| Theory |
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The Modern Working Class and Obsolete Leninism June 15, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
The discussion in the previous collection -- "Disputing Dialectics" -- turned into a controversy over the nature of the modern working class in the advanced capitalist countries...are we "behind" or "ahead" of the 1917 Petrograd proletariat?
It seems to me that the underlying rationale for the "transitional state" is the hypothesis that the Petrograd workers represent an "upper limit" to what workers as a class are capable of...that is, they are, at their best, not capable of genuine self-government and therefore "need" a "vanguard party" to do it "for them".
But it that true?
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...a quote above from Mao -- one I found very interesting as it deals with how human knowledge develops.
Well, I thought it was rather long-winded...but I don't see anything wrong about what he said there in general.
I think he passes rather quickly over our initial attempts to "make sense" of the "big picture".
Humans seem to be "hard-wired" to seek patterns (whether they're there or not) in the phenomena that surround us.
Early attempts, based on limited observations, are often faulty. Later attempts, based on better, more thorough observations, are more fruitful.
And we certainly have all experienced what Mao called a "leap" in understanding...where things that puzzled us suddenly "click" and "fall into a coherent pattern".
The "Eureka" moment, as some historians of science have described it.
However intoxicating that moment might be, the coherence that we think we have found must then be put to the test; Einstein was so confident of general relativity that he said, even before it was tested, that if the observations didn't confirm it, the observations had to be wrong. (!)
His confidence was well-placed; the observations did confirm his theory...and have continued to do so ever since.
But the observations had to be made. The theory had to be tested against objective reality.
We don't remember all the ideas that Einstein had that never left his desk and ended up in his wastebasket; or even the ones that he did publish and then repudiated.
And few recall that he spent the last two decades of his life in a fruitless search for a unified field theory -- not realizing that there were fields ("strong" and "weak" nuclear forces) which he did not know existed.
We just remember his theories that passed the test of objective reality.
So my "reply" to Mao would be: yes, we do indeed attain knowledge as you suggest...but forming a coherent pattern (or theory) is not the end of the process. The theory must be tested against reality, against new observations and new experiences.
Each time a theory passes such a test, it grows stronger; people have more confidence in it. But failure is ominous...
When a previously successful theory begins to develop problems, its most ardent adherents must invent ad hoc explanations for the failures or "patches" that will make the theory work again. This can go on for quite a period of time.
But you can't have an automobile tire that consists entirely of patches...or a theory that consists of nothing but exceptions.
As failures mount, the brightest and/or the most rebellious scientists start looking elsewhere, for new theoretical paradigms that might explain what has been happening in a more coherent way.
Eventually, someone formulates a theory that works better. The old paradigm is abandoned "to the criticism of the mice".
As to Mao's remarks concerning Lenin and Stalin, I can see why he would say those things at that time.
The Leninist paradigm, throughout the middle half of the 20th century, appeared to be a substantial improvement on classical Marxism. It appeared to be confirmed by both observation and experience...at least in the USSR and subsequently in China.
When I became involved in radical politics in the early 1960s, serious people naturally gravitated towards one of the Leninist variants...not from stupidity or perversity, but because they wanted a theory that worked.
That was then; this is now. Between 1970 or so and 1992, the wheels fell off the Leninist paradigm and everything that had made it look so impressively successful completely shattered.
I am, in many respects, a "minority of one" in attempting to revive the classical Marxist paradigm; most serious revolutionaries today are probably studying anarchism!
Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are so identified in people's minds with Marx that it is very difficult to even get a "fair hearing" for Marx's ideas among these folks...to their loss, of course.
Marx's ideas, purged of their "dialectical" encrustations, seem to be, if anything, more useful in explaining objective reality than any of the modern alternatives.
Indeed, you can even use Marxism to analyze Leninism itself and show why it was doomed from the beginning. You can also use Marxism to explain why Leninism-Maoism works in predominately peasant countries (and what it actually accomplishes) and fails miserably in advanced capitalist countries.
I have a pragmatic/empiricist bias...I like theories that work.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 10, 2004
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This is (as everyone recognizes) openly and directly the line of the ruling class. They say "communism has failed."...I'm saying that this verdict, this approach, is especially powerful/influential right now because it is promoted from every stinking pore of the system's propaganda machinery. This is all the more reason to dissect it, deeply, examine its claims.
If you are indeed going to "dissect it, deeply", you should be careful to distinguish between the ruling class's general claim that "communism has failed" and my assertion that the Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist variant of Marxism has failed.
Why is that an important difference? Because their claim invalidates the entire revolutionary project; mine doesn't.
The idea of "re-creating" a "new Marxism" is, I will admit, a "bold" one...and if it happens, it will be because better thinkers than I take it up and develop it.
I can see, in fact, someone saying "if you reject dialectics, social democracy, and Leninism in all its variants, what's left?"
To which I would reply: there is still historical materialism, class struggle, and Marx's analysis of capitalism itself.
That ain't exactly chopped liver...in fact it's a pretty good foundation to build on.
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And in those [socialist] experiences, profound and positive things happened -- that light our way forward.
Some and even many positive things obviously happened...but how "profound" were they?
Whatever else you may say about them, they all remained class societies with all or nearly all of the crap associated therewith.
A "more humane" class society is not worth fighting for; it's like advocating velcro chains and shaded auction blocks in 1859.
Either communists fight for the abolition of wage-slavery or there is simply no point to our existence.
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If revolution rises and falls, does this mean that the revolution was wrong? or that its theory was wrong?
I think we both agree that "to rebel is always justified" regardless of the outcome.
But that's not very helpful in this discussion. What we are really concerned with is: has Leninism been a successful paradigm for both the making of revolution and the subsequent transition to communist society?
In the "west", all varieties of Leninism have been complete flops.
In the "east", there were Leninist regimes that claimed to be "socialist" but ended up restoring capitalism.
As "mechanical" and "undialectical" as I am, I nevertheless have no problem with your statement that world revolution is not a linear process. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was very uneven and took centuries...there's no reason not to expect the same thing with the transition from capitalism to communism (though perhaps in a somewhat shorter time-frame).
One thing that happened during the transition from feudalism to capitalism was the development of bourgeois revolutionary theory...both critical of feudal ideologies and visionary with regard to how best to overthrow the old regimes. They even had their equivalent of "vanguard parties"...so-called "secret societies" that conspired to undermine the aristocracies.
In most countries, what seemed to work best was the elevation of a despot who would faithfully serve their interests until such time as they were ready to fully and formally assume power in their own names. Napoleon III was the prototype...but there were many counterparts.
In a way, this is really the strongest empirical argument for the Leninist paradigm.
We should do what the bourgeoisie did -- establish a "proletarian despotism" that will serve the interests of the working class until the class is ready to fully and formally take power into its own hands.
This is something that worked for the bourgeoisie...and it will work for us.
Sounds plausible...but it didn't work for us.
Marx noted on a number of occasions that there was a significant difference between proletarian revolution and all previous class revolutions.
This will be the first revolution that does not merely overthrow one ruling class and replace it with another...but in the process of doing so abolishes classes altogether.
That would seem to rule out any notion of a "proletarian despot".
Which leaves us in "uncharted waters" with regard to a revolutionary strategy in advanced capitalist countries...whatever happens, it can't be simply a matter of putting "our party" in power and letting them "run the show".
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It is not true that a correct line GUARANTEES victory in every short-term battle. But it is true that an incorrect line GUARANTEES defeat in the long term.
A truism; one way to frame this discussion would be in terms of: does dialectics help in formulating a "correct line"?
Another would be: is there always one and only one "correct line"? Are multiple "correct lines" possible?
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What would it mean, represent, in the midst of that, to say "if there are no socialist countries, that means our communist road was a mistake."?
Not much; observations are always trumped by further and better observations.
If Maoists in France, or anarchists in Italy, or Trotskyists in Argentina, etc., make a successful revolution, that's fresh data and must be taken into account, investigated thoroughly, and would undoubtedly prompt a theoretical upheaval around the globe.
Those possibilities strike me as extremely unlikely, but, hey, I could be wrong!
The empiricist/pragmatist version of Marxism does not purport to predict the future in more than very general terms...based on what has actually happened up to this point.
And the reasonable prediction is that the next wave of proletarian revolutions will have no "defined center" of revolutionary ideology or, if it does have one, it will be "fuzzy" and possess little in the way of "hegemonic" dominance.
No doubt this will offend the "sense of order" that some folks value...but real revolutions are like that.
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And what is the relationship between the PRAGMATIC criterion of "ideas that work" and the MATERIALIST criterion of "ideas that are true -- i.e. that correspond with reality"?
Well, come now. Ideas that "work" don't "work" because they are false, do they?
Ideas that "work" do so precisely because they do correspond, to some degree, with objective reality. They have "truth"...at least partially.
"Truth", as someone said, "is the daughter of time". Ideas that "keep on working" are more and more likely to be true; ideas subject to random, inexplicable, and crucial failures must possess inherent defects.
In addition, of course, we know that sociological truth is historical and fixed by the technological and productive level of a particular social order.
Thus, when bourgeois ideologists triumphantly proclaim "capitalism works" and "communism has failed"...they speak for this particular point in time, not for universal history.
In fact, capitalism doesn't "work" as well as it used to and its prospects are not particularly bright. I think a variety of arguments can be made and developed that show the tendency of capitalism to "work" less well as time passes.
On the other hand, the prospects for communism brighten...a highly developed technology makes "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" a practical possibility.
The discrepancy between what is and what could be grows ever sharper and inflicts an ever increasing strain on the old order.
It shows.
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The very idea of discarding marxism for pragmatism -- means nothing less (regardless of intentions) of giving up on communism, and going with "what works" (and in the world of today, who claims to have a lock on "what works" if not capitalism itself!!?).
It is obviously not the case that I wish to "discard Marxism"...just the 20th century variants that didn't work (social democracy and Leninism).
I can imagine that seems like a "drastic step"...but we have been witness to drastic defeats.
And I repeat, the failures have been most drastic in the advanced capitalist countries.
Not once in the 20th century did a revolutionary Leninist party seriously threaten capitalist state power. And there's absolutely no sign that they ever will.
Thus, something new must be done.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 11, 2004
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Of course socialism is a class society it is by definition the transition to communism and it is only communism which is defined as being classless. You are arguing for immediate transformation from capitalism to communism because it is "the only thing worth fighting for". When historical materialism posits that this is an impossibility. Your argument on this point is not historical materialism but anarchism.
-- emphasis added.
Where'd you get that idea?
Oh, I know, you got it from Marx himself.
Why do you think he thought that?
Could it have something to do with material conditions and resultant consciousness of the working class in the 19th century? Maybe??
Consider the real workers that Marx and Engels were actually talking about back then. Semi-literate or completely illiterate? Yes. Deeply mired in all sorts of superstitions? Yes. Permeated with nationalism, racism and sexism? Yes. Poorly informed about much of social reality, politics, economics? Yes. A wide-spread feeling or sense of their "inherent inferiority" to their "betters"? Yes.
Was such a class, even if it could make a revolution, really "fit" to "govern itself"? Nope!
There's your "transition state"...a device for "educating" a backward working class for communist society.
(And for further developing the means of production of course; Marx recognized that communism could only "work" in material abundance.)
In 1872, Marx was the historical materialist and Bakunin was the idealistic dreamer.
Now here's an idea: the working class of this century is much more advanced than the working class of the 19th century...and it will continue to advance.
When we speak of post-capitalist society now, we are not speaking of a class of "ignoramuses" who need a "keeper" any longer.
Even without "dialectics", historical materialism can not only accommodate change but expects it.
For example, the idea that the internet will play the same role in proletarian revolution that the invention of printing played in the bourgeois revolution is clearly a historical materialist hypothesis...and, to me, it looks like a good one!
On the other hand, the hypothesis of a "transitional state" seems to me to be increasingly obsolete.
Thus, without regard to Bakunin's essentially moral objections to the state as such, I rest my case on the changes in material reality that have already taken place and seem to be accelerating.
If this be "anarchism", then "make the most of it".
Also, let's be careful with the use of the word "immediate" in regards to the establishment of communist society after a proletarian revolution.
What I advocate is that no attempt be made to create a "workers' state" as such; there should be no "political center of gravity". The working class would have many organs of self-determination (councils, workplace committees, etc.) but none of them would be in any position to "give orders" to society as a whole.
The transition would thus be piece-meal and probably rather chaotic; communist measures would be introduced rapidly or gradually as workers were convinced of their utility and necessity. The role of conscious communists would be that of pressing for the most rapid introduction of communist measures...concentrating especially on the abolition of wage-slavery.
Communists would also be the most vigorous opponents of all the reactionary ideas and practices of the old order, attacking them at every opportunity.
Thus, transition would not be some kind of "transformational magic" -- as many anarchists seem to think -- but a conscious struggle to carry proletarian revolution all the way through to the end.
Some Leninists might think that such a task is "easier" if you have a "workers' state" with a professional army, police, prisons, labor camps, etc.
But that's been tried; it didn't work.
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Further, maybe you could explain to me how class struggle works without dialectics...Please explain to me what is left of class struggle when you take out dialectics.
Class struggle "works" because it involves two groups of people who stand in a different relationship to the means of production and thus have conflicting class interests.
Historically, different classes with different interests struggle for dominance on behalf of those class interests.
There's no "dialectics" involved in this...it's a matter of observation and evidence.
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To rebel is not always justified.
Yes, I imagined that would be your response.
When Petrograd workers rebelled against the odious dictatorship of Bolshevik party-boss Zinoviev in February 1921...that was clearly a case of "unjustified" rebellion, right?
And had the Shanghai Commune defied Mao and refused to disperse...?
Horrors!
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That there is no difference between Lenin's Vanguard and Napoleon III.
One difference: Napoleon III was much more popular. He won a nation-wide free election to the 2nd Republic's presidency, then staged a coup, and then was confirmed as Emperor in a nation-wide plebiscite.
Lenin just staged a coup.
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What were the goals of Napoleon III and what were the goals of the Bolsheviks?
Do you mean "conscious goals" or actual historical function?
Napoleon III probably envisioned a "harmonious" class society with enough concessions to the peasantry and the workers to keep the lid on while the "rich" went on getting richer. In fact, he "prepared the way" for the bourgeois 3rd Republic.
Lenin thought he was "preparing the way" for communist society; in fact, he too "prepared the way" for a new bourgeoisie...if Stalin had not abandoned the NEP, that's what would have happened by, say, 1940 at the latest.
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You think [October 1917] was simply a palace coup by a bunch of well organized fanatics.
I don't think I've ever used the word "fanatic" in this context...that word implies a sort of wild-eyed irrationality and even hysteria. The Bolsheviks were certainly not like that at all.
The Bolsheviks were the best organized left group in September 1917 (at least in the cities) and it's likely that they did enjoy the initial support of a majority of urban workers.
But if you read the actual accounts of those days, the difference between October 1917 and February 1917 is obvious.
Millions of workers directly participated in the overthrow of the Czarist aristocracy in February 1917. There was considerable street fighting and many casualties. The defection of the Petrograd garrisons sealed the Czar's fate.
But only a few thousand armed workers, under orders from Lenin and his closest comrades, were directly involved in the coup of October 1917. It passed off almost without a shot being fired. (That famous scene in the movie version of 10 Days That Shook the World -- the masses storming the Winter Palace -- is fictional.)
Coup is a reasonable description...even though a highly respected anarchist on this board disagrees with me and agrees with you about October.
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Why would the bourgeoisie fight something which was merely putting new people at the top of capitalism?
The October coup scared the shit out of the imperialist bourgeoisie! They believed Lenin's words. After the self-inflicted catastrophe of world war, they had no reason not to assume the worst and do whatever they could manage to fight it.
October "shook the confidence" of the imperial bourgeoisie badly...the United States didn't establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union until 1933!
The bourgeoisie are not "omniscient"...in fact, they blunder all the time. Their initial intervention in Russia was a blunder, that's all. They had nothing to fear...they just thought they did.
By 1922, Lenin was actually inviting foreign capital to return to Russia on generous terms...but the bourgeoisie were too afraid to take advantage of the offer.
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The goal is a classless society and only the proletariat can bring that about, but if you think this is going to happen during a revolution that happens over a matter of years instead of a larger dialectical process over decades or centuries with successes and reverses then I'd like to see where Marx backs you up on that.
-- emphasis added.
Blame me, not Marx.
And, at this point, I freely concede that you could be right. The process could take "decades or centuries" with "successes and reverses".
Where we disagree is on the utility of the Leninist "transitional workers' state".
I think establishing such a state would create an obstacle to the transition to communism; you see it as an "essential tool".
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I take it that the fact that the only people who have tried and had any success...at revolution being Leninists means nothing to you.
Not much. They haven't had any success in the advanced capitalist countries...where real proletarian revolution is supposed to take place.
In Russia, China, etc., all they've done is created new capitalist ruling classes.
Don't blame the scoreboard if you don't like the score.
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So what would it mean if Nepal was successful next year or even tomorrow? Would you reevaluate your entire thought because of this "new data"?
It's not "new data". I've already agreed that Maoists are "good" at making peasant revolutions; Maoism "works" in pre-capitalist and semi-capitalist countries.
Of course, what it does when it wins is advance those countries to modern capitalism...something the native (and often colonial) bourgeoisie frequently seem incapable of doing.
To you, it's "nit-picking". To me, it's class analysis.
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At what point are you going to be a real communist and support SOMETHING and DO something?
What would you like me to "support"?
As to "doing something", I am, of course, doing something right now...to be precise, I am engaging in ideological struggle with "MLM" on a public message board. I've even been informed by another moderator that "people love it"...so perhaps I'm doing some good.
I must remind you that Bob Avakian does pretty much the same thing; engages in ideological struggle with ideas that, in his judgment, are useless or reactionary.
Get used to the idea...every revolutionary in their 7th decade of life is "an armchair revolutionary", whether we like it or not. (If we make it into our 8th decade, we'll both be "wheelchair revolutionaries"!)
Karl Marx wrote: The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
Quite so...but what do you think his attitude would have been towards a method of change that demonstrated an unbroken record of failure -- e.g., Leninism in the "west".
No doubt he would harshly criticize my apostasy from "dialectics"...but what would he say to you?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 11, 2004
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When you say, "When we speak of post-capitalist society now" are you trying to insinuate that we exist today in a "post-capitalist society"?
Obviously not! Good grief!
Right now, in June of 2004, we have a different, more knowledgeable working class than the one that Marx or Lenin knew. And it grows more knowledgeable with the passing of time, does it not?
Thus, when we speculate about the shape of post-capitalist society, we ought to take that into account, don't you think?
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And that the only thing revolutionary about the printing press was its use by the new bourgeois and its existence in capitalist relations under feudalism. That is, the people who created, owned, used the printing press were predominantly the capitalists of their time and that the printing presses themselves were organized along capitalist lines, not feudal.
Well, who "owns" the internet? Capitalists own the hardware and the vast bulk of organized content. But what does their ownership really mean when communists can freely and easily use it to communicate to anyone who is connected and interested?
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Your suggestion that the internet and the printing press will play the same role in a bourgeois as a proletarian revolution is so simplistic and unscientific (even for metaphysical bourgeois scientists) that I think few would take it seriously. In fact the source of that comes from buying into the bs propaganda of the internet boom, which was so hyped that people actually claimed we were in a new reality "the age of information", the "information revolution", etc.
I fully share your distaste for the "information age" hype...largely advanced by those who had new shares in dubious companies to offer, if I'm not mistaken.
But that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the printing press taught the bourgeoisie how to read...and subsequently how to think as a "class for itself".
I do not think it unreasonable to suggest that the internet may play the same role for the proletariat in the "west".
And I do not care if "few would take it seriously" or not; changes in material reality do not stop to take a poll on public approval.
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Moreover you seem to leave out all those people in the world, and in the US who don't have the internet (as in virtually the entire proletariat).
Everything I've seen suggests that the internet is growing at an incredible rate...even in the semi-capitalist and neo-colonial world.
I have a comrade in Mozambique at the present moment; the village's single internet connection doesn't work very well yet, but it works.
As computer prices and internet connection prices fall in the U.S., more and more working people are getting connected.
It's not a "middle class" luxury any more.
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Not to mention you seem to think that the entire "working class" has a college degree.
Well, I don't. And I'm not sure why that would be relevant to this discussion. Marx had a PhD in philosophy and both Lenin and Castro had law degrees; but neither Stalin nor Mao ever went to college.
Do you wish to imply that no one without an college degree can understand revolution?
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Explain to me in concrete terms how you could say that "the working class" has all the knowledge, experience and theory they need to move directly into communism. And while you're at it maybe you could explain exactly who or what is "the working class" as you see it.
Obviously, they don't have "all the knowledge, experience and theory they need" now.
I contend that they will acquire that knowledge, experience and theory between now and successful proletarian revolution.
And, taking that a step further, I would even contend that a successful proletarian revolution is impossible without the working class acquiring that knowledge, experience, and theory.
A proletarian insurrection is possible and has happened. But without real class consciousness, it "stalls", goes "half-way" and then retreats, etc.
The Leninist conceit is that the vanguard party can substitute itself for the class and "bridge the gap" in knowledge, experience, and theory.
In the "west", that has not happened.
As to your question about "who" or "what" is the working class, I have no "special" or "esoteric" definition in mind. Those who must sell their labor-power or die...that's a close-enough first approximation for my purposes.
Obviously, there are many distinctions to be made within the class...it's not just a big lump. And its composition changes over time as the means of production change, etc.
A detailed analysis of the working class is beyond the scope of this thread...and I would not be competent to do it, in any event. It's a job for those who are really knowledgeable about Marxist economics and extremely skilled at reading and interpreting official statistics.
But the working class itself does not need to make such an analysis in order to make revolution; when the time comes, they will know their own.
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It's ironic that you decry the Soviet Union and then take up the very theories on which its failure was based. Namely this idea that technology is one of the main driving forces of history and therefore it was necessary for the Soviet Union to build a technological base which entailed creating capitalism.
You put that rather incoherently.
Technology is the "main driving force" in history...it's what creates the "means of production" which in turn creates classes, which in turn creates class struggle and social change.
If I'm not mistaken, Marx even said so explicitly: a certain level of development of the means of production = a certain kind of class society.
Your statement that the USSR developed into a capitalist society because it built a modern technological base is historically true...but you sound as if you "disapprove".
Do you think they should not have done that?
Or perhaps that if they had concentrated on "line" rather than material development, that would have saved them from the restoration of capitalism?
Rather idealist, don't you think?
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Technology is meaningless outside of class relations and all technology within capitalism simply serves to reinforce those relations, how does that help prepare people for communism?
--emphasis added.
If what you said were actually true, then proletarian revolution really would be "impossible"...the working class could never be more than briefly revolutionary before sinking back into their old habitual servility and false consciousness.
I don't understand myself (and I'm not sure that anyone does) the exact mechanism by which new technology changes the consciousness of the people that use it...in such a way that they begin to question existing class relationships and then move towards overthrowing those old relationships.
Perhaps it begins by virtue of the actual use of that new technology...the old order uses it inefficiently and oppressively while the user perceives that it could be used more efficiently and in a more liberating fashion.
But, admittedly, I'm speculating.
In any event, we certainly know that something like that does happen...and that it's at the very base of genuine changes in class society.
Consciousness doesn't change simply because some guy comes up with a "new idea"...people do that all the time and most of those ideas are neither new nor any good.
There has to be a material basis in objective reality for that "new idea" to "take off" and perhaps "change the world".
If that basis is not down deep, at the very roots of an existing society, where else could it be?
We both agree that it didn't "fall out of the sky", so where did it come from?
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So why is it that leadership is not needed to do this? Are you suggesting that people are already conscious enough to do it spontaneously? Is your problem with the vanguard or with democratic centralism?
I think most people will be strongly inclined to carry proletarian revolution "all the way through to the end".
I think, as conscious communists, our advice will be both useful and welcomed.
But we do not need to command.
Nor is it particularly useful to "puff ourselves up" as "vanguard experts in making communism work"...nobody particularly likes elitist and arrogant attitudes even from those who might have good reason to be elitist and arrogant.
And "God" help you if you project those attitudes and then make a mistake...as everyone will joyfully gather around to tear you a new asshole.
In revolutionary times, it's not just statues that get dragged off their pedestals.
As to "democratic" centralism, Rosa Luxemburg pointed out where that leads back in 1911 or something like that.
Not only is it not democratic in any meaningful sense of the word but, from a purely pragmatic point of view, it has no mechanism for resolving internal disputes except a split. The dissidents always leave or get expelled and then, if they still consider themselves Leninists, set up a new party and go through the whole process all over again.
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First of all "workers state" is a Trotskyist term and in my opinion Trotskyism is not Leninism. But excluding what I understand to be the Trotskyist definition of the "workers state", what is your understanding of this term?
My apologies; I thought the term was acceptable to all variants of Leninism.
In any event, I have no esoteric definition in mind: a state which is fully under the control of the Leninist party, ruling "on behalf" of the working class, lacking any mechanism of accountability (even nominal) to the working class itself.
If you'll inform me of the term you prefer, I'll be glad to accommodate you.
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If you would study Mao and China you would see that the army, police, prisons, etc, were all built on a different basis than those of the bourgeois versions.
A professional army is an army; it shoots at whoever it's told to shoot at. Police are police; they brutalize or arrest whoever they are told to brutalize or arrest. Prisons are prisons; labor camps are labor camps; they are very unpleasant places to be.
Not to mention the damage they do to the people involved in setting them up, running them, etc. If you are a soldier, a cop, a prison guard, a labor camp overseer, what does that turn you into?
As someone once pointed out: "The worst thing about slavery is that it turns people into animals...and I'm not talking about the slaves."
Being determines consciousness.
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And when you decry the failure in the industrialized west of Leninism to come to power, well I'd like to know what the hell you're talking about. Who was the Leninist party in Germany? Who were the Leninists in Britain?
I suspect that even a list of all the parties that claimed the mantle of Lenin in the "west" would triple the length of this already lengthy post.
You, of course, are free to reply that "none" of them were "real Leninists"...and, who knows, you might even be right about that.
So what?
What is the RCP but the 157th or 232nd or 465th claimant to the Leninist throne?
Do you think that "this time" it's "the real thing"?
Prove it! In deeds, not in words! Take my skepticism and cynicism and pragmatism and throw it all back in my face...by making a real proletarian revolution in the United States!
Your honest critics will join you when they see real results. And your enemies will flee while howling their dismay.
But, without results, why should I or anyone believe your promises? Or that your version of Leninism will work any better than all the hundreds of others that litter the political landscape like burnt-out hulks?
I hope you're not going to suggest "faith in Bob".
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I'm a little tired of your "what if nonsense" with regards to the Shanghai Commune.
I'll bet you are...it's the biggest standing embarrassment to the "Mao Myth".
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Sometimes rebellion is reactionary.
Indeed it sometimes is; but that's rarely the case when the masses are involved.
I'm still curious, by the way, when and why Mao's quote was changed to insert the "against reactionaries" clause. It wouldn't have happened shortly after the (ahem!) Shanghai Commune, would it?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 12, 2004
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Do you really think that U.S. workers are more conscious than the workers of Lenin's Russia?
How can anyone possibly think that?
Or is the "knowledgeable" he refers to not political, communist consciousness? Is he implying that some kind of high-tech literacy is the key to making the transition to communism?
Not simply "high-tech" literacy but a more general scientific understanding of the world and how it works.
A great many (perhaps most) of the urban workers who supported Lenin were operating on little more than "faith"; they were, like the "western" workers that Marx and Engels observed, only semi-literate at best, often mired in various superstitions, barely removed from the peasantry in many cases, subject to fits of crude anti-semitism, and so on.
That's not to deny the capabilities of the more advanced sections of the class, who were consciously communist, atheist, etc.
But you may recall that Lenin himself complained that most of the Russian proletariat was "too backward" to be allowed to directly run the "DoP".
Most modern workers in advanced capitalist countries are far beyond such primitive characteristics as "faith in great leaders", superstitious awe of gods or nations, indulgence in gross exercises of racism or sexism, etc.
Of course, we also have many very backward workers now...which is another way of saying that we are still very distant from proletarian revolution in the United States.
But we have a proletarian culture that, at least, understands that knowledge is preferable to ignorance as well as the fact that our bourgeois leaders do not have "our best interests at heart".
What I think is relevant here is the trend...as each new generation of workers is born and comes to maturity, they learn more and better than their parents did.
I have, of course, seen this is my own life...kids today are a lot sharper than kids of my day (including me!).
This is even true of communist consciousness...though the actual numbers are still very small. I've been, on occasion, shocked to see 14-year-olds (at Che-Lives) advance a sophisticated political argument that would have been challenging for me at 24!
The generation of American workers that actually makes proletarian revolution will, I suspect, be enormously (you would say "qualitatively") more sophisticated than the workers of Lenin's time.
All of this, of course, is much further advanced in western Europe than in the U.S. -- which is why I expect the next wave of proletarian revolutions to begin there first...perhaps by 2050 or sooner. (!)
And after the workers smash the bourgeois state machinery and disperse its personnel, I would be greatly surprised if they even bothered with a "proletarian state"...it would be seen as a superfluous detour on the road to communism.
And who needs that?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 12, 2004
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quote:
I'm straining to understand how you come to these conclusions empirically. Frankly, both are ridiculous guesses completely isolated from material reality. Since you go by what "works", maybe you can show me how the two above statements "work".
Actually, they are no more and no less substantiated than your own dreary repetitions of Leninist clichιs.
We are dealing, after all, with social attitudes...something almost impossible to measure empirically.
Some things we can measure with precision, of course. We could measure the turn-out at patriotic celebrations over the last eight decades, for example, as an indicator of how patriotism has declined.
Or we could note the fact that popular lynchings with official complicity have ceased as a measure of the decline of racism among the working class.
We could note that despite the media fuss over religious fundamentalism, more and more working people conduct their daily lives without regard to religious prohibitions...even when they still consider themselves "believers".
Most promising to me is the general decline in the propensity to "fall in love" with great-leader-wannabes. There's still a lot of that crap around...but nowadays the would-be "super-human" is soon revealed to have all-too-human failings or worse.
One of the most interesting things I've run across is the fact that companies that design and manufacturer "I.Q." tests have to up-date their tests every decade or so to make the test results comparable to prior decades..."raw scores" (if they were really measuring intelligence) would suggest human brain-power is "increasing" at a rate unparalleled in evolutionary history.
No, that's not what's really happening, of course. What's really happening is that people know more.
Setting all this aside, your difficulty stems from the fact that you are using the Russian workers of Lenin's time as a "universal upper limit" to the revolutionary capacity of "all workers (under capitalism) at all times".
Naturally, your vanguard party (or somebody's) would be "required" to "lead" the proletarian revolution "because" it was "needed" then.
What's the obvious criticism of such an approach? That it's completely a-historical.
If the American (even more, the European) proletariat is not on the barricades, that "must mean" that they have not yet "reached the level" of the Petrograd proletariat in 1917.
What you seem to have a problem with grasping is that when they do go to the barricades, they will be a much different proletariat than that of 1917...they will be light-years ahead of Petrograd! (Just as, it might be usefully added, the Petrograd working class was very different than the proto-proletarians and artisans of 1789 and even 1848.)
Whether you use "dialectics" or not, things change!
PS: I should add that when western Maoists "mix in" the Chinese peasantry c.1945-49 or even the GPCR of 1966 with 1917 Petrograd, that just makes things worse...that is, even more obsolete by "western" standards.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 13, 2004
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