "wise"? Or not implied, at least, that the masses were "fools" who needed to be led by "wise men"?
quote:
I assert that it is far more difficult to unearth a dozen wise men than a hundred fools. -- Lenin
Only a few are "wise" and "fit to rule"...all the rest are fools and must be ruled "for their own good".
Which are you? One of the "wise" or one of the "fools"?
I have a feeling that I already know which category you have placed me in.
quote:
I assert that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organization of leaders maintaining continuity... -- Lenin
And I assert, to the contrary, that revolutionary movements do not endure anyway. They either grow to the point where they actually make a revolution or they struggle for a time and then fade away.
For the most part, leadership (stable or otherwise) has little or no effect on this trajectory.
quote:
They are usually called 'academic Marxists' not 'revolutionary intellectuals'.
Quite right. Some of them have offered very good critiques of capitalist society and of prior class societies. But they are not interested in the contemporary possibilities of revolution...they think that most people today are "fools".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 4, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The previous post is a good illustration of the idea of revolution as a product of "will".
He pays a kind of lip-service to objective material conditions, but insists that the outcome then depends on "the leadership" and the decisions that it makes.
I've already made the argument that both those decisions and the leaders that make them are products of objective material conditions...but clearly to no avail.
He wants a leader to follow and thinks he's found one...
quote:
And if you have people who are really capable of leading the complex, tumultuous process of revolution, and the incredible blizzard of contradictions of forging a new society -- then you need to recognize them, cherish them, let them be known to the people -- and above all, study closely their analyses, methods, and their descriptions of what "we all need to do together to win."
Against such faith, mere argument is irrelevant.
quote:
Let me point out: Debs never led a revolution.
Neither did Marx or Engels.
Neither has Bob Avakian.
quote:
And the line he was putting forward here (which was widely believed in the Second International) led Luxemburg and Liebknecht to throw away the 1919 chance for revolution in Germany (dying in the process).
What did Fermi say once: "That's so bad it's not even [good enough to be] wrong."
The 2nd International was a collection of parliamentary political parties, organized in more or less the same hierarchal fashion as the bourgeois political parties of the day.
In fact, Lenin would have organized the Russian affiliate in exactly the same way were it not for the fact that Russia was an autocracy...and the "normal" functioning of a social-democratic party was impossible.
The Spartakist Bund, of whom Luxemburg and Liebknecht were the most prominent members (but not leaders), was organized "in the shadow" of the Russian October revolution and heavily influenced by it. The "young hot-heads" carried a motion to launch an insurrection (Luxemburg was against it on the sensible grounds that there was insufficient working class support for the idea).
She and Liebknecht were perceived as the "leaders" of the insurrection by the army units that captured them and thus they were immediately murdered.
The whole episode had nothing to do with the statement by Debs or the political line that it implied.
It might also be noted that Debs' vision was not reflected in the actual practice of the U.S. Socialist Party. When proponents of the Third International threatened to gain a majority in the SP, the leadership promptly resorted to mass expulsions...including the entire membership in the State of Michigan.(!)
quote:
And any successful revolution (China, Russia, Vietnam are the proletarian ones, but even in a different way the bourgeois ones: France 1789, Cuba 1960) had active, far-seeing energetic, visionary leaders of the first rank.
All that's saying is that the winners won because they were...winners.
Bah!
quote:
No revolution has ever happened without producing leaders of that quality.
Funny, I didn't notice Tito in your list. I know Maoists don't like Tito--"fucking revisionist bastard" is the technical term, I believe--yet he did lead a successful revolution. And, as we have seen so many times, after his death, everything turned to shit.
But if "winning" is "what counts", why aren't you carefully studying the collected works of Tito? Learning from him? Cherishing him, even?
Are you going to say that Tito was "lucky" while Mao was "really great"?
Can you say internal contradiction?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 4, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
I don't get the point made by redstar.
Ok, I'll try again.
I think we would all agree that objective material conditions in the United States are today extremely unfavorable for proletarian revolution.
If anyone tried to start one now, they'd be crushed...and it would be so trivial an event that it might not even make the national news programs.
This is regardless of the qualities of the would-be "leader"!
Now let's look at Petrograd in February 1917...where the objective conditions for proletarian revolution to overthrow the autocracy were so extremely favorable that no conscious "leadership" was "required" at all. The repressive apparatus of the Czarist state simply melted away. (The only people who actually fought for the Czar to the bitter end was the Petrograd police force and it took several weeks to "mop up" their sporadic resistance.)
The Leninist paradigm purports to address conditions "between" these two polar extremes.
The Leninists assert that "the right leadership" can "make a crucial difference" when objective conditions for revolution are marginally favorable--they "can", by an act of "will", force open "a small window of opportunity" and seize power "in the name of a proletariat" that is not quite ready to do so for itself.
Of course, only Lenin himself ever actually did this; Leninist parties in capitalist countries never managed it. The Leninist explanation for this is "bad leadership".
The Maoist heirs of Lenin assert that Mao's leadership was crucial in the victory of China's peasant revolution of 1949.
Without Mao, they say in effect, Chiang's gangster-fascist despotism would have won.
I am deeply skeptical of this assertion. We have no way of knowing, of course...we can't re-run the Chinese revolution and see what would have happened without Mao.
But it seems to me that the objective material conditions in China in 1945 were highly favorable to peasant revolution...and that any number of the leading personalities of the "Communist" Party of China could have successfully led the revolution to victory.
It seems to me that there are quite a number of "third world" countries where the objective material conditions decidedly favor peasant revolution...and this is where the heirs of Mao have been markedly successful.
I frankly think that they would enjoy success in those areas if they were led by monkeys..."third world" peasants have much to be pissed off about.
At any rate, Maoism is irrelevant to those of us who live in the developed world...we have no peasantry to speak of, and those we do have are well-entrenched in the middle class and probably the most reactionary element of that class. We have "kulaks" and an agricultural proletariat and that's about it.
So we end up with the modern Leninist party asserting that its leader is "the next Lenin"...that he will seize that tiny "window of opportunity" whenever it opens--due to his genius and will--and "save us" the need to "wait" for the working class itself to rise up en masse.
It's an audacious plan, in a way...the idea of "kick-starting" the revolutionary process.
But it depends on the leader really being "the next Lenin"...no "lesser man" will do.
And that's where the trouble starts, of course.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 5, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once more into the labyrinth, eh?
quote:
You had me laughing the whole time. Is it your common practice to act like you know history, when you do not? Any way thanks, your rewritten history was not only funny, but a hilarious joke on the revolutionary masses that rose up in Eastern Europe and China. Especially the part where you said the Chinese masses could have followed a monkey...that's funny because you the Chinese people must have been dumber than a monkey... that was great!!! I like jokes that insult whole peoples and underestimate their revolutionary spirit and the sacrifices they make.
I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. If you think this sort of caricature will serve to discredit my views...good luck!
You'll need it.
quote:
Wow, that is a stirring rewrite, when after the crushed revolution in 1905 revolutionaries were being hunted down by the Czarists and their lackeys.
Note that I specifically mentioned the year 1917 in the excerpt that was quoted from my post...and "suddenly" we're back in 1905.(!)
Very strange...!
quote:
A revolt that was actively opposed by Mensheviks, social democrats, and many anarchists, this opposition gave strength to the Czar and weakened the revolutionary masses...
What revolt are you speaking of here?
quote:
In fact Lenin had to struggle hardcore with other revolutionaries to rise up.. including in his Party, where he threatened to quit if the Bolsheviks didn't rise up, guns in hand, and lead the masses to do this.
This part would appear to refer to October 1917...which would make the previous paragraph unintelligible. There was no Czar in October 1917.
quote:
The Czarists were dismantled, the army destroyed, and replaced with a Red Army, and a situation of dual power came into existence.
And now we're back in February 1917 again...and Lenin is still in Switzerland.
I could continue...but it's starting to get embarrassing. You have obviously muddled up three (at least) distinct periods of Russian history.
I can't "debate" with you about this because you don't know what you're talking about.
quote:
Obviously, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, were pivotal in not just one instance, but many crucial instances.
And it should also be obvious, but that without a hardcore revolutionary group pushing for a revolutionary outcome, not only would there not have been a class-conscious working class, but there would have a been a bourgeoisie in power of the state.
If you're speaking of the period prior to October 1917, I can think of only two ("two" is not "many"...). In July of 1917, many rank-and-file workers (including many Bolsheviks) wanted to proceed directly to the seizure of power. Lenin and his most loyal lieutenants managed to stop that from happening...barely.
And the other, of course, was the October coup itself...which took place on the evening prior to the first session of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
I say "coup" because by that time the bourgeois Provisional Government's authority did not extend past the front door of the old Winter Palace.
(Whoops, I almost forgot the "Kornilov affair"...a pro-Czarist general managed to scrape together a few dummies and attempt a march on Petrograd in August 1917. The Bolsheviks and virtually everyone else organized a successful defense of the city. I can't remember now if a battle was actually fought or if Kornilov just faded away...if there was a battle, General K would have been routed.)
quote:
Communists do not blame leaders for not starting revolutions, unless they could have started one and did not!
I understood that your view regarding the French General Strike of May 1968 is that the "reason" it did not go on to proletarian revolution was the "absence of real communist leaders"...even though there were a horde of vanguard parties, large and small, on the scene at the time.
Likewise, from this thread I understand that your view of the "reason" that the turbulence of the 1960s in the U.S. did not develop further was the "absence of real communist leaders".
quote:
The [RCP's] orientation must be to strain against and strive to transform the limits imposed by the objective situation.
This seems to be exactly what I was speaking of...revolution as an act of will in defiance of the "limits imposed by the objective situation". (I'm assuming the word "transform" is in that paragraph for decoration; you cannot "transform" limits...you can either accept them or ignore them.)
quote:
However the leadership of the China CP before Mao became Secretary was influenced by the thinking of the the Soviet Union. Which held that the revolution should be fought in the style of the October Revolution.
They were wrong and Mao led the Party to understand why and how they were wrong.
"Style" is an interesting choice of words there...I think the word you were really looking for is class.
The Bolsheviks (whatever their many shortcomings) did have a Marxist orientation towards the working class.
You may argue, if you wish, that it was entirely mistaken to transfer Marxism to China.
In any event, Mao's thesis was that China was ripe for a peasant revolution...and he was definitely correct about that (perhaps some would argue that Mao had a superior understanding of the class situation in China than those who were trained in the USSR).
quote:
He [Mao] led the way in developing our understanding of the dialectical materialist understanding...
He developed our understanding on how to develop and correctly unleash dissent and criticism in a socialist country, recognizing the necessity of such dissent to socialism.
He led the Chinese masses in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. A lesson to the worlds people in how to fight a new bourgeoisie from rising in a socialist world.
As to No. 1, you are quite right...I do not understand it and neither does anyone else. It is liturgical language meant only for special occasions (like this discussion). It's purpose is entirely mystical and intended to suggest a "superior" understanding of "real" reality that is hidden from the "unbeliever".
But I can understand why Mao had a lot of fun with it...it fits so neatly into traditional Chinese "yin & yang" beliefs.
As to No. 2, I flatly disagree. Instead of open public debates over the future of "socialist" China in the media, debates were couched in "Mandarin" terms...obscure Chinese historical figures were used as surrogate targets for internal party power struggles.
This was done, of course, to keep the masses out of the picture.
As to No. 3, here you are on (slightly) firmer ground. Mao, to his credit, did arouse the masses to "bombard the headquarters". The "Big Character Poster" movement was a step in the right direction.
But his own conservatism (remember, he was a peasant...not an urban worker) betrayed his own goals.
His failure to fully support the Shanghai Commune was probably the most crucial blunder.
But even his over-all approach was pretty bad: "95% of the cadre are sound; only 5% are capitalist-roaders".
I recall reading at the time that there was a small group of "ultra-leftists" who put up a poster saying that "95% of the cadre are rotten capitalist-roaders and only 5% are real communists".
As we have seen, the ultra-leftists were much closer to the truth than Mao.
So your basic assertion--that Mao has anything of relevance to say to revolutionaries in advanced capitalist countries--is, in my view, untenable.
quote:
In fact the way you do this, and other things:
-ignoring strong arguments and try to take on weak points in people's arguments
-rewriting of history to serve your arguments
-selective and partial quotes of people, that misrepresents what they are trying to say
-potshots at individuals and those they respect
-the way you dishonestly label yourself a communist
.. and more, all this comes off to me as very opportunist and anti-communist. On another board someone said they had a problem with the way you raise the red flag to fight the red flag, I agree.
I think that you are very ignorant on many things, and that is why you act the way you do, but I also think that your attitude and approach reveal a very plain and aggressive anti-communist view.
Are you just "venting" your frustrations or do you expect a response to this foolishness?
I will be "a nice guy" this time and let it slide.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 6, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
You are raising the need for objective conditions to make the argument that human agency (leadership, correct decisions, theory, ideology, etc.) essentially don't matter.
Close. It's not that they "don't matter"...it's that they are secondary phenomena.
The quote from Marx actually supports my position, by the way. We can indeed "make history" but the kind of history we make will be in accord with objective conditions (sooner or later) and not necessarily in accord with our subjective desires.
When we say "we'll do X", it is objective material conditions that have the decisive voice in whether X actually gets done...and not our "strength of will" or "grit and determination".
quote:
But -- and here is the key point -- revolutions (at least socialist revolutions that survive) don't just "happen" they are organized and led. They are created.
I agree that is "the key point"...and I completely disagree with your (and Lenin's) hypothesis.
Further, I assert that the Leninist hypothesis has been historically demonstrated to be false.
The Leninist attempt to create a "socialist revolution" that "survived"...did not survive.
It did succeed in dispersing the old bourgeoisie that had grown up under the Czars...but only to create a new bourgeoisie that now reigns undisputed over the remnants of the USSR.
Suppose there had been no Lenin and no Bolsheviks. What would have been the likely outcome of the February 1917 revolution?
It would have been a bourgeois republic, of course...probably containing a mixture of political institutions borrowed from France and Germany. The peasant land seizures would have been (reluctantly) confirmed. A peace treaty with Germany might not have been signed...but de facto peace on the western front would have prevailed. With a "responsible" government in power, there would have been little or no foreign support for Czarist aristocrats wanting to try a come-back...so, no civil war.
By 1919 or so, the Russians would have "achieved" what they "achieved" in 1992.
Material reality prevails.
Turning to Germany 1919-1923...
quote:
And the rich objective conditions of Germany (1919-23) were thrown away exactly because the very best socialists (i.e. Luxemburg, Liebknecht and their circles) never broke with the larger Socialist Party (of Kautsky) -- they never developed their own network (independent of the reformists and revisionists) -- never trained an independent cadre with an independent and revolutionary line, etc.
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. Do you suggest that they should have split away from the SPD around 1910 or so and attempted to organize a Leninist party?
If so, why would they want to do that? Up until 1914, the "SPD model" (which you summarized quite well) was one that looked like it was winning.
I don't even think it can be shown that Lenin himself was critical of that model...except he thought it unworkable under the conditions of the Russian autocracy.
And I believe he even quotes Kautsky on a number of occasions favorably...Kautsky didn't become a "renegade" until after 1914.
Unless I misunderstand you here, I think you're asking the Germans to be more far-sighted than could reasonably be expected.
quote:
This is exactly wrong. In fact the things never came together -- in part because there was no party to bring it together.
Well, the Spartakist Bund was a "proto-vanguard party"...would you accept that? They tried to "imitate Petrograd" in Berlin. I'm sure there was much foolishness involved that more experienced people would have avoided.
But I'm not convinced anything would have helped. After all, there was (briefly) a "Bavarian Soviet Republic"...but genuine popular support was virtually non-existent.
In my view, the German working class of that era--while one of the most advanced in the world--was still considerably short of the level of class consciousness minimally necessary for proletarian revolution. There were, as you say, "advanced elements"...but far too few to make a difference.
quote:
Debs is expressing exactly the idea that revolutions "just happen" and don't need to be organized, prepared.
I think you read far more into the Debs quote than is actually there. I think he is simply telling workers that he is "not Moses" and that they should not "wait for Moses" but deliver themselves from bondage.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable statement to me.
As to "organized and prepared" revolutions...I think you're talking about a coup, not a revolution.
I agree that under the appropriate material conditions (not all that rare, actually), a small group of determined men can overthrow a faltering and discredited government and seize power for themselves and their supporters.
What they can actually do with that power is limited. First of all, both the state apparatus and the large private sector are managed by people of questionable loyalty (to put it mildly). You cannot dispense with them (the workers have no confidence in their ability to run things) nor can you trust them not to plot a coup of their own.
So you find yourself creating an elaborate special police force...which generates a dynamic of repression of its own.
As long as your decrees are popular, things are not too bad. But if things turn sour--even if it's not your fault--popular discontent starts to bubble and the special police force gets a lot bigger...as do the prisons.
Well, I could go on about this for a while...but I think you get the idea.
To put it in terms with which we are both familiar: if the RCP had twenty million members, you might possibly spark a genuine popular revolution in the United States. With less than a million, it will be a coup...if you can do it at all.
quote:
Tito was the first communist to seize power but then build a capitalist (not a socialist) society. He was the first "revisionist in power." And this example is actually an important lesson on the Maoist saying "Political and ideological line are key."
You're forgetting Lenin's "New Economic Policy", aren't you? Not to mention his strenuous efforts to attract foreign investments or his statements about "state capitalism" being a "step forward"...
Perhaps Tito, whom you criticize so harshly, was merely more successful at doing what Lenin would have done if it were possible.
Maybe?
As to Mao's platitude, who would disagree? What's always in dispute is what political and ideological line makes sense in the current objective conditions.
quote:
Well, so were conditions in India, or in Africa, or in the Middle East -- but the revolution after WW2 happened in China (where there was a Mao) and in the surrounding countries (Vietnam and Korea) as epi-phenomena. And those are the real objective facts.
You seem to be arguing here that if Mao had been an Indian or a South African or an Arab that there would have been a successful revolution in India or South Africa or "Saudi" Arabia and China would have submitted to Chiang.
I don't find that credible in the least.
quote:
And in fact, there will not be revolution without communist vanguards -- and more: without communist vanguards who have leaderships united around a correct revolutionary line. There are countries that have powerful communist (even Maoist) movements that have NOT moved forward toward revolution because they insist it is not possible...
Interesting. Who's not getting the job done?
quote:
The line of "overestimating spontaneity" is a line of armchair chatter.
If you don't really need to organize revolution, or revolutionaries, or link the party and its leadership to the masses, you can sit and babble. You can spin theories and hot air.
But more is expected of communists, exactly because without real COMMUNIST POLITICAL WORK the masses (when they finally want revolution in their millions) will not be in the position to make revolution.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...people are always throwing that damn armchair at me.
Ok, I'm just sitting here "chattering", "babbling" and "spinning theories" and "hot air".
Why are you even bothering to argue with me?
Why aren't you "out there" doing "REAL COMMUNIST POLITICAL WORK"?
Here you are wasting your time arguing with a "spinner of theories" instead of "linking the party and its leadership with the masses" (whatever that splendid phrase might be supposed to mean).
Still, it's your choice. Argue with a "spinner of theories" and spun theories are what you will receive.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 6, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
It is straightforward. RS2000 basically argued that the rev 'just happened', but in fact years of communist work including an attempt to seize power not 12 years before, and the subsequent communist work despite major repression by the State.
Ok, it's "straightforward"...so you won't object to a straightforward question, will you?
Are you asserting that the Bolsheviks were necessary in the period 1905-1916 for the February revolution to have taken place?
Keep in mind that not even the Bolsheviks themselves claimed credit for that massive uprising...had they tried to do so, everyone would have laughed at their pretensions.
I don't think you are really aware of how small and weak all of the organized progressive forces were in Russia under Czar Nicholas II.
Perhaps you think Lenin was sitting in Switzerland directing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of revolutionary workers in class struggle back in Russia.
It wasn't like that at all. He actually spent most of his time in the local library researching his next article or in a café arguing with other exiles. Had there been an internet, he would have been online. His main contact with Russia itself revolved around smuggling copies of Iskra (Spark) into the country while getting fragmentary reports of local struggles and trying to analyze them.
The great uprising of February 1917 caught Lenin and everyone else completely by surprise. It was no more "prepared & organized" by the Bolsheviks than by the German General Staff.
quote:
It (February 1917) was bourgeois because the nature of those that came to power were bourgeois.
Yes. The Marxist consensus was that Russia was "due" for a bourgeois revolution and that's what happened.
It was not "due" for a proletarian revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks thought they could make that happen anyway -- by an "act of will".
They were wrong.
quote:
In fact it takes struggle for anyone, workers included, to gain class-consciousness.
Yes, but some struggles are "easier" than others.
If you are born into the upper middle class (or higher), it is "easiest" for you to adopt the class outlook of that part of the social structure. You are "to the manor born", you learned that you were "superior" at your parents' knees, your private schooling reinforced all those lessons, etc.
It is very hard to break away from that. Even if you ultimately become a revolutionary with an advanced theoretical understanding of class society, the idea of "your fundamental right to privilege" still remains in the back of your head, ready to re-assert itself given the opportunity.
Where do you think so many Bolshevik leaders got the idea of having a second home out in the countryside? They came from "higher class" Russian families where that was normal.
They didn't see that as "special privilege" even though it was--it was just how "normal people" (of their class) lived.
On the other hand, I have seen American workers try very hard to learn how to be "middle class". It doesn't come easy to them at all. Even when s/he can afford the trappings of middle class life (usually involving a ton of credit card debt), they have a really hard time imitating the "correct attitudes". They "know" that they are supposed to be "ruthlessly out for No. 1" but they have to "force themselves" to act that way...and they don't feel very good about themselves even when they manage to pull it off successfully. It cuts "against the grain".
Once a working class person does become familiar with communist ideas, that usually "spoils" them for any chance of "upward mobility" in class society. Even if they think it will "never happen" and do nothing at all in the way of active struggle, their "attitude" shows...especially on the job.
I speak from some degree of personal experience about this. There was a brief period in my life when I approached the fringes of American middle-class existence...but I lacked both the ruthless ambition and the instinct to flatter the unworthy required to make "the leap".
I had "a bad attitude".
I still do.
quote:
...a way to say that Mao could not be a real socialist or have a proletarian worldview. This points to a basic ignorance of proletarian class consciousness.
No, what I was saying that regardless of how "proletarian" he might have "thought" he was, the class consciousness he absorbed from growing up a peasant was still there and still influenced his views.
For example, I recall reading a piece from Mao in which he wanted to reduce the years of medical training received by students and then send them into the countryside. Why? That's where most of the people of his own class lived...and that's whose welfare came to his mind first.
Not to mention "the great leap forward". Only a peasant could think that you could make steel in usable quantities & quality "in the back yard". Even the dimmest worker grasps that production of high-technology products requires a high-technology apparatus.
Consider a somewhat different though still pertinent example: Khrushchev's "virgin land project" in the USSR. Khrushchev, also raised a peasant, thought of increasing agricultural production not in terms of better technology but--as a peasant would--in terms of more land under the plow.
quote:
In fact Mao led a different class, other than the proletariat to wage a proletarian revolution. The nature of the revolution was in fact proletarian, however a large section of the fighting force was not.
A highly dubious assertion and one for which you offer no evidence. What was the class composition of the "Communist" Party of China...especially the leadership?
That's not a "trick question" -- I don't know the answer and you probably don't either. But it would seem reasonable that it was almost all peasants, would it not?
You can call something a "proletarian revolution" and even use a lot of Marxist terminology...that does not make it so.
quote:
In relation to materialist dialectics, it is understandable that RS2000 does not have a good understanding of this scientific [sic] approach. It's more complicated than 1+1=2.
I quite agree. "Dialectics" is more like 1 + 1 = any number you please.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 6, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
The fact remains that overestimating spontaneity (and saying "the masses make revolution, we can join in or watch or whatever it doesn't really matter" IS (rather obviously) a rationale for armchair do-nothingism.
It may well be for one who wishes to use it for that purpose...that does not change the fact that it is a true statement.
Real revolutions are made by the masses, under conditions and circumstances of their choosing.
In the last analysis (or "the broad sweep of human history"...), the presence or absence of this or that individual or organized political group is essentially trivial.
A working class person who learns of communist ideas will often be strongly motivated to spread those ideas in whatever way seems most effective -- it's clearly in her/his long-run class interest to do that.
In so doing, s/he "advances" the time of proletarian revolution...by an amount too small to measure.
A political group is organized which advocates proletarian revolution as a matter of principle. Even if small, they also "advance" the time of proletarian revolution...perhaps by a few seconds or so. (If the group has a "bad" political line, they might also delay matters for a few seconds or so.)
Like it or not (and I don't, any more than you do!), history is slow.
In a way, you actually acknowledge this...
quote:
And looking at that process now, with some experience of the 20th century, we can say "why of course!" After all capitalism took three centuries to seize power. And its first revolution (in France) was reversed by Napoleon within ten years. Only to see capitalism reemerge in the mid 1800s with great power etc. History is wavelike.
I quite agree -- though I don't think this insight is unique to Chairman Bob. Marx himself observed that the working class advances, then retreats, achieves a certain understanding only to discard it and go back to the beginning, etc., etc.
Marx and Engels were real optimists and thought things would progress faster than they actually have (so far).
And like them, we want to see the real changes in our own lifetimes.
We slide rather easily into the illusion that because we "want" something to happen, we can "make" it happen.
There's a limited sense in which that conviction can occasionally be justified...but in something as monumental as the end of class society, I don't think you can just "order it done" and "it will be done".
We can do the best we can and strive as hard as we might...but it will only happen when tens of millions of workers really want it to happen--and not even ten minutes sooner.
That's just the way things are.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 6, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
The RCP has long emphazied that the existance of socialism is a question of the socialist road rather than a question of certain fixed attributes. It is a question of the direction society is moving in.
Actually, that's not a bad try. The problem is making an accurate assessment of what direction the self-proclaimed "socialist" country is actually moving in.
If the railroads were re-nationalized in the U.K., no one (I think) would argue that the U.K. is moving in a "socialist" direction.
And it's pretty obvious that the remaining nominally "socialist" countries are all moving back towards capitalism...the growing weight of foreign investment in their economies makes it an inescapable conclusion.
It's the ones where the direction is not at all clear that are the problem; Stalin's Russia and Mao's China being the outstanding examples. Certainly there were things going on there that you could point to and say "that's going in the right direction!". But there were also things that were clearly going in the wrong direction.
From a distance, how does one tell? You can't just "take the leader's word for it"...unless you are very naive.
I would therefore suggest an amendment to the RCP's definition that may help clarify matters.
A socialist society that is not visibly making progress towards communism is invisibly degenerating into capitalism.
The "process" must go forward...or it will go backwards.
That seems to be "the lesson of history" in this regard.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 6, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
We have seen an example here in this site, where "Maoism" is rejected scornfully as a "peasant" approach -- which betrays a rather simple lack of any reading of what Maoism says or represents in the world today. Or where it is said that anyone can lead third world struggles to victory (which suggests, of course, that the theory and insights of such "monkeys" don't need to be taken that seriously!)
You may not be criticizing the other writer directly, but it sure sounds like you don't like me.
That's ok; the feeling is mutual, I'm sure.
But if you want to get down to it: yes, I think that Maoism is completely irrelevant to the material conditions in the advanced capitalist countries now and in the future.
Whenever a political ideology becomes completely disconnected from its material roots, it becomes idealist in essence...regardless of whatever nominal materialist ideas it contains.
Naturally any attempt to "put it into practice" is a total flop...a comic book group like the Maoist Internationalist Movement or worse, a cult.
I did not say, by the way, that "third world" revolutionary movements "were" led by monkeys. I said "they might as well be" because objective conditions are so favorable--in general--to their struggles that it would really take a lot of hard work and massive incompetence to lose.
I don't expect you to agree with me about that...but at least you should summarize it correctly.
Especially since the conclusion is identical...they really don't have anything of much usefulness to say to the working class in advanced capitalist countries.
Their objective conditions are radically different from ours and thus so are the struggles, their goals, and their ideology.
They use, well or poorly, the tools of Marxist analysis because historical materialism and class analysis are useful tools...even the ruling class can use those tools.
But the peasant version of "socialism" is not anything we would want to live under...in fact, it most closely resembles what Marx called "Prussian socialism" or "barracks communism". At its very best it is a kind of "egalitarian despotism".
That can be perceived as a step forward for them but for us it would be essentially no different from fascism...complete with "great leader". Even the pathetic remnants of autonomy that the existing ruling class permits would be abolished...it would be "shut up & do as you're told" 24/7/365.
Whatever the shortcomings of the working class in the advanced capitalist countries--and they are many--I think they would line up with me nearly 100% on the option of a "Super-Boss" wrapped in a red flag...No fucking way!
Is this "arrogance"? Perhaps it is. Is it "defeatist"? Some might say so though I have no idea how they would reach such an odd conclusion.
Is it "anti-communist"? Only those whose conception of communism has been twisted and distorted by the failures of the 20th century would say so.
The purpose of proletarian revolution, may I remind you, is not to secure a more "benevolent" set of new bosses.
It is to abolish all bosses.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 7, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
============================================== |
|
| |
|
|
Navigation |
·
Welcome
·
Theory
·
Guest Book
·
Hype
·
Additional Reading
·
Links
·
Contact
|
|
Latest Theory
Collections |
· Communists Against Religion -- Part 19 June 6, 2006
· Conversations with Capitalists May 21, 2006
· Vegetable Morality April 17, 2006
· Parents and Children April 11, 2006
· The Curse of Lenin's Mummy April 3, 2006
|
|
Defining Theory
Collections |
·
What Did Marx "Get Wrong"? September 13, 2004
·
Class in Post-Revolutionary Society - Part 1 July 9, 2004
·
Demarchy and a New Revolutionary Communist Movement November 13, 2003
·
A New Type of Communist Organization October 5, 2003
·
The "Tools" of Marxism July 19, 2003
·
Marxism Without the Crap July 3, 2003
·
What is Socialism? An Attempt at a Brief Definition June 19, 2003
·
What is Communism? A Brief Definition June 19, 2003
·
A New Communist Paradigm for the 21st Century May 8, 2003
·
On "Dialectics" -- The Heresy Posts May 8, 2003
|
|
Random Quote |
| ...we will never break the chains on our bodies until we first break the chains in our heads.
|
|
Search |
| |
Statistics |
|
·
There have been 2 users active in the past 15 minutes.
|
|
