THE ANTI-MARXIST PROGRAM OF THE CPRF

[Dennis McKinsey]

THE ANTI-MARXIST PROGRAM OF THE CPRF

Around 1902 Lenin wrote a booklet entitled What Is To Be Done?. If
he were alive today he would more than likely create one called What
Needs To Be Done?, for most assuredly the present tactics and strategy
of the main left forces in the Soviet Union are impotent and inadequate
in many respects. Nowhere is this more evident than in the program
advocated on April 19, 1997 by Zuganov in a speech before the Congress
of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Many of his comments
were little more than incipient Gorbachovism revisited, a kind of
incensed and provoked Mikhail, attempting to convince his followers he
was serious, sincere, sensible, and sound. In the tradition of a true
social-democrat and in order to take the minds of his listeners off his
failed policies, he highlighted all the accomplishments of his
organization by stating,
"On the initiative of communist deputies the following laws have
been passed: on raising the minimum wage; on raising and indexing
minimum pensions; long service bonuses for retiring health workers;
personal income tax; a coal miners' social defence package; on citizens'
petitions and others. Our persistence in discussing topics like
denouncing the Belovezhskaya Puscha agreements; on guarantees for orphan
children; on ownership of cultural objects transferred to Russia as a
result of WW 2; on funding for science and educational institutions. We
are still working on legislation in defence of social-economic rights
and interests of the population. Among them draft legislation on the
living wage minimum; public sector workers' wages; on veterans; on
labour protection; on the state health system; on consumer protection;
on benefits to families with children; on refugees; on Cossacks; on
drinking water, etc. Draft legislation is being prepared now on labour
collectives; on political activities; opposition activities; on
meetings, rallies and demonstrations; on heritage protection; on a
"Parliamentary Hour" on Radio and Television; the protection of the
Russian language and guarantees of the political rights of citizens.
All necessary measures will be taken to increase the Duma control over
budget decisions and implementation of other laws and decisions of the
Federal Council."
Zuganov neglects to mention that this entire litany is not only
acceptable to, but advocated by, virtually every run-of-the-mill
social-democrat in the bourgeois societies. The complete failure of
this kind of program lies in the fact that it does not deal with the
fundamental cause of every problem. As long as the means of production,
distribution, and exchange are owned by a minority or are falling into
the hands of a minority, inequities in wealth will grow exponentially.
Without forestalling what is known as privatization, all attempts to
rectify the situation by giving the masses a larger share of that which
is produced will be completely overwhelmed by those factors that are
creating vast differentials in wealth. It's like trying to fill up a
barrel by pouring water through a straw when the barrel has thousands of
holes. The amount put in is going to be infinitely smaller than the
amount going out. And that is no less true of economic and social
conditions in a system in which the means of production, distribution
and exchange are privately owned. Even though you may be able to direct
more wealth into the hands of the masses, it is going to be completely
overwhelmed and offset by those forces creating massive economic
differentials by funneling the real wealth toward a very few.
Instead of working to establish socialism and in so doing abolish
the primary cause of societal problems, Zuganov is merely trying to
improve the conditions of people within creeping capitalism, which has
been the economistic approach of trade unions since time immemorial.
That approach does not represent Marxism-Leninism but lies at the core
of liberalism and the social-democratic philosophy so common in this
century.
Zuganov's surreptitious allegiance to private ownership really
seeped to the surface when he said,
"The main question today is -- will 'market forces', and in
essence several banking groups, determine the development of our economy
using state resources in their egotistical interests or, alternatively,
will the state be determining the spheres and direction using market
competition in the interests of society? We are supporting the second
option. The state should regain control over strategic economic heights
and the main financial streams. Properties privatized as a result of
criminal actions should be returned by means of the necessary legal
mechanism."
He also stated that he supports an economy "regulated by the state
in the interests of the whole of society and every individual citizen.
The methods of regulation are to be scientifically based planning and
use of market relations to stimulate business acumen and the working
activities of people."
Several major ideological departures from Marxism are abundantly
evident in this narration.
First, he says the state should be, "...determining the spheres and
direction using market competition in the interests of society."
Marxists do not spend their time and energy developing a plan by which
to direct "market competition in the interest of society." Market
forces by their very nature can never work in the interest of society;
but only for the benefit of a small clique of property owners. Marxists
are not in the business of trying to make capitalism work better for the
masses. Their concern is with convincing the masses that their
interests and welfare are inimical and antithetical to private
ownership.
Second, the duty of a workers' state is not to determine the
direction of the economy "using market competition," but to own the
means of production, distribution, and exchange outright and abolish
market competition. Zuganov is more focused on making sure the masses
receive better treatment as a result of the loathsome and appalling
economic changes presently being implemented than he is in preventing
the changes from ever occurring to begin with.
Third, Zuganov says, "The state should regain control over
strategic economic heights and the main financial streams" when, in
reality the state should regain control over all economic heights and
financial streams, strategic or otherwise. The solution does not lie in
gaining a bigger piece of the pie for the masses but in making sure the
masses obtain all the pie. After all, who is more entitled to the pie
than the one who created the ingredients, mixed the contents, and did
the cooking.
Zuganov says he supports
"returning to state control strategically important profit-making
enterprises and restoring the state monopoly of foreign trade of
strategically important categories of goods."
Not only does this leave other enterprises in private hands and
imply they will be allowed to remain profit-making, exploitive ventures
but it craftily omits delineating precisely what industries are
involved. In light of current conditions in the former USSR, nearly all
the means of production, distribution, and exchange are important, if
not strategic.
Fourth, he states, "Properties privatized as a result of criminal
actions should be returned...." Correction! Properties privatized,
period, should be returned. Whether or not the action was based on
legalities is irrelevant, especially when the transfer was executed
under laws essentially written by Yeltsin and his henchmen. Again,
Zuganov is proposing capitalism with a heart rather than socialism,
something no real Marxist would even contemplate. Capitalism has no
heart.
And finally, he advocates the "use of market relations to stimulate
business acumen and the working activities of people." Sounds like he
just got an MBA from Harvard. In recent years, especially, terms like
"market relations," "market forces," "the free market," "a free
economy," "a market economy," "restructuring," "reforms" etc. have been
nothing more than code words for "creeping capitalism." No matter how
often private ownership may be dressed up in a perfidious display of
grandiloquent rhetoric, it always comes out of the sewage pipe smelling
the same.
Speaking in regard to the Party's economic program Zuganov said,
"The strengthening of centralized state management is of the utmost
importance. At the same time, considering past experience, we exclude
bureaucratic super-centralisation."
Zuganov doesn't seem to realize that socialism stands for
centralized state ownership, not just "state management." He clearly
avoids any reference to the former while preferring to dwell on the
latter. As was noted earlier, Marxists are not in the business of
managing capitalism better than unabashed bourgeois CEO's.
In excellent capitalist fashion he says he advocates,
"putting an extra tax on non-productive property at the same time
reducing taxes for those who produce goods."
Wall Street could not have said it better. Libraries, museums,
artistic structures, symphonic halls, opera houses, parks, playgrounds,
youth camps, educational programing and myriad of other accouterments of
a civil and sane society would be penalized under this scenario, while
those bringing in the bucks, regardless of how unscrupulous and
antisocial they may be, are to be aided. That is the very attitude with
which capitalist societies reek.
Zuganov also says,
"We are for a flexible economic system based on the interaction of
different forms of ownership with priority given to public ownership."
The word "priority" is far too weak and misleading to be included
in a Marxist program. That could mean 51% of the economy is publicly
owned while 49% is privately owned, a wholly unacceptable condition from
a Marxist perspective. Marxists don't just give priority to public
ownership; they barely allow its opposite to exist, which should be more
than sufficient to disclose what the percentages would be under
socialism.
The same shortcoming is readily apparent in his explanation of the
party's attitude toward land ownership in which he states,
"In agriculture the Party's policy is against free sale and
purchase of land. The Party accepts mixed ownership and use of the
land. At the same time, strong state support is needed for the
agro-industrial complex."
The word "mixed" is not only weak but ambiguous and contradictory.
It could very well be interpreted as meaning that the amount of public
ownership of land should be minuscule compared to private ownership and
with that every capitalist couldn't agree more.
Second, while saying he is against the sale and purchase of land
which would forestall capitalist encroachment, he simultaneously says he
favors mixed ownership. How can you have mixed ownership, if the "free
sale and purchase of land" is prohibited"?
Third, he alleges "strong state support is needed for the
agro-industrial complex" which is nothing more than another way of
saying the government is to act as an assistant to the growth of
monopoly capitalism. Instead of owning the means of production,
distribution and exchange, the government merely operates as an adjunct
to, and enhancer of, profit-making enterprises.
Zuganov is trying to appease everyone with a two-faced policy of
largess for all, while clearly favoring one side over the other.
In conclusion he states,
"In short, the idea is to change the corrupt "rules of the game"
and create conditions under which the production of our own goods will
be the most profitable kind of economic activity."
Wrong again! The idea is not the change the "corrupt" rules of the
game in order to make them allegedly fairer for all but to change the
game period. The game is capitalism and in that kind of game everyone
looses except a small clique. It is not the "corrupt" rules of the game
that are the problem, but the game itself. How could you have "fair"
rules in a corrupt game?
He follows that up with,
"I want to stress again and again: the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation is not calling the people back to socialism, it is
calling them forward to socialism."
This is the kind of double talk that is so prevalent in capitalist
politics. In an attempt to appear as if he represents a new and refined
socialism, unlike that which went before, he has unwittingly denigrated
socialism itself. Socialism always takes mankind forward. And if he is
alleging the masses could actually be taken "back" to socialism, then he
is asserting it was not really socialism from whence they came; it was
not really socialism at all. In effect, Zuganov is denying that what
existed prior to Gorbachev was socialism, which is patently erroneous.
One might just as well say that that which Lenin established was not
socialism either, even though the overwhelming bulk of the means of
production, distribution, and exchange was owned by the population at
large in both instances.
Turning from the economic scene Zuganov addressed some political
issues by asserting he favors a political system that is "clean, open,
and constructive." But exactly what does that entail? According to
CPRF First Deputy Chairman, Kuptsov, who spoke at the same Congress, it
involves, among other things, "acceptance of a multi-party system." How
they propose to carry this out successfully, of course, is never
delineated. How, for example, they would keep foreign and even domestic
millionaires and billionaires from transmitting hundreds of millions of
dollars to their favorite candidates and/or parties is never explained
and with good reason. If the Cuban government suddenly allowed other
political parties to operate in Cuba, politically oriented money would
flow into that tiny island in amounts sufficient to sink it, and none of
that wealth would go to those presently in leadership positions. To
these leaders of the CPRF I would say: "You can't be serious" and really
hope to call yourselves Marxists. The jackpot question I have often
posed to those who think the United States and other capitalist powers
exhibit democracy, liberty, and freedom is: How can you have any kind of
democracy, even remotely worthy of the name, when one man has a dollar
to his name and another has a billion? The very idea of having
democracy under an arrangement of that nature is too ludicrous to be
worthy of serious consideration. If I have a billion dollars and my
opponent has only a buck to live on, I am going to eat him for lunch.
He will devoured alive in the economic/political jungle of electoral
politics with all the ease of slicing jello, regardless of how the
politico-economic structure is arranged or what laws may exist. And
that's an understatement. Any thought of political equality without
economic equality is pure fantasy, the stuff that dreams are made of.
The greater the economic inequality the more distant becomes democracy,
and at no time in history have financial differentials been greater than
those which prevail today. Zuganov and Kuptsov appear to have either
forgotten, never learned, or conveniently ignored the truism inherent in
these considerations.
Instead of relying on mass action and mass struggle, Zuganov
prefers to focus on political maneuvering through the Duma and other
innocuous governmental agencies. He admits the present Duma is
toothless by saying,
"A new Duma should not get into the Constitutional cul-de-sac we
are finding ourselves in now, when the representative and legislative
organ is practically helpless to exert real power on the formation of
the government and the formulation of socioeconomic strategy"
And yet he contends the situation can be rectified if the
Constitution is modified or abolished in favor of another. He states,
"It is vitally important to adopt constitutional changes as the
existing Constitution pushes Duma members into a vicious circle of
confrontation with one or other Cabinet, no matter how high the
opposition numbers are. It is too long to wait for Presidential
elections and an opposition victory. We should fight for the changes to
the Constitution mindful of our program goal -- to adopt a Soviet
Constitution."
Zuganov is either a slow learner, intentionally manipulative, or
politically fearful. If he doesn't realize by now that the clique in
control of the government has no intention of abiding by any rules,
constitutional or otherwise, then his education has, indeed, been sadly
neglected. The conspicuous willingness of Yeltsin and his accomplices
to abandon any limitations or restrictions on their behavior should be
abundantly evident from the fact that they did not hesitate to destroy
the earlier constitution and concoct one of their own, while smashing
the prior parliament and installing one to their liking. That should be
more than enough to awaken anyone.
Zuganov and company are putting far too much importance on winning
elections and playing by Yeltsin's rules. That must cease. Events are
more and more making it unquestionably clear that the present government
has no intention of surrendering any real power, regardless of what
electoral outcomes may indicate. In fact, they are stealing votes,
stealing, ballots, and stealing elections at an ever accelerating pace
as conditions continue to deteriorate. Any "Marxist" who thinks the
governments of the soviet republics, especially the one in Moscow, are
going to operate under principles or guidelines that are even remotely
civil when the going gets tough is living under delusions of grandeur.
Bourgeois agents will continue the "democratic" charade as long as
events are proceeding satisfactorily from their perspective, but when
real successes by the opposition become a distinct possibility, they
will rip off the mask and reveal the underlying Frankenstein in all his
hideous details.
Zuganov is so afraid of Yeltsin's gang disbanding the Duma and all
democratic pretense that he is willing to endure conditions and
procedures that any real Marxist would reject outright. If the Duma's
continued existence is contingent upon Marxists accepting a wholly
class-collaborationist position, then so much for the Duma. It's little
more than an innocuous debating society anyway, that stupefies its
membership with a feeling of real power while providing Yeltsin's crowd
with a democratic facade for the whole world to view. Participation by
Marxists in Yeltsin's Duma is acceptable as long as it does not supplant
real revolutionary activity. But when it becomes nothing more than a
substitute for undertakings of real import and a boisterous debating
society which Yeltsin's media can belittle on TV, then a severance of
relations is clearly in order. Instead of relying upon the working
class to alter conditions, a small group of "leftist" leaders has
mistakenly concluded they can manipulate a system created by their
opposition in such a manner as to attain positions of power and
influence. How wrong can one be!
So, if not through elections, parliaments, and constitutions
written by the enemy, what then is the proper approach? The answer is,
what it has always been, what made the revolution from the
beginning--mass action, mass protest, mass strikes, mass disruption,
mass discontent. The masses should be made aware of the fact that they
are far and away the most potent force to oppose the criminal gang that
has usurped governmental authority.
When Zuganov originally came onto the national scene several years
ago, I was more than willing to give him a chance to demonstrate his
acumen and institute his program. But his ideological incapacity is now
readily apparent, clearly proving that he and those of his persuasion
are no longer qualified to retain positions of leadership in the CPRF.
His biggest mistake lies in a failure to lead, to stay ahead of the
masses. When a Marxist falls behind the masses in the forward march of
history, he nearly always becomes revisionist, social-democratic, and
even liberal. When he surges too far ahead he becomes sectarian,
detached, impotent, and often politically infantile. True Marxist
leaders know how to remain on the cutting edge and no one mastered this
better than Lenin and Stalin. The current leadership of the CPRF has
fallen too far behind the masses to retain their current positions.
Conditions have become so malodorous that literally millions have had
all they can take of this economic experiment in degeneration. They
want action and they want, indeed crave, leadership. There have been
over 15,000 strikes so far this year, not to mention other protests and
demonstrations, and that is more than enough to prove that millions want
serious actions and changes.
Zuganov even admitted,
"The situation in Russia has changed so markedly in the last two
months that there is every reason to talk about a new tactical stage in
our activity."
If it has changed significantly in the last two months, imagine how
the national mood has changed in the last two years, especially since
the overthrow of the legally constituted parliament in October 1993.
The role of the party should be clear to all Marxists. It should
organize, mobilize, coordinate, and propagandize on a scale far greater
than that which currently exists. The present policy of organizing a
major demonstration every four to six months is quite weak and
thoroughly insufficient. Instead, protests should be systematically
planned and executed on a daily basis. Millions who have become very
miserable want more to do than just mark a ballot in a useless ritual
every few years. And if they feel they are being led by those with a
program of substance that is clearly and demonstrably different from
what they have been receiving, they will act. People who decide to
participate should be organized and rotated in such a manner that they
go to demonstrations periodically, if not every other day, as if going
to work. The strategy employed by the East German bourgeois agents
seeking to undermine Honeker and the technique invoked by Serbs opposed
to Milosevic of demonstrating day after day after day could very well
prove to be quite effective. Protests should be loud, disruptive,
prolonged, centrally located in front of key governmental agencies and
buildings, supplied with plenty of signs and posters, and manifest lots
of fiery speeches.
They should certainly be used to oppose auctions and sales of
public property, for it is here more than anywhere else that capitalism
has performed its most treacherous, its most catastrophic invasion. How
would anyone feel if he came home one evening only to find an auction
occurring in which all of his belongings were being sold at bargain
basement prices without his permission? To say he would be outraged
would be an understatement. Yet, that is exactly what has been
happening in the Soviet Union for 7 years. Why haven't the Russian
people erupted more often? Primarily because the items being sold are
not directly owned by individual participants. They are owed by
millions of fellow citizens in a common pool, so each person does not
feel immediately threatened and is not aware of the loss he is
experiencing. This kind of activity should be opposed as vigorously and
passionately as any; yet that is not being done, because millions do not
feel personally affected. Their property is being sold right out from
under their feet at fire sale prices, yet they fail to act with the kind
of determination that the situation most assuredly warrants. This
deplorable state of affairs can partly be attributed to a CPRF
leadership that has not only failed to adequately expose and condemn
this kind of activity but has actually condoned it on occasion. If the
omon or other dictatorial agents attempt to take repressive actions in
regard to demonstrations and protests, they should be opposed with all
due dispatch and vigor. In short, the pressure should be unremitting,
massive, intense, determined, and calculated to draw in as many
bystanders as possible. This kind of work is by no means easy. Indeed,
a great deal of effort is involved in which one can expect
confrontations, clashes, arrests and turmoil. But that is the penalty
and the price one has to pay for surrendering socialism so easily.
Imagine how many years and how much work the NLF in South Vietnam
devoted to digging thousands and thousands of yards of tunnels at the
risk of life and limb. That's real determination; dedication of the
highest order, but it yielded victory.
Speaking to a gathering of international delegations at the
Congress,
the CPRF First Deputy Chairman, Kuptsov, said the problems most often
encountered by the party are: nostalgic feelings, waiting for
instructions, and weak initiatives from branches and individuals.
Precisely! Although millions are waiting for real leadership and
coordination, they are not finding it in the current leaders who don't
have a program that is significantly different from Yeltsin's. People
are not going to be motivated to vote, demonstrate, or even become
involved if they can't see serious differences between the candidates.
Is it any wonder electoral turnouts are so low. Since all Zuganov is
trying to do is ease the Russian masses into a kind of capitalism with a
human face, he, his colleagues, and their program are doomed to failure,
and the sooner they are replaced the better.

[G*rd*n]

| >: >Leninism seems never to have quite learned *that* aspect
| >: >of Marxism. The problem, as I see it, is not a retreat from
| >: >"Marxism-Leninism", but Leninism itself, which has never
| >: >solved the problem of how to transfer power from a state-controlling
| >: >aparatus (the Party) to the proletariat.
| >: >Under Lenin's program the state never manages to wither away worker
| >: >power is co-opted by an ever-growing state bureacracy.

Stephen R. Diamond (steph...@mindspring.com) wrote:
| >: This is mere rhetoric.

red...@dc.seflin.org (Christian Camacho) wrote:
| >==> And your response pure sophistry.

steph...@mindspring.com (Stephen R. Diamond):
| Christian omits my actual response, which came earlier in the posting.
| Dishonesty?

Since the "actual response" was posted only a few hours
before, presumably it has not been effaced by redflag's
omission, but is available to almost everyone. Therefore,
no imputation of malevolence is required. One might wish
that he had questioned your liberal assumptions, rather than
your "rhetoric", but life can be disappointing.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{

[David Stevens]

If saying something made it so, DeLeonism would have
built the Social Republic a century ago.

Alas, DeLeonism can't build the Social Republic, and
can't even get across the river:

> ... the maximum program which promised substitution of socialism
> for capitalism in the indefinite future. Between the minimum and
> the maximum program no bridge existed. And indeed Social Democracy
> has no need of such a bridge, since the word socialism is used only
> for holiday speechifying.
> ...
> These sterile politicians generally have no need of a bridge
> in the form of transitional demands because they do not intend
> to cross over to the other shore. They simply dawdle in one place,
> satisfying themselves with a repetition of the selfsame meager
> abstractions. Political events are for them an occasion for comment
> but not for action. Since sectarians as in genera every kind of
> blunderer and miracle-man, are toppled by reality at each step,
> they live in a state of perpetual exasperation, complaining about the
> "regime" and the "methods" and ceaselessly wallowing in small intrigues.
> In their own circles they customarily carry on a regime of despotism.
> The political prostration of sectarianism serves to complement,
> shadow-like, the prostration of opportunism, revealing no
> revolutionary vistas. In practical politics, sectarians unite with
> opportunists, particularly with centrists, every time in the
> struggle against Marxism.

-- [Trotsky, "The Transitional Program," 1938]
http://www.marx.org/Trotsky/Archive/1938-TP/1938-tp.htm

Comrade Christian Camacho:

> notice how rarely Leninists engage in any sort of debate
> with De Leonists regarding these matters

Notice how DeLeonists cannot even defend their own program
when challenged. The DeLeonist program's alpha and omega is
to call a soviet a socialist industrial union, and to dismiss
all experience of 1917 because it did not happen in America.

From Tuesday 12 Aug "talking Red Unions,"
<33F127...@worldnet.att.net>:

[Camacho]:
> ==. I like the idea of a red union thread. Maybe
> soon we can have a meeting as pregnant with
> revolution as the one that took place in Chicago
> in 1905. History awaits another De Leon, Debs and Haywood
> sans the Anarchist treachery.

[Stevens]:
Okay: behold, a red union thread.

It must be noted that our antivanguardist of record, Cde Camacho,
was unable in practical terms to initiate this thread without the
timely intervention of a Leninist. I attribute this to the power of
Leninism as the *living* dialectical expression of DeLeon's 1896
classic "Reform or Revolution" ...

- David Stevens

[Ivan Vasilovich]

> In article <5sts2j$k...@nntp.seflin.org>, red...@dc.seflin.org (Christian
> Camacho) wrote:
>
> >Socialism DOES not stand for state ownership of the means of production.

It does not, but it can.

> >It stands for SOCIAL ownership and democratic control by the workers
> >theselves organized at the workplace.

It does not, but it can.

Make sense?

[Christian Camacho]

David Stevens (phyls...@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
: If saying something made it so, DeLeonism would have

: built the Social Republic a century ago.

==> That is, of course, if DeLeonism had ever presumed to
build the Social Republic with mere words, which it didn't.

: Alas, DeLeonism can't build the Social Republic, and

: can't even get across the river:

==> But the working class *can* build the Social Republic.
It is upon the latent feelings of rebelion in the workers
that socialists have to bank. DeLeonism presents an alternative
way to build a party and a union.

: > ... the maximum program which promised substitution of socialism

: > for capitalism in the indefinite future. Between the minimum and
: > the maximum program no bridge existed. And indeed Social Democracy
: > has no need of such a bridge, since the word socialism is used only
: > for holiday speechifying.
: > ...
: > These sterile politicians generally have no need of a bridge
: > in the form of transitional demands because they do not intend
: > to cross over to the other shore. They simply dawdle in one place,
: > satisfying themselves with a repetition of the selfsame meager
: > abstractions. Political events are for them an occasion for comment
: > but not for action. Since sectarians as in genera every kind of
: > blunderer and miracle-man, are toppled by reality at each step,
: > they live in a state of perpetual exasperation, complaining about the
: > "regime" and the "methods" and ceaselessly wallowing in small intrigues.
: > In their own circles they customarily carry on a regime of despotism.
: > The political prostration of sectarianism serves to complement,
: > shadow-like, the prostration of opportunism, revealing no
: > revolutionary vistas. In practical politics, sectarians unite with
: > opportunists, particularly with centrists, every time in the
: > struggle against Marxism.

==> And of course, none of this explains why, at a critical
juncture in the struggle against usurpation, Trotsky weighed in
on the side of those wanting to crush the Workers Opposition.
For Lenin it was a simple matter of simply labeling them
anarcho-syndicalists because they raised the demand for
democratic worker control of the industries.
Trotsky called it a democratic fetish. And some still wonder
why he lacked support from the working class when push
came to shove with Stalin!
: Comrade Christian Camacho:

: > notice how rarely Leninists engage in any sort of debate
: > with De Leonists regarding these matters

: Notice how DeLeonists cannot even defend their own program
: when challenged. The DeLeonist program's alpha and omega is
: to call a soviet a socialist industrial union, and to dismiss
: all experience of 1917 because it did not happen in America.

==> Astonishing how someone as well-read as Comrade Stevens
cannot see any difference between the SLP's SIU and
the soviets!
SIUism isn't only the formation of "One big union" as some
of our more anarchistic friends believe. It incorporates
the doctrine that a political party of the working class
must be organized to challenge capitalist political rule
at the ballot box with the demand for the abolition of
capitalism. Moreover, it maintains that the political
party's role is limited to the capture and destruction of
the political state.
I have not read one word written by Lenin in which this
given any serious consideration outside a theoretical
speculation that places the event far into the nebulous
future.

: From Tuesday 12 Aug "talking Red Unions,"
: <33F127...@worldnet.att.net>:

: [Camacho]:
: > ==. I like the idea of a red union thread. Maybe
: > soon we can have a meeting as pregnant with
: > revolution as the one that took place in Chicago
: > in 1905. History awaits another De Leon, Debs and Haywood
: > sans the Anarchist treachery.

: [Stevens]:
: Okay: behold, a red union thread.

: It must be noted that our antivanguardist of record, Cde Camacho,
: was unable in practical terms to initiate this thread without the
: timely intervention of a Leninist. I attribute this to the power of
: Leninism as the *living* dialectical expression of DeLeon's 1896
: classic "Reform or Revolution" ...

==> Flattery, at least with me, will get you nowhere, Comrade.
In the late 70s Barnes and the SWP attempted to link
up DeLeonism with Leninism by claiming numerous points
of convergence in our program with theirs (if such can be
called a program).
However, on closer examination, the SLP's conception of the
role of the party, its relationship to the unions, its
conception of a workers' democracy, etc., are fundamentally
different from that of the Leninist SWP.

: - David Stevens

--

"Nowadays, atheism is itself *culpa levis*, as compared
with criticism of existing property relations."

Access The People on-line by using our
gopher on the Internet at gopher://gopher.slp.org:7019/
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[David Stevens]

Christian Camacho wrote:
>
>
> ==> And of course, none of this explains why, at a critical
> juncture in the struggle against usurpation, Trotsky weighed in
> on the side of those wanting to crush the Workers Opposition.

That is utterly stupid. "Crush" the WO? This is the historical
illiteracy of DeLeonism. Kollantai survived to become ambassador
for Stalin.

Maybe Cde Camacho is holding aloft the anarchoid myth of
Kronstadt. Since I am inviting all those even more illiterate
black'n'reds into our forum, maybe I should clue Christian in
about the "crushing" of Kronstadt, supported unanimously by
the WO.

> For Lenin it was a simple matter of simply labeling them
> anarcho-syndicalists because they raised the demand for
> democratic worker control of the industries.
> Trotsky called it a democratic fetish.

Yes. Under conditions of raging Civil War, too. Part of the idiocy
of DeLeonism is that it leaps overnight into New Jerusalem. Before
we go further on this one, maybe you'd better decide whether you
have a "DeLeonist" proposal at all for the workers of Soviet
Russia in 1921; whether you endorse the WO positions entirely,
which seems consistent with your argument here and also with
the current SLP literature; or whether it is just a matter of
your slamming Trotsky and Lenin by the device of uncritically
transferring their ideas to different economic, political, and
national terrain from which they operated.

> And some still wonder
> why he lacked support from the working class when push
> came to shove with Stalin!

I do not wonder that, any more than I wonder why more people
voted for Roosevelt than for the SLP.

As far as "likeability" goes -- Trotsky was not very likeable.

Should we speak of how warm, effusive, non-sectarian and
personally amiable DeLeon was, or of how he "lacked support
from the working class" relative to both Gompers and Hillquit?

> ==> Astonishing how someone as well-read as Comrade Stevens
> cannot see any difference between the SLP's SIU and
> the soviets!

I did not say that. I believe that there is nothing wrong with
using "soviet" as a generic expression provided it is not used
to muddle important distinctions *relevant* to national terrain.
If he knows Piedmontese, perhaps Comrade Camacho also knows the
old saying that a Translator is a Traitor. But *soviets* in one
form or another are the *natural* organizational expression of
workers democracy. Soviets arose in Hungary, Bavaria, and China,
against the rule of capitalism. In East Germany and Hungary,
workers soviets arose against Stalinism.

Indeed, in 1956 Hungary not only did the workers rebel
against the Stalinist state apparatus, but the bureaucracy
itself *split*, some of it coming over to the side of the
insurgent workers. The Hungarian Army split. When the
Hungarian secret police opened fire on demonstrators,
the *Russian* Army units in Budapest returned fire on the
secret police. This was a rather dramatic refutation of
the SLP's [and others'] antimaterialist Third Campism.

> SIUism isn't only the formation of "One big union" as some
> of our more anarchistic friends believe. It incorporates
> the doctrine that a political party of the working class
> must be organized to challenge capitalist political rule
> at the ballot box with the demand for the abolition of
> capitalism.

(I'm sure the ballot box will come up again). DeLeon himself
was not the simpleton that today's SLP portrays him. Sadly,
most Trotskyists think DeLeon must have been some sort of
"DeLeonist," accepting the SLP's thin slug as good coin.

DeLeon did not have quite the same touching faith in the
ballot box as modern DeLeonists, and he spoke several times
(abstractly) of the prospective requirement for a physical
force based on socialist industrial unions.

One thing DeLeon did have was Trotsky's irreconcilable
hostility to parliamentary maneuverings and compromises.
His series of editorials "A Socialist in Congress" shows
DeLeon's appreciation for the agitational and propaganda
value of using a Congressional seat as socialist soapbox.

> Moreover, it maintains that the political
> party's role is limited to the capture and destruction of
> the political state.

DeLeonists propose to destroy the political state without
erecting a proletarian state. No dictatorship of the proletariat,
no workers state, no matter how constituted.

This absudity deserves a separate thread. After all, I will
not convince Cde Camacho or anybody else just by declaring it
absurd. Also, most species of anarchoid would agree with that
statement, too.

This is an antimaterialist perspective, and it shines a bright
spotlight on the anti-Internationalism of the SLP, whose program
for workers in foreign countries is merely: "build your own SLP".

> I have not read one word written by Lenin in which this
> given any serious consideration outside a theoretical
> speculation that places the event far into the nebulous
> future.

One could say the same about DeLeon. Indeed, DeLeon never
got as far as "State and Revolution" in part beccause he
never had the experience of leading a successful social
revolution, but any serious student of DeLeon finds his
expressions of the Social Republic *maddeningly* unclear
and sometimes contradictory. (Even so, DeLeon stands
heads and shoulders above his contemporaries).

>
> In the late 70s Barnes and the SWP attempted to link
> up DeLeonism with Leninism by claiming numerous points
> of convergence in our program with theirs (if such can be
> called a program).

Yes. WV did a wonderful piece called "SWP Invites SLP to
Build a Party of the Whole Swamp." [They were not in favor,
as I recall]. It showed how shameless the SWP had become
in submerging its principled political differences (if such
can be called principles).

> However, on closer examination, the SLP's conception of the
> role of the party, its relationship to the unions, its
> conception of a workers' democracy, etc., are fundamentally
> different from that of the Leninist SWP.

As different frome SWP as the 1975 SWP was from Leninism.

Surely, you must realize that just as I cannot allow the
nationally-narrow antimaterialist SLP to claim "DeLeonism"
as the heritage of DeLeon, I'm equally unwilling to say
that SWP "Leninism" involves Lenin.

- David Stevens

[Christian Camacho]

Socialism DOES not stand for state ownership of the means of production.

It stands for SOCIAL ownership and democratic control by the workers
theselves organized at the workplace.

Leninism seems never to have quite learned *that* aspect

of Marxism. The problem, as I see it, is not a retreat from
"Marxism-Leninism", but Leninism itself, which has never
solved the problem of how to transfer power from a state-controlling
aparatus (the Party) to the proletariat.
Under Lenin's program the state never manages to wither away worker
power is co-opted by an ever-growing state bureacracy.

--

[David Stevens]

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>
> I thought all you computer nerds had scanners.
>
> Stephen R. Diamond

The Nerd rule is: I do not need a scanner if I have a
still-operational Amiga computer running software that
nobody else on the planet can support.

Never mind if the Bolshevik Revolution had spread to
Germany, just imagine if IBM had used the MC68000 for
their old PC which (notwithstanding linguistic objections
of sportcaster Comrade Proyect) was a *woosie* machine
compared with the Amiga, Betamax of the PC world.

- David Stevens

[David Stevens]

TGSCUNY wrote:
>
> I don't think it's rhetoric at all--it's right on.
>
> Tom

Well, that clinches it, as far as I'm concerned.

How can anybody argue with rhetoric like that?

- David Stevens

[Dennis McKinsey]

Ivan Vasilovich wrote:
>
> > In article <5sts2j$k...@nntp.seflin.org>, red...@dc.seflin.org (Christian
> > Camacho) wrote:
> >

> > >Socialism DOES not stand for state ownership of the means of production.
>

> It does not, but it can.
>

> > >It stands for SOCIAL ownership and democratic control by the workers
> > >theselves organized at the workplace.
>

> It does not, but it can.
>
> Make sense?

Whatever happened to my original post entitled:

[TGSCUNY]

>>Leninism seems never to have quite learned *that* aspect
>>of Marxism. The problem, as I see it, is not a retreat from
>>"Marxism-Leninism", but Leninism itself, which has never
>>solved the problem of how to transfer power from a state-controlling
>>aparatus (the Party) to the proletariat.
>>Under Lenin's program the state never manages to wither away worker
>>power is co-opted by an ever-growing state bureacracy.
>>

Who wrote this, originally? Please e-mail me.

tom