Theory |
"Democratic" Centralism -- the Road to Despotism August 21, 2005 by RedStar2000 |
The despotic character of the Leninist paradigm is clearly rooted in the whole idea of "democratic" centralism.
But the matter is even deeper than that; we have to understand that Leninism is an anti-materialist theory of revolution. Leninism conceives of revolution as a "triumph of the will" instead of an event that proceeds naturally and inevitably from the existence of class society.
Growing impatient with the "slowness" of history, they imagine that "by act of will" that they can "smash objective conditions".
They end up smashing themselves, of course...and anyone unfortunate enough to follow them.
 ==========================================
quote: I think this is worth discussing, because lots of people kinda think that these are the roots of restoration -- that society slowly encrusts with privileged bureaucrats and the people are choked off from power.
Sometimes, it's not "slow" -- by the spring of 1918, the Russian soviets had become purely ceremonial bodies.
quote: And [Mao] saw the struggle as being one of uniting the masses with revolutionary communists at all levels of the party, state and army to overthrow those capitalist roaders -- and transform both society and the thinking of people.
This is a very different analysis and strategic approach than one that flows from an "anti-bureaucratic" analysis. Which does not see the high level struggle over line as key, and does not see the roots of a capitalist road within the very nature and contradictions of socialism, and which often sees the solution to the danger of revolution as simply "more low level democratization" rather than a deeper grasp and implementation of the communist road.
The problem with seeing "the high level struggle over line as key" is that it ignores the material origins of "line" itself.
"Line" doesn't "fall out of the sky"...it has real material roots -- in the means of production and the relations of production.
A privileged party cadre (or "bureaucracy") stands in a different relationship to the means of production than do ordinary workers or peasants. It has different class interests. Consciously (or unconsciously or semi-consciously), it "wants" to become a new ruling class...that's the "best way" to both preserve its existing privileges and gain new ones.
"Uniting with the masses", on the other hand, is very "risky"...suppose they decide that you (party cadre) already have too many privileges? They may not be able to "vote you out", but they can still make things pretty uncomfortable for you...by fucking off at work, for example.
Abstractly, the "high level struggle over line" means that party leaders struggle with each other for the supremacy of their "line"...while the masses (at best) observe.
But should one or more of the leaders appeal to the masses to intervene (as Mao did), then it is no longer a "high level struggle" but a "mass struggle"...and one that may quickly get "out of hand" (as was the case in Shanghai).
The masses struggle on the basis of their line...which strongly tends to be opposed to privilege in any form.
Mao united with his own political opponents to dissolve the Shanghai Commune and bring the masses "back under control".
But afterwards, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" became as ceremonial as the Soviets of 1918 -- different personalities rose and fell, but nothing changed in the life of the masses after 1967 or so.
Until after 1976, when things began to get much worse.
It may be argued, of course, that this outcome was "inevitable" -- that objective material conditions in China made it "impossible" for the masses to actually rule. I think that's a very strong argument, myself.
But here we are speaking of what we, as communists, should consciously attempt to do in the light of what happened in Russia, China, etc.
And I would argue that we should consciously devolve power to the masses (or not attempt to grab it, if the masses have already seized it). If the masses request our assistance in setting up proletarian organs of self-government, fine. But we should not "rig things" so that we come out on top "automatically".
If we do that, we will be repeating the errors of the CPSU(B) and the CPC...and the probability is extremely high that the outcome will be the same: the restoration of capitalism. ------------------------------------------------------------ First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 8, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------
In "democratic" centralism, what happens over time is the that the party congress and even the central committee become ceremonial bodies...their only purpose is to ratify what the "politburo" (or whatever the inner circle is called) has already decreed.
This is due to the fact that delegates to the congress and members of the central committee are selected from the top. There is a vanishingly small chance that even one outspoken critic of the leadership can be elected as a delegate to the congress, much less to the central committee.
Remember that the whole intent of "democratic" centralism is to nurture "strong leadership" at the very top of the party. A "rambunctious" party congress with its own ideas would be "counter-productive" in that context.
So it's not allowed to happen.
Whips & Chains; the Meaning of "Democratic" Centralism --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 12, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: Eventual democratization of the party, dissolving the party over time.
Well, no Leninist party in power has ever done those things.
But beyond that, why should they ever want to do those things?
Life as part of a "party elite" is "sweet" -- you have material privileges; you rarely get criticized publicly; you get to give a whole lot of orders to people and almost never have to take any yourself; people scurry to please you and fear your displeasure, etc.
Why would you want to give all that up?
I think expecting a Leninist party to "democratize itself" and eventually "dissolve itself" from "communist principles" is like expecting a capitalist to give away all his wealth "because Jesus told him to".
It's not absolutely impossible...but so close to that as makes no difference. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 17, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: Anyway, I thought these guys were supposed to be Communist? You yourself said this, so why wouldn't they do this to prevent the collapse of socialism?
Good question!
Because communists don't stay communist if their material conditions drastically change.
If you are part of a "communist" elite, that all by itself will corrupt you. Not right away, of course. And, in some cases, not at all.
But then what about your kids...who are raised to be part of the elite as well. They are used to lives of privilege...think they're going to give up so much as a gram of caviar "to save socialism"?
And your grandkids are just going to be outright thieves who will steal any public property that's not nailed down. They will openly restore capitalism and be proud of themselves for doing so! Russia is the best example of this so far...but the process is well under way in China. It's probably safe to predict that the next generation of Chinese "communists" will openly restore capitalism.
What you do ultimately determines what you are. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 18, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: Centralism is not equal to centralised power or a central supreme authority. Centralism is the idea of "unity in action, debate where there are differences".
No, that's just putting cosmetics on an ugly idea to make it "look better".
The party leadership decides everything of substance...and you must obey or get the boot.
Even criticism is unwelcome...do too much of it and you'll also get the boot.
That's history. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 18, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: ...you said that Stalin was a Communist, during Stalin's reign, the USSR was ready to democratize the party (1950-1953); if he knew about revisionism he would have done so.
I have never heard of, much less seen, so much as a shred of evidence that Stalin ever intended to "democratize the party".
That sounds like a myth...almost an "urban legend".
quote: Not true, Stalin's economic policies were criticized by the future revisionists, yet they stayed in the party and eventually took over after his death.
And that sounds to me like another myth. As far as I know, neither Stalin nor any of his ideas were publicly criticized until after Khrushchev's "secret speech" was leaked to the western media.
I do recall a rumor that Molotov offered a plan to Stalin c.1949 for beginning the "transition to communism" -- but Stalin didn't like it and that was the end of that. ---------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 19, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------
quote: If Russia was allowed peace, the Politburo and the Central Committee would never had had such outlandish and imposing powers. Hence, naturally, socialism would be much more democratic than in the Stalinist USSR.
The sequence of events does not support this proposition.
In the period between November 1917 and, say, April 1918, the soviets had already been reduced to ceremonial bodies that simply approved whatever the Bolsheviks decreed. Any soviet in which the Bolsheviks lost their majority was (1) dissolved; (2) merged with a near-by soviet that re-established a Bolshevik majority; or (3) had additional delegates appointed in sufficient numbers to restore a Bolshevik majority.
This all happened before the civil war began.
Further, the new rules that essentially wiped out any possibility of rank-and-file control of the party itself were adopted in 1921...when the civil war was over.
quote: I didn't say he wanted to do that, I said he could, and the reason he didn't is because he didn't know about revisionism.
I don't understand what this sentence means...or what is to be gained in speculation about what Stalin "could" have done or "could" have "wanted" to do "if" he had only "known about revisionism".
quote: This whole work is full of counter critiques by Stalin: Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.
*laughs*
That work is like my site. Stalin quotes from documents that are "letters" to the Central Committee...just like I quote from posts on this board and then answer them.
But the entirety of my critics' views are publicly available on this board -- do you imagine that those who had views differing from Stalin had their works made publicly available...even to the party membership (much less the Russian working class as a whole)?
I'm not criticizing Stalin's approach here...I do it myself. I pick out the parts of posts that I think are the most interesting and reply to them.
But anyone who had views different from those of Stalin did not get published and, most likely, suffered other unpleasant consequences as well. ---------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 19, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------
quote: If Stalin knew about revisionism he would have democratized the party, that is my point.
That's not a testable hypothesis. There is no way to tell what Stalin "would have done" had he "known about revisionism".
quote: NO! Did you even read those "letters"? They support a return to capitalism, the "plans" in those "letters" were carried out under Khrushchev.
There's no way for me to read those letters...even if I was fluent in Russian. They were never published by the Central Committee for ordinary party members to read...much less the general public.
Only the excerpts that Stalin chose to quote were made available.
Whether or not they were "revisionist" (proposals that would have led to the restoration of capitalism) is something that can't really be known until the full texts are available. You are probably right about some of them...but all?
quote: Trotsky was not published in the 20's? Bukharin was not published?
Yes, there was a furious debate in the Soviet press in the 1920s over "the best way forward". If some scholars were to collect all those articles in a book and publish an English translation, it would make fascinating and probably very instructive reading.
By 1928-29, the debate was over...and never resumed again.
It was all "Joe! Joe! JOE!" ever after...until he died.
quote: I am a "Stalinist" that supports the democratization of the party after the industrialization and socialization of the economy.
Your "good intentions" are admirable...but even if you "stuck to them", your kids and your grandkids wouldn't. They'd be happily engaged in becoming a new capitalist class and plundering every scrap of public property they could get their hands on.
Revisionism, like everything else, has material roots...it's not a product of personal villainy. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 20, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: The point of the vanguard is not to lead or control, but to guide the working class through revolutionary periods based on experience and the correct ideas of what is necessary to overthrow capitalism and fight for socialism. It is quite possible for the mass of people to arrive at some basic principles, of course or to arrive at the decision to take some sort of specific action but they don't come to these conclusions abstractly or independently. They reach them on the basis of discussion, of interaction and experience. They don't all come to realise the same identical decision independently of each other. If you go to a meeting or a strike or anything like that, you'll always find that maybe a single person raises the idea, or a small group and that on hearing this argument, most people might think "hey, they're right" or "that sounds like the right thing to do" and inevitability come to think about it for themselves and embrace it. That's the role of the vanguard and the "professional revolutionary", to be the one that puts forward that idea and win people over to it on the basis of respect for the idea, experiences and conclusions of that person or organisation, not to just impose it from above or outside the movement but to gain support for it within.
That's what Leninists always say...until they have state power.
Then they sing a very different tune.
The "leading role of the party" becomes sacred doctrine...like "papal infallibility". Which translates, of course, into the "leading role" of the...um, leaders and then, just the ***LEADER***.
quote: "My theory" is based on a clear analysis of history and logic, all Marxist-Leninists ("Stalinists") must adhere to my theory, or they are doomed to fail again.
Sounds like you want to be the next "Joe".
Good luck. *laughs*
quote: I've still yet to see you or RedStar provide proof that every single democratic centralist organisation that exists or has existed inevitability led/leads to the party leadership deciding everything of substance. Until you can, I'm not going to accept your argument.
Suit yourself. All the ones that I've ever heard of ended up that way...but the detailed history of hundreds of such parties would take a lifetime to master.
I have better things to do with my time.
quote: Considering the major parties which comprised the soviets - the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the SRs...
Yeah...that old excuse. The Bolsheviks "had" to take over the soviets because the other parties were all right-wing bastards.
Even if that "excuse" were valid, that doesn't change the material fact the the soviets became ceremonial bodies by the spring of 1918 before the civil war began.
quote: How so?
The 10th Party Congress prohibited party members from organizing themselves on a platform of opposition to the existing party leadership. Afterwards, only the leaders of the party could argue in public about existing or future policy decisions.
This was actually a ratification of material reality; all the major decisions had been made "from the top" since the October 1917 coup.
quote: Take the Marxist conception of class struggle within a state and use it globally, you see that the world is divided between proletarian and bourgeois nations, the proletarian nations have nothing to lose but their chains, the bourgeois nations on the other hand have a privileged lifestyle to lose.
That is, nations "are classes."
This is indeed the borrowing of a "Marxist concept"...and the application of it in a totally un-Marxist way.
It's as if one were to say "the history of all hither-to existing societies is one of struggle between have and have-not nations".
You can find the idea in Lenin (much of Lenin's thought had little to do with Marxism).
The wackos in the Maoist Internationalist Movement also like the idea...a lot!
Mickey-Maoism
It's a silly "idea". ---------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 21, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------
Without diminishing the historical contributions of Engels in the least, it must nevertheless be recognized that he was a mortal man and thus made mistakes...just like all humans (including you).
Both Marx and Engels were frustrated by the seeming indifference to their ideas by the English working class (with a few notable exceptions). Lenin was similarly frustrated by the failure of the western European proletariat to come to the aid of his regime.
Naturally, all three sought a "materialist" explanation for this...and all three found it in the idea of "imperialist super-profit" and the "bribery of a labor aristocracy".
Unfortunately, while that may indeed be a "materialist" explanation...it's not a "Marxist" one.
There's no place in Marxist economics for "super-profits" except as a temporary aberration. Nor is there any place in Marxist economics for the capitalist class to ever "bribe" the working class. When "super-profits" exist, they go into the pockets of the capitalist class, period.
Consider the implications of the idea that the "northern" working class is an "aristocracy" that lives off the labor of the "southern" working class.
For one thing, it completely trashes the labor theory of value altogether. Wages depend not on the average social cost of the reproduction of labor, but on the whims of parts or all of the capitalist class and their successes or failures in the "global marketplace".
Successful imperialist ruling classes can, if they wish, pay more than their domestic workers are really worth (out of kindness or fear). "Northern" workers no longer produce surplus value at all -- they have become "bourgeoisie" or at least "petty bourgeoisie". All profits come from the "southern" working class.
You know what would happen if that were really true? The capitalists would move all of their productive operations to the "south"...the only people in the "north" who would have jobs would be executives and their servants (and a small service industry to meet their personal needs).
Eventually, even the headquarters would move...what would be the point in remaining inside the "north" and paying higher costs for stuff that's so much cheaper in the "south"?
In my opinion, there is a much more mundane explanation for the failures of the "western" working classes to develop revolutionary class consciousness up to this point: capitalism as a system is still expanding the means of production.
It is still growing; it has not yet reached (or only barely reached) its "peak".
Marx, Engels, and Lenin, impatient fellows all, thought capitalism had done as much as it was going to do in their lifetimes -- that the "final crisis" of capitalism was "at hand".
That was wrong.
I'm impatient myself. It seems to me that capitalism in the "west" has "hit a wall" and that things are going to get worse for it from now on.
Even The Economist (in its latest survey of the U.S.) is concerned about widening class divisions and stratification...worrying if this will cause Americans to "give up on the American dream".
I think that is indeed going to happen...and that proletarian class consciousness in the "west" is as "low" now as it will ever be. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 22, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: The Soviets only became "ceremonial bodies" and party stooges when the Bolshevik rightists (Stalin, et. al.) seized control of politics and flung the USSR into a fire.
Yes...this is the Trotskyist "gospel" -- that everything was terrific under Lenin and Trotsky...but then Lenin had a stroke and Trotsky was outmaneuvered by the perfidious Stalin.
I do not find this to be even remotely credible.
quote (Lenin): 'The banning of opposition in the Party,' he said, 'results from the political logic of the present moment. Right now we can do without an opposition, comrades, it's not the time for it! This is demanded by the objective moment, it is no use complaining. The present moment is one at which the non-party mass is subject to the kind of petty bourgeois wavering which in the present economic position of Russia is inevitable. We must remember that the internal danger is in certain respects greater than that which was threatened by Denikin and Yudenich, and we must show unity not only of a nominal but of a deep, far-reaching kind. To create such unity we cannot do without a resolution like this.'
Actually, the best you can do from this excerpt is infer that Lenin thought this a "temporary measure".
There's no specific time limit in those measures; nothing that says they "must" be renewed by the next party congress; no "sunset clause".
Moreover, his reasoning really sucks. How was it possible for the party to have at least some degree of internal democracy throughout the civil war itself...only to have to "stop it" when the civil war was winding down?
quote (Ted Grant): Lenin was afraid that, in a situation where there was only one party, the Communist Party might begin to reflect the pressures of alien classes, which could express themselves in factions and eventually a split on class lines. This would mean the overthrow of the Revolution, since, given the partial atomisation of the working class, it was only the Communist Party that guaranteed the existence of the workers' state.
Well, sure! If only one party is allowed legal existence, then class struggle moves inside that party. Do you imagine that a set of "rules" stops that from happening or even delays it?
What was the NEP if not "the line of the peasantry" within the Communist Party? Going back to 1918, what was "one-man management" if not "the line of the bourgeoisie" within the party?
It ought to be pretty easy for people to see the Trotskyist variant of Leninism at work here: if Lenin or Trotsky did something "bad"...then it was because "objective conditions forced them" to do it, a "temporary retreat" from their "high-minded" principles.
Stalin did "bad things" because he was "just plain evil".
If you want to summon objective conditions to the defense of Lenin and Trotsky...fine. But then you can't rule such conditions "out of order" when Stalin's apologists do likewise.
I, of course, put objective conditions primary in the case of the entire history of the USSR -- no villains at all. Just a bunch of guys trying their best to preserve the political fiction of a "workers' state" while making a bourgeois revolution.
quote: A Leninist party only exists to promote the general worker's revolution, and is not there to dictate policy afterward.
ROFLMAO!
If a Trotskyist party happened to blunder into state power, you'd change your tune faster than MTV.
quote: Why do you wish to slander one of the greatest events ever performed in history?
Because, like Joe, I'm "evil". *laughs* --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 22, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: But that's my point, you don't know the internal workings of every Leninist organisation.
True, I don't. No one does.
I also don't know the internal workings of every church or every corporation or every military unit. No one else does either.
A great deal of our knowledge in social science comes, in one form or another, from sampling. We take a few examples and generalize from them.
And sometimes we get the right answer and sometimes our sample is deficient and we get the wrong answer.
But consider a Leninist party that was hypothetically "really democratic"...if such a party existed, would not its internal controversies be publicly visible?
Lenin's own party, before 1917, featured a good deal of controversy in its own press, right? And continued to do so throughout the civil war. After 1921, things began to deteriorate in that regard, right? There was still much heated debate in the Soviet press through the 1920s...but only the leaders took part. And much of it was "veiled" -- you had to be "in the know" to "read between the lines" and grasp who was really being criticized and why.
The Chinese Maoists were especially devious during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution -- framing inter-party controversy in terms of classical figures from Chinese history.
If you look at the public press of the modern Leninist parties in the "west", do you get a sense of political life in those parties? Of struggle over "line"?
Or do they appear to be monolithic...just blocks of rock (and often pedestals as well).
The RCP in the U.S. has a message board in which they argue their line with non-RCPers...and sometimes you get "hints" of their internal life. But this is highly unusual -- most Leninist party sites are just like their press...completely opaque.
Remember that a Leninist party is supposed to be a combat organization...and combat organizations do not "discuss things" -- they carry out their orders. The "model" that Lenin was really working from in What Is To Be Done was the German General Staff...which enjoyed enormous prestige after Germany's victory over France in 1870. Lenin thought that his party should be "the general staff of the proletariat"...a highly-trained and professional officer corps of the larger revolutionary movement.
He and his heirs thought and still think that class struggle and revolution are "like" wars between nation-states and that classes are or should be organized in the same way.
That is why, I think, that Leninists are so appalled by working class spontaneity...it's so "unmilitary". Revolution is "not possible" without "iron discipline", etc.
And "good generals"...meaning themselves, of course. *laughs* ---------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 23, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------
Personal distaste does not really enter into my views -- some Leninists are "nice guys" and some are "iron-hearted" bastards...the latter usually found towards the top of party hierarchies.
Leninism is a paradigm...a "theory of everything" about proletarian revolution and communism.
Is it a "good" paradigm? Does it both explain things and guide one in effectively changing things?
It "looked good" for most of the last century...it "seemed" like it was "working".
And then it crashed and burned!
The reason I argue so persistently with its remaining defenders is that I don't want to see them wasting their time when they might better be exploring alternatives to a failed paradigm. --------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 23, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------
quote: Well, anarchism has never worked, so I don't know why you support them, the same could be said of Maoism and orthodox Marxism.
No, Maoism does work...once you grasp what it really is: a mobilization of the poor and middle peasantry to "clear the way" for a modern bourgeoisie in pre-capitalist or semi-capitalist colonies/neo-colonies.
The case for both anarchism and "orthodox" Marxism remains open. Anarchism did not "fail" in Spain...it was militarily crushed. Marxism did not "fail" in the Paris Commune...it was also militarily crushed.
Leninism rots from within. That's a big difference. Things are bad enough when a Leninist party is not in office; but the worst thing that can happen to a Leninist party is to be victorious and "seize state power".
A corrupt and arrogant bureaucracy emerges almost instantly. Lenin himself complained bitterly about it...to no avail.
quote: All I'm saying is ... give workers' emancipation a chance.
I intend to -- the problem with Leninism is that it did not emancipate any workers.
quote: But you say this will be an "Anarchist Century"? No, I don't think so.
I have not said this...but some anarchists do make this claim. I have an open mind on the subject...it may or may not turn out to be true.
Certainly anarchists have "the early lead" thus far...they are doing a lot more in the way of resistance to the despotism of capital than anyone else.
But there's a long way to go. ---------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on July 23, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------
If the working class has the real power...it will move towards communism spontaneously. If it doesn't have the real power, then no amount of red flags and "Marxist" rhetoric can disguise the ugly reality -- a "capitalism without capitalists"...until the party bureaucracy are ready to assume the mantle of a new capitalist class.
The proposition that "the whole world must be socialist" before the transition to communism can begin has never been more than a shabby excuse to postpone communism "until Jesus returns".
In practical terms, it is self-evident nonsense. As each new socialist state emerged, some older socialist state would be restoring capitalism. The "whole world" would never be "entirely socialist". ------------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on August 12, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------
quote: In a democratic centralist vanguard, you have a "chain of knowledge" that "goes up" -- where information, struggle, questions, criticism, experiences, summations flow up... through the party and get concentrated and struggled through within the leadership.
Only the "top guys" are permitted to see "the big picture".
quote: And where a unified approach to action flows "down."
The "big dogs" decide and send down their orders.
quote: It involves "supervision of leadership" on the basis of line, without falling into bourgeois democratic illusions or approaches. (For example, the mistaken concept that "lower levels must discuss issues first" which would lead to disaster in many different ways.)
-- emphasis added.
I thought this was a very revealing comment. Keep in mind, we're talking about the "lower levels" of a vanguard party...the people who are or at least who are supposed to be the "most advanced" elements of the working class.
Yet even they are "not to be trusted" to "discuss issues" and "develop line through struggle". Only the leadership is allowed to do that...the obligation of the membership is to carry out their orders.
Once again, it has to be noted that for all of Avakian's claims to be "critical" of past Leninist parties, he nevertheless stays well within the borders of that paradigm.
The only way to arouse the masses to "struggle over line" is to smash the limitations of "democratic" centralism.
And when Mao tried that, the consequences scared the shit out of him.
With good reason. --------------------------------------------------------------- First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on August 13, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------
quote: Can redstar explain why Marx was a member of vanguard parties himself if he opposed them.
The First International was not a "vanguard party" in any sense of the word.
Whether the "Communist League" was a "proto-vanguard" is controversial...as is the question of its existence as more than a "paper organization" at all.
What is crucial here is that both Marx and Engels had numerous opportunities to advocate a "vanguard party" if they thought that such was the "best choice" or the "only way to go".
In fact, they were contemptuous of small conspiratorial groups "with iron discipline" and equally contemptuous of "personality cults".
The totality of their work emphasizes the historic role of the working class...and does not refer, even indirectly, to the "need for correct leadership".
If anything, it was their view that objective conditions will generate "correct leadership"...as "part of the whole revolutionary process".
Granted that the Leninist experience has demonstrated that the "best line" doesn't "automatically win" -- I think Marx and Engels would have simply replied that if the "best line" doesn't win, that's a sure sign that objective conditions were still immature for communist revolution.
There's simply no way for Leninists to "get around" the fact that Lenin's "vanguard party" is a violent rupture with Marxism.
Certainly as massive and far more significant than my own rejection of "dialectics". Marx would probably chew me out over my apostasy.
But what would he say to you? ------------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on August 14, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------
The idea that a small number of "enlightened people" can "make things happen" is idealist.
"Big changes" in human society are the consequence of "big numbers" of people who want to see those changes happen.
And the source of those "big numbers" is primarily the "big changes" that have already happened in the means of production.
When a small number of people appear to have a disproportionate influence on historical change, it's because the ideas that they advocate are "in sync" with material reality...they strike more and more people as "plain common sense".
The specific question -- what can communists do to "advance the revolution" -- has been discussed on many occasions here.
Briefly, we do whatever we can to (1) support and encourage resistance to the despotism of capital regardless of the source of that resistance; and (2) attack the reactionary aspects of that resistance so as to make the resistance deeper and more intransigent.
At such time as capitalism runs into seemingly intractable problems, communists are there to promote and spread the communist alternative -- not to "lead the masses" or any of that crap.
An informed working class is quite capable of leading itself...and our task is to do whatever we can to make sure our class is informed.
Not to "do it for them". ------------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on August 13, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------
quote: What Marx is saying is that capitalism - "objectively" - creates divisions within the working class, just as it can create unity. As a result of this, the political struggle of the working class is actually a necessity, an indispensable part of the revolutionary process.
This seems to turn on the precise meaning of the word "political".
When Marx and Engels referred to "political struggle" in the Communist Manifesto, they had a very clear definition in mind. At that time, they were hoping that bourgeois democratic revolutions would permit a proletarian majority to win state power through an electoral majority.
That was a naive and mis-placed hope.
The question here is what exactly you mean when you speak of "political struggle"?
quote: You talk of "objective conditions" like a Christian who talks of Fate. Where is the active working class (the revolutionary subject) in all this?
Christians actually believe that "everything that happens" is "part of God's plan"...and understanding that plan is neither necessary nor even possible.
Objective conditions are, on the contrary, possible to understand...at least in principle.
It simply makes no sense to speak of "proletarian revolution" in a country where the proletariat is a small minority of the total population. That doesn't mean that a revolution that calls itself proletarian "can't take place"...it simply means that objective conditions will not permit the things that a real proletarian revolution would do.
If you want to add a third floor to a building, objective conditions demand that a second floor be built first. Rhetoric about being "a subject of history" is no substitute for that second floor.
quote: We can't do whatever we want; but we can study objective conditions, study social movement, and (as revolutionaries) make vital interventions.
But where does your "revolutionary impulse" to make "vital" interventions come from? Were it not for objective conditions, there would be no revolutionaries.
When favorable objective conditions appear, they create revolutionaries...and sometimes in enormous numbers.
You are focusing on how people subjectively react to the presence of revolutionary objective conditions...but there's no question which came first.
quote: Objective conditions do instill a certain consciousness into the working class - but not revolutionary consciousness.
Yes, this was Lenin's idea...but it was clearly refuted by the February 1917 Petrograd rebellion. The revolutionary parties and groups of all varieties were small and weak at that time -- and while their ideas certainly played a role, I don't see how it can be disputed that objective conditions did create revolutionary consciousness among huge numbers of both workers and peasants.
You see, that's really what it takes to make a revolution...millions and millions of people who are totally fed up with the old order.
"Vanguards" are barely worth a footnote in this process.
quote: Which class is in the strongest position to "control" objective circumstances in capitalist society?
No, that misses the point. They make economic and political decisions that they imagine are "autonomous" and that they think will "reinforce" their despotism. But if Marx was right, those decisions are likewise constrained by objective conditions...they do what they must and in doing so bring their own ruin upon themselves.
Does the American ruling class "have" to engage in one imperial adventure after another? Yes! Will these adventures ultimately weaken and even destroy the Empire? Yes! Couldn't they develop an alternate policy that would actually serve their own interests better? No, they cannot!
"Grow or die" is the "law" that governs modern empires.
quote (The German Ideology): The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.
Static. The observation is valid most of the time. But when a particular form of class society runs into severe problems, other ideas emerge to challenge the orthodoxy of the old ruling class.
Marxism is such a powerful challenge that the bourgeoisie's own colleges and universities -- their "idea factories" -- are thoroughly permeated with, at least, bits and pieces and chunks of Marx's ideas...often by professors who are entirely unconscious of where some of their "best ideas" came from.
The "neo-cons" are frantic on this matter...but, thus far, to no avail.
It very much reminds me, in fact, of the sort of pre-revolutionary ideological struggles that took place in 19th century Russia or 18th century France. The "best minds" of the bourgeoisie know that "things cannot go on like this" but differ wildly on "what will come next".
And this ideological struggle does "seep" into the mass media...there is a kind of corrosive "drip" onto the shibboleths of bourgeois "reality" that is taking place.
It will have an effect far beyond what anyone can imagine now.
quote: This is why I don't like to isolate the term "objective conditions". Subjective forces are interlinked with objective forces.
Yes, but that can be better said: subjective forces derive from objective forces.
quote: But the party is not a grouping standing above and outside of the working class. It is a part of the working class - its most class conscious part.
Only in a "Platonic" sense. Actual "vanguards" have generally been led by middle-class or upper-class dissidents...leaders, moreover, who have been essentially unaccountable to working class members. ------------------------------------------------------- First posted at RevLeft on August 17, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------- ========================================== |
| |
|
Navigation |
·
Welcome
·
Theory
·
Guest Book
·
Hype
·
Additional Reading
·
Links
·
Contact
|
Latest Theory
Collections |
· Communists Against Religion -- Part 19 June 6, 2006
· Conversations with Capitalists May 21, 2006
· Vegetable Morality April 17, 2006
· Parents and Children April 11, 2006
· The Curse of Lenin's Mummy April 3, 2006
|
Defining Theory
Collections |
·
What Did Marx "Get Wrong"? September 13, 2004
·
Class in Post-Revolutionary Society - Part 1 July 9, 2004
·
Demarchy and a New Revolutionary Communist Movement November 13, 2003
·
A New Type of Communist Organization October 5, 2003
·
The "Tools" of Marxism July 19, 2003
·
Marxism Without the Crap July 3, 2003
·
What is Socialism? An Attempt at a Brief Definition June 19, 2003
·
What is Communism? A Brief Definition June 19, 2003
·
A New Communist Paradigm for the 21st Century May 8, 2003
·
On "Dialectics" -- The Heresy Posts May 8, 2003
|
Random Quote |
I always suspect that I'm "on the right track" whenever my remarks provoke sputtering outrage.
|
Search |
|
Statistics |
·
Duplicate entry '1152057195' for key 1 | |