| Theory |
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Class and "Leader" June 26, 2005 by RedStar2000 |
The thorny issue of class consciousness is raised in this thread...and how that relates to "middle class leaders" and "working class followers".
As time passes, I am becoming more and more skeptical of the role of privilege in what purport to be "revolutionary organizations".
That is not to imply some kind of deification of "the horny-handed son of toil"...but it does suggest a re-examination of the thesis that working class people "need" some middle class people to "lead them onto correct paths".
Even if that was once the case, is it still true?
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quote:
And this is why the discussion in this thread is so infuriating.
I feel your pain. *laughs*
How many times have I said to myself, "Why can't these people grasp the profound correctness of my ideas???"
It is infuriating, dammit!
Nevertheless, press on we must.
quote:
The minute an anarchist shows me exactly how you're going to do this by simply "creating culture" or striking instead of seeking to seize state power and actually shows an ability to build off that and sustain it against counter-revolution is the minute I will drop the vanguard.
You practically issue an engraved invitation for the response...so here it is.
When I see a Leninist party not simply overthrow a capitalist regime but establish a social order where the working class has the power and exercises it, I will embrace the vanguard as a valid revolutionary paradigm.
There is little reason for optimism about the RCP in this regard. Avakian has flatly said that he intends a post-revolutionary "enlightened despotism" and, in so many words, that there will be a state apparatus even under communism.
The vanguard is "immortal" even if the "Leader" is not.
Nor is the hype -- "we can lead the revolution" -- very convincing. What happened, for example, with the "campaign" against Christian fascism? I thought you had a pretty good idea there...but apparently, it's been dropped or put on the back burner or what???
quote:
And the reality of seizing state power is that you need a vanguard to do it...If you want to expropriate big capitalists and end capitalism you have to be ready and willing to fight and you have to have an ability to engage politics on a theoretical line level which can organize and give rise to millions of people at a time. Only a vanguard can do this.
No one is doing that or anything even remotely approaching that in the U.S.
Your argument really reduces itself to: someday the RCP will do that and no one else will ever do it at all.
You can hardly be shocked, much less infuriated, that such a claim is greeted with massive skepticism. Even if the Leninist paradigm itself were, in principle, valid, there's no significant evidence to show that the RCP "measures up" to the Leninist standard that you've outlined. There are a whole flock of "Leninist vanguards" in the U.S. today and all of them put together wouldn't fill a minor league ballpark. None of them show significantly greater achievements than any of the others...they're all "in the pack".
Of course, you "have" Avakian...and none of your rivals have such a "leading personality".
But it's difficult for me to see what advantage you have gained by that. His thinking is usually pedestrian at best and sometimes suffers from incoherence. He rambles at dreadful length and one searches, sometimes in vain, for the kernel of what he wants to convey.
As an "inspiring figure", he is notably lacking in "charisma"...the response to him as a person that I've seen on the internet is almost universally dismissive, often with marked hostility. I myself have probably attempted to engage Avakian's ideas more than any other person outside of your circle...with little to show for my efforts thus far.
quote:
The CL approach in contrast is to create line by committee, which only takes it down to the lowest common denominator of political understanding and interest.
I find this to be a particularly revealing "criticism" -- revealing about the RCP, that is.
Why should it be a "fault" if a group's political line is determined collectively? And why should it be a "virtue" if its line is set by a single "leader"?
Is correct line a product of "genius"? Or of someone who claims "genius"?
How would we "do" science with that approach? The "leader" sets out the "line of march" for, say, particle physics, and all particle physicists adjust their research priorities accordingly?
No dissent, no criticism, no struggle???
Do people in the RCP ever struggle with Bob Avakian?
Do bears shit in outhouses?
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First posted at RevLeft on June 13, 2005
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quote:
Frankly I think that the experience in the Soviet Union and China, while far from perfect (and after all who the fuck really puts the perfect up as a realistic goal) went further than anything in human history towards putting power into the hands of the oppressed. You simply disagree with this analysis.
Well yes, of course I do. Your evidence for this assertion is utterly wretched and not far from completely nonexistent.
I will grant you that there was a good deal of rhetoric about "power in the hands of the oppressed"...but the times in which rhetoric was an acceptable substitute for actual performance are, I think, behind us.
The USSR and China accomplished much in the areas of industrialization and economic development, education, public health, etc. No sensible person denies that...or would express any kind of preference for the odious regimes that preceded the Leninist parties in power.
The problem that contemporary revolutionaries face is that the Leninist parties have never done what they said they were going to do...put actual power into the hands of the working class.
Here, Avakian at least gets points for honesty: he says publicly that he's not going to give us any power at all...unless we are members of his party (real meaning: long term and very high up members).
The message is: if you want some real clout in post-revolutionary America, join the RCP!
Such an appeal is, of course, careerist...and can only attract those with an appetite for ruling others.
People who believe that they could manage things a lot "better" than the people who manage things now.
quote:
What infuriates me is cynicism.
Why should that infuriate you? You make a series of assertions that are, to be charitable, disconnected from Leninist historical experience.
Essentially, you promise to "get it right this time"...even though you preserve all the basic elements of the Leninist paradigm with only trivial modifications.
quote (redstar2000):
1. A new and permanent state apparatus.
2. With a professional army and police force.
3. Under the permanent leadership (control) of the Leninist party.
4. Nationalization of the means of production and the introduction of centralized economic planning/management on a professional basis.
5. Continued production of commodities for sale; continued use of money; continued inequality of wages; appropriation of surplus value by the state apparatus.
That's what the RCP wants (with itself in the role of the leading party, of course).
Explain to me why people shouldn't be "cynical" about that?
quote:
It's the difference between dealing with a whole bunch of slander and actually dealing with the content of [Avakian's] ideas.
I'm afraid the RCP has only itself to blame for that. Your party has put such an astounding degree of emphasis on the importance of Bob Avakian as a "leading personality" that people react to the hype and not the ideas.
You've been told this many times by people who do not think of you as "enemies"...but you will not listen!
America is NOT CHINA! We do not want a great leader here.
Even if you (or Bob) thinks we "need" one, we are simply not going to accept that.
The very idea of such a thing is almost universally repugnant in this country.
Until the RCP grasps that fundamental reality, you simply can't get anywhere.
quote:
You may think Avakian is rambling, but he is laying out dialectical analysis.
If you say so...looks like rambling to me.
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Now I suppose you're going to put out some smart aleck comment about how the Feinman Lectures probably aren't that good because Feinman did for physics what Avakian does for revolution, even though you've never read them.
Um...the man's name is Feynman actually...and you're quite right that I have never read his celebrated lectures.
I know my limitations.
But consider your claim: Bob Avakian is the "Richard P. Feynman" of revolution.
More incredible hype!
quote (Bob Avakian):
I would like to thank the many different people who have sent letters and other correspondence for me. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, I am not able to respond directly to much of this correspondence, but I read it with great interest, and I would like to convey to all those who have written to me that I very much appreciate and continually learn from this correspondence. And I would like to encourage those who would like to do so to write and to offer any suggestions, questions, disagreements, and criticisms which people feel would be relevant to raise to me, in the spirit and with the purpose of coming to know the world more deeply and to transform it more thoroughly in the interests of the masses of people and ultimately all of humanity.
Such a boilerplate response is common from public figures who get too much mail to answer individually.
But, as always, Chairman Bob never uses 10 words when 100 or more will do. *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on June 14, 2005
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quote:
This is really opportunist coming from a person who has publicly argued for the burning of churches and the wholesale execution of reactionaries, and religious people.
Clearly my last post must have angered you a great deal...since you now want to venture off into irrelevancies...and rather misleading ones at that.
I have nowhere claimed a "moral high ground" -- whatever that may be. In some threads, I've said bluntly that I am in favor of a "red terror" against reactionaries after the revolution.
You evidently find this distasteful...but, believe me, should you ever get to see what a "white terror" looks like, you'll change your mind in a hurry.
Likewise, I advocate the removal of religion from public life after the revolution, including the demolition and removal of all religious architecture (propaganda in stone). I recall at least one post where I specifically rejected fire as a method of implementing that project. A controlled "implosion" or, if necessary, a crane and a wrecking ball are sufficient.
Nowhere have I ever suggested executing people "because they were religious". Or even putting them in jail...unless they make a public nuisance of themselves.
I can understand your reluctance to deal with the points relevant to this thread which I made in my last post...but they won't go away.
quote:
What, is it ok to use execution as a primary method of dealing with contradictions as long as it isn't centrally controlled?
The absence of "central control" is valuable because it prevents the "center" from any kind of organized campaign to execute large numbers of people purely on the basis of their reluctance to carry out the center's "orders".
If you're going to kill some guy because he's a reactionary bastard, you ought to know what you're doing and why.
This is obviously best done on a local basis.
quote:
And then you attack us, when we have explicitly laid out how we're not going to do these things.
I made no "attack" on the RCP about this at all...you are imagining things.
I pointed out what you can hardly dispute: following the revolution, you want a centralized and professional police force under the orders of the party leadership.
I made no predictions about what you would do with that force.
quote:
And if you're going to deny that in the early Soviet period and in China that the working class had more control than they've ever had in the history of the working class then you're simply making a fool of yourself.
In your eyes, perhaps. Others will decide for themselves.
And now I turn to something that you said that I do agree with...
quote:
It's the content of the ideas which are important, not the "identity" of the person.
In an exchange with another RCP supporter at AWIP, I said exactly the same thing with regard to Bob Avakian. Specifically, I said that if the RCP thinks that Avakian's ideas are good ones, then they should publicize those ideas...and not him as a personality.
Needless to say, this proposition was rejected...and it was stressed that Avakian "as a person and a leader" is "just as important" as his ideas.
Now which is it to be? Are ideas valuable because they correspond to objective reality or because they come from some particularly "valuable" personality?
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First posted at RevLeft on June 14, 2005
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quote:
The irony is that you've described the Red Terror in China.
Almost. The way I heard it, the peasants publicly tried the landlords and executed them...possibly as many as 2,000,000 of the bloodsucking bastards.
But when they next wanted to do likewise with the "rich peasants", the order came down from Peking -- touch not a hair on their precious heads.
So much for the "power" of the poor peasants and landless laborers in revolutionary China.
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It is a fact that you cannot instantly or even within a single generation transform society into a place where no state is required.
Maybe, maybe not. We'll see.
But if we do need a temporary state apparatus, I do not see how the hyper-state despotism that the RCP advocates is any significant improvement on what we suffer under now.
An ultra-democratic "Paris Commune" state I could live with -- though I would want to see it perceptively shrinking.
What the RCP proposes is out of the question to an advanced working class.
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And it is a fact that you need a vanguard which leads through line in order to seize the state and move things towards communism.
Vanguards can seize the state...that's been demonstrated (even though their batting average is very low).
What they have not done thus far is "move things towards communism".
Until it's been demonstrated that a vanguard can actually do that, you stand on the exact same level as the anarchists...here is what we promise to do when we get the chance.
Well, anybody can make promises.
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Redstar you have no concept of history. Revolutions are not perfect.
*laughs*
quote:
The way you're dealing with this is to say Avakian's ideas are untrue, therefore Avakian is A.
Yes, I do say that Avakian's perspective on post-revolutionary society is mistaken...it will not correspond with what will actually happen.
Having a marked sympathy for "vulgar Marxism", I cannot muster much resistance to the hypothesis that Avakian's line is just what one would expect from the privileged son of a federal judge.
Certainly Avakian sincerely believes that some are "better fitted to rule" while others are "better fitted to be ruled". I have a fair suspicion where both I and other critics of the RCP (and the overwhelming majority of the population) would end up...not on the "sweet side" of that equation.
Does that mean that Avakian is "evil" or that the RCP is "an enemy"?
No, it just means that I think Avakian and the RCP have the wrong line.
Somewhere in the thick fog of Lenin and Mao, you've lost track of the central proposition of Marxism...
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.
It's not just a good idea, it's the law (of history).
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First posted at RevLeft on June 14, 2005
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quote:
The argument that intellectuals of middle class origin cannot become real communists, and inherently cannot develop communist theory, is such a stupidity -- an incorrect idea that (if you think about it for two seconds) sharply defies what we know about the world.
Perhaps that is a "too-strong" version of the hypothesis.
Try this: intellectuals of middle class origins are extremely unlikely to ever become "real communists" though they may, on very rare occasions make a contribution to the development of communist theory.
This formula allows for the occasional exceptions but also bows to the necessity of the overall class-ideology relationship.
quote:
All through history leading communist leaders and thinkers have come from the middle classes.
Yes, that has been the case up until now. What we need to do here is discuss why that happened.
In the time of Marx and Engels, most workers were semi-literate at best...and a great many were completely illiterate. Things were no better in Lenin's time. Working hours were long and exhausting; all kinds of superstitions were commonplace among workers; their knowledge of the real world was not much advanced over that of a medieval serf.
The working class called into existence by the rising bourgeoisie bore the marks of serfdom and "serf-consciousness". They could and did rebel (serfs also rebelled) but their consciousness was usually too "stunted" to transcend the prevailing social order.
Most of them could not envision anything better than a boss that would reduce their burden of labor, pay them "a living wage", and, perhaps, treat them with some dignity.
In that era, it was inevitable that the long-range potential of the proletariat could only be expressed by a handful of dissidents from the middle and upper classes. There were a fair number of such intellectuals in the 19th century and most of them were not communists or anarchists, but designers of utopias and social reformers of many varieties. People like Marx, Engels, and Bakunin were "a minority of a minority"...arguing for revolutionary action by the working class itself.
When social democratic "Marxism" emerged as a force in Europe (say from 1890 onwards), this "division of labor" was understood as "natural" -- middle class leaders were "required" to transcend the limited and partial class consciousness of the workers. When the young Lenin entered this atmosphere, he saw no reason to challenge that assumption...it was "universal".
The role of the working masses is to "follow correct revolutionary leadership"...which, with extremely rare exceptions, could only come from middle class intellectual dissidents.
And so this view has come down to us, rarely questioned in any serious way, and certainly without any examination of its historical specificity. Meanwhile, the working class in the advanced capitalist countries learned to read...and taught themselves to think of themselves as "middle class" and "people with dignity" -- not serfs.
Pronounced deference to their "social betters" is pretty much a thing of the past, now. In Europe, all the old superstitions are dying and even in the U.S. they are, I think, slowly starting to lose influence in the working class.
We are still some distance away, I think, before we can speak of the modern working class as "a class for itself"...but I think perceptible progress is being made -- even in periods especially characterized by triumphant reaction, like the present one.
So...is that old assumption about the middle class being "needed" to supply a kind of "transcendent revolutionary consciousness" to the working class still valid?
And is it valid for all time? What will be the inherent capabilities of the working class of 2050? Or 2100?
How does the working class now compare to the working class of 1950? Or 1900?
I don't mean by that anything as superficial as nominal membership in a radical or revolutionary party. I mean something more along the lines of: how do they see the world?
Do they still think that it's only a matter of finding the "good leader" and following him? Or have they already begun to have doubts about the fundamental "fitness" of their "superiors" to rule? Any of them?
Because, you see, that's really what Marx meant when he used the phrase "a class for itself". It means a class that has consciously decided that it is "fit to rule"...and much better fitted to rule than the old ruling class.
quote:
Proletarian class consciousness comes from WITHOUT their life experience. Communist theory is developed on the basis of a study of economics, philosophy, politics, history, etc.
The first sentence is, I think, false. Many working people grasp or would grasp many of the formal elements of communist theory as soon as they heard them expressed in non-technical language.
It would be "self-evident"...from their own life experiences.
And further, some of the elements that they would reject really are not part of "communist theory" at all...but rather innovations introduced by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.
However useful those innovations temporarily proved in Russia, China, et.al., they are irrelevant to workers in advanced capitalist countries.
Some elements of communist theory do require "advanced study"...it's unlikely that any working person would ever spontaneously think of the concept of "surplus value" and promptly sit down and develop the implications of that.
Though the possibility couldn't be ruled out. Working people "sense" that they are not paid the real value of their labor...but only someone with time and inclination would try to work out the scientific details.
Very well, are the details required?
To put it another way, how much communist theory does the working class require in order to successfully overthrow a capitalist system and establish either a socialist state or move directly towards communism? What is the minimum needed and can the working class discover it in a timely fashion?
Do workers still "need" or will they "always need" an expert in communist theory to "lead" them?
We all know "the problem with experts", right? We have no way of telling whether the expert really knows what he's talking about or is just blowing perfumed smoke out of his ass?
We try to find out as much as we can, to be sure. If the expert has a "public track record", we seek it out. (Under capitalism, most experts do not have a public track record.)
Frankly, I'm strongly inclined to think that the working class should and will give a careful hearing to a variety of "experts in communist theory"...and then do as it collectively sees fit.
I'd rather "take a chance" on working class error than on the known propensity of middle-class experts to advance themselves at the expense of the working class.
quote:
And finally, third, the implications of this mechanical, linear and non-materialist view of matter and thought is very rightist -- because it assumes that people automatically develop the thinking that relates to their class, so a great reliance can be put on that spontaneous process. This is the thinking of economists and reformists (and anarchists too) who think that people spontaneously develop the ideas, strategies, philosophies, and consciousness they need to liberate themselves.
Yeah...something like that. Of course, as an "expert in communist theory", you throw in all the negatives that occur to you -- "mechanical, linear, non-materialist, rightist, economist, and reformist".
It is curious that you neglected the most important negative: wrong.
It's obvious that "spontaneous consciousness" is not something that "falls out of the sky"; living people develop their ideas from a mixture of personal experience and the experiences of others around them, from reading, from conversation, etc.
This applies to everybody...even Marx, Lenin, or whoever you'd like to nominate.
And it's difficult to imagine a factor in their experiences that could not be more determining than class. When you grow up in a certain class, you are presented with a "pre-fabricated" worldview...and there's nothing easier than to just accept it and move on.
It's not static, of course (nothing is). It changes from one generation to the next...based, fundamentally, on changes in the relations of production. When a new class emerges, it forges an outlook consistent with its own class interests (as best as they are initially perceived) and transmits that outlook to its own young, who re-fashion it as seems necessary and then pass it on, etc.
It seems that dissident members of an old class are often the first to see what the interests of a new and emerging class might consist of. Some of the aristocratic Enlightenment philosophers were really nascent bourgeois ideologues...before there ever was such a thing as a developed bourgeois ideology.
So there's a fairly complicated process that constantly goes on as classes shape and re-shape their respective worldviews or consciousness over time.
And we must not forget that classes are not "air-tight compartments"...they are "porous around the edges" and an idea developed by one class can "seep" into adjacent classes, perhaps to be re-shaped and made more suitable for the receiving class. The "middle classes" often act as "conduits" for this seepage while making their own modifications to serve their own interests.
A concept like "democracy" is a good illustration of this process. As an ideology, everyone presents the idea as "class neutral" -- a way of making decisions in accordance with the will of the majority of a group, etc. Digging deeper, it's clear that different classes mean entirely different things by this ideological concept...and those different things are reflections of their differing class interests.
So the matter is more complicated than "Class X = Consciousness X".
But it's not very far from "Class X = mostly Consciousness X but with some Consciousness Y and even fragments of Consciousness Z".
And it does seem to be mostly spontaneous in the sense that there's no conscious, directing will behind it. The ruling class in any given epoch does attempt to make its worldview the dominant ideology...but it never really succeeds in that ambition. A bourgeois idea that seeps into the middle class is altered to reflect the interests of the middle class; and when it finally makes its way to the working class, it gets altered again.
Eventually, you'd get the basics of communist theory emerging "spontaneously"...even if there'd never been a Marx, etc.
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First posted at RevLeft on June 18, 2005
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quote:
Individuals in this country rarely see themselves as members of a class - bourgeois hegemony extends to self-perception.
I think it would be more accurate to say that "class identity" is not "uppermost" in people's minds in the course of their daily lives -- but most people (including most workers) identify themselves in polls as "middle class"...except for polls that include working class as an option.
I'm inclined to suspect that when working class people do chose the "middle class" option...they mean something rather different by that than the real middle classes mean.
They mean things like a decent home in a decent neighborhood, a decent car, a decent public school for their kids, etc....in material terms, a life of dignity, and not the humiliation of poverty.
The real middle classes mean by that phrase more than just material goods. In their case, it's a conscious assertion of "higher status" than the working class...often based on higher education.
quote:
This, I believe, requires reuniting class theory with class experience, and for this a vanguard is essential.
Well, in the sense that such theory is most likely to be produced and distributed by a relatively small group of people, I wouldn't disagree.
But you know as well as I that the word vanguard has historical implications that stretch far beyond such a modest educational task.
quote:
Without theory, and this is a function of the vanguard, one risks what I would call 'humanism' or 'personalism' on the one hand or an ethereal 'revolutionism' overly reminiscent of some apocalyptic occurrence, i.e., an ineluctable arrival of communism through the crash of productive forces or the gross deterioration in social relations.
I vote for the "ineluctable arrival" option. Theory can be useful; the massive uprising of the working class is essential.
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First posted at RevLeft on June 20, 2005
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| But the worst aspect of the Leninist model was the kind of "communist" it created. The primary duty of a soldier is obedience to his superiors. A disobedient soldier is a contradiction in terms. The communist in the Leninist mould could not win people to communist ideas; he could only recruit people into a communist army. And, by and large, Lenins Bolsheviks did exactly that; they built a successful communist army in Russia without ever winning more than a handful of people to the ideas of a communist society. When visitors to Russia in the 1920s commented on the strange passivity of the Russian working class, they were honestly puzzled. They thought that a working class that had just taken power and won a bloody civil war would be full of vitality, passionately struggling over conflicting visions of a new society under construction, etc. It never occurred to these visitors that what they were really seeing was a demobilized army.
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