| Theory |
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Authority and Centralization June 19, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
This is a combination of two related threads at two different boards; I began with a sharp criticism of Frederick Engels and ended up defending the modern proletariat's potential for self-government.
It was an interesting trip.
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Quotes are from "On Authority" by Frederick Engels, written in 1872 and first published in 1874 in Almanacco Repubblicano (Italy).
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A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.
From the date and place of publication alone, I would surmise that this was intended to be a polemic against Bakunin and his followers.
Did Engels give a "fair hearing" to the Bakuninist position in this article? I think it's pretty questionable.
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On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals.
Thus, the material basis for modern authority.
However, it should be noted that the truly enormous factories that were characteristic of modern capitalism c.1850-1950 have "gone out of fashion". The trend that Engels took note of has been going the other way for quite some time. (The invention of the electric motor made it possible to disperse production in a way that Marx and Engels had no way of anticipating.)
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But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?
I believe this is rhetorical; what are the rational limits of authority?
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All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy.
This is no longer the case, of course. Electric power means that work can, in principle, be done at any time, day or night.
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Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way.
Here Engels says that even a majority vote is nevertheless "authoritarian...and there are, as it happens, quite a few anarchists who agree with him. They think decisions should only be reached by consensus...giving each participant effective veto power over the collective's decisions. This, of course, is also "authoritarian".
I think this is word-play on Engels' part...he's gathering all forms of decision-making under the "authoritarian" umbrella. There may be a linguistic sense in which that is justified; but this is a political article and the political dimension of authority is exactly what is in dispute.
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If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other...
I also agree...but let's check and make sure that it really is "inevitable". We should not just assume "in favor" of authority "because it's always been done that way".
There may be a better -- less authoritarian -- way to accomplish the goal.
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...but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the word.
With good reason, don't you think? Given all the horrors associated with the word "authority", could you blame some people for "knee-jerk" anti-authoritarianism?
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But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.
No, I think that's pretty misleading...and I am by no means a "Bakuninist".
Marx and Bakunin both agreed that the first act of the social revolution should be the smashing of the old bourgeois state apparatus and the dispersal of its personnel. The dispute was over what should be set in its place. Marx thought that some kind of "quasi-state" was required for the transition to communist society; Bakunin thought that no such institution was required at all -- that such public authority that emerged should take the form of collectives freely and democratically organized "from the bottom up".
I think it would be much fairer to say that the Bakuninists wished to abolish "institutional authority"...not all possible forms of collective decision-making.
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A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is...
This is also word-play and is especially misleading when speaking of a proletarian revolution.
The word "authoritarian" does have a "common-sense" meaning: the imposition of the will of a minority upon a majority through the threat or use of violence...or, in short, despotism or tyranny.
To transfer the use of that word to describe the imposition of the will of the proletarian majority upon the bourgeois minority is simply a grotesque misuse of the word.
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In either case they serve the reaction.
Pay attention: even Engels could write bullshit!
To suggest that sincere revolutionaries -- even if mistaken -- are "therefore" on the side of the ruling class (consciously or unconsciously) is a really stupid thing to do!
In fact, if carried out consistently, it would make any kind of genuine ideological struggle between revolutionaries impossible. Who will disagree in public if the risk involves being labeled, in so many words, an "agent" of the class enemy?
Indeed, it's a short and easy step to the assertion that anyone who politically disagrees with you is "a fucking cop!"
The only people who should ever be attacked as agents of the class enemy are people who clearly and consciously are that.
Engels fucked this one up.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 12, 2004
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I'm on a method hunt.
It's an old cliché in science and perhaps all forms of rational controversy: if you don't like the outcome of a study (for any reason), attack the methodology.
And it's effective; if it can be shown that a seemingly rational conclusion is actually based on false data or illogical steps in the argument, you are relieved of any obligation to respond to the arguments themselves.
Further, defense of methodology is very difficult...especially outside the rigorous sciences. What constitutes "hard data" in the realm of history or politics or sociology or even economics?
What, in turn, are simply claims that can be easily met with counter-claims?
I began this thread with both some historical comments on the origins of Engels' views (the technology of his era), an agreement with his fundamental proposition concerning the limits of rational authority (what nature imposes and no more), and a vigorous criticism of his efforts to use word-play to discredit his rival Bakuninists...going so far as to label them "servants of reaction".
No attempt is made to reply to these points but instead my "methods" are criticized.
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But there is a method here: the arguments of opponents are distorted. they are stripped of their powerful arguments, and portrayed as just slippery "wordplay".
This is not a method that helps anyone get at truth. It is a method designed to hide the actual arguments made by others, and to get over with counter arguments that don't really hold water.
Look, Engels wished to portray the Bakuninists as holding a self-contradictory position: being anti-authoritarian and yet also being in favor of popular revolution.
By contending that popular revolution is, in and of itself, an "authoritarian act", he obscured the anti-authoritarian core of such a revolution simply in order to make the Bakuninists "look bad".
That's word-play!
And, to "nail it down", he suggested that the Bakuninists were either confused or consciously serving "the reaction".
Are you going to tell me that such is your view of how to conduct principled ideological struggle?
When communists or even just generic lefties disagree, is it "because" one side are "really" "agents of reaction", if not outright cops?
In such a climate, who is going to disagree?
Who wants to be labeled a cop?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 14, 2004
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It is a dogma of pragmatism that there are "hard sciences" and "soft sciences" and the so-called "hard sciences" are really scientific, but social issues can't really be approached scientifically.
That may be a "pragmatist dogma", but it's not mine. The question I raised about the "soft sciences" is with regard to the elusiveness of hard data.
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Information, data, perceptual knowledge is as "hard" in society as it is in biology or geology. The understanding that "people are oppressed in class society" is a scientific [one] and as rooted in materialist analysis as the geological theory of plate tectonics, or the Darwinian insights into evolution.
I do not disagree. But the geologist "has something to measure"...southern California is moving towards northern California at an average rate of one centimeter per year.
Likewise the evolutionist...the skull of this proto-human is 85% the size of modern human skulls.
But look at what happens should we attempt to measure "oppression" or even define it in a coherent way? Are gay women workers of color more oppressed as lesbians, as females, as proletarians, or as people of color? Or is there a "complex" of oppression that includes all of these elements tangled up with each other and impossible to separate?
Marx tried very hard to define surplus value in a rigorous mathematical way...but if you've seen some of the critical literature on the labor theory of value, you know that his equations yield contradictory results.
Yes, we should approach the "soft sciences" with as much scientific rigor as we can...but we have to realize that the precision of the "hard sciences" will elude us for, in all probability, many centuries to come.
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How Redstar claims that we must use the word authority in a way that (circular again) makes it impossible to uphold authority.
Your ambition is showing.
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But the whole argument of Marxists is that all politics is coercive (i.e. the meaning of politics is power struggle, and that it is a way different parts of society, in a world divided into classes, struggle over how society will be run.)
But that is precisely what communism is intended to abolish, is it not?
Do you think that politics in a communist society will be "coercive"?
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If you take these arguments out of context, and just accuse Engels of sleazy "wordplay" -- why is it wrong to point that out?
Had I done that, you would be justified in your criticism. But I didn't...and you aren't.
I note that you have not yet addressed the concluding point that I made: the nature of ideological struggle.
Engels accused the Bakuninists of "serving reaction". Do you think that is a legitimate accusation in ideological struggle with other revolutionaries?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 15, 2004
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RedStar, I'm sure, will attempt to weasel a different, and as usual, quite dense reply on "why Marx was wrong" and "why real Marxists now support Anarchism", or the other kind of pseudo-revisionist nonsense he proposes. But, for every other Marxist, this is wrong, and the Socialist State as transition is to be supported and fought for.
I'll try to make this as "dense" as possible so as not to disappoint you.
What is the purpose of your "Socialist State"?
As you said yourself, it's purpose is transition.
Transition to what? Why, to communism, of course...a classless, stateless society or, for those who prefer a different terminology, an anarchist society.
Now, try and follow this carefully.
1. Is the working class of future proletarian revolutions going to be anything like the working class of Marx's Germany, Lenin's Russia, or Mao's China?
Is that a reasonable or an unreasonable question?
2. If it's a reasonable question, what's the answer? The working class in the advanced capitalist countries will of course be far more advanced than those early revolutionaries.
3. But if that is the case, then why shouldn't they be able to dispense with the "socialist state" altogether and proceed at once to the building of a communist (stateless!) society?
What was the material basis for the whole idea of a "transition state" in the first place? Backwardness!
Low production, primitive technology, a working class that was semi-literate at best, etc., etc., etc.
Like so many "old-fashioned" Leninists, you have not noticed that things have changed.
I sometimes wonder if you ever will.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 13, 2004
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But we are not talking about the American working class as it is now but as it will be in 50 or 100 years. Do you really think that the recent "fad" for Christian fundamentalism will still be going on then?
Not to mention the working class in western Europe, where Christian fundamentalism is of no significance even now...much less several decades from now.
And, of course, material productivity is light-years ahead on both continents now from what it was in those old shitholes...where will it be by the time proletarian revolution is a realistic possibility?
As to "third world" revolutions, I have no interest in them except insofar as they serve to weaken the ruling classes in advanced capitalist countries...any "socialist state" that they set up will just devolve back to capitalism.
So I repeat...why is a direct transition to communism (without a "socialist state") not a realistic possibility?
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 13, 2004
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It’s been "going on" in its faddish way for the last few thousand years, not exactly a popular convention of the last few decades of American culture.
Completely a-historical...the fact of the matter is that more and more working people conduct their lives without regard to religious dogma, even when they still consider themselves "believers" or even "born-again".
There was (and perhaps still is) a campaign to get high-school "believers" to sign a pledge not to have sex before marriage; but a private survey revealed that they were "doing it" at just about the same rate as kids who never heard of the pledge.
Frankly, I think religious fundamentalism has already peaked in the U.S. and will be visibly declining before the end of this decade...though media attention may continue to build.
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We could even be looking at the end of the human race in the hegemony of the United States.
You should have a chat with that fellow who thinks the "oil crisis" means the end of technological civilization.
But I'm curious: if "doom" is "at hand", why concern yourself with radical politics at all? What's the point?
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Ask Pol Pot.
Difficult...as he's worm shit now. But what does a peasant revolution in Cambodia have to do with the transition to communism in an advanced capitalist country?
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I have no way of predicting the events of the next 100 years, and in doing so, would become more of an idealist than a materialist, so I attempt to avoid it, though I think it looks bleak.
You could be right, of course...but is that a good reason to "throw in the towel"?
In this particular forum, the defenders of capitalism always tells us that "communism is impossible"...are there good reasons to believe them?
I mean, they might be right...so what?
If you want something that's really better than what we have now, is there any reason not to fight for that...win or lose?
If we don't fight, then we lose automatically. If we do fight, then we might win.
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RedStar, I would also like to see what differences you see between your position on "straight to communism" and the Anarchist position on this subject.
I think the difference lies in the supporting reasoning, rather than the conclusion.
Traditional anarchist theory was not really materialist...its critique of the state as inherently repressive was a moral one.
What I argue is that things have changed so dramatically since the days of Marx and Lenin that the anarchist formula is acquiring a material basis.
A modern capitalist economy probably produces more in a day than the economy of Czarist Russia produced in a year! What does that imply for the implementation of "to each according to his need"?
Communism is becoming a practical proposition.
I think this is also reflected in the all-around cultural level of the proletariat in the advanced capitalist countries.
For example, the companies that manufacture "I.Q" tests have found it necessary to "up-date" those tests every 15 years or so in order to keep the scores "in line" with earlier versions of the tests. Are human brains getting "smarter", as "raw scores" would suggest?
Of course not. What's happening is that people know more.
The modern working class knows far more about the world than the workers of 1917 Petrograd or the peasants of 1949 China.
I see no reason why that trend should not continue...especially as internet usage grows among workers (which it is doing with great rapidity, of course).
In ten years or less, Che-Lives could have 50,000 members or more...most of them working-class teens. Or there could be a dozen such boards, or even hundreds!
All of which suggests, as I pointed out earlier, that the proletarian generation that actually makes revolution is going to be "light-years" ahead of 1917 or 1949.
The immediate transition to communism will, to them, be the obvious next step.
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For example, do you support democracy in communist society, or believe it to be obsolete as it is a state function; do you support federalism, etc., on through anarchist/communist differences.
Actually, I support Demarchy.
It's a theory that provides for "the administration of things" through the establishment of "function groups" without creating a "political center of gravity" (state).
I think it far superior to traditional "democracy" -- for one thing, it essentially eliminates the career-choice of "politician".
Federalism seems to also be a useful "general principle". How it would be applied in practice would be up to the folks involved, of course.
I'm not sure what other "differences" you are speaking of.
In the end, communism and anarchism are two words that mean the same thing: a classless, stateless society without wage-labor, commodity production, money, armies, police, prisons, etc.
Something really worth fighting for!
Win or lose.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 14, 2004
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Pol Pot is commonly attributed by Marxists with attempting to "go straight to Communism." Which failed in a miserable manner.
Well, of course it did! Why would any sane person suggest a "transition to communism" for a society which was, if anything, pre-feudal?
Good grief!
The example of Cambodia is clearly irrelevant to this discussion.
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You create a "future time" when this "straight to communism" revolution is going to occur, and then design all the great progress which will be made, etc. I find it horribly unrealistic and unrelated to the struggle of present day workers.
I can only suggest that you at least consider the possibility that things will be different tomorrow than they are today.
Perhaps this is indeed a product of the difference in our respective ages; I have lived long enough to actually see how much change takes place over decades of time...and how the pace has accelerated.
For that matter, I'm not so sure that "my picture" of communism is all that much "unrelated" to the struggle of present-day workers.
From my observation of workers in struggle, a key element seems to me to be the struggle for dignity and respect...both for one another and in the eyes of others.
Yet no matter how "dignified" or "respected", a wage-slave is still a wage-slave. Real respect, in capitalist society, is granted only to capitalists...those who need not work at all except at what they wish to, on their own terms. Only they are truly free and thus truly worthy of respect.
So there is a connection...though, I'll grant you, a rather distant one.
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About what? Do you ever talk to workers? Ever around them? They’re not exactly knowledgeable on capitalism, let alone socialism, from my experience.
Of course they're not...for a whole variety of reasons with which I'm sure you're familiar.
But ask them more general and "down-to-earth" questions about social reality. Do the "rich" care about ordinary people? Can politicians be trusted to do the right thing? Is the media honest? Are criminal trials really fair? Do corporations really "serve their customers"? Did America fight for "freedom" in Iraq?
See what I mean? They lack a sophisticated knowledge of concepts like capitalism, socialism, etc. (not true, by the way, of the western European prolatariat...who already do know a lot of this stuff). But they've acquired considerable practical knowledge of how capitalism works...more and more, they (correctly) assume the worst.
They will inevitably learn a lot more as time passes.
As to demarchy, I should make it clear that I'm in favor of it as a method of running a communist society -- the possible reformist applications are of no interest to me.
And I have no interest at all in Parecon crapola...which frankly I think is ridiculous even in its own terms. Here's a thread on it...
PARECON--Welcome Back to Class Society, A Good Critique of a BAD idea.
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I’m fairly sure, as you are 62, that you have read Marx’s critiques of federalism and such petite bourgeois systems, so I should like to see you oppose it.
Why is federalism "petite bourgeois"?
In any event, the First International was a federation...and Marx seemed comfortable enough with that!
You have to remember that Marx lived in an era when "centralization" was seen by nearly everyone as "progressive", the "wave of the future", etc. One reason that many dismissed the anarchists of that era as "reactionary" is that anarchists were opposed to what nearly everyone else thought was "inevitable". (And, in fact, given the technology of that era, centralization did seem to actually be "inevitable".)
You know as well as I that this is no longer the case. There is now a whole panoply of "de-centralized technological alternatives" available and there will be plenty more to choose from in the future.
Much of the pro-centralization bias of Marx and Engels thus comes from the technology of their era and is not really inherent in the totality of their outlook.
Nowadays, I don't think they'd have any problem with federations at all...as long as the working class actually ran them.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 14, 2004
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Why is federalism "petite bourgeois"?
You haven’t read Marx on Federalism then?
I have no memory of anything he may have said on the subject; in any event, why do you think federalism is "petite bourgeois"?
And even if it were, so what? A useful idea is a useful idea no matter what its origins, right?
Lenin was "minor-league" nobility...does that mean that anything he ever said should just be dismissed on that basis alone? Bakunin was actually a prince...were his ideas therefore "aristocratic"?
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Yet I’m not one prepared to tell the entire world communist movement (third world especially which you have stated you have no interest in) to "wait another 100 years until the entire proletariat is ready."
It's not a matter of you or me or anybody "telling them to wait"...it's a matter of what objective reality will permit.
The material conditions required for a communist society are far beyond what any "third world" country can be reasonably expected to acquire in much less than a century or two...whatever they do, it won't be communist because it can't be.
The Leninist conceit is that by "force of will" or "correct line", material conditions can be "over-leaped".
Marx said no way!
He was right.
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I think that the idea that the socialist transition is unnecessary requires a lot of "faith" in "common people", which I don’t necessarily have. You have to, as Pessoa said, replace "one god with another."
I take it that you're dropping the name of the poet (Fernando) and not the jockey (Rodrigo).
Why either would have anything of relevance to say on this subject is something that I do not comprehend.
The hypothesis that "common people" "must" have a "god" of one kind or another is belied on this board. While there are some well-informed members, I have yet to see any trace of genius here...yet at least half are atheists and whenever someone suggests a reverent attitude towards some "revolutionary icon", they are generally met with scorn and derision.
If we can overcome that sort of degrading servility, I don't see why anyone can't do it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 15, 2004
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Federalism as a principle follows logically from the petty-bourgeois view of anarchism.
Lenin's observation just makes things worse. Federalism is "petty-bourgeois" "because" it follows logically from "petty-bourgeois" anarchism.
Modern federalism as a form of political organization dates from Switzerland in what, around 1500 or 1600 or thereabouts. It was adopted by the United States in 1776...though abandoned rather quickly. In neither case could anarchists have had any role...they didn't exist at that point.
I don't know if Proudhon was a petty-bourgeois or not, but, as you agreed, Bakunin wasn't.
The connection between anarchism and the petty-bourgeoisie looks pretty tenuous to me. But the connection between the origins of federalism and the petty-bourgeoisie (or anarchism) look to be non-existent.
If you want to make a real class analysis of anarchism, I think you should look to the countries where it became a significant political current...namely Spain, Italy, and, to a lesser extent, France. In all three of those places, anarchism's main appeal was to the working class.
On the other hand, fascism does appeal strongly to the petty-bourgeoisie...so if you wanted to call fascism a petty-bourgeois ideology, there's sound historical justification for that.
So, disagreeing with Lenin as usual, I think designating a certain ideology as corresponding with a certain class has to be in line with its actual appeal to that class.
You can't just call something "petty-bourgeois" simply because you don't like it and want to make it "look bad".
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I’m speaking of socialism, not "communist society."
Well, I'm not telling the "third world" to "wait for socialism" either. Their "socialist states" will devolve back to capitalism regardless of what I or you or anyone says.
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And you are wrong that we aren’t "telling them to wait" by not aiding them in their fights against reactionary governments, and globalization which renders their nations completely fucked for decades or possibly centuries.
Are you pitching for a donation here? Or do you think that revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries should "volunteer" to fight in third-world revolutions?
What does it mean to "support" third-world struggles if not to fight against "our own" imperialism? And don't we do that already?
If by "aid", you mean you want us to issue them a "certificate of communist authenticity", forget it. They don't deserve it and it wouldn't help them a bit even if we offered it.
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I was critiquing people who consider the step to communism without socialism possible as having a "god" in the "common people"...
Seems a bit of a "stretch" to me; the "common people" do not need to possess "divine powers" in order to build a communist society...they just need to learn a good deal more than they know now.
Given that they have been learning more for the last couple of centuries, I see no arbitrary limit on that process.
Why shouldn't it continue?
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 16, 2004
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His basis for calling federalism petty-bourgeois is in Marx’s Poverty of Philosophy, and numerous times in Das Kapital in which Marx outright calls Proudhon’s federalism "petite bourgeois" thinking.
Well, I guess that settles the matter...if Marx said it, "it must be true".
Do you realize what an un-Marxist thing that is to say?
I suggested, at some length, that if you or even Marx is going to do a class analysis of an ideology, the obvious place to begin is with the class to which that ideology most strongly appeals.
This you deemed unworthy of comment, preferring to "quote scripture".
Not good...and not a Marxist approach at all.
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I am speaking in the form of communist party support, rallies, protests against aid given to kings to kill peasants, etc.
You must be talking about Nepal, right? Well, I'm all in favor of the Maoists in Nepal winning their war and removing the king's head...that's nearly the "signature" of the first stage of a bourgeois revolution.
Right now, the "flashpoint" of anti-imperialist struggle in the U.S. and the U.K. is obviously Iraq (and to a considerably lesser extent, Afghanistan). Nepal is "way down the list"...for pretty obvious reasons.
The Maoists here (RCP and MIM) both think that a Maoist win in Nepal is going to have some kind of "world-historic impact". Maybe, but I'm pretty skeptical. It's very small, very distant, and very backward...altogether inauspicious grounds for "capturing the world's imagination".
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I am speaking of the act of irrational faith without evidence, historical or otherwise, to support your ideas of communist society being found without the prerequisite of socialist transition...
No, there is evidence...it's just very fragmentary at this point. There have been very brief periods when "common people" ran the show; those periods just haven't lasted very long.
Whether one argues that they would have lasted longer had they not succumbed to overwhelming reactionary military force or whether one argues that the "common people" were not as yet really "capable" of self-government is secondary.
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You have faith in a thing, as religious people have faith in a thing-neither rational beliefs in my view.
Nonsense.
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They have been programmed into a system of thought. If we were to have a communist society, we would have to teach people to "be individuals," not "know facts about the universe."
A small step away from the Leninist-Maoist paradigm (which despises individuality) is always to be welcomed.
The next and somewhat larger step is to realize that only "individuals" can make a real proletarian revolution (not just an insurrection). People incapable of thinking for themselves will be suckers for the first glib "revolutionary" despot-wannabe that comes along. Look at the kind of crap that some of Avakian's groupies post!
I think the modern proletariat already "thinks for itself" to a limited degree...and that ability will grow over the coming decades.
In fact, I don't see anything that can really stop that from happening.
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...I find communist society as a possibility somewhat utopian.
So does every Leninist...when they're really being honest.
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So there was no such thing as a communist back then?
In the 16th and 17th centuries? Well, there were protestant sects that embraced the "communalism" of the Acts of the Apostles...but their last "big rebellion" was in, I think, 1536, when they seized and occupied a small German city for a year or so. Their leader became (what else?) a despot who, among other things, had one of his 12 wives publicly executed for disobedience.
Cromwell's "new model army" (mid-17th century) had a "left-wing" faction that wished to wipe out the nobility altogether.
And there were "proto-communist" currents in the far left in France, both during and after 1789.
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Communism isn't defined by Marx and Engels: it's chained by it.
Nice quip! But if you think that will serve to dispel the weight of all the stuff those guys wrote, you are mistaken.
Sure, they were wrong, even profoundly wrong, about some things. But the only way the "chains" of their outlook will be "broken" is when and only when someone comes up with an even better paradigm...a framework that is clearly superior in every way for both explaining the social world and changing it.
Good luck with that one!
No one, by the way, "demands" that you call yourself "a Marxist"...least of all Marx himself.
But you ignore his ideas at your peril.
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First posted at Che-Lives on June 16, 2004
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On "Dialectics" -- The Heresy Posts May 8, 2003
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| ...the idea that defeated parliamentary socialists can more or less "suddenly" turn themselves into fire-breathing "revolutionaries" is wildly improbable...and still less probable is the projection of working class response in the form of revolution. Having spent decades deliberately creating a politically passive electorate, why would one expect them to respond now to a call for revolution?
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