HISTORY HAS NOT YET DECIDED
cromwell
"nada" <dave.w...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1168979837.2...@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
>
> First, let me say I think Geoff answers his own question about the
> effects of world capitalism on "russian capitalism", his term, not
> mine, but appropriate. While Russia was going though it's hyper
> capitalist stage in the 1990s, exporting the majority of it's foreign
> reserves, and destroying it's productive forces, like any capitalist
> system in depression, what was the role of the State? Indeed, the
> gov't, a capitalist one, used the State as the preserver of the system
> that allowed this klepto-capitalism to function. It's job was the
> destruction of the Gosplan and the protection of the capitalist mode of
> production. The the only thing left, was the legal formality of
> "people's property". This was a major part of Trotsky's analysis, along
> with the criteria that Geoff quotes from LT's writings.
>
> Along those lines, indeed, I would argue that almost every criteria
> that Trotsky *hypothosized* has come true. Geoff talks of "workers
> resistance" to the takign away of the gains of October. I would argue
> that all resistance has been smashed and the gov't, through it's State,
> does everything it wants to do with little or no opposition.
>
> What Geoff, and the US Barnsite SWP which has a similiar position,
> looks at, is essentially a prognostication by Trotsky on the events of
> WWII and it's possible aftermath. That the Russian working class would
> rise up to oppose any privatization of the gains of October, to react
> violently to the rise of a new capitalist class. What Trotsky did not
> take into consideration was 3 generations of Stalinism, the eventual
> death of the generation of October, the squashing of the class "as a
> class", it's atomization under the degenerative workers state appartus.
> The political ability of the class to defend those gains, all of which
> have been destroyed ansers Geoff's postulation:
>
> "There is no reason to believe that the resistance of the Russian
> workers has
> been broken and in common with the proletariat on a world scale, has
> yet to
> be tested."
>
> I beg to differ, it's been tested, or, better put, rolled over by the
> Yetlsin wing of the bureacracy during the temult of the late 80s and
> early 90s. Resistance was squashed. The unions made appendenges, again,
> of the new class that arose, as Geoff describes it accuratly, from the
> Stalinist bureacracy that sought to transform itself from a caste into
> a class.
>
> To SRD I'd say your question is a good one. I can't totally answer it
> since I believe the counter-revolution has triumphed, in it's distorted
> and highly contridictory way. My little answer is what I describe
> above: Trotsky did not expect 70 years of Stalinism to maintain it's
> rule. Everyone of the "Russia is still a workers state" advocates, be
> that Vngelis, Geoff, the US SWP or others simply ignore this, as if the
> question, poised correctly by Trotsky, was still being asked in 1940.
> "Socialism" is not consiously defended except in the nostaligic way it
> is in other Eastern European states, because Stalinism beat it out of
> their consiuosness.
>
> David Walters
Your rebuttal resolves itself primarily into a) that Trotsky did not foresee
the long life span of Stalinism b) that a counter-revolution has taken place
in Russia or that proletariat has been defeated. Both are entirely false.
If Trotsky did not visualise 70 years of Stalinism, he provided no precise
prediction of its lifespan either,
"On the historic order of the day stands not the peaceful socialist
development of "one country", but a long series of world disturbances: wars
and
revolutions."http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/ch12.htm
David's critique, could equally be leveled at Marx. Was it not Marx, who
believed the
revolution to be the work of the French, German and English proletariat,
with the Russians far
behind. Yet this year, nine decades have passed since the Russian
proletariat
and peasantry took power, and still the socialist revolution is an historic
landmark that is yet to be achieved in those other countries. Are we to
abandon Marxism?
Trotsky anticipated you,
"Every historical prognosis is always conditional, and the more concrete the
prognosis, the more conditional it is. A prognosis is not a promissory note
which can be cashed on a given date. Prognosis outlines only the definite
trends of the development. But along with these trends a different order of
forces and tendencies operate, which at a certain moment begin to
predominate. All those who seek exact predictions of concrete events should
consult the astrologists."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/dom.pdf
The 'different order of forces and tendencies' was not the persistence of
Stalinism - the cracks in the bureacracy and emergence of the political
revolution already began in 1953 - but the capicities of American capital
out of the dust and chaos of the Second World war, which of course, merely
intensified the contradictions within US capitalism and the transition of
the opposites, the material reflection of which, was the collapse of Bretton
Woods in the 1970's.
The destiny of the Russian proletariat, is bound up with the proletariat on
a world scale; the regeneration of the workers state and the defeat of the
bureacracy, was always a question of global proportions for both Lenin and
Trotsky. The latter could not have been clearer when writing of the eve of
world war II, he said,
"The second world war has begun. It attests incontrovertibly to the fact
that
society can no longer live on the basis of capitalism. Thereby it subjects
the proletariat to a new and perhaps decisive test. If this war provokes,
as we firmly believe, a proletarian revolution, it must inevitably lead to
the overthrow of the bureaucracy in the USSR and regeneration of Soviet
democracy on a far higher economic and cultural basis than in 1918."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/dom.pdf
But he also considered another line of development and wrote starkly that,
"If, however, it is conceded that the present war will
provoke not revolution
but a decline of the proletariat, then there remains another alternative:
the further decay of monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the state
and the replacement of democracy wherever it still remained by a
totalitarian regime. The inability of the proletariat to take into its hands
the leadership of society could actually lead under these conditions to the
growth of a new exploiting class from the Bonapartist fascist bureaucracy.
This would be, according to all indications, a regime of decline,
signalizing the eclipse of civilization."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/dom.pdf
Yet this is a conditional prognosis; the post war years witnessed titanic
struggles but the absense of proletarian revolution in the west. Even so,
there was not a decline of the proletariat nor the emergence of totalitarian
regimes. On the contrary, this path remains pregnant within the process of
history, points on the future curve of development. The deepening
contradictions of capitalism, in both the US and UK, are driving the rulling
classes of these countries, toward fascist solutions, but these trends have
yet to fully mature. On the plain between 'democracy' and the fascist
state, lies the
proletarian revolution.
David refers to the confimation of
Trotsky's hypothesis. He is entirely wrong. In Trotsky's
quote from the original post,
"a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as
well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism
the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i)
on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the
bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a
struggle of living social forces, both on the national and the world arena."
There you go, exclaims David, the Russian workers have been 'rolled over',
their resistance has been broken. But Trotsky sheds further light on this,
"Only utter imbeciles would be capable of thinking that capitalist
relations, that is to say, the private ownership of the means of production,
including the land, can be reestablished in the U.S.S.R. by peaceful methods
and lead to the régime of bourgeois democracy. As a matter of fact, even if
it were possible in general, capitalism could not be regenerated in Russia
except as the result of a savage counter-revolutionary coup d'état which
would cost ten times as many victims as the October Revolution and the civil
war. In the event of the overthrow of the Soviets, their place could only be
taken by a distinctly Russian Fascism, so ferocious that in comparison to it
the ferocity of the Mussolini régime and that of Hitler would appear like
philanthropic institutions."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1934/kirov.htm
I would never be as rude as to describe David as an 'utter imbecile', but I
do claim he is the victim of his own idealist constructions. And only an
'utter imbecile' would look at the Russian situation and declare that
fascism prevails there. Yet David verges on this with such observations as
"Resistance was squashed", "atomization" and "political ability of the class
to defend those gains, all of which
have been destroyed". This is not only nonsense but obviously so. David
dates the demise of the Russian working class "during the temult of the late
80s and early 90s". Yet, the Russian working class seems to be ignorant of
Davids assessment. Strikes swept across Russia and the republics in
1989,1991, 1996 and 1997, involving millions of workers from different
branches of the Russian economy: Miners, teachers, railway workers, the
Nuclear industry, the defence industry, research. The response of the Govt
was consessions.
Fascism flows from the deep crisis of capitalism and defeat of the working
class. As a movement based on the middle classes, it saves capitalism by
destroying the organisations of the working class, most notably the unions.
The experience of Italian and German Fascism, brought the proletariat to
heel in both those countries, by replacing the independent unions and
creating new labour bodies, incorporated into the state. The old leadership
were arrested, imprisoned or killed and the fascist bureacracy replaced them
with its own appointees. Union property is occupied by storm troopers,
strikes are banned and a new dark age emerges. Thus begins the period of
heightened exploitation and
the crushing of all resistance. The closest that we come to a parrell
course in contempary Russian experience, according to David, is the unions
as "appendenges". Yet David ignores the course of development in Russia
since 1989, WHICH OSCILLATES IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION: The old Soviet
unions have collapsed, cut adrift or forced to reinvent themselves, and new
independent unions and
workers committees have sprung up. Officials of these organisations are
elected by their own memberships and not appointed by the Stalinists.
The crisis of the Stalinist monolith is pregnant with opposites and Russian
fascism is indeed one of them, but the bell has yet to toll. On the basis
of developments over the last two decades, the most reactionary nationalist,
Stalinist and fascist rubbish, can emerge from the depths of Russian
society, into the light of day. But in equal measure, the cadre of the
Fourth International, the proponents of Trotskyism, tortured, imprisoned,
murdered and exiled, in the years of Stalinism, can again take up its banner
and place it before the workers, in the land of October.
Having assimilated David's views, fleshed out with the worst
pessimism and defeatism, I would ask him to ponder the following,
"if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of fulfilling the
mission placed upon it by the course of development, nothing else would
remain except only to recognize that the socialist program, based on the
internal contradictions of capitalist society, ended in Utopia. It is
self-evident that a new "minimum" program would be required - for the
defense of the interests of the slaves of the totalitarian bureaucratic
society. But are there such incontrovertible or even impressive objective
data as would compel us today to renounce the prospect of the socialist
revolution? That is the whole question."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/dom.pdf
Geoff.
Vngelis
Good points.
cromwell
"Vngelis" <mebe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1169585144....@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
> Are your from the American SWP as David Walters has alluded?
>
> Good points.
>
No.
I was active in the WRP. For various reasons, I ceased being a member
before the split in 1985 and the one that followed from Torance. However,
if I had remained in the fold, I would have gone with Healy. I thought
Healy's writings on the changes in the Soviet Union, were unique and
inspirational.
Geoff.
dusty
Geoff,
What is the source of Healy's writings on the changes in the Soviet
Union you refer to?
cromwell
"dusty" <track...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:1169592049.2...@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Gerry Healy's analysis of the changes under Gorbachev's, were originally
published in the Marxist Monthly: Theoritical Journal of the Marxist Party.
A number of these were collected together into a little book called
'Materialist Dialectics and the Political Revolution' published by the
Marxist Publishing Cooperative 1990.
Geoff.
srd
On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:22:36 -0800, cromwell <ste...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
--
Stephen R. Diamond
srdi...@gmail.com
cromwell
"srd" <srd1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:op.tmmtl...@jq0arm4.domain_not_set.invalid...
> He gave Gorbachev some sort of political support, didn't he?
>
<snip>
"Gorbachev's anniversary speech was an eclectic combination of historical
inaccuracies concerning the role of Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev
In October 1917. The positive side was that it announced the appointment of
a commission to investigate the historical crimes of Stalin, to work under
the control of the Central Committee and Political Bureau of the CPSU"
Gerry Healy, The Marxist Monthly, Vol. 1 No.1, March 1988.
"Much depends upon the struggle between the Gorbachev and Ligachev trends.
No Trotskyist can be neutral in this decisive stage of the political
revolution in the USSR. We must critically support the Gorbachev wing in so
far as they open the doors to the publication of Trotsky's writings and
those of Lenin's 'Old Guard', together with all the archive material. The
most fundamental difference between the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras lies
in the fact that thirty years on, the world economic and political crisis
has intensified enormously during that period. Both the political
revolution in the USSR and global crisis of capitalism have a relation of
causality with each other. This process favours the Gorbachev wing."
Gerry Healy, Materialist Dialectics and the Political Revolution, p 199.
Geoff.
rab
On 25 Jan, 22:25, "cromwell" <steu...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "srd" <srd152...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:op.tmmtl...@jq0arm4.domain_not_set.invalid...
Unfortunately, Gerry Healy went further than Pablo in his tailending of
the Stalinist bureaucracy in his final years. This quote has nothing
to do with Trotskyism and Paddy and Sheila were correct to break from
Gerry Healy in 1987. Healy's best works on dialectics were written in
1982 even though all of them suffer a little from 'subjective
psychology'.
Roger
srd
wrote:
Is this proposition supposed to represent dialectics:
> Both the political revolution in the USSR and global crisis of capitalism
> have a relation of causality with each other.
Perhaps its syntactic inscrutability recommends it as such? It is hard to
imagine a more awkward construction.
srd
srd
wrote:
> "Much depends upon the struggle between the Gorbachev and Ligachev
> trends."
> Gerry Healy, Materialist Dialectics and the Political Revolution, p 199.
Unable to recall who Ligachev is, I checked. Originally a supporter of
Gorbachev to succeed Andropov, Ligachev became Gorbachev's opponent,
believing Perestroika was going too far. After the fall of the USSR, he
represented the Communist Party in the Duma until his death.
Anyway, does it not seem absurd to think that a successful
counter-revolution has restored capitalism in Russia, when the party that
administered the old regime remained and remains legal? This seems almost
decisive against the Nadaian position that a successful counter-revolution
has restored capitalism in Russia. It seems _possible_ to maintain that
capitalism exists in some form in Russia (i.e. state caps) or that there
has been a counter-revolution without restoration (whatever that entails)
or neither (vngelis, cromwell, sometimes me) but not both (nada and the
Sparts).
On the other hand, strictly impressionistically, it certainly seems that
in recent weeks China has been _acting_ a lot more like a workers state
than Russia.
srd
Karl Burg
>On the other hand, strictly impressionistically, it certainly seems that
>in recent weeks China has been _acting_ a lot more like a workers state
>than Russia.
What impressions lead you to this - admittedly - impressionistic
verdict?
Karl
Bert Byfield
>>that in recent weeks China has been _acting_ a lot more like a
>>workers state than Russia.
Sort of the way a wolf more closely resembles a lamb than a lion does,
strictly impressionistically, you mean?
srd
That the Chinese seem to have perfected a weapon that can knock out
satellites. The arms race does not appear to be over for the Chinese.
srd
Bert Byfield
> satellites. The arms race does not appear to be over for the Chinese.
> srd
So that is what defines a workers' paradise?
cromwell
"rab" <rogeralan...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1169847243.4...@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
<snip>
Healy's best works on dialectics were written in
> 1982 even though all of them suffer a little from 'subjective
> psychology'.
>
> Roger
>
Explain please?
Geoff
srd
wrote:
Workers' *state*, not "workers' paradise." Without work there can be no
workers. Everyone but the "Brick" knows toil is absent from paradise.
srd
Karl Burg
>... the Chinese seem to have perfected a weapon that can knock out
>satellites. The arms race does not appear to be over for the Chinese.
For me exactly this is another important example of an attempt of the
Chinese to prepare themselves for an imperialistic fight with the US.
Their aim seems to be to become a major kapitalist big power , an
imperialist power. The chinese fights against a "unipolar" "hegemonic"
- read US-dominated - world, to which they offer their concept of a
"multipolar" world are a programm for conflict with the US which is
easy to see. When the US does everything they can to repeat their
containment policies of former decades then against the Soviet Union,
the Chinese counter it also with their moves to turn the PLA into a
modern high tech army a marine usable for wars against Japan and the
US and of course alo a strategy for satellite warefare.
On the international scale they follow the old slogan that the enemy
of your own enemy gives a potentially valuable friend. Thus their turn
in in their foreign policy toward Russia, India and the EU. Classical
imperialist manouvres.
They stand up against the US without yet ruining their relation. Low
key escalation so to say.
Karl
Bert Byfield
>>> satellites. The arms race does not appear to be over for the
>>> Chinese. srd
>> So that is what defines a workers' paradise?
> Workers' *state*, not "workers' paradise." Without work there can be
> no workers. Everyone but the "Brick" knows toil is absent from
> paradise. srd
Your unsavory comments aside, you have admitted that militant strength is
an inherent factor in a "workers' state." In real life, as under a
capitalist system, most people *like* to work.
Karl Burg
wrote:
>..., you have admitted that militant strength is
>an inherent factor in a "workers' state."
Indeed, as long as imperialist states will not tolerate that any state
on the earth departs from the allowed paths, workers states better
watch out. If not they usually get wiped out.
> In real life, as under a capitalist system,
> most people *like* to work.
First thing, most of the time, let us say in the last two hundred
years, they did not like it, to say the least
Secondly, even if indeed quite a lot of people take the fate forced
on them as their own dreams come true, it still is forced on them by
the simple fact, that they cannot survive otherwise. And in most
cases, it is simply stupid to *like* the stupid work, one happened to
end in.
Karl
rab
On 28 Jan, 08:14, "cromwell" <steu...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "rab" <rogeralanblackw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in messagenews:1169847243.4...@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> <snip>
>
> Healy's best works on dialectics were written in
>
> > 1982 even though all of them suffer a little from 'subjective
> > psychology'.
>
> > RogerExplain please?
>
> Geoff
Well, Healy's works on dialectics were written in addition to his
cadre schools in Derbyshire in order to educate the leading cadre of
the WRP and break them from the influence of bourgeois ideology (or at
least take major steps along this road). The problem as I see it was
that British society (both bourgeoisie and working class) were heavily
influenced by the philosophy of empiricism which was the major trend
in British thought and underlies the vast majority of natural science
as well. (That is one reason that natural science can sometimes live
side by side with various religions).
The subjective idealism of Bishop Berkeley and others is one aspect
(one trend) of empiricism but certainly not the whole of it (and all
deserve to be studied). Healy focussed on subjective idealism because
it caused the most practical problems in the WRP and because Lenin had
written extensively on this in 1908. However, whilst Lenin confronted
the philosophical outlook of those who tried to import subjective
idealism into the Bolshevik Party Healy only tackled this
tangentially. Healy also relied upon methods derived from the
discipline of psychology, itself a product of empiricism in philosophy
and natural science. But this did not just affect his political
practice it also affected his philosophy and despite his materialism
and his dialectical logic he nevertheless introduced his own
subjectivism into his philosophical writings. These writings still
remain useful and contain much that is materialist and dialectical.
However the point of departure of making new discoveries in cognition
was not the main point when a struggle against empiricism was needed.
Roger
srd
wrote:
> In real life, as under a
> capitalist system, most people *like* to work.
Then I have a question for you, Brick. Don't strain yourself, but try to
consider this. If most people like to work, why has paradise always been
portrayed as free of labor?
srd
cromwell
I am preparing a reply to your initial response, but I have decided to make
some casual remarks in relation to this little sorte into Healy's
dialectics.
Firstly, allow me to remind you of your initial remarks,
"Healy's best works on dialectics were written in 1982 even though all of
them suffer a little from 'subjective
psychology'."
You also add another detail,
"Healy's works on dialectics were written in addition to his cadre schools
in Derbyshire in order to educate the leading cadre of
the WRP"
Now I suspect you are refering to Healy's 'Studies in Dialectical
Materialism' because a)this was his major work published on materialist
dialectics in 1982 b) they were an outline of his lectures given at the
cadre school in June and July 1982 c) YOU posted this work to the NG in
2000.
Yet in the 25 lines you've posted above, no where do you directly refer to
this work. Now if Healy's work suffered from 'subjective psychology'(is
there an 'objective psychology?), even a little, an appropriate response to
my question, would have been to cite examples of this phenomenon in Healy's
discourse. But for some reason, you avoided this approach. Correct this
ommission please.
You refer to the subjective idealism and Bishop Berkeley, yet neither of
these are touched upon by Healy in the 'Studies'. Explain?
You say that Healy 'focused' on these subjects(absent from the studies)
because 'Lenin had written extensively on this in 1908.' Now Healy borrows
heavily from Lenin in the 'Studies' and references this clearly. There are
aprox seven references to Vol 14(1908) compared with aprox sixty six
references to Vol 38.(1914). Explain?
If you are not refering to the 'Studies', which of Healy's 'written'
materials on dialectics are you refering?
Geoff.
Bert Byfield
>>an inherent factor in a "workers' state."
> Indeed, as long as imperialist states will not tolerate that any state
> on the earth departs from the allowed paths, workers states better
> watch out. If not they usually get wiped out.
Churchill got this same sort of argument, and he replied that it wasn't
the quaint notions of economics that made them offensive, but their habit
of murdering so many people.
>> In real life, as under a capitalist system,
>> most people *like* to work.
> First thing, most of the time, let us say in the last two hundred
> years, they did not like it, to say the least
You now presume to speak for all people. No surprise. Socialists do it
all the time. People complain about work, yes, but really just *look* at
people around you on the job, bus drivers, waitresses, so on. Work is an
instinct.
> Secondly, even if indeed quite a lot of people take the fate forced
> on them as their own dreams come true, it still is forced on them by
> the simple fact, that they cannot survive otherwise.
Nowhere is fate forced upon people like it is under the yoke of
socialism. Nowhere is survival to tied to being in the good favor of the
bosses than under socialism.
> And in most
> cases, it is simply stupid to *like* the stupid work, one happened to
> end in. Karl
Another trait so typical of you socialists is your absolute hatred for
labor, in particular your own. You guys think "manual labor" (when it
comes to your selves) is a Mexican. So you plot a way to become a boss
and get everything while contributing nothing (except misery). You put
pretty words on this process, but that's what lies at the core.
Bert Byfield
>> capitalist system, most people *like* to work.
> Then I have a question for you, Brick. Don't strain yourself, but try
> to consider this. If most people like to work, why has paradise
> always been portrayed as free of labor? srd
Then I have an answer for you, "The Unsavory One," which is that it is
human nature to complain, and people have some stresses in their
workplace, but work is an instinct and a valuable one. Work built the
Pyramids, the Empire State Building, Big Ben, and the Panama Canal. Look
at the men who retire and are miserable not being allowed to go to work.
There was a movie about this theme, *About Schmidt* with Jack Nicholson.
Yes, "paradise" means sitting around playing a harp, or picking coconuts,
but how many people would put up with this for more than a few weeks? The
idea that work is bad is a myth, just like the idea that socialism is a
good thing in theory is a myth.
srd
wrote:
>>> In real life, as under a
This seems disingenuous, Brick. No one even knows what work you do, if
any. If _you_ liked work, you would no doubt mention yours occasionally.
However, while Bricks are in general objects that don't change much unless
they're, well, smashed--in this instance, you seem to be changing the
subject. The question was, do people like to work, for which you
substitute and answer: would people be happier if they were without work.
You answer your question correctly; Bricks do well with the obvious.. Yes,
most people are happier when they work. But they don't _like_ it. On this,
you refuse to take their complaints seriously. While people "like to
complain" about things they don't like, they don't _chronically_ complain
about what they like. For instance, since people 'like to complain,' few
people _do _ complain_ about their own tendency to complain. Which is
something they _should_ do, if people were the way you think they
are--having a love of complaint in general.*
srd
*It is possible, however, that _Bricks_ *generally* love to complain
about everything. Not only possible, but evident.
Karl Burg
wrote:
>Then I have an answer for you, "The Unsavory One," which is that it is
>human nature to complain, and people have some stresses in their
>workplace, but work is an instinct and a valuable one.
Most people do not work for themselves, but are forced to work for the
profit of others. Wage labor is no instict of man as slave labor was
not either. "valuable" it is indeed only for those who hire men and
women to make their profits. For an enormous part of those working for
wages or salaries usefullness is nothing that can be seen. Whole
branches are existent only because private property rules. From shop
detectives to judges for instances.
> Work built the >Pyramids, the Empire State Building,
>Big Ben, and the Panama Canal.
It was a crazy campaign of uselessness to force a tenth or a fifth of
the whole population into building that damn pyramids. It gives proof
to the might of the pharaoes but nothing else.
>Look
>at the men who retire and are miserable not being allowed to go to work.
>There was a movie about this theme, *About Schmidt* with Jack Nicholson.
>Yes, "paradise" means sitting around playing a harp, or picking coconuts,
>but how many people would put up with this for more than a few weeks? The
>idea that work is bad is a myth, just like the idea that socialism is a
>good thing in theory is a myth.
It is indeed a sad fact that people tend to convince themselves of the
usefullness of those things forced on them. Young men regularly are
even proud of dying for their country, an even bigger stupidity than
loving their work.
That the governments of most states know for sure, that the love for
work is not that widespread as you claim can be seenfrom their ever
ongoing lowering or the amount of money that they hand out to jobless.
Otherwise the "incentives" to go to work would not work.
Karl
dusty
Karl Burg wrote:
> Most people do not work for themselves, but are forced to work for the
> profit of others. Wage labor is no instict of man as slave labor was
> not either. "valuable" it is indeed only for those who hire men and
> women to make their profits.
At the risk of being pedantic I have to say I wouldn't agree with that
Karl. Some of the "value" of the process of production does indeed go
to the worker. If not, why would he work?
> It was a crazy campaign of uselessness to force a tenth or a fifth of
> the whole population into building that damn pyramids. It gives proof
> to the might of the pharaoes but nothing else.
Maybe not. Maybe such monuments were a necessary part of social
cohesion in a civilised society rather than just waste for most
people.
> It is indeed a sad fact that people tend to convince themselves of the
> usefullness of those things forced on them. Young men regularly are
> even proud of dying for their country, an even bigger stupidity than
> loving their work.
You mean in Iraq only? Vietnam? What about the NLF resistance fighting
for independence and social improvement in Vietnam. Or the Red army
against the fascist hordes? Or say Australians fighting against the
potential occupation of their country by Japanese imperialists?
PS Karl, I know you think you have to keep it simple for Burt whom I
suspect is not so much simple as has a bee in his bonnet about
collectivist politics and sees the best way to deal with this is to
harrass those who engage in democratic dialogue on that subject. On
the other hand, he's sometimes a bit amusing. Like that Shakespearean
one I remember he made in reply to (?) "What is that I hear? Nothing
just the baying of an ass".
rab
On 28 Jan, 21:34, "cromwell" <steu...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "rab" <rogeralanblackw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in messagenews:1170012868.4...@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > RogerI am preparing a reply to your initial response, but I have decided to make
I have no intention of writing a 'blow by blow' critique of Healy's
'Studies' here. The remarks above were generalisations made about the
direction of Healy's work as well as aspects of its content. Do you
deny that Healy borrowed heavily from psychology in his analysis of
party practices and that these became incorporated into his philosophy
as well? Do you deny that psychology takes its philosophical basis
from empiricism and that Healy was therefore bringing this into his
philosophical work? Take the 'process and practice' of cognition,
this starts from the individual 'dialectical materialist'.
I have not come to these conclusions quickly or lightly but after
nearly 25 years since Healy's work was first published. The turning
point was reading some remarks by Evald Ilyenkov about Spinoza.
Spinoza is in many ways an 'antidote' to British Empiricism but his
'universals' are somewhat 'abstract' and not 'concrete' in containing
the particular and individual as well as Hegel pointed out. However,
Healy starts from the particular in his 'process and practice' of
cognition.
I'm not denying the importance of Healy's work for the development of
Marxism but after 25 years there are many aspects of this work that
deserve scrutiny and criticism from the standpoint of Marxism (and the
history of philosophy). Yes, Healy was good at dialectical training
and well able to train cadres in dialectical logic. He also
emphasised materialism and the importance of starting from the
external world. However, the thrust of the 'process and practice of
cognition' as elaborated by Healy remains within the empiricist
philosophical framework despite its use of dialectical logic and its
teaching of materialism.
I look forward to your more thoughtful reply which is probably better
to deal with in the 'here and now' than Healy's original writings
(which will take too much time).
Roger
dusty
challenge. Three years later the WRP imploded in one thousand
different factions. Today the trade unions in Britain, the core of the
organised working class are in tatters, leading one to the opinion
that there was something very rotten in "Healy Thought".
To say the least, it would be wrong to see any parallel between the
philosophical works of Lenin of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) in Marxism and
Empirio-Criticism and the jumble that in the most part was the
retrospectively published "Volume 38" and the WRP Healy "Studies".
What use to a marxist party and the working class is theory not joined
to the highest practice? I always thought that correct theory could
only arise from a correct practice of the party. Is it possible within
the sphere of marxism to separate theory from practice in such a
decisive way as was done in the old WRP?
cromwell
<snip>
Odd. Did I ask for a 'blow by blow' critique. Any comment
related to Healy's 'written' exposition of materialist dialectics would be
welcome. Sorry you feel so uncomfortable about the subject.
But really Roger, you were the one that wrote,
"Healy's best works on dialectics were written in
1982 even though all of them suffer a little from 'subjective
psychology'."
I only requested that you prove your claim, which surely requires
reference to Healy's writings from 1982 - Studies in Dialectical
Materialism. Without causing offense, I'm not really interested in your
anecdotes and generalisations, which smell to me like an evasion, not a
reply
to my enquiry.
No matter, I will continue with my original piece and post my own estimation
of the Studies, as well as Healy's alleged Pabloism
Geoff.
Karl Burg
post:
On 29 Jan., 11:21, "dusty" <trackdu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> At the risk of being pedantic I have to say I wouldn't agree with that
> Karl. Some of the "value" of the process of production does indeed go
> to the worker. If not, why would he work?
Indeed, wage labor implies wages, normally paid out in money, the
ultimate means of abstract value. But the purpose of wage labor is not
to imbue the workers with value. The opposite is true, the less they
get, the better for their employer to increase his profit.
>
> Maybe such monuments were a necessary part of social
> cohesion in a civilised society rather than just waste for most
> people.
It is/would be telling about the nature of your nicely worded "social
cohesion in a civilised society", if your verdict were/is true. That
monumental national "big" undertakings very often find the applause of
those suffering for this is not really a good argument. And of course
we speak of class societies since those days of Ramses et. al. Those
chaps who built the Gizeh pyramids may have been some sort of wage
workers (probably not slaves, as far as I have read) but they
definitively did not have any saying in this gigantic project.
>You mean in Iraq only? Vietnam? What about the NLF resistance fighting
> for independence and social improvement in Vietnam. Or the Red army
> against the fascist hordes? Or say Australians fighting against the
> potential occupation of their country by Japanese imperialists?
Your line of historical and hypothetic conflicts shows that you have
to look very carefully what's going on, who is fighting whom for what
reasons, before you can hand out your medals of honour. To evade a
concrete answer I would say that there are far less "just causes" than
the usual newspaper would feature. Even left newspaper.
Karl
rab
On 30 Jan, 00:10, "cromwell" <steu...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> Odd. Did I ask for a 'blow by blow' critique. Any comment
> related to Healy's 'written' exposition of materialist dialectics would be
> welcome. Sorry you feel so uncomfortable about the subject.
>
> But really Roger, you were the one that wrote,
>
> "Healy's best works on dialectics were written in
> 1982 even though all of them suffer a little from 'subjective
> psychology'."
>
> I only requested that you prove your claim, which surely requires
> reference to Healy's writings from 1982 - Studies in Dialectical
> Materialism. Without causing offense, I'm not really interested in your
> anecdotes and generalisations, which smell to me like an evasion, not a
> reply
> to my enquiry.
>
> No matter, I will continue with my original piece and post my own estimation
> of the Studies, as well as Healy's alleged Pabloism
I would like to read your estimation of the studies, I learned a lot
from them myself over the years. However, my main point is that Healy
took a lot of his material from empirical psychology and his own
empirical observations. It is my contention that much of what
constituted British Empiricism in an earlier age transferred over to
the various fashions in psychology in the twentieth century when
psychology was much more popular in the west than philosophy. Healy
borrowed from these traditions and smuggled them into his 'Marxism'.
Now anyone can study psychology, or physics, or biology or whatever
and many of these sciences will have useful material for developing
Marxism as indeed it must be developed. However, when the
philosophical method behind these sciences is substituted for
materialist dialectics then we have what is known as revisionism. It
has to be acknowledged that Healy had an encyclopaedic knowledge of
Marxism and of Lenin's philosophical works and there are many useful
quotes from Lenin's work in the studies but their point of departure
in dealing with individualism from an individualist standpoint is
mistaken. The class content of the problems involved have to be
addressed from the standpoint of the needs of the working class. What
Healy did that was new was his writing on the 'process and practice'
of cognition and this is more a work of 'dialectical psychology' than
it is of philosophy. Most of the rest of the 'Studies' can be read as
an introduction to the philosophical work of Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Trotsky but it is necessary to go back to the originals to get a
clearer picture. As Healy himself acknowledged it was a 'work in
progress' although it didn't get any better with time.
As for dealing with the actual written content of Healy's studies this
can be done when you post your appraisal.
Roger
rab
On 29 Jan, 16:55, "dusty" <trackdu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> "The Studies" were published in 1982 at the heart of the Thatcher
> challenge. Three years later the WRP imploded in one thousand
> different factions. Today the trade unions in Britain, the core of the
> organised working class are in tatters, leading one to the opinion
> that there was something very rotten in "Healy Thought".
>
> To say the least, it would be wrong to see any parallel between the
> philosophical works of Lenin of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) in Marxism and
> Empirio-Criticism and the jumble that in the most part was the
> retrospectively published "Volume 38" and the WRP Healy "Studies".
> What use to a marxist party and the working class is theory not joined
> to the highest practice? I always thought that correct theory could
> only arise from a correct practice of the party. Is it possible within
> the sphere of marxism to separate theory from practice in such a
> decisive way as was done in the old WRP?
>
You have a very formal way of looking at the world if you think that
'correct theory' could only arise from a 'correct practice' of the
party. Marxism did not develop out of the working class and its
struggles it developed from European philosophy, British political
economy, and French socialism. Even today a revolutionary party has
to look at all the major theoretical developments of the human species
to develop the most advanced Marxist practices. Of course party
practices are the source of this theory but they include serious
studies of all these developments alongside the class struggle of the
working class.
Roger
dusty
Roger wrote:
Dusty wrote:
> "The Studies" were published in 1982 at the heart of the Thatcher
> challenge. Three years later the WRP imploded in one thousand
> different factions. Today the trade unions in Britain, the core of the
> organised working class are in tatters, leading one to the opinion
> that there was something very rotten in "Healy Thought".
> To say the least, it would be wrong to see any parallel between the
> philosophical works of Lenin of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) in Marxism and
> Empirio-Criticism and the jumble that in the most part was the
> retrospectively published "Volume 38" and the WRP Healy "Studies".
> What use to a marxist party and the working class is theory not joined
> to the highest practice? I always thought that correct theory could
> only arise from a correct practice of the party. Is it possible within
> the sphere of marxism to separate theory from practice in such a
> decisive way as was done in the old WRP?
Roger replied:
"You have a very formal way of looking at the world if you think that
'correct theory' could only arise from a 'correct practice' of the
party. Marxism did not develop out of the working class and its
struggles it developed from European philosophy, British political
economy, and French socialism. Even today a revolutionary party has
to look at all the major theoretical developments of the human
species
to develop the most advanced Marxist practices. Of course party
practices are the source of this theory but they include serious
studies of all these developments alongside the class struggle of the
working class."
There is truth in what you say here, though I would defend:
"What use to a marxist party and the working class is theory not
joined
> to the highest practice? ... Is it possible within
> the sphere of marxism to separate theory from practice in such a
decisive way as was done in the old WRP?"
My sentence in the middle is wrong:
"I always thought that correct theory could only arise from a correct
practice of the party."
It would have been better worded:
"Correct theory relating to the leadership of the working class would
be unlikely to arise without a correct practice of the party."
However, I would say that the problem with the approach of the old WRP
was that it separated theory from practice. I would question if Healy
made any conquest of formal dialectics beyond Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Trotsky.
In the monumental struggle in 1939/1940 Trotsky took on those in the
SWP who, acting under the extreme pressure of "public opinion",
decided that the correct political course was to ditch the class stand
of the FI on the defence of the Soviet Union as a workers state. Not
one word of Trotsky's response is incomprehensible to any party
member. No attempt is made to guilt trip an belittle individual party
members about their "subjective idealism", no obscure Hegelianism
separated from the practice of the party designed to give a monopoly
of knowledge of the world to Healy. There is no separation between
theory and practice in Trotsky who consciously brings the dialectic
out in the analysis of concrete events in all of his writings. This
volume (In Defence of Marxism was a much studied text of the SLL/WRP
and IC sections in the sixties and early seventies.
Trotsky developed dialectical materialism from the mid 1920's onwards
till his murder. Though this was not the case earlier, little value
was placed on these writings under Healy from around the time of the
Thornett expulsions. The feeling given was that the WRP had
transcended them, including the Transitional Programme. Maybe the
purpose of this was to de-legitimise them because they contained an
easily understood presentation of the dialectic, and concrete
principles drawn from that, which were dangerous in the light of the
kinds of practice that was developing in the WRP.
On the other hand, Healy never wrote much of a profound nature about
politics. If he couldn't do that, how was he expected to make an
original contribution in the specialised area of formal Hegelian
sourced dialectical materialism beyond Lenin? This wasn't his strength
at all.
Questions:
1. Why didn't Trotsky, confronted by the gigantic and unprecedented
events of his time, see the need to write a formal text on dialectical
materialism. Why did he "simply" consciously "discover" the dialectic
in the subject matter of his writings. I think the answer was that he
gave very low priority (zero?) to this because the main theoretical
conquests had been made - at least sufficient for the purpose of
overthrowing capitalism. So what remained was to unlock the
development for the living situation using those conquests.
2. If it wasn't necessary for Trotsky, why was it so for Gerry Healy?
3. Would you give quotes from the studies that indicate that Healy
enriched dialectical materialism in those writings compared with Lenin
and Trotsky.
4. Does the party with whom you are in solidarity (the new WRP) write
much on dialectics these days?
dusty
Karl Burg wrote:
"dusty" wrote:
> > At the risk of being pedantic I have to say I wouldn't agree with that
> > Karl. Some of the "value" of the process of production does indeed go
> > to the worker. If not, why would he work?
Karl:
> Indeed, wage labor implies wages, normally paid out in money, the
> ultimate means of abstract value. But the purpose of wage labor is not
> to imbue the workers with value. The opposite is true, the less they
> get, the better for their employer to increase his profit.
I will leave this aside because, in the light of your answer and
communication problems we may be arguing at cross purposes.
Dusty:
> > Maybe such monuments were a necessary part of social
> > cohesion in a civilised society rather than just waste for most
> > people.
Karl:
> It is/would be telling about the nature of your nicely worded "social
> cohesion in a civilised society", if your verdict were/is true. That
> monumental national "big" undertakings very often find the applause of
> those suffering for this is not really a good argument. And of course
> we speak of class societies since those days of Ramses et. al. Those
> chaps who built the Gizeh pyramids may have been some sort of wage
> workers (probably not slaves, as far as I have read) but they
> definitively did not have any saying in this gigantic project.
As you say, there is historical (written) evidence that the "Gizeh
pyramids may have been some sort of wage workers." Further, the work
was done in off-season and according to VG Childe the payments that
went to the builders allowed for substantial population increases.
Further the better pyramids involved significant development of basic
geometry and engineering principles.
But my main point still stands. Like it or not the theocracy that
ruled over Egypt was progressive in its time. Part of its function was
the keep out the nubian hordes and to maintain order in a closely knit
agricultural society based on irrigation. So the "offerings" of the
population assistede this and shouldn't be judged ahistorically.
Dusty:
> >You mean in Iraq only? Vietnam? What about the NLF resistance fighting
> > for independence and social improvement in Vietnam. Or the Red army
> > against the fascist hordes? Or say Australians fighting against the
> > potential occupation of their country by Japanese imperialists?
Karl:
> Your line of historical and hypothetic conflicts shows that you have
> to look very carefully what's going on, who is fighting whom for what
> reasons, before you can hand out your medals of honour. To evade a
> concrete answer I would say that there are far less "just causes" than
> the usual newspaper would feature. Even left newspaper.
Would you reply to all these cases cited in my post:
1. The Iraq resistance
2. The NLF resistance fighting for independence and social improvement
in Vietnam.
3. The Red army against the fascist hordes?
4. Australians fighting against the potential occupation of their
country by Japanese imperialists?
Karl Burg
As a starter your last point:
On 31 Jan., 07:13, "dusty" <trackdu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Would you reply to all these cases cited in my post:
> 1. The Iraq resistance
> 2. The NLF resistance fighting for independence and social improvement
> in Vietnam.
> 3. The Red army against the fascist hordes?
> 4. Australians fighting against the potential occupation of their
> country by Japanese imperialists?
For years, these kind of questions seemed to be easy:
You should call for military support (not political, if this
differentiation really works) for all those fighting imperialist
forces, may they be politically as ugly as they come. This gave a
simple yes-answer to both the Iraq resistance, may it be religious,
may it be baathist or - in the case of Indochina for the stalinist-/
nationalistic movements.
Support for the Red army was a no brainer too: The defence of a
degenerated workes state against an imperialist onslaught. (By the
way, in comparison to real nubian hordes, the Leibstandarte Adolf
Hitler und Heeresgruppe Mitte werde no hordes but the "best" Germany
could offer at that time regarding organized might).
And as a trotskyist I never gave support to imperialsit causes
fighting another imperialist state. Therefore no support for the
"good" US against the "bad" Reich. No suppport for poor little
Australia against the Greater East Asian Sphere of Wealth.
These days I am not so sure anymore in most cases. Look at the Near
East: Is it really a good idea to support aspiring nationalists (form
the PLO and/or Hamas) against a much more succesfull national project,
the zionist state?
Even with the Soviet Union I am not as unshakable as before: The end
of the so called deformed and degenerated workers states or more
exactly the easy transformation into normal ugly imperialist
capitalist states (Russia and China) lets me think from when on did it
go wrong decisively? If this happened already in the 30ies with the
Great Purge, the base of a defencist position is gone in my eyes (You
may know one of Trotsky's last fights against the Shachtman wing of
the american SWP).
Karl
Karl Burg
> As you say, there is historical (written) evidence that the "Gizeh
> pyramids may have been some sort of wage workers." Further, the work
> was done in off-season and according to VG Childe the payments that
> went to the builders allowed for substantial population increases.
> Further the better pyramids involved significant development of basic
> geometry and engineering principles.
You sound like a Keynesian put into a time machine. No, if there was a
substantial increase in population, this resulted from better
harvests, better weather, better agricultural techniques and that sort
of real things. Handing out precious gold coins obtained from the
upper Nile did not bring this about and could not bring this about
(Therefore Keynes is dead for good these days, those eternals fans on
the reformist left ignored). I would see it the other way around: If
indeed Egypt flourished during those days, then the Pharao could order
thuch a madman's project without ruining the state at once. Still they
better had built an early version of the Assuan damm or things like
that (geometry and enginneering knowledge would have been useful for
these kind of undertakings too). Your "significant improvements" sound
a bit like those NASA-lobbyists that tried to sell their Star Wars
schemes with the side effect of the Invention of Teflon nowadays used
for kitchen pans.
Archie Forrester
But there was no such thing as coinage in Old Kingdom Egypt. The
workers were paid in kind - food, clothing, and so on. Even so, the
consumption of this food - on the scale that must have occurred during
the building of the Pyramids - would have promoted better nutrition in
the peasant population and left more peasants in a better position to
have more children - these are rudimentary and well-attested
demographic processes - this in turn promoting population growth, and,
all else being equal, and allied to the advances in engineering and
geometry mentioned above, the expansion of irrigation projects in the
Nile Valley.
The Pyramid-building projects also involved and intensified
specialisation - they kept in constant employment large teams of
skilled artisans in the employ of the State.
And it's probably reasonable to assume, too, that the Pyramid-building
projects led to considerable advances in the further development of
writing and administration.
We have no evidence that the peasant-builders were working under
coercion - they may well have done what they did because they regarded
the success of the Pharaoh in the afterlife as being intimitely bound
up with their own success as a COMMUNITY in this world. Moreover, the
sate-labour forces that worked on the Pyramids were later used for
other, less conspicuous public works projects.
So the construction of the Pyramids of using the labour of workers
from the Nile Valley villages promoted a more-or-less interdependent
mixture of labour specialisation, population growth, intensification
of agriculture, technological and bureaucratic advances of various
kinds, the use of labour under the command of the state to build
public works, and the God-King ideology of a cohesive, civilised,
heavily stratified society.
All of which, in historical terms, points unmistakably to progess.
Events like the building of the Pyramids must be seen in those terms
if we are to avoid falling into the trap of evaluating history a-
historically.
As for this:
"And as a trotskyist I never gave support to imperialsit causes
fighting another imperialist state. Therefore no support for the
"good" US against the "bad" Reich. No suppport for poor little
Australia against the Greater East Asian Sphere of Wealth."
Are you really saying that you would have remained neutral over who
won the War? What about the interests of the working people in the
USSR and Australia under Fascism? Or isn't this important to you "as a
Trotskyist"?
Karl Burg
<shaked...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>But there was no such thing as coinage in Old Kingdom Egypt. The
>workers were paid in kind - food, clothing, and so on.
I do neither pretend to be an expert in ancient money nor in
egyptology. But your correction to my joke makes the important point:
The consumption of those masses allocated to the project Gizeh came at
the expense of the rest of the population, mainly the peasants.
> Even so, the
>consumption of this food - on the scale that must have occurred during
>the building of the Pyramids - would have promoted better nutrition in
>the peasant population and left more peasants in a better position to
>have more children - these are rudimentary and well-attested
>demographic processes - this in turn promoting population growth,
For me it is exactly the other way round. The extra "tax" for the
pyramids depressed the living standards of the peasants.
>all else being equal, and allied to the advances in engineering and
>geometry mentioned above, the expansion of irrigation projects in the
>Nile Valley.
>The Pyramid-building projects also involved and intensified
>specialisation - they kept in constant employment large teams of
>skilled artisans in the employ of the State.
>And it's probably reasonable to assume, too, that the Pyramid-building
>projects led to considerable advances in the further development of
>writing and administration.
It is obvious that this project was only possible and itself feeding
the described advances. But a usufull plan would have had exactly the
same effects. Perhaps they could not have built the Assuan damm, they
were no beavers, but the infrastructure could have been improved
directly with far more impact. This wise men and women should have
done, if the well being of the people living then would hve ben their
goal.
>We have no evidence that the peasant-builders were working under
>coercion - they may well have done what they did because they regarded
>the success of the Pharaoh in the afterlife as being intimitely bound
>up with their own success as a COMMUNITY in this world.
Once gain, the sad fact, that masses sacrifice themselves for their
nation and religion happens all of the time, since then till this day.
For good? No, in most cases not.
>So the construction of the Pyramids of using the labour of workers
>from the Nile Valley villages promoted a more-or-less interdependent
>mixture of labour specialisation, population growth, intensification
>of agriculture, technological and bureaucratic advances of various
>kinds, the use of labour under the command of the state to build
>public works, and the God-King ideology of a cohesive, civilised,
>heavily stratified society.
>All of which, in historical terms, points unmistakably to progess.
>Events like the building of the Pyramids must be seen in those terms
>if we are to avoid falling into the trap of evaluating history a-
>historically.
For someone who pretends not to "fall into the trap of evaluating
history" quite a heavy evaluation, I would say.
I personally do not adhere to this kind of stairway to heaven look
upon history anymore: Could it be that mankind could have been wiser
before? Basically all Cro-Magnon have been and are the same for quite
some time, since the last Ice Age at least I presume. Real progress is
a little bit late, so to say.
Karl
srd
yet we are not tempted to say the war was therefore progressive. The
difference comes by way of assessing whether the social system is
progressive at a specific time in history. Capitalism in 1940 was no
longer progressive, while the system of production based on slavery in
Egypt was progressive when the pyramids were built. Or was it? How is this
to be determined, one way or the other. Is it strange that there is yet no
theory of development of the Ancient system of production, such that would
allow this question to be resolved straightforwardly?
srd
srd
<shaked...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> But there was no such thing as coinage in Old Kingdom Egypt. The
> workers were paid in kind - food, clothing, and so on. Even so, the
> consumption of this food - on the scale that must have occurred during
> the building of the Pyramids - would have promoted better nutrition in
> the peasant population and left more peasants in a better position to
> have more children - these are rudimentary and well-attested
> demographic processes - this in turn promoting population growth, and,
> all else being equal, and allied to the advances in engineering and
> geometry mentioned above, the expansion of irrigation projects in the
> Nile Valley.
What would happen to this wealth without the construction of the pyramids?
Would it have gone unproduced, would it have been consumed by the rich?
srd
Karl Burg
If one says that every society gives those productive forces which are
the driving force of history room to develop and therefore every
society produces boundaries for the development of the productive
forces, than you condemn a given society and especially capitalism
only as a society that puts up barriers to this development. This
means in revers that yesterday capitalism allowed this development of
the productive forces and this it did better than feudalism before.
But then exploitation is not seen any more under the viewpoint who has
to work for whom? Who has the benefits from the whole thing? Then this
is a phase of history in which exploitation is a good thing and ok.
This sordid category "progressive" is just historical metaphysics:
History has the inherrent drive forward. Every dirty mess against the
population is ok, if only "history" advances, if the productive forces
get developped. That these productive forces always have been
devolopped only for exploitation is nothing embarassing anymore.
It is true, the enormous development of te productive forces that
mankind has seen during the last few hundred years has been organized
by capitalists. And only for their well being, for their purposes and
only in that degree and a way that was appropriate for their purposes.
But to draw the conclusion from this mere fact, that mankind needed
the capitalists, because he invented the modern machine, this
interpretation is wrong. It is in no way true that man can develop no
machines if there are no capitalists, who whips him up, who can use
these machines to save wages. It is true: for centuries the
development of the productive forces happened in capitalist forms. But
this is a mere fact, no neccessity!
Karl
Karl Burg
Before asking where it would have gone, I would rather ask, where did
it come from, who had to hand it over to the state agencies?
And oviously even the priests and the court could probbl not have
eaten up all the goods that where necessary to sustain the workforce
for the pyramids.
Karl
rab
> However, I would say that the problem with the approach of the old WRP
> was that it separated theory from practice. I would question if Healy
> made any conquest of formal dialectics beyond Marx, Engels, Lenin and
> Trotsky.
Well Healy did write original material on the dialectics of cognition
which he found useful for training the leading cadre in the WRP. My
criticisms of this are in the reply to Geoff.
> In the monumental struggle in 1939/1940 Trotsky took on those in the
> SWP who, acting under the extreme pressure of "public opinion",
> decided that the correct political course was to ditch the class stand
> of the FI on the defence of the Soviet Union as a workers state. Not
> one word of Trotsky's response is incomprehensible to any party
> member. No attempt is made to guilt trip an belittle individual party
> members about their "subjective idealism", no obscure Hegelianism
> separated from the practice of the party designed to give a monopoly
> of knowledge of the world to Healy. There is no separation between
> theory and practice in Trotsky who consciously brings the dialectic
> out in the analysis of concrete events in all of his writings. This
> volume (In Defence of Marxism was a much studied text of the SLL/WRP
> and IC sections in the sixties and early seventies.
I think that Trotsky's work as published in 'In Defence of Marxism'
was cut short by his assassination and that he would have gone more
deeply into the philosophical questions in the struggle with Burnham
and Schachtman. Lenin went much further in 1908 when confronted by
the revisionism of Bogdanov and others.
> Trotsky developed dialectical materialism from the mid 1920's onwards
> till his murder. Though this was not the case earlier, little value
> was placed on these writings under Healy from around the time of the
> Thornett expulsions. The feeling given was that the WRP had
> transcended them, including the Transitional Programme.
The Transitional Programme was never 'transcended'. The essential
point in the dispute with the OCI as I understand it was that although
the Transitional Programme remained relevant for the present day it
was still necessary to develop the Marxist world outlook to understand
the living events in all their complexity and not rely on a fixed
programme however relevant.
Maybe the
> purpose of this was to de-legitimise them because they contained an
> easily understood presentation of the dialectic, and concrete
> principles drawn from that, which were dangerous in the light of the
> kinds of practice that was developing in the WRP.
Well the complexities of world politics are not necessarily 'easily
understood' and those interpretations of dialectics that are 'easily
understood' are often distorted and formalised as in many of the
lesser Stalinist philosophical works. You don't have to be a rocket
scientist to understand revolutionary politics but it may well help if
you are.
>
> On the other hand, Healy never wrote much of a profound nature about
> politics. If he couldn't do that, how was he expected to make an
> original contribution in the specialised area of formal Hegelian
> sourced dialectical materialism beyond Lenin? This wasn't his strength
> at all.
His real strength was in training the leading cadre. He should have
had more help from the leading intellectuals of the WRP of the time
who could have pointed out sometimes when he was going astray. I
never understood why Banda didn't lead when he was General Secretary.
> Questions:
> 1. Why didn't Trotsky, confronted by the gigantic and unprecedented
> events of his time, see the need to write a formal text on dialectical
> materialism. Why did he "simply" consciously "discover" the dialectic
> in the subject matter of his writings. I think the answer was that he
> gave very low priority (zero?) to this because the main theoretical
> conquests had been made - at least sufficient for the purpose of
> overthrowing capitalism. So what remained was to unlock the
> development for the living situation using those conquests.
Well the dialectic is in the subject matter but if it is developed it
can take very abstract forms indeed. Just a glance at Hegel will show
this and for Marx Hegel's dialectic was just 'stood on its head' but
nowhere did he say that Hegel took the dialectic too far even if he
could be criticised for mysticism at times. Marx himself had more
important things to do than write a comprehensive critique of Hegel.
> 2. If it wasn't necessary for Trotsky, why was it so for Gerry Healy?
As I said before I think that Trotsky hadn't said his last word on the
subject.
> 3. Would you give quotes from the studies that indicate that Healy
> enriched dialectical materialism in those writings compared with Lenin
> and Trotsky.
Actually I don't think any writer has gone beyond the treatment of
dialectics that Lenin did in his philosophical notebooks and the
frustrating thing is that they weren't written with a mind to be
published. Evald Ilyenkov's writing is very good but the scope of
Lenin's notebooks are far greater. But Lenin wrote these during the
intense years of World War I when many people were questioning the
very nature of logic. What Healy did was introduce a new generation
to these writings and hew popularised them to some extent.
> 4. Does the party with whom you are in solidarity (the new WRP) write
> much on dialectics these days?
It's taught in the party schools although there is not much published
that I've seen. I wrote a piece on dialectics that was published in
the News Line in the 1990s. That wasn't directly connected to the
class struggle but was more to do with exercising the mind (as was
Trotsky's comparison with piano exercises.)
Roger
srd
That's essentially the analysis I had in mind, but the result (at least as
a thought experiment) seems equivocal. It seems likely that the wealth in
part represented an increase in the amount of productive capital available
to society and in part a tax on the peasants. Does the progressive or
reactionary character of the project depend on which predominates, that
is, on whether the net effect on productive capital is positive or
negative?
srd
srd
> It is true, the enormous development of te productive forces that
> mankind has seen during the last few hundred years has been organized
> by capitalists. And only for their well being, for their purposes and
> only in that degree and a way that was appropriate for their purposes.
> But to draw the conclusion from this mere fact, that mankind needed
> the capitalists, because he invented the modern machine, this
> interpretation is wrong. It is in no way true that man can develop no
> machines if there are no capitalists, who whips him up, who can use
> these machines to save wages. It is true: for centuries the
> development of the productive forces happened in capitalist forms. But
> this is a mere fact, no neccessity!
If you are right, Trotsky could have argued for the possibility of
socialist revolution in Russia based on the invalidity of the Menshevik
premise instead of its reinterpretation. But the degeneration of the
October revolution would not be explainable by its isolation, because the
possibility of socialism does not depend on the level of development of
the productive forces. Do you agree that your position is "revisionist"?
If so, it would be interesting to look at why Marx concluded that class
society was necessary for the productive forces to develop. Nobody has
questioned it much. Perhaps it was just left-Hegelian presupposition.
srd
srd
wrote:
> Actually I don't think any writer has gone beyond the treatment of
> dialectics that Lenin did in his philosophical notebooks and the
> frustrating thing is that they weren't written with a mind to be
> published. Evald Ilyenkov's writing is very good but the scope of
> Lenin's notebooks are far greater. But Lenin wrote these during the
> intense years of World War I when many people were questioning the
> very nature of logic. What Healy did was introduce a new generation
> to these writings and hew popularised them to some extent.
But earlier you wrote that Healy did _original_ work in dialectics. Was he
original or a populariser of Lenin? If he never exceeded the highest point
already attained, in what sense was he original?
srd
Einde O'Callaghan
nothing to do with Marxism - see, for example, Marx & Engels, Manifesto
of the Communist Party, Chapter 1.
Einde O'Callaghan
Karl Burg
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
>Whatever about the merits or otherwise of this position it has little or
>nothing to do with Marxism - see, for example, Marx & Engels, Manifesto
>of the Communist Party, Chapter 1.
Whatever the merits of this comments, your observation is correct. I
assumed, that it is not neccessary, to emphasis this.
Karl
Karl Burg
>... Does the progressive or
>reactionary character of the project depend on which predominates, that
>is, on whether the net effect on productive capital is positive or
>negative?
If you ask me, then you are asking the wrong person: Meanwhile I doubt
this progressiveness as a measuring stick for the facts of history. As
Einde posted somewhat embarressed, this goes against one of the
central tenets of Marxism/Leninism/Trotzkism. Put perhaps this is one
of the reasons why things went wrong after the revolution (and even
before this watershed).
Karl
srd
I wrote this before reading your other post. But I responded to your other
post before Einde.
srd
Einde O'Callaghan
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:04:47 -0800, srd <srd1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>... Does the progressive or
>>reactionary character of the project depend on which predominates, that
>>is, on whether the net effect on productive capital is positive or
>>negative?
>
>
> If you ask me, then you are asking the wrong person: Meanwhile I doubt
> this progressiveness as a measuring stick for the facts of history. As
> Einde posted somewhat embarressed, this goes against one of the
> central tenets of Marxism/Leninism/Trotzkism.
Not at all embarrassed - just establishing the parameters of teh
discussion, i.e. a discussion with a non-Marxist, rather than a
discussion within Marxism.
> Put perhaps this is one
> of the reasons why things went wrong after the revolution (and even
> before this watershed).
>
The rather hackneyed "original sin of Marxism" thesis - totally idealist
with no reference to material realities.
Einde O'Callaghan
Archie Forrester
> On 31 Jan 2007 05:30:32 -0800, "Archie Forrester"
>
Actually, what I said was:
> >if we are to avoid falling into the trap of evaluating history a-
> >historically.
The last word ("a-historically") is crucial to the meaning of the
sentence. Of course I don't "pretend not to evaluate history", and I
don't think anything I've said would indicate that I do.
You seem to be implying that the social status quo ante the building
of the Pyramids was one of idyllic, egalitarian, caring and sharing
village life. If you are, think again. Long before the unification of
Egypt, village communities along the Nile were bound together in
socially stratified chiefdoms, the heads of which, like the Pharaohs,
extracted taxes from the peasants.
Neither the unification of Egypt, nor the building of the Pyramids at
Giza can be regarded as the catalyst for the processes by which the
surplus was alienated from the hands of the peasantry, since these
processes had been in train for at least 1,000 years before the
building of the Giza Pyramids was even commenced, and for 500 years
prior to unification.
Egyptian unification was, it appears, a predominantly organic (rather
than coercive) event arising out of cooperative irrigation projects
among Nile Valley chiefdoms in the late 3rd century BC. Unification
was therefore an undeniably progressive event, its success at least
partly contingent, at least initially, on its capacity to provide
better harvests for the peasants. It is true that these harvests were
taxed, but better harvests in the Early Dynastic period must also have
led to a higher standard of living for the peasants - certainly
population density increased during that period.
Equally, Pyramid building was not merely historically progressive as a
force tending further to intensify social and political cohesion and
civilisation (specialisation, geometry, literacy, bureaucracy, etc.)
in general, but socially progressive in the narrower sense - it
involved the (admittedly partial) re-distribution of the surplus to
the peasants in return for their labour, which would have led in turn
to an amelioration in their standard of living, concomitantly higher
birthrates, and the further improvement of irrigation in response to
increasing population density.
The point, then, is that the production of surpluses on such a scale
would have been impossible without the unification of the Egyptian
state and the intensification of irrigation-based agriculture and the
increased exploitation of labour that attended on it. History is what
it is, and not what we would have it be. Seen in terms of historical
materialism, rather than idealism, both the unification of Egypt and
the building of the Pyramids must be regarded as progressive.
Karl Burg
> ... History is what it is, and not what we would have it be.
> Seen in terms of historical
> materialism, rather than idealism, both the unification of Egypt and
> the building of the Pyramids must be regarded as progressive.
I am in no position to doubt the factuality of what you describe as
the processes, that happened in Egypt around the time of the
unification of Egypt and the building of the great pyramids. My doubts
are more fundamental: To ascribe the label progressive to every regime
that for its own reasons that have nothing to do with the improvement
of the living standard of the masses that they govern, if they
organize something, that further on was useful. srd made the obvious
point, that then war as the mother of quite a few things should be
hailed and not fought. WWII was his example, where only a few would
think your logic to its end. But the draconian rule of exploitation of
Ramses gets your praise, "well done buddy, go on!".
Mehring, one of the most profound classical marxist historians for
instance bemoaned that the "modern" progressive catholic leader
Wallenstein did not win against those "backwards" protestant
Landesherren in Northern Germany in the 30-years-war.
I share the critic of Marx and his comrades of the capitalist
exploitation system but not their, especially Engels step by step
through history on the railway of historic progress that inevitably
lead to socialism. I know that this was/is a widespred sentiment. One
of the reasons, that so many citizens of Eastern Europe so easily fell
victim to the capitalist onslaught comes from this: When they became
convinced, that their system is no mor on the winning side of history,
"outdated" so to say, and Imperialism obviously is the winner
everywhere, then it more than neccessary to join this process and
leave the outdated loser system behind. This history is on your side
was wrong during the ascendency of the marxist/socialist workers
movement and it ad desastrous ideological impacts when imperialism put
the screws on.
Karl
Karl Burg
interkom.de> wrote:
> ...just establishing the parameters of the
> discussion, i.e. a discussion with a non-Marxist, rather than a
> discussion within Marxism.
Could it be, that the phrase Marxist is something that does not imply
that the totality of the work and theses of Marx (and Engels just for
a starter) has to be accepted as correct? Anyway, as long as I used
labels like this, I "only described myself as Trotskyist, Marx was and
is someone I hardly know or have read. (once there was a joke in the
First International about the Marxist in the Polish Party - if I
remember it correctly it can be found in Deutschers writings. When the
leader was asked what he based his Marxism on he answered: Well
actually I have not read anything from Marx myself, but Kautsky has
written a shorthand version of his thesis. Well I even have not read
this thing either, but our party theoretian has written a little piece
about Kautsky, and this I have read of course.)
> The rather hackneyed "original sin of Marxism" thesis - totally idealist
> with no reference to material realities.
I am quite familiar with the material realities that you refer to. But
once again this gives a unavoidablitiy to a mere fact, the sad fact,
that the October Revolution was lost (But don't ask me when!). I refer
to wrong politics such as the arguments brought forward by Lenin for
the NEP for instance: Instead of stating simple, we the revolutionary
workers are to weak to supply the peasants whith the good they need in
peace because we don't have them and we are militarily to week to
simply grab the grain, he invented the neccessity to apply the
Wertgesetz from a socialist viewpoint.
Karl
srd
> I refer to wrong politics such as the arguments brought forward by Lenin
> for the NEP for instance: Instead of stating simple, we the revolutionary
> workers are to weak to supply the peasants whith the good they need in
> peace because we don't have them and we are militarily to week to simply
> grab the grain, he invented the neccessity to apply the Wertgesetz from a
> socialist viewpoint.
If the problem was the workers were too weak (too poor?), lacking goods to
trade for grain, how would the NEP help? On the other hand, if a mode of
production is feasible only after a sufficient development of the
productive forces, collectivising agriculture in truth might have been
premature.
srd
Karl Burg
> If the problem was the workers were too weak (too poor?), lacking goods to
> trade for grain, how would the NEP help? On the other hand, if a mode of
> production is feasible only after a sufficient development of the
> productive forces, collectivising agriculture in truth might have been
> premature.
I do not want to go into the details of the archetype of
postrevolutionary discussions, whether the NEP was wrong or correct.
My argument was, that even given that this retreat, temporarily
retreat, was unavoidable (which is hardly to deny), the arguments the
Bolsheviks presented for its defence were flawed: In the bad tradition
of the "law" of history Lenin put forward the "law" of socialist/
communist economic policy. Both cases are examples of bad metaphysics
to me.
Karl
srd
My point responded to that argument, but perhaps I'm unaware of the whole
argument you refer to. My response implied that the correct argument
related the retreat to the level of development of the productive forces
and that the retreat would not be defensible on your position, which
repudiates any relation between the extent of development of the
productive forces and the quality of the exploitative relations society
must tolerate.
Does this "law of socialist/communist economic policy" refer to something
different?
srd
Karl Burg
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
>Whatever about the merits or otherwise of this position it has little or
>nothing to do with Marxism - see, for example, Marx & Engels, Manifesto
>of the Communist Party, Chapter 1.
A (roughly translated) quote from a speech some fifteen years old:
"Either I critize a given economic/political formation and come to the
result: the productive forces of this society are not beneficial for
the toilers in this society. Or I do bemoan that for instance in a
capitalist society productive the means of production get destroyed if
they are not useful for the purposes of capitalism. And why should
capitalism not do this. Therefore for me capitalist crises are are
clear sign for the obvious fact, that in this society money is all
that counts. And therefore everything gets sacrified for the aim of
having more money. If production does not promise more money then the
workers are thrown onto the street the usefil materials stay unused.
The use value gets sacrified for exchange value. Why then should a
society run into limits and bounderies if it sacrifies use value which
is useless for it anyway? Very soon you reach a point that could be
found in Marx writings already, that you become historical
metaphysics. The argument then is that Marx did not lay out a critic
of a way of production that was/is detriments for those living in it,
but he invented the clockwork of history. That time is running out for
capitalism. With this a critic is mixed up with a prognosis.
Capitalism then is not a bad productive system sen from the standpoint
of consumption of the masses, no capitalism then is system, which does
make it any longer. That marches straight foward into a final deadly
crisis. This change of approach can be found in Marx' writings already
and has been expanded enormously by later communists. If a productive
system can not make use of something then it cannot fail because it
did not maximize the productive forces. No society develops means of
production which are not useful for this system or in this system.
Either there are people, who say it is enough, we want to get rid of
you bosses, or there is not the slightest reason why history itself
should say: This has to stop! There exists no law of history beyond
the judgement of the people whether a given system is suitable and
practible for them or rather detrimental to their aspirations."
(it was given by Peter Decker, literally the leading spokesman for the
MG in Germany then and now)
Karl
srd
inevitable--but viewing class societies as a historical wrong turn leads
to a grave pessimism--socialism is impossible. If class societies were
always irrational, why have no radical socialist experiments been
successful?
How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex
question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of "Spartacus."
His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the
paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation
being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead--speaking at
least for myself--it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the
productive capacity of capitalism was exhaused circe 1907.
But in general it seems to me that the progressive role of class societies
is far briefer than may have been implicitly supposed. Marx thought
socialism was achievable decades before the date Lenin concluded
capitalism had been exhausted. When was capitalism progressive. If it
first took state power at the end of the 18th century, it might appear
that capitalism was strong and progressive for maybe 50 years. During that
time, the contradiction between the interests of the bourgeoisie and
workers was attenuated. Perhaps for ancient societies, the progressive
period was of similar proportions.
srd
Archie Forrester
> Archie Forrester schrieb:
>
> > ... History is what it is, and not what we would have it be.
> > Seen in terms of historical
> > materialism, rather than idealism, both the unification of Egypt and
> > the building of the Pyramids must be regarded as progressive.
>
> I am in no position to doubt the factuality of what you describe as
> the processes, that happened in Egypt around the time of the
> unification of Egypt and the building of the great pyramids. My doubts
> are more fundamental: To ascribe the label progressive to every regime
> that for its own reasons that have nothing to do with the improvement
> of the living standard of the masses that they govern, if they
> organize something, that further on was useful. srd made the obvious
> point, that then war as the mother of quite a few things should be
> hailed and not fought. WWII was his example, where only a few would
> think your logic to its end. But the draconian rule of exploitation of
> Ramses gets your praise, "well done buddy, go on!".
You seem to be talking about intentions here - were they humane/
compassionate/etc. The Pyramids were not intended for the use of the
Egyptian masses, but to guarantee the passage of the Pharaohs into the
afterlife; therefore neither Pyramid-building, nor anything connected
with it, can be seen as historically progressive. And if intentions
are the measure of historical progress......well, then we run into BIG
problems...
This sounds to me much more like left-liberal Christian
humanitarianism - anachronistically applied to an Oriental Despotism
of 4,500 years ago - than anything approaching historical materialism.
srd
> I am quite familiar with the material realities that you refer to. But
> once again this gives a unavoidablitiy to a mere fact, the sad fact,
> that the October Revolution was lost (But don't ask me when!).
Speaking purely from theory and the coarsest facts, I see only a single
candidate time when a social counter-revolution could have occurred,
indeed, would be predicted to occur. When was it--1921 or 1922--when the
Bolsheviks viewed their role as maintaining a proletarian dictatorship
without the proletariat--the proletariat having been either killed or
dispersed into the Red Army_ What kind of concept is that? One may buy
that a working class that consitutes a small social minority can, by
virtue of its centralization, become the ruling class in society. The
maintenance of a proletarian dictatorship when the proletariat has ceased
to exist entirely, however, is no more plausible than the proletariat
initiating a social revolution before it comes into existence.
srd
Karl Burg
> 'History is on our side' tends to a smug fatalism--socialism is
> inevitable--but viewing class societies as a historical wrong turn leads
> to a grave pessimism--socialism is impossible. If class societies were
> always irrational, why have no radical socialist experiments been
> successful?
Your question is my question too. And I have to admit, that I do not
have an answer. But I will not accept the underlying thesis, that
those who won during the last few millenniums were always right. That
their victories their expoitation system were necessary and justified.
No they simply won. And when it went the other way round, as with the
Bolsheviks, it still is nothing more than a mere fact, yes they won.
If they had lost the civil War, not only every Menshevik would have
said, I told you so, communism is against the laws of history, stay
away from this bloody experimens!
> How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex
> question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of "Spartacus."
> His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the
> paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation
> being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead--speaking at
> least for myself--it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the
> productive capacity of capitalism was exhaused circe 1907.
It is obviously ridiculous to search for the magic date. No,
capitalism never has or will exhaust its drive to accumulate. This
system has never been "progressive" and it will not be in the future,
whatever inventions and machinery the profit driven engineers are
ordered to invent in the future. This futile search for the clipping
point has led communist from the old days on (Luxemburg for example)
to look out for the final showdown as proof for this theory. The
Healyites were the most famous/infamous for this "the end is near!"
argument of a final crisis as a good argument for becoming a communist
critic of the capitalist system. As it did not materialize lots of
people won by this went back into the willing subordination of
capitalist wage slavery. Success is "the" proof of correctness and
necessity.
Yes the imperialist states increased the productive forces more
rapidly than the COMECON states. And consequently millions of
Stalinist went over to capitalism as obviously the system of still
historic future. They should have done better and a good starting
point would have been the reevaluation of this wrong theory of
historic development.
Karl
Karl Burg
> You seem to be talking about intentions here - were they humane/
> compassionate/etc. The Pyramids were not intended for the use of the
> Egyptian masses, but to guarantee the passage of the Pharaohs into the
> afterlife; therefore neither Pyramid-building, nor anything connected
> with it, can be seen as historically progressive. And if intentions
> are the measure of historical progress......well, then we run into BIG
> problems...
I am surprised now, as you now insist on arguments I would have made.
Indeed, the "The Pyramids were not intended for the use of the
Egyptian masses, but to guarantee the passage of the Pharaohs into the
afterlife; therefore neither Pyramid-building, nor anything connected
with it, can be seen as historically progressive". Exactly my point.
It is misleading to apply a yardstick of development of the productive
forces etc. to a historic situation where something completely
different was the ruling aim and purpose. Otherwise you end with
something like the old joke (unfortunately often told as really meant)
of a soldier of WWII that says, well I have been through a rough times
those days, but at least I managed to see interesting foreign
countries I would have never seen in peace!
Karl
Karl Burg
>Speaking purely from theory and the coarsest facts, I see only a single
>candidate time when a social counter-revolution could have occurred,
>indeed, would be predicted to occur. When was it--1921 or 1922--when the
>Bolsheviks viewed their role as maintaining a proletarian dictatorship
>without the proletariat--the proletariat having been either killed or
>dispersed into the Red Army_ What kind of concept is that?
A substitutionalistone of course. But Lenin did not speak of the
proletariat in a sociological or demographic sense but his concern was
the most consious vanguard of the class. And this had indeed
unfortunately been decimated or changed their role in society that the
Bolsheviks could speak of "a proletarian dictatorship without the
proletariat".
>One may buy
>that a working class that consitutes a small social minority can, by
>virtue of its centralization, become the ruling class in society.
This sounds very rigid. Power politics in a semi military
confrontation (Which it was too of course) If you see it more from th
content of proletarian rule, the programm of smashing wage labor and
th commodity system by establishing a planned economy for the need of
all those living under this proletarian rule its not so much a
question of numerics but of convictions and arguments that hopefully
win the heads of the people.
>The maintenance of a proletarian dictatorship
> when the proletariat has ceased
>to exist entirely, however, is no more plausible than the proletariat
>initiating a social revolution before it comes into existence.
In a strict semantical sense it is obviously true. But mere feactually
even in the darkest days in the early 1920ies the workers had not
vanished alltogether.
Your second question is even more semantical: Yes, the abolition of
the feudal system for instance by a successful peasant revolt under
the leadership of city artisans or any other conceivable social
composition would not have been proletarian in its narrow sense. Does
this mean that nothing was possible at all before the numerical rise
of the working class made it possible (but unfortunately not real)?
Karl
srd
> Your question is my question too. And I have to admit, that I do not
> have an answer. But I will not accept the underlying thesis, that
> those who won during the last few millenniums were always right. That
> their victories their expoitation system were necessary and justified.
> No they simply won. And when it went the other way round, as with the
> Bolsheviks, it still is nothing more than a mere fact, yes they won.
> If they had lost the civil War, not only every Menshevik would have
> said, I told you so, communism is against the laws of history, stay
> away from this bloody experimens!
But with this position it seems you must repudiate any kind of scientific
approach to history. If who "wins" is completely adventitious, then the
flow of history is random. I by no means think that is an absurd position.
It doesn't follow that philosophical realism must be repudiated, as Engels
or Marx (I haven't read them with the idea of making distinctions)
sometimes seem to think. Anti-historicism is, moreover, what everyone
instinctively believes. But it seems to take us back to utopian socialism
or to lead to giving up the socialist project.
What isn't clear to me is why exactly you have concluded against the
Engels-Plekhanov model of Marxism. That historicism has served as a
rationalization for opportunism doesn't automatically discredit the
former. The basic Plekhanov answer is logically sound; whether it is true
may be something else.
>
>> How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex
>> question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of
>> "Spartacus."
>> His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the
>> paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation
>> being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead--speaking at
>> least for myself--it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the
>> productive capacity of capitalism was exhaused circe 1907.
>
> It is obviously ridiculous to search for the magic date. No,
> capitalism never has or will exhaust its drive to accumulate. This
> system has never been "progressive" and it will not be in the future,
> whatever inventions and machinery the profit driven engineers are
> ordered to invent in the future. This futile search for the clipping
> point has led communist from the old days on (Luxemburg for example)
> to look out for the final showdown as proof for this theory. The
> Healyites were the most famous/infamous for this "the end is near!"
> argument of a final crisis as a good argument for becoming a communist
> critic of the capitalist system. As it did not materialize lots of
> people won by this went back into the willing subordination of
> capitalist wage slavery. Success is "the" proof of correctness and
> necessity.
You may be conflating two different dates. One matter that is rathe a dead
horse is the idea that there is some final crisis from which capitalism
cannot recover. The other much more subtle idea follows from the notion
that capitalism becomes increasing a brake on the development of
production. Consequently, at some point it become, on average, more of a
brake than an expeditor. At that point the amount of capital in the world
on average in the intermediate run begins to decline rather than increase.
Periods of increase and decline, prosperity and depression, continue, but
the depressions become progressively deeper than the dpressions. It should
not be thought that this means the world becomes increasing hospitable to
socialism. As the level of technology continues to develop, the social
system becomes eventual over-ripe for revolution, so that revolution
becomes harder to make rather than easier.
I'm sure you know this stuff. I'm regurgitating it because you are not
clearly dealing with this model in your refutation of historicism. To me
it is at best an hypothesis, but surely not an absurd hypothesis.
>
> Yes the imperialist states increased the productive forces more
> rapidly than the COMECON states.
This requires careful validation. What I think we are talking about in
increasing the productive forces is increasing the acceleration in the
advance of efficiency of capital production. So it's a somewhat abstract
and indirect concept. For simplicity, as above, we often abbreviate its
specification, but to evaluate your conclusion, more precision is needed.
If this is true and if the historicist interpretation of Marxism is also
true, then it becomes an argument that COMECON was not a group of deformed
workers states and was not supportable. This implication, by itself, would
not justify, of course, rejecting the historicist interpretation of
Marxism.
srd
And consequently millions of
> Stalinist went over to capitalism as obviously the system of still
> historic future. They should have done better and a good starting
> point would have been the reevaluation of this wrong theory of
> historic development.
--
Stephen R. Diamond
srdi...@gmail.com
srd
>> The maintenance of a proletarian dictatorship
>> when the proletariat has ceased
>> to exist entirely, however, is no more plausible than the proletariat
>> initiating a social revolution before it comes into existence.
> In a strict semantical sense it is obviously true. But mere feactually
> even in the darkest days in the early 1920ies the workers had not
> vanished alltogether.
I don't have a clear sense or any statistics on the extent of the
decimation of the proletariat, but I think that if Lenin could speak of a
proletarian dictatorship without a proletariat, this probably means that
for practical purposes, none existed; that the proletariat was perhaps as
much a social force as the proletariat of Afghanistan today.
> Your second question is even more semantical: Yes, the abolition of
> the feudal system for instance by a successful peasant revolt under
> the leadership of city artisans or any other conceivable social
> composition would not have been proletarian in its narrow sense. Does
> this mean that nothing was possible at all before the numerical rise
> of the working class made it possible (but unfortunately not real)?
You are consistent, which it perhaps the most that can be expected with
such slender facts and vague theories. On your view where objective
conditions do not constrain sociological possibility, at least not
radically, talk of the working class becomes little more than a metaphor
for the most conscious exponents of socialism. Personally, if that's what
it comes to, "semantically" I would prefer to say that the class
interpretation of history has proven false.
The historical record seems to show that before the rise of the working
class, the most peasant revolutions could accomplish toward an egalitarian
society is a redistribution of wealth, which rapidly reverts to something
like the old pattern of ownership. I think China had seen a few of these,
but I don't know the details.
srd
Karl Burg
>The historical record seems to show that before the rise of the working
>class, the most peasant revolutions could accomplish toward an egalitarian
>society is a redistribution of wealth, which rapidly reverts to something
>like the old pattern of ownership. I think China had seen a few of these,
>but I don't know the details.
Indeed, it is an obvious fact, that socialism has not been
accomplished. Tried once, but even the rulers of this first attempt
gave up. And indeed the history of futile attempts in getting rid of
the expoitation in China over the decades, Marx wrote about it of
course as an example or better proof for his theory of historical
development, seems convincing. But the problem of this theory of
predetermined steps of "improvements" of "progressive" stages runs
into difficulties, as you pointed out too, why the hell the workers
have not won as they should have, according to the prognosis that
history is on their side?
Workers unfortunately are not on the side of history these days, at
least not in sufficient masses to turn things round. And very soon you
saw the remergence of historic pesssimism, the simple conclusion, if
this has not happened yet, then it could/should not happen till now.
Proof? Because it would have happend if history had demanded so.
Karl
Karl Burg
und jeder Nachfolger schlimmer als der vorherige: Endlich sind die
sozialen Wünsche, die Leiden der Menschen, und ihre Wille, sie
abzuschaffen, keine Utopie mehr, endlich ist es Wissenschaft, und die
Wissenschaft besteht darin, daß Marx die notwendigen und
unvermeidlichen Entwicklungsgesetze des menschlichen Zusammenlebens
entdeckt hätte, und das schaffte dem Sozialisten die Gewißheit, daß er
mit seinem Unmut über Ausbeutung, über Kriege, über universelle
Dumm-heit, nicht auf dem falschen Dampfer ist. Ost und West sind sich
in einer Sache einig bei der Betrachtung von Marx: Der hat die Gesetze
der Entwicklung der menschlichen Gesellschaft entdeckt. Man merkt
schon, kein Objekt mehr, es ist die reine Soziologie. Das kriegt man
dann am Rande schon noch mit in unseren Soziologieseminaren: Ja
stimmt, hauptsächlich hat er sich mit dem Kapitalismus beschäftigt,
aber das interessanteste an ihm ist, daß er eine Theorie gemacht hat,
die keineswegs nur über den Kapitalismus geht, sondern von der
Urgesellschaft über die Skl-venhalterei, das Römische Reich, den
Feudalismus, bis heute, daß er eine notwendige Entwicklungslinie
zeichnet, deren Gesetze unvermeidlicherweise zum Kommunismus führen.
Im Westen wie im Osten - man ist sich dessen sicher: Der Mann hat
eine Geschichtsphilosophie betrieben. Die ganze Geschichte in ein
Gedankensystem gezwängt, gebracht. Und das sei seine große Leistung.
Ich sage: Da haben sie sich ganz grundsätzlich getäuscht. Und ich sage
gleich dazu: eine Täuschung der der alte Idiot Marx schlimm Vorschub
geleistet hat!
...
In der Rede "Kommunismus tot" wird schon die ganze grundsätzliche
schlimme Verwechselung, die den ML kennzeichnet, gegen den ML
vorgetragen. (ML heißt Mar-xismus-Leninismus und ist die Staatsdoktrin
des realen Sozialismus gewesen). Die Verwechselung von richtig und
Erfolg. Von Mißerfolg und also falsch. Es ist die Behaup-tung,: Weil
der Kommunismus sich nicht behauptet hatte, war er ein Fehler. Weil
der Kapitalismus sich behauptete, ist jede Kritik an ihm absurd. Wie
soll man denn, wie kann man denn, - und das ist ein Gedanke wie er in
der westli-chen Soziologie schon immer gepflegt wurde - wie kann man
denn ein System, das sich in der Realität zu halten versteht, schlecht
finden? Umgekehrt umgekehrt: Schlecht finden kann und muß man Systeme,
die den Test der Rea-lität nicht bestanden haben. Das ist eine lustige
Weisheit, eine Weisheit vom Kaliber, was fällt, soll man auch noch
stoßen. Was kaputtgemacht wird, oder kaputtgeht, das hat es verdient,
kaputt zu gehen. Was sich hält, hat verdient, sich zu halten, weil es
sich hält. Das ist ein Gedanke der absoluten Anpassung an die Macht.
Die Anpassung geht soweit, daß man der Macht, weil sie sich behauptet,
das Recht attestiert. Kommunismus tot, diese Kritik hat kein Recht
mehr auf dieser Erde, warum? Weil sie sich als eingerichtete Macht
nicht hat behaupten können. Ein ande-res Argument gibt es gar nicht.
Umgekehrt umgekehrt: der Kapitalismus hat die Kritiken, die es einmal
an ihm gege-ben hat, nicht mehr verdient, die paßt nicht. Nicht, weil
er nicht kritikabel wäre, sondern weil die Kritik daran ja nicht geht,
nicht ging. Quod erat demonstrandum. Man sieht ja, die DDR geht kaputt
und ihre sozialistischen Mitmacherstaaten ja ganz genauso.
Es ist - und das ist mein radikaler Vorwurf gegen Engels als den
großen Auswalzer dieser Dummheit - es ist diese Verwechslung der
Kritik einer Sache mit der Prognose über ihre Zukunft. Es ist nicht
dasselbe, ob ich sage, dieser Kerl ist übel, oder ob ich sage, dieser
Kerl ist übel, denn er macht es nicht mehr lange. Die Verwechselung
von Kritik und schlechter Prognose war der Kerngedanke des ML: Der
Kapitalismus beutet die Menschen aus, das ist eine Gesellschaft, die
kann sich nicht mehr lange halten. Denn Engels und Marx entdeckten die
Entwicklungsgesetze der Gesellschaft: Die Gesellschaften waren bisher
immer alle Ausbeutungsgesellschaften, die Geschichte ist eine
Ge-schichte der Klassenkämpfer, diese Redensarten, die man ja alle gut
kennt. Und woran erweist sich die Wahrheit von Marx' Satz? Nicht
damit, daß die Gedanken stimmen, mit denen er die Gesellschaft
schlecht macht, die er vorfindet, und erklärte, warum sie schlecht
ist, sondern dadurch, daß man sieht, daß die Zahl der kämpfenden
Proletarier von Tag zu Tag mehr wird.
Wenn der Satz von Engels das beweist, dann ist auch das Gegenteil
richtig: wenn sie immer weniger werden, die Proletarier, dann ist die
Sache nicht gut. Denkt mal, wie radikal das durchgegangen ist: wenn
der Sozialismus einen Krieg nach dem anderen gewinnt, da war der
Zweite Weltkrieg der beste Beweis für die Lebensfähigkeit und die
Lebenskraft und die ungeheuerliche Unüberwindlich-keit das
Sozialismus. Stalin war der große Beweisführer dieses Beweises. Wenn
der Sozialismus Krieg um Krieg gewinnt, wer mag dann noch sagen, wer
mag da noch Kapitalist sein, wer mag dann noch auf der Seite der
Kapi-talisten stehen? Wenn der Sozialismus Krieg um Krieg verliert,
mal wurscht, ob das der heiße Krieg, der Kalte Krieg, oder der
Wirtschaftskrieg ist, was ist dann? Dann hat die Sache gerecht
verloren! Genau der Gedanke, mit dem der Engels angekommen ist: Marx
beweist die Un-vermeidlichkeit des Kommunismus als das Ziel und das
Resultat der Entwicklung, die vor unseren Augen vor sich geht. Genau
derselbe Beweis, mit dem der Engels eben die Qualität, den Wert der
Analyse von Marx beweisen wollte: Die kämpfenden Proletarier werden
von Tag zu Tag mehr. (heute waren wir ja in der Marx-Engels-Oberschule
in Ost-Berlin, da haben sie folgendes an der Wand: Und das kommende
Jahrhundert wird ihren Sieg bringen.) Siegesgewißheit als Argument
dafür, daß die Sache, für deren Sieg man Partei ergreift, eine gute
Sache ist. Wenn du den Gedanken teilst, dann mußt du auch sagen, wenn
es schlecht um die Sache ausschaut, dann verlassen lieber die ersten
Ratten das sinkende Schiff, denn die letzten er-wischt es ja! Da merkt
ihr übrigens die Leichtigkeit, mit der ich die Moralsprüche der
Großmutter hier untermische, das ist kein spezieller Trick von mir, es
entspricht dem Geiste dieser Theorie. Wenn ich nun sage: Der
Kapitalismus geht sowieso unter, dann ist das fast so etwas wie:
Ratten verlaßt das sinkende Schiff und stellt euch auf unsere Seite!
Leute, ihr braucht gar nichts, nur einen Opportunismus gegenüber der
historischen Tendenz. Dann macht bei uns mit, denn wir sind die Sieger
von morgen.
Ja wer das glaubt, wer dafür auftritt, der sagt dann auch die
Umkehrung, und das ist das, was mich momentan auch so erschüttert in
der DDR und im ganzen Ostblock: Ganze Völker im Geiste des
Marxismus-Leninismus erzogen! (Ganze Völker ist vielleicht
übertrieben, aber ganze Intellektuellen-Generationen mit
Kapital-Lektüre gelangweilt), und dann bricht der Staat zusammen, und
du findest keine 1000 Mann, die sagen: So nicht, ich wollte immer was
anderes, ich will es immer noch, und ich weiß auch gar nicht, was
daran schlecht sein soll. Wenn das jetzt nicht geht, dann bin ich der
Kritiker des neuen Zustands. Sondern, die sagen alle: Der Staat der
DDR bricht jetzt zusammen, der reale Sozialismus geht nicht, also
scheint das, was wir immer über den Kapitalismus gesagt haben, auf den
Sozialismus zu passen: Diese Gesellschaft macht es nicht mehr lang,
also hat sie auch keine Anhänger verdient. Die neue Gesellschaft, die
beweist ihre Lebenskraft und ihre Zukunftsorientiertheit. Also sehen
wir - vielleicht noch mit einer Träne im Knopfloch bezüglich der
sozialen Härten - die Notwendigkeit, uns an das Neue anzupassen ein.
(aus einem Vortrag 1990 in Ostberlin in der DDR)
Karl
srd
with it, can be seen as historically progressive" was *intended* by
Archie Forrester as a *paraphrase* of your position. Which is to say, he
understood it well enough to predict what you would say, even though you
hadn't yet.
His counter is that this conclusion derives from denying any progressive
historical role to the Egyptian pyramids BASED on the Pharaoh's
intentions. Intentions are the wrong standard--
for what? When we look at struggles in the distant past, one might wish to
be inspired or wish to understand the inevitable. Your position denies
historical inevitability, even in the long run. This also determines your
objective, in that you can only seek inspiration in retrospective support,
the other option having been foreclosed by your rejection of historicism.
Of course those who consider the pyramids as serving some historically
progressive role would not give retrospective political support to the
Pharaohs, but the judgment that the Pharaohs played a progressive role has
to temper their retrospective enthusiasm for anti-Pharaoh struggles. How
one stands on the struggles of a previous epoch can't be called
programmatic. To me it is _odd_ that such enthusiasm should be tempered. I
think that oddness may reflect an in the conventional Marxist evaluation
of the Pharaohs, as progressive AT ANY TIME. Ancient social development
(I'm guessing) took place after the social forms of ancient society ceased
to be progressive in any sense.
srd
Vngelis
Putin has raised the pay of doctors by a multiple of 3 and has also
offerred childless mothers $10k to have children.
Einde O'Callaghan
> Yesterdays Guardian had in the editorial some interesting snippets.
>
> Putin has raised the pay of doctors by a multiple of 3 and has also
> offerred childless mothers $10k to have children.
>
What in fuck's name is a childless mother? If a woman is childless she
can't be a mother and if she is a mother then she can't be childless!
It sounds like "only a little bit pregnant" to me.
Or is this some new-fangled Vangelian dialectical category?
Einde O'Callaghan
Karl Burg
interkom.de> wrote:
> What in fuck's name is a childless mother? If a woman is childless she
> can't be a mother and if she is a mother then she can't be childless!
>
> It sounds like "only a little bit pregnant" to me.
>
> Or is this some new-fangled Vangelian dialectical category?
Probably it is only shorthand for: Every woman has to become mother,
their purpose is to become mother. A japanese minister was quite
outspoken in this regard the other day. Vngelis seems to share this
Kinder-Küche-Kirche-outlook of days long by (or not). Or does not see
the neccessity to object this verbiage.
Karl
srd
> In a strict semantical sense it is obviously true. But mere feactually
> even in the darkest days in the early 1920ies the workers had not
> vanished alltogether.
I looked into this a little further. It seems the Russian working class
declined from about 3 million to a little over 1 million by 1921.
This all seemed to come to a head at the time of Kronstadt. Trotskyists
have justifiably had their fill of arguing Kronstadt, mainly with
anarchists, who always fail to recognize that Kronstadt in 1921 reflected
the peasantry. What happened immediately before Kronstadt, however, may
deserve more attention. Strikes had broke out in Petrograd, mostly in
seems under Menshevik influence, and the Red Army declared martial law
over Petrograd. Martial law over the most proletarian center in Russia. By
this time, the Bolsheviks were formally above the soviets. It was
immediately after these events that Lenin introduced the NEP and cracked
down still harder against dissidents, going so far as to abolish factions
in the Party. How could the working class rule where 1) there was
effectively no working class; 2) the dictatorship of a party had been
substituted for organs of workers democracy; 3) the basic requirement of
Party democracy, freedom to form tendencies, was eliminated? If the answer
is that the rule of the workers can be sustained by a leadership of those
whose ideology reflects the workers' interests, how is this distinguished
from a great man theory of history, and a crude one at that.
The proposition that Trotskyists are anything but hypocritical for
demanding factional freedom as a precondition for party democracy, when
their politics dictated support for the Leninist ban on factions in 1921,
is usually defended by pointing out that the ban was intended only to be
temporary. Was it ever rescinded? If not, what possible grounds can there
be for thinking it was intended to have a temporary character. Even if so
at the time, its continuance when Lenin and Trotsky still had everything
to say about it means they at least subsequently ratified a permanent or
semi-permanent ban.
Even had it been temporary, I think theory dictates such a measure would
be almost immediately fatal to the workers rule in a potentially
counter-revolutionary situation. The whole point of the State and
Revolution was that workers rule could be preserved ONLY by radical,
primitive, democratic measures. Such a class surely colud not continue to
exercise hegemony when disputes were suppressed within the party itself.
This thesis accuses Lenin and Trotsky of opportunism in 1921. I can
understand that the measures Lenin introduced may well have been necessary
to the regime's survival. Were that so, the only principled course would
have been to RISK the survival of the regime. That may mean that Bukharin
was correct on war policy. It seems entirely possible that the reason no
true proletarian revolution has occurred subsequently is that Lenin and
Trotsky pursued highly disorienting variant of socialism in one country by
compromising when the circumstances dictated a fight to the finish, even
if that fight ended in total military defeat.
srd
srd
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
> What in fuck's name is a childless mother? If a woman is childless she
> can't be a mother and if she is a mother then she can't be childless!
>
> It sounds like "only a little bit pregnant" to me.
>
Ever heard of an "idiom," O'Callaghan? No, not an IDIOT, an IDIOM.
A "childless mother" simply means a mother whose child has died (in which
case, she has become childless, without [arguably] ceasing to be a mother,
defined as a woman who has produced offspring). Taken literally, the
phrase is more ambiguous than oxymoronic.
srd
Archie Forrester
> On 2 Feb., 04:01, "Archie Forrester" <shakedown...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > You seem to be talking about intentions here - were they humane/
> > compassionate/etc. The Pyramids were not intended for the use of the
> > Egyptian masses, but to guarantee the passage of the Pharaohs into the
> > afterlife; therefore neither Pyramid-building, nor anything connected
> > with it, can be seen as historically progressive. And if intentions
> > are the measure of historical progress......well, then we run into BIG
> > problems...
>
> I am surprised now, as you now insist on arguments I would have made.
> Indeed, the "The Pyramids were not intended for the use of the
> Egyptian masses, but to guarantee the passage of the Pharaohs into the
> afterlife; therefore neither Pyramid-building, nor anything connected
> with it, can be seen as historically progressive". Exactly my point.
You have again (knowingly or not) misunderstood me here. I was trying
to summarise your position, not agree with it.
As I said, intentions (which are, in any case, difficult - if not
impossible - to ascertain: are we talking about REAL intentions, or
STATED intentions?) cannot be taken as the measure of historical
progress, and especially not by a Marxist.
Here, in essence, is my position on this: the unification of Egypt and
the building of the Pyramids led (whether this was the intention of
the Pharaoh or anyone else makes no difference at all), principally
via the accelerated development that they afforded to an aspect of the
means of production - i.e. irrigation works in the Nile Valley - to a
rise in the living standards of the Egyptian peasantry. These
historical events were therefore historcially progressive.
I'm reiterating this largely because I think it has implications for
many previous (and no doubt future) discussions on this site. For
example, a-historical idealists posing as Marxists are wont to claim
that working people's objections to mass immigration in the developed
world spring from "racist" intentions. But the truth is that they are
defending their material interests as a class: their strength and
cohesion to organise, their pay and conditions at work, their hard-won
standard of living and, yes, their own demotic culture. "Racist"
ideology, if it exists at all, is, at best, secondary. No honest
person would deny that the effects of mass immigration - in this
historical period - on the living standards of working people in the
West are deleterious, so that, regardless of the subjective role of
"racism" (a word oft-used but seldom defined) in all this, to a
Marxist, the opposition of workers to mass immigration must be seen as
historically progressive.
It is the governments of the "Western Democracies" that are bringing
in large (and ever-increasing) numbers of immigrants. Now, if you
accept that these "Western Democracies" are run by and in the
interests of the capitalist class, well......you must either conclude
that the bosses' intentions are "non-racist", while those of the
workers are "racist", and that, moreover, "racism" is the primary
issue, OR that the bosses are opening the borders to immigrants for
other reasons which can only be understood in terms of historical
materialism, and that THIS is what is important.
Do you understand now what I'm getting at?
srd
> Strikes had broke out in Petrograd, mostly in seems under Menshevik
> influence,
> and the Red Army declared martial law over Petrograd. Martial law over
> the
> most proletarian center in Russia.
One issue raised by the Petrograd strikers in 1921 seems particularly
ominous; I had not previously been aware of it. The Petrograd strikers
demanded an end to the special augmentation of party members' rations.
If the Bolsheviks were anyone else, people would be saying problems like
this occurred because the Bolshevik Party was not subject to the
leadership of an international party. Lenin was so apparently uninterested
in the disputes that occurred in the 2nd International that he was shocked
and surprised in 1914 when the Social Dems voted vote credits.
srd
Karl Burg
<shaked...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>You have again (knowingly or not) misunderstood me here. I was trying
>to summarise your position, not agree with it.
I too have learned the hard way, that espeicially here in the Usenet
you easily get misunderstood. Not only with sophisticated things like
irony or jokes but even with simple statements, are they meant as a
summary of what someone else has said, or are they one's own position?
Is an argument brought forward really the agument of the poster or is
it an attempt in playing advocatus diaboli, which here is far easier
to be done than in real life face to face. This is especially true, if
exchange of posts is between posters that are not "known" good enough
to expand somewhat neccessary shorthand to the complete view in
earnest that someone expresses. I therefore appologize that I perhaps
out of superficial reading did not get it with your posts so far.
Now you get outspoken in a way that cannot be misunderstood:
> a-historical idealists posing as Marxists are wont to claim
>that working people's objections to mass immigration in the developed
>world spring from "racist" intentions. But the truth is that they are
>defending their material interests as a class: their strength and
>cohesion to organise, their pay and conditions at work, their hard-won
>standard of living and, yes, their own demotic culture. "Racist"
>ideology, if it exists at all, is, at best, secondary. No honest
>person would deny that the effects of mass immigration - in this
>historical period - on the living standards of working people in the
>West are deleterious, so that, regardless of the subjective role of
>"racism" (a word oft-used but seldom defined) in all this, to a
>Marxist, the opposition of workers to mass immigration must be seen as
>historically progressive.
>It is the governments of the "Western Democracies" that are bringing
>in large (and ever-increasing) numbers of immigrants. Now, if you
>accept that these "Western Democracies" are run by and in the
>interests of the capitalist class, well......you must either conclude
>that the bosses' intentions are "non-racist", while those of the
>workers are "racist", and that, moreover, "racism" is the primary
>issue, OR that the bosses are opening the borders to immigrants for
>other reasons which can only be understood in terms of historical
>materialism, and that THIS is what is important.
>Do you understand now what I'm getting at?
Yes I do understand: your brand of Histomat-Marxism ends in positions
other "Marxists" have had before. For me this is a rerun of the social
chauvinism that killed the Second International as a revolutionary
force before and especially during WWI.
Karl
Karl Burg
<shaked...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ... the bosses are opening the borders to immigrants for
>other reasons which can only be understood in terms of historical
>materialism, and that THIS is what is important.
>Do you understand now what I'm getting at?
Of course it is true that later men and women can use the knowlegde of
the older generations in most cases. In historic times these
accomplishments were not that impressive on average anyway. On top of
that: a whole branch of knowledge is useless at least seen from a
scientific viewpoint: all the bullshit that has come from bourgeois
sciences as history, sociology, economic "science", philosophy etc.
And before capitalism ascended the science in science was even harder
to find.
But even this process was not a linear one. From ancient times on,
whole imperii and civilizations were wiped out by military victors.
And with them very often all the accumulated wisdom and knowledge. In
recent times the colonization of Latin Americ is a good example for
tragedies like this. It sounds very cynical if the high priests of the
forces that be these days in the heart of the belly of imperialism are
puttinf all those pieces of history into their success story of the
history of the development of mankind generously ignoring all those
tragedies that pave the way of their "successes".
The ideal accomplishment of this kind of thinking about "human
progress" is always that the current times are the best ever in
"history". This praise for the forces that be, especially for the
capitalist progress in civilization, is useful as a cover up for the
accomodation to these "successes".
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Karl
Vngelis
There is a tendency in university academia as exemplified by the Smith
grouping of Historical Materialism ilk that the Russian Revolutions
legacy was 'statism' and the survival of the regime at all costs
without paying too much attention to the democratic dictates of
society.
Whereas before we had the cold war school which argued the concept of
'original sin' that Lenin equals Stalin, we now have the post-
moderninst school which wants to throw out the baby with the
bathwater. ie bolshevism wasn't democratic enough when it shoud have
been at the end of the civil war.
But the Bolsheviks were relying on the German revolution. As that did
not occur and they managed to defeat the America of its day ie the
British, the fact that the revolution when in on itself has nothing to
do with bolshevism per se, but the pressure of external pressures on
an isolated and war weary state whose basic level of development at
the time is what Nigeria is to Western Europe.
The best proletarian elements those schooled in 1905 and 1917 died in
the civil war, whose scale and magnitude was immense in relation to
the size of Russia. The Revolutions lasting legacy isn't the end of
democracy but the attempt at the working poor to bring back workers
control against imperialist wars and the dead end of capitalism. The
hell of WWI which led to 60-100k dead every day, was stopped by the
Russians, no one else. They introduced planning for the first time as
state policy. They introduced basic health and education. They raised
the level of the average citizen to match the best in the imperialist
centres. They helped bring about the defeat of every single colonial
power, bar America.
The tendency nowadays to spit on the past, may indeed be fashionable.
But the past cannot be erased or ignored. It has a habit of coming
back to haunt all. The Russian Revolutions lasting legacy is indeed in
our world the Arab resistance against US imperialism. A struggle far
more isolated and far more important than Vietnam. As Luxembourg
stated of the Russian Bolsheviks, at least they dared, when no one
else did (apart from the Irish under Connoly and the Mexicans).
Sorry to ramble on but I just went to a speech by an ex-leader of
Healys WRP who attempted to speak on the lasting legacy of the
Russian Revolution and denigrated the necessity of a vanguard party
and statism as a by product of the Russian Revolution.
It appers the general thrust of this debate is along those line.
srd
> Yes I do understand: your brand of Histomat-Marxism ends in positions
> other "Marxists" have had before. For me this is a rerun of the social
> chauvinism that killed the Second International as a revolutionary
> force before and especially during WWI.
There is this central distinction from social chauvinism: social
chauvinist parties each said that "their" bourgeoisie was correct. The
analogous position on immigration would support immigration controls only
in one's own land. The subject position supports immigration controls
under defined circumstances in all places. Thus it can reflect no
chauvinist impulse.
If an analogy is to be drawn, I think the subject position has more in
common with Karl Radek's flirltation with a pedagogical adpatation to
nationalism and and attempt thereby to win a section of the radicalizing
petty bourgeoisie away from fascism. Whatever one thinks of Radek's
approach, it can hardly be said to have been motivated by anti-Semitism,
any more than the subject position could possibly express national
chauvinism, although it has been criticized as encouraging that impulse.
Personally, I find Radek's tactic attractive.
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
No, but what you find is a total adaption by some of the Left-
Communists like Ruth Fischer to the nationalist workers groups in the
Ruhr. Famous line:
"Yes, let's get the Jewish capitalists, but don't forget the German
ones too...". A huh....Zinoviev was correct to stamp this shit out in
the Comintern.
nada
Karl Burg
> There is this central distinction from social chauvinism: social
> chauvinist parties each said that "their" bourgeoisie was correct. The
> analogous position on immigration would support immigration controls only
> in one's own land. The subject position supports immigration controls
> under defined circumstances in all places. Thus it can reflect no
> chauvinist impulse.
>
> If an analogy is to be drawn, I think the subject position has more in
> common with Karl Radek's flirltation with a pedagogical adpatation to
> nationalism and and attempt thereby to win a section of the radicalizing
> petty bourgeoisie away from fascism. Whatever one thinks of Radek's
> approach, it can hardly be said to have been motivated by anti-Semitism,
> any more than the subject position could possibly express national
> chauvinism, although it has been criticized as encouraging that impulse.
> Personally, I find Radek's tactic attractive.
A sad example why even revolutionaries like Karl Radek were only able
to fight against fascists (at least as long as Stalin did not outlaw
this in 1932/33) but could critizize them in any fundamental way is
the following infamous Schlageter speech of him:
"Karl Radek
Leo Schlageter, der Wanderer ins Nichts
Juni 1923
Wir haben das weitausgreifende und tiefeindringende Referat der Gen.
Zetkin angehört über den internationalen Faschismus, diesen Hammer,
der - bestimmt, auf das Haupt des Proleta-riats zerschmetternd
niederzufallen - in erster Linie die kleinbürgerlichen Schichten
treffen wird, die ihn im Interesse des Großkapitals schwingen. Ich
kann diese Rede unserer greisen Führerin weder erweitern noch
ergänzen. Ich konnte sie nicht einmal gut verfolgen, weil mir
immerfort vor den Augen der Leichnam des deutschen Faschisten stand,
unseres Klassengeg-ners, der zu Tode verurteilt und erschossen wurde
von den Schergen des französischen Impe-rialismus, dieser starken
Organisation eines anderen Teils unserer Klassenfeinde. Während der
ganzen Rede der Gen. Zetkin über die Widersprüche des Faschismus
schwirrte mir im Kopfe der Name Schlageter herum und sein tragisches
Geschick. Wir wollen seiner gedenken hier, wo wir politisch zum
Faschismus Stellung nehmen. Die Geschicke dieses Märtyrers des deut-
schen Nationalismus sollen nicht verschwiegen, nicht mit einer
abwerfenden Phrase erledigt werden. Sie haben uns, sie haben dem
deutschen Volke vieles zu sagen.
Wir sind keine sentimentalen Romantiker, die an der Leiche die
Feindschaft vergessen, und wir sind keine Diplomaten, die sagen: am
Grabe Gutes reden oder schweigen. Schlageter, der mutige Soldat der
Konterrevolution, verdient es, von uns Soldaten der Revolution
männlich-ehrlich gewürdigt zu werden. Sein Gesinnungsgenosse Freska
hat im Jahre 1920 einen Roman veröffentlicht, in dem er das Leben
eines im Kampfe gegen Spartakus gefallenen Offiziers schildert. Freska
nannte den Roman: Der Wanderer ins Nichts. Wenn die Kreise der
deutschen Faschisten, die ehrlich dem deutschen Volke dienen wollen,
den Sinn der Geschicke Schlageters nicht verstehen werden, so ist
Schlageter umsonst gefallen, und dann sollten sie auf sein Denkmal
schreiben: der Wanderer ins Nichts.
Deutschland lag auf dem Boden, geschlagen. Nur Narren glaubten, daß
die siegreiche kapita-listische Entente das deutsche Volk anders
behandeln wird, als das siegreiche deutsche Kapital das russische, das
rumänische Volk behandelt hat. Nur Narren oder Feiglinge, die die Wahr-
heit fürchteten, konnten an die Verheißungen Wilsons, an die
Erklärungen glauben, daß nur der Kaiser, nicht das deutsche Volk für
die Niederlage zu zahlen haben wird. Im Osten stand ein Volk im
Kampfe, hungernd, frierend rang es gegen die Entente an 14 Fronten:
Sowjetrußland. Eine dieser Fronten war gebildet von deutschen
Offizieren und deutschen Soldaten. Im Freikorps Medem, das Riga
stürmte, kämpfte Schlageter. Wir wissen nicht, ob der junge Offizier
den Sinn seiner Tat verstanden hat. Der damalige deutsche Regierungs-
kommissar, der Sozialdemokrat Winnig, und der General von der Goltz,
der Leiter der Balti-kumer, wußten, was sie taten. Sie wollten durch
Schergendienste gegen das russische Volk der Entente Wohlwollen
erobern. Damit die besiegte deutsche Bourgeoisie keine Kriegstribute
den Siegern zahle, vermietete sie junges deutsches Blut, das von der
Kugel des Weltkrieges verschont worden ist, als ententistische
Söldlinge gegen das russische Volk. Wir wissen nicht, was Schlageter
über diese Zeit dachte. Sein Führer Medem hat später eingesehen, daß
er durchs Baltikum ins Nichts wanderte. Haben das alle deutschen
Nationalisten verstanden? Bei der Totenfeier Schlageters in München
sprach General Ludendorff, derselbe Ludendorff, der sich bis auf heute
England wie Frankreich als Obrist im Kreuzzug gegen Rußland anbietet.
Schlageter wird beweint von der Stinnes-Presse. Herr Stinnes wurde
eben in der Alpina Mon-tana der Kompagnon von Schneider-Creusot, des
Waffenschmiedes der Mörder Schlageters. Gegen wen wollen die
Deutschvölkischen kämpfen: gegen das Ententekapital oder das russi-
sche Volk? Mit wem wollen sie sich verbinden? Mit den russischen
Arbeitern und Bauern zur gemeinsamen Abschüttelung des Joches des
Ententekapitals, oder mit dem Ententekapital zur Versklavung des
deutschen und russischen Volkes?
Schlageter ist tot. Er kann die Frage nicht beantworten. An seinem
Grabe haben seine Kampf-genossen die Fortführung seines Kampfes
geschworen. Sie müssen antworten: gegen wen, an wessen Seite?
Schlageter ging vom Baltikum nach dem Ruhrgebiet. Nicht erst im Jahre
1923, schon im Jah-re 1920. Wißt ihr, was das bedeutet? Er nahm Teil
an dem Überfall auf die Ruhrarbeiter durch das deutsche Kapital, er
kämpfte in den Reihen der Truppen, die die Ruhrbergleute den Eisen-
und Kohlenkönigen zu unterwerfen hatten. Watters Truppen, in deren
Reihen er kämpfte, schossen mit den selben Bleikugeln, mit denen
General Degoutte die Ruhrarbeiter beruhigt. Wir haben keine Ursache
anzunehmen, daß Schlageter aus egoistischen Gründen die hun-gernden
Bergarbeiter niederwerfen half.
Der Weg der Todesgefahr, den er wählte, spricht und zeugt für ihn,
sagt, daß er überzeugt war, dem deutschen Volke zu dienen. Aber
Schlageter glaubte, daß er am besten dem Volke dient, wenn er hilft,
die Herrschaft der Klassen aufzurichten, die bisher das deutsche Volk
geführt und in diese namenlose Unglück gebracht haben. Schlageter sah
in der Arbeiterklasse den Pöbel, der regiert werden muß. Und er war
ganz gewiß einer Meinung mit dem Grafen Reventlow, der da gelassen
sagt, jeder Kampf gegen die Entente sei unmöglich, solange der innere
Feind nicht niedergeschlagen ist. Der innere Feind aber war für
Schlageter die revolu-tionäre Arbeiterklasse. Schlageter konnte mit
eigenen Augen die Folgen dieser Politik sehen, als er ins Ruhrgebiet
im Jahre 1923 während der Ruhrbesetzung kam. Er konnte sehen, daß,
wenn auch die Arbeiter gegen den französischen Imperialismus einig
dastehen, kein einiges Volk an der Ruhr kämpft und kämpfen kann. Er
konnte sehen das tiefe Mißtrauen, das die Arbeiter zu der deutschen
Regierung, zu der deutschen Bourgeoisie haben. Er konnte sehen, wie
der tiefe Zwiespalt der Nation ihre Verteidigungskraft lähmt. Er
konnte mehr sehen. Seine Gesinnungsgenossen klagen über die Passivität
des deutschen Volkes. Wie kann eine nieder-geschlagene Arbeiterklasse
aktiv sein? Wie kann eine Arbeiterklasse aktiv sein, die man ent-
waffnet hat, von der man fordert, daß sie sich von Schiebern und
Spekulanten ausbeuten läßt? Oder sollte die Aktivität der deutschen
Arbeiterklasse vielleicht durch die Aktivität der deut-schen
Bourgeoisie ersetzt werden? Schlageter las in den Zeitungen, wie
dieselben Leute, die als Gönner der völkischen Bewegung auftreten,
Devisen ins Ausland schieben, um das Reich arm, sich aber reich zu
machen. Schlageter hatte ganz gewiß keine Hoffnung auf diese Parasi-
ten, und es war ihm erspart, in den Zeitungen zu lesen, wie sich die
Vertreter der deutschen Bourgeoisie, wie sich Dr. Lutterbeck an seine
Henker mit der Bitte wandte, sie sollen doch den Königen von Stahl und
Eisen erlauben, die hungernden. Söhne des deutschen Volkes, die
Männer, die den Widerstand an der Ruhr durchführen, mit
Maschinengewehren zu Paaren zu treiben.
Jetzt, wo der deutsche Widerstand durch den Schurkenstreich Dr.
Lutterbecks und noch mehr durch die Wirtschaftspolitik der besitzenden
Klassen zu einem Spott geworden ist, fragen wir die ehrlichen,
patriotischen Massen, die gegen die französische imperialistische
Invasion kämpfen wollen: Wie wollt Ihr kämpfen, auf wen wollt Ihr Euch
stützen? Der Kampf gegen den ententischen Imperialismus ist Krieg,
selbst wenn in ihm die Kanonen schweigen. Man kann keinen Krieg an der
Front führen, wenn man das Hinterland in Aufruhr hat. Man kann im
Hinterlande eine Minderheit niederhalten. Die Mehrheit des deutschen
Volkes besteht aus arbeitenden Menschen, die kämpfen müssen gegen die
Not und das Elend, das die deutsche Bourgeoisie über sie bringt. Wenn
sich die patriotischen Kreise Deutschlands nicht entschei-den, die
Sache dieser Mehrheit der Nation zu der ihrigen zu machen und so eine
Front herzu-stellen, gegen das ententistische und das deutsche
Kapital, dann war der Weg Schlageters ein Weg ins Nichts, dann würde
Deutschland angesichts der ausländischen Invasion, der dauern-den
Gefahr seitens der Sieger zum Felde blutiger innerer Kämpfe, und es
wird dem Feinde ein Leichtes sein, es zu zerschlagen und zu
zerstückeln.
Als nach Jena Gneisenau und Scharnhorst sich fragten, wie man das
deutsche Volk aus seiner Erniedrigung hinausbringen kann, da
beantworteten sie die Frage: Nur, indem man den Bauern frei macht -
aus der Hörigkeit und Sklaverei der Freien. Nur der freie Rücken des
deutschen Bauern kann die Grundlage bilden für eine Befreiung
Deutschlands. Was die deut-sche Bauernschaft am Anfang des 19.
Jahrhunderts war, das ist für die Geschicke der deut-schen Nation am
Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts die deutsche Arbeiterklasse. Nur mit ihr
zu-sammen kann man Deutschland von den Fesseln der Sklaverei befreien,
nicht gegen sie.
Vom Kampf sprechen die Genossen Schlageters an seinem Grabe. Den Kampf
weiterzufüh-ren, schwören sie. Der Kampf richtet sich gegen einen
Feind, der bis auf die Zähne bewaffnet ist, während Deutschland
zermürbt ist. Soll das Wort vom Kampfe keine Phrase sein, soll er
nicht in Sprengkolonnen bestehen, die Brücken zerstören, aber nicht
den Feind in die Luft sprengen können, die Züge zum Entgleisen
bringen, aber nicht den Siegeszug des Ententeka-pitals aufhalten
können, so erfordert dieser Kampf die Erfüllung einer Reihe von
Vorbedin-gungen. Er fordert von dem deutschen Volke, daß es bricht mit
denen, die es nicht nur in die Niederlage hineingeführt haben, sondern
die diese Niederlage, die Wehrlosigkeit des deut-schen Volkes
verewigen, indem sie die Mehrheit des deutschen Volkes als den Feind
behan-deln. Er erfordert den Bruch mit den Leuten und den Parteien,
deren Gesicht wie ein Medu-sengesicht auf die anderen Völker wirkt und
sie gegen das deutsche Volk mobilisiert. Nur, wenn die deutsche Sache
die des deutschen Volkes ist, nur wenn die deutsche Sache im Kampfe um
die Rechte des deutschen Volkes besteht, wird sie dem deutschen Volke
tätige Freunde werben. Das stärkste Volk kann nicht ohne Freunde
bestehen, desto weniger ein ge-schlagenes, von Feinden umgebenes Volk.
Will Deutschland imstande sein, zu kämpfen, so muß es eine
Einheitsfront der Arbeitenden darstellen, so müssen die Kopfarbeiter
sich mit den Handarbeitern vereinigen zu einer eisernen Phalanx. Die
Lage der Kopfarbeiter erfordert die-se Einigung. Nur alte Vorurteile
stehen ihr im Wege. Vereinigt zu einem siegreichen, arbeiten-den Volk,
wird Deutschland imstande sein, große Quellen der Energie und des
Widerstandes zu entdecken, die jedes Hindernis überwinden werden. Die
Sache des Volkes zur Sache der Nation gemacht, macht die Sache der
Nation zur Sache des Volkes. Geeinigt zu einem Volk der kämpfenden
Arbeit, wird es Hilfe anderer Völker finden, die um ihre Existenz
kämpfen. Wer in diesem Sinne den Kampf nicht vorbereitet, der ist
fähig zu Verzweiflungstaten, nicht fähig aber zum wirklichen Kampfe.
Dies hat die Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, dies hat die
Kommunistische Internationa-le an dem Grabe Schlageters zu sagen. Sie
hat nichts zu verhüllen, denn nur die volle Wahr-heit ist imstande,
sich den Weg zu den tief leidenden, innerlich zerrissenen, suchenden
natio-nalen Massen Deutschlands zu bahnen. Die Kommunistische Partei
Deutschlands muß offen den nationalistischen kleinbürgerlichen Massen
sagen: Wer im Dienste der Schieber, der Spe-kulanten, der Herren von
Eisen und Kohle versuchen will, das deutsche Volk zu versklaven, es in
Abenteuer zu stürzen, der wird auf den Widerstand der deutschen
kommunistischen Arbeiter stoßen. Sie werden auf Gewalt mit Gewalt
antworten. Wer aus Unverständnis sich mit den Söldlingen des Kapitals
verbinden wird, den werden wir mit allen Mitteln bekämpfen. Aber wir
glauben, daß die große Mehrheit der national empfindenden Massen nicht
in das Lager des Kapitals, sondern in das Lager der Arbeit gehört. Wir
wollen und wir werden zu diesen Massen den Weg suchen und den Weg
finden. Wir werden alles tun, daß Männer wie Schlagerer, die bereit
waren, für eine allgemeine Sache in den Tod zu gehen, nicht Wanderer
ins Nichts, sondern Wanderer in eine bessere Zukunft der gesamten
Menschheit werden, daß sie ihr heißes, uneigennütziges Blut nicht
verspritzen um die Profite der Kohlen- und Eisenba-rone, sondern um
die Sache des großen arbeitenden deutschen Volkes, das ein Glied ist
in der Familie der um ihre Befreiung kämpfenden Völker. Die
Kommunistische Partei wird diese Wahrheit den breitesten Massen des
deutschen Volkes sagen, denn sie ist nicht die Partei des Kampfes um
ein Stückchen Brot allein der industriellen Arbeiter, sie ist die
Partei der kämp-fenden Proletarier, die um ihre Befreiung kämpfen, um
die Befreiung, die identisch ist mit der Freiheit ihres gesamten
Volkes, mit der Freiheit all dessen, was arbeitet und leidet in
Deutsch-land. Schlageter kann nicht mehr Wahrheit vernehmen. Wir sind
sicher, daß Hunderte Schlageters sie vernehmen und sie verstehen
werden. (Allgemeiner Beifall der Erweiterten Exekutive.)
Die Rote Fahne vom 26. Juni 1923."
taken from http://www.marxistische-bibliothek.de/radek1.html
Karl
srd
> But the Bolsheviks were relying on the German revolution. As that did
> not occur and they managed to defeat the America of its day ie the
> British, the fact that the revolution when in on itself has nothing to
> do with bolshevism per se,
To put the point as bluntly as possible, what right did the Bolsheviks
have to "rely" on a German revolution, when they did nothing until 1914 to
build a German party capable of actually leading a revolution? Was a
trained party supposed to pop into existence when needed?
Trotsky said that the defeat of the German revolution had a lot to do with
the victory of Stalinism, and Comintern error produced the German defeat.
If those errors trace to Bolshevism itself, it can't be absolved from all
responsibility for defeat. What qualified the Comintern to direct the
German revolution? It was no more qualified than the German leadership,
not having participated in the ideological struggles concerning the course
of the German movement, whether because of the nature of the Second
International or their own lack of interest.
The early Bolshevik error, if this is right, was not statism but a variant
of socialism in one country, preceded by a long-term failure to have split
decisively with the Second International much earlier than 1914. Consider
even Trotsky's later version of internationalism as it relate to
defencism. Trotsky said that there could never be a contradiction between
the defense of the Soviet Union and the promotion of international
revolution. This, however, is either sophistry or mysticism. The most that
can be said is that defencism is a vital part of the revolutionary
program, but the interests of a program and a very important partial
program can never coincide completely. There will be contradictions,
meaning that decisions have to be made concerning priorities. Trotsky's
formula artificially abolishes the need to make those decisions. Russia is
free to defend itself the best way it can, with the assurance that this
will automatically be of maximal benefit to the revolutionary movements.
Contrariwise, communists could advance the cause of revolution in their
own countries, confident that by so doing they were advancing the cause of
Soviet defence, regardless of the international alliances Russia might
have formed. Trotsky avoided decisions about these priorities. Lenin faced
them more, and tilted more toward the socialism in one country direction,
favoring immediate peace with Germany and abjuring measures designed for a
short-term revolutionary push, such as the militarization of labor.
Bukharin for a time made a still more conscious choice for he primacy of
international revolution, arguing for continuing the war. The policy
divisions among the Bolsheviks, always somewhat mysterious to me, now seem
clarified, as reflecting different implicit positions on the weighting of
efforts aimed at retaining power in Russia versus efforts at expanding the
revolution. A formula that simply equates the two does not even allow the
comparison to get off the ground.
Whatever mistakes the Bolsheviks made might indeed have been inevitable,
given the party's lack of international connections, specifically, the
lack of an international revolutionary party. At some level the
significance of this deficit impressed Trotsky, who saw to it that the
proletariat might at least have a real party when the next crisis came
along. Russia's problems and the problems of the German revolution were
problems of Russian parochialism, the opposite, of course, to what Louis
Project has here suggested, that the Bolsheviks put an excessive emphasis
on an international party.
That Russia could not endure a prolonged civil war was forseeable.
Vngelis
It wasn't an issue of reliance but of a given historical situation.
The Bolsheviks according to the strict reading of Lenin shouldn't have
even taken power when they did as Russia wasn't ripe for the Russian
Revolution. They did anyway, pre-empting a collapse of capitalism and
the weakening of the international order. They could have gone the way
of Connoly in Ireland.
If the more advanced workers of the imperialist heartlands didn't take
power, that is not the Bolsheviks fault as by analogy everything
becomes their fault. Why didn't the Indians get rid of the colonial
yoke then as well or the Chinese.
For a revolution to develop according to an unthought plan when
dealing with concrete reality given the fact that people dont make
their own conditions, is all well and good with the benefit of
hindsight. Bolshevism showed what was possible. The cultural level of
the time meant that the revolution would go in on itself, like the
French one did. For the opposite to have occurred, Lenins NEP should
have been supported by other countries, not one man eg Arnold Hammer
from the USA. By supporting Russian development a more humane process
of industrialisation would have occurred with the flourishing of
sovier democracy.
Returning to soviet democracy AFTER the harsh experience of civil war
was a necessity. But the fear of death by the party machine which
spent years in the Kremlin is the difference in perception of the
meaning of the revolution between its organisers and its backroom
boys. The backroom boys one over, not because of the failures of the
organisers but in spite of them.
On the issue of the partys international connections I would argue the
opposite. The total collapse of the 2nd international into social
chauvinism akin to todays world of the total collapse of the left into
globalism and multiculturalism and its twin anti-racism, were not the
fault of the Bolsheviks but the other way round. The Bolshevik leaders
were in exile most of their life. They learnt the ways of the advanced
west and when the time came utilised that knowledge to their own
advantage. The advanced western proletariat didn't learn the ways of
the backward Bolsheviks. Maybe the conditions weren't fully ripe.
Maybe capitalist hadn't reach a total dead end.
The actual role of Bolshevism can be interpreted if only we take
snapshots of the past and follow the 'what if' theory of the past. But
our interpretations and re-interpretations will constantly change
based on what is happening today, otherwise the meaning of the past
just becomes an academic slanging match, where things maybe said when
there was no need for them to be.
srd
> No, but what you find is a total adaption by some of the Left-
> Communists like Ruth Fischer to the nationalist workers groups in the
> Ruhr. Famous line:
> "Yes, let's get the Jewish capitalists, but don't forget the German
> ones too...". A huh....Zinoviev was correct to stamp this shit out in
> the Comintern.
Well, we disagree. I find Fischer's line correct and appealing under the
circumstances. Hopefully, you at least see that the dispute about Fischer
is not about endorsement of anti-Semitism but about whether a pedagogical
adaptation has gone too far and become a political adaptation. (But
certainly not a "total" adaptation, as you say.) Hopefully, you can also
tell the difference between your left and your right.
But let's see if you _really_ favor stamping out his "shit." -
German workers expropriate companies owned by Jewish capitalists. What
does David Walters say? Extend the expropriations to the entire big
bourgeoisie or defend the Jewish capitalists against hate crimes?
srd
Einde O'Callaghan
but the German capitalist state under the control of the Nazis. The idea
that it might be possible to win over backward petty bourgeois by making
concessions to backward racist idea was dealt a fatal blow by the
experience of Weimar Germany.
Einde O'Callaghan
srd
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
> It wasn't the German workers that expropriated the Jewish capitalists
> but the German capitalist state under the control of the Nazis.
Oh, I guess I wasn't aware of that. What are you saying here, that you
refuse to answer hypothetical questions or what?
> that it might be possible to win over backward petty bourgeois by making
> concessions to backward racist idea was dealt a fatal blow by the
> experience
> of Weimar Germany.
You haven't shown that Fischer's tactic was a concession to racism. Do you
maintain that _she_ saw it that way? The idea isn't to ratify the racism
of the workers but to recognize that what appears as racism to moralists
is a contradictory phenomenon, in part being a distorted expression of
anti-capitalist sentiment. This doesn't justify supporting racist demands,
but it does require a pedagogical approach that recognizes the
contradictory character of the workers' consciousness.
Look, if Fischer was deemed a racist, she should and would have been
expelled. Unlike the way you people treat similar ideas, Zinoviev's
objections were tactical.
srd
nada
interkom.de> wrote:
> srd schrieb:
I suspect the question was poised as "WHAT if German workers via a
revolution expropriated "Jewish" capitalists"??? Seems strangely a-
historical SRD. The 1920 German workers were being organized by the
Nazis and hosts of other worker-nationalist type groups that combined
aspects of Bolshevism with right wing anti-Jewish nationalism.
So...the question back to you is if these sectors were demanding
expropriation of ONLY Jewish capitalists, then it is a functon of
their bigotry toward a section of the German population as a whole and
not just "Jews", 90% of whom were totally assimilated into German
culture. These workers were attacking Germans of Jewish ancestry...for
what? They didn't even work for Jewish capitalists, which shows the
demagogy of the nationalists. You are correct, what Fischer et al were
doing was *adapting* opportunistically to this nationalism and
rejection an internationalist approach (which meant, in no uncertain
terms, propaganda among the French occupation soldiers).
Basically what you say is true, my criticism is the same as yours of
Fischer, but I'm looking at the whole picture...as was Zinoviev and
the rest of the Comintern (Lenin and Trotsky, etc) who rejected this
"adaptation". And no, of course, Ruth Fischer was not an anti-Semite
at all. Interestingly there was some adaptation by the then Stalinist
KDP later to the Hitlerite anti-semitism but that's another story.
David
Karl Burg
>I suspect the question was poised as "WHAT if German workers via a
>revolution expropriated "Jewish" capitalists"??? Seems strangely a-
>historical SRD. The 1920 German workers were being organized by the
>Nazis and hosts of other worker-nationalist type groups that combined
>aspects of Bolshevism with right wing anti-Jewish nationalism.
>
>So...the question back to you is if these sectors were demanding
>expropriation of ONLY Jewish capitalists, then it is a functon of
>their bigotry toward a section of the German population as a whole and
>not just "Jews", 90% of whom were totally assimilated into German
>culture. These workers were attacking Germans of Jewish ancestry...for
>what? They didn't even work for Jewish capitalists, which shows the
>demagogy of the nationalists. You are correct, what Fischer et al were
>doing was *adapting* opportunistically to this nationalism and
>rejection an internationalist approach (which meant, in no uncertain
>terms, propaganda among the French occupation soldiers).
>
>Basically what you say is true, my criticism is the same as yours of
>Fischer, but I'm looking at the whole picture...as was Zinoviev and
>the rest of the Comintern (Lenin and Trotsky, etc) who rejected this
>"adaptation". And no, of course, Ruth Fischer was not an anti-Semite
>at all. Interestingly there was some adaptation by the then Stalinist
>KDP later to the Hitlerite anti-semitism but that's another story.
The "adaptionists" come away far too cheap if their mistakes even now
are only to be found with their adaption to the gross antisemitism
that was indeed quite widespread much before the Nazis gained momentum
later on in Weimar. The main adaption was to nationalism, something
still in high regard these days with a whole bunch of revolutionaries.
Karl
nada
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:44:32 -0800, Einde O'Callaghan
>
Hmmm...no, not the same. Her opportunism was delt with politically.
Since she was not considered a racist in any event. Her grouping WAS
expelled, but for the overall issue of Left-Communism not for this
deviation in particular. "you people" seems awfully broad Stephen.
Zinoviev never made a tactical decision in his political career...it
was all or nothing. I happened to agree that he *politically smashed*
Fischer's suggestion of broad KDP orientation toward the nationalist
wing of German working class politics.
The orientation toward the Strasserites and their ilk was to orient
toward the workers as workers in a political field of struggle, part
of which meant smashing (sometimes literally) the nationalists who
functioned, often, as gangs. It meant debating them, maybe, not
adapting to them, in the factories. BTW...to put you in the view of
what was going on, this mostly took place in areas of the Ruhr that
was heavily industrialized and was occupied by Allied troops.
"Others" on this list who views I regard as racist I would argue have
no place in the workers movement (the Marxist/socialist movement) and
need to be run out, expelled, or othewise isolated for holding
reactionary positions.
Fischers group was not like this as they were not racists. However, it
should be noted that the main group, the Communist Workers Party of
Germany or KADP lost, from what I remember reading on this subject,
over half their membership to the Nazis as some point in the early to
mid-1920s. This is part of the reason why into the early 1930s,
Communist Party members were *automatically* taken in as members once
they pledged to the Fuher. Not so SPD members who went over to the
Nazis, they had to be vetted before taking the oath.
David
srd
> The orientation toward the Strasserites and their ilk was to orient
> toward the workers as workers in a political field of struggle, part
> of which meant smashing (sometimes literally) the nationalists who
> functioned, often, as gangs. It meant debating them, maybe, not
> adapting to them, in the factories. BTW...to put you in the view of
> what was going on, this mostly took place in areas of the Ruhr that
> was heavily industrialized and was occupied by Allied troops.
Yes, that's important to note, and I hadn't. To me this makes this period
particularly relevant to some of the KDE's positions. Vngelis has implied
that nationalistic impulses that respond to national oppression have a
progressive aspect, even in imperialist countries, to put the point
minimally. The nationalism to which some German Communists advocated a
pedagogic adaptation was a response to the occupying forces, hence to
national oppression, at least insofar as this is possible where the
oppressed is an oppressor.
> "Others" on this list who views I regard as racist I would argue have
> no place in the workers movement (the Marxist/socialist movement) and
> need to be run out, expelled, or othewise isolated for holding
> reactionary positions.
> Fischers group was not like this as they were not racists.
I have maneuvered myself into the position of defending Fischer, who I
don't think was even a particularly capable revolutionist. So I'm not
saying that her formulation of what was ultimately Radek's line was
terribly adroit. For one thing, it _looks_ too much like trying to suck up
to the racists. My hypothetical was more to the point of principle. If I
understood your answer, it was that if the German workers demanded
expropriation of specifically Jewish capitalists, you would defend the
Jewish capitalists. Or did I get that wrong, because it seems rather
incredible.
> However, it should be noted that the main group, the Communist Workers
> Party
> of Germany or KADP lost, from what I remember reading on this subject,
> over
> half their membership to the Nazis as some point in the early to
> mid-1920s.
> This is part of the reason why into the early 1930s, Communist Party
> members
> were *automatically* taken in as members once they pledged to the Fuher.
> Not
> so SPD members who went over to the Nazis, they had to be vetted before
> taking
> the oath.
The permeability of barriers between Nazis and Communists confirms, does
it not, that there was an anti-capitalist vector contained within the
consciousness of nationalist German workers?
I have been assuming a general familiarity with the distinction between
pedagogical and political adaptation, as Trotsky developed the distinction
in the discussions with the leaders of the U.S. SWP at the end of
Trotsky's life. Since no one has chosen to reply in terms of that
distinction, I'm wondering whether I have wrongly assumed this distinction
is well known.
srd
nada
> Yes, that's important to note, and I hadn't. To me this makes this period
> particularly relevant to some of the KDE's positions. Vngelis has implied
> that nationalistic impulses that respond to national oppression have a
> progressive aspect, even in imperialist countries, to put the point
> minimally. The nationalism to which some German Communists advocated a
> pedagogic adaptation was a response to the occupying forces, hence to
> national oppression, at least insofar as this is possible where the
> oppressed is an oppressor.
Actually, I'm closer to the vngelis position that you or he may think.
The natural combination, today, of defense of one social gains/working
class victories as codified in national welfare-state/social security
victories (in Europe this is huge deal, no relation to those things
here in the US) were done on a national basis, by the specifically
national aspect of those post WWII workers struggles. So I'm opposed
to the these supra-national state deals like "Europe" and NAFTA, etc.
Going back in history, yes, the Comintern did not ignore the
occupation and struggled against it, actually. Trotsky was clear in
the transitional program (section on fascism) on fighting for
'national' liberation. But I don't think that is what is at issue,
quite honestly. Clearly the "historic" APST debae going back to 1997,
10 years now, is over the specificallity of immigrants and, certainly,
Vngelis's recent rant about "nostalgia" of the all-White London he
used to know, the racist terms he used, etc. His tone, his specific
complaints are, perhaps only in my opinion, motivated by a racist, not
class, perception.
The "pedagogic adaptation" adaption by a few German ultra lefts was
just that. Or, opportunism as the Comintern saw it...which lead, as
the Comintern foresaw, to a melding of their politics with
nationalism, which always jumped to right politically even when it
leaned to the left rhetorically.
> I have maneuvered myself into the position of defending Fischer, who I
> don't think was even a particularly capable revolutionist. So I'm not
> saying that her formulation of what was ultimately Radek's line was
> terribly adroit. For one thing, it _looks_ too much like trying to suck up
> to the racists. My hypothetical was more to the point of principle. If I
> understood your answer, it was that if the German workers demanded
> expropriation of specifically Jewish capitalists, you would defend the
> Jewish capitalists. Or did I get that wrong, because it seems rather
> incredible.
I have to express my ignorance...I only know of Radek's line by second
hand reference and have never read a critique of it. I always wondered
about him. He never held the Opposition viewpoint on China for
example, but he was a leading Oppositionist anyway. Strange. OK, so,
this is an internet discussion and we can play this out. Your
question...is that I would support a German workers....lets say
'action'...against REAL grievances against a Jewish capitalist (all of
whom were basically petty-bourgeois, BTW) but not BECAUSE he was
Jewish. That is the dividing line Stephen. I would NOT support actions
by ...non-Jewish German workers against Jewish Capitalists if it was a
movement by nationalists/fascists against JEWS in particular...then
it's NOT anti-capitalist, it's anti-Jewish. I would defend a Black
small business owner against the Klan without even thinking about it,
gun in hand. Then, to your specific question as YOU phrased it: no, I
wouldn't support "the workers against the 'capitalist'" because the
demand for expropriation of specifically Jewish capitalists in my
opinion becomes a totally racist demand. We're talking about a general
slogan and/or agitation by some workers against specifically Jewish
capitalists. This was actually the position of the SA in Germany...do
you still support this demand?
> The permeability of barriers between Nazis and Communists confirms, does
> it not, that there was an anti-capitalist vector contained within the
> consciousness of nationalist German workers?
Oh yes! Without a doubt. The Strasserites were the largest in fact.
Strasser was *genuinely* anti-captialist (which is why he was murdered
by SS goons later). There is a rumor that Strasser was deported in
1921 from the US because he was a Wobbly no less!!! (this has never
been proven, btw). I know a young Puerto Rican activist in NY who is
probably the best read person on fascism I ever met who maintains this
view. Not just the reality of a Nazi "left wing" but also of the
Falange and it's Left wing, which I happened to know more about. Quite
radical in fact (which is why Franco pretty much abandoned "Spanish
Fascism", meaning sidelining the Falange as soon as he could, in 1940
or so).
The idea by the communists was to tackle this question head on,
explain the reactionary nature of the Versailles Treaty (which the
Russian were breaking right up through 1939!) and showing why only a
workers gov't based on class, not national, unity was the answer. Part
of this was the realization that any form of nationalism within the
context of defeated Germany, would have to end up under the guise of
the 'national' bourgeoisie. Every single expression of "working class
nationalism" was subsumed into National Socialism and then killed off.
Good question though. I'm probably totally simplifying this but it's
interesting historically.
> I have been assuming a general familiarity with the distinction between
> pedagogical and political adaptation, as Trotsky developed the distinction
> in the discussions with the leaders of the U.S. SWP at the end of
> Trotsky's life. Since no one has chosen to reply in terms of that
> distinction, I'm wondering whether I have wrongly assumed this distinction
> is well known.
It is not well known but I know what you are talking about, like
Trotsky's discussion with CLR James, Dobbs and Cannon on the "Negro
Question"?
David
srd
> The advanced western proletariat didn't learn the ways of
> the backward Bolsheviks.
Then what is the role of the International, if each country is left to
find its way on its own?
The fact is, the Bolsheviks had not yet conceptualised the international
vanguard party until the collapse of the Second International.
My point isn't mainly to criticize Lenin. I would only criticize Lenin
where there is overt opportunism. Abolishing factions was opportunist. The
working class simply cannot rule without party democracy. This is an
organizational point on which there can be no compromise. That Russia
remained a workers state after the ban on factions is at least problematic.
But apart from fairly isolated acts of opportunism, I would not criticize
Lenin, on account that he failed to solve all the problems of the
socialist movement. I cannot criticize Lenin for not having yet developed
the theory that would allow him to see there can be no compromise in one
party with a Kautsky, long before the war. This cannot justly be used to
criticize Lenin, but must be used to n what went wrong. It doesn't seem
widely appreciated, that by the theory of the international vanguard party
developed by Lenin and elaborated by Trotsky, there really could be no
question but that the German revolution would fail, and that the same
would hold true anywhere else. The failure could have been foreseen
because of the absence of any party in those countries, and the fatal
character of errors in Russia were also largely inevitable without the
democratic centralist discipline of an international party.
Also, while Lenin cannot be _blamed_ for failing to split earlier, the
belated split should not be taken for a model, as it often is. You split
after some world historic betrayal, on this line. Well, maybe in the sense
of not having a primary entryist focus, but certainly you must plan long
before that. We now have a doctrinal schizophrenia, in which the need for
an international party is touted as pre-eminent, but the model revolution
is presented as _possibly_ succeeding, possibly leading to successful
international revolutions, when in fact on the theories Trotskyists are
taught, the world at the time lacked a pre-condition for such success. The
fact that the theory was developed subsequently excuses the mistakes
caused by its absence, but it doesn't excuse failing to note the mistakes
and failing to attribute the correct causes to events. The subjective
conditions for international revolution had not been properly prepared
anywhere but in Russia. To say they can be prepared on the even of
revolution is to negate the need for a vanguard party as now understand.
srd
srd
> Strange. OK, so,
> this is an internet discussion and we can play this out. Your
> question...is that I would support a German workers....lets say
> 'action'...against REAL grievances against a Jewish capitalist (all of
> whom were basically petty-bourgeois, BTW) but not BECAUSE he was
> Jewish. That is the dividing line Stephen. I would NOT support actions
> by ...non-Jewish German workers against Jewish Capitalists if it was a
> movement by nationalists/fascists against JEWS in particular...then
> it's NOT anti-capitalist, it's anti-Jewish. I would defend a Black
> small business owner against the Klan without even thinking about it,
> gun in hand. Then, to your specific question as YOU phrased it: no, I
> wouldn't support "the workers against the 'capitalist'" because the
> demand for expropriation of specifically Jewish capitalists in my
> opinion becomes a totally racist demand. We're talking about a general
> slogan and/or agitation by some workers against specifically Jewish
> capitalists. This was actually the position of the SA in Germany...do
> you still support this demand?
Well, if the Jewish bourgeoisie was merely petty bourgeois--in other
words, a stratum that would probably not be subject to immediate
expropriation, even by a revolutionary workers government--this puts
matters in a different light. In that case, I would not support Ruth
Fischer's slogan.
Also, it would matter whether the demand came from the workers affected or
was a demagogic move by the fascists.
But if, very hypothetically, a large Jewish-owned industrial or banking
entity had existed; and the workers struck the entity and demanded
nationalization, albeit under anti-Semitic slogans; I think the movement
to expropriate should then be supported. Perhaps this has become too
hypothetical to be meaningful.
srd
nada
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:16:59 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Strange. OK, so,
> > this is an internet discussion and we can play this out. Your
> > question...is that I would support a German workers....lets say
> > 'action'...against REAL grievances against a Jewish capitalist (all of
> > whom were basically petty-bourgeois, BTW) but not BECAUSE he was
> > Jewish. That is the dividing line Stephen. I would NOT support actions
> > by ...non-Jewish German workers against Jewish Capitalists if it was a
> > movement by nationalists/fascists against JEWS in particular...then
> > it's NOT anti-capitalist, it's anti-Jewish. I would defend a Black
> > small business owner against the Klan without even thinking about it,
> > gun in hand. Then, to your specific question as YOU phrased it: no, I
> > wouldn't support "the workers against the 'capitalist'" because the
> > demand for expropriation of specifically Jewish capitalists in my
> > opinion becomes a totally racist demand. We're talking about a general
> > slogan and/or agitation by some workers against specifically Jewish
> > capitalists. This was actually the position of the SA in Germany...do
> > you still support this demand?
>
> Well, if the Jewish bourgeoisie was merely petty bourgeois--in other
> words, a stratum that would probably not be subject to immediate
> expropriation, even by a revolutionary workers government--this puts
> matters in a different light. In that case, I would not support Ruth
> Fischer's slogan.
Stephen, Ruth F. was responding to general rhetoric about "Jewish
capitalists" raised by National Socialists and others. She was trying
to get them (the workers in their periphery) to point to GERMAN
capitalists as the enemy. Most 'rich' Jews were like well off Jews
everywhere, in the professions, in retail, etc. You brought up the
thing about expropriation...and got carried away thinking this was
Fischers positions! The adaptation came with the stance of "yes,
Jewish, but ALL capitalists..." that sort of thing. Just wanted to
clear that up.
> Also, it would matter whether the demand came from the workers affected or
> was a demagogic move by the fascists.
Of course. And what else was going in the class struggle.
> But if, very hypothetically, a large Jewish-owned industrial or banking
> entity had existed; and the workers struck the entity and demanded
> nationalization, albeit under anti-Semitic slogans; I think the movement
> to expropriate should then be supported. Perhaps this has become too
> hypothetical to be meaningful.
Maybe. It would have to be really concretized, however.
David
Vngelis
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:02:58 -0800, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > The advanced western proletariat didn't learn the ways of
> > the backward Bolsheviks.
>
> Then what is the role of the International, if each country is left to
> find its way on its own?
>
Well so far each International has sought to encapsulate the best
experience from one or two countries which attempted or achieved
workers power. The point of it is to the extent that it achieves the
goal of workers power. So far it hasn't achieved that goal and there
hasn't been much role for it.
> The fact is, the Bolsheviks had not yet conceptualised the international
> vanguard party until the collapse of the Second International.
>
> My point isn't mainly to criticize Lenin. I would only criticize Lenin
> where there is overt opportunism. Abolishing factions was opportunist. The
> working class simply cannot rule without party democracy. This is an
> organizational point on which there can be no compromise. That Russia
> remained a workers state after the ban on factions is at least problematic.
>
The criterion of property ownership isn't determined whether democracy
exists in the party or not. Private property to have been reversed in
the ex-USSR wasn't simply returning the old owners back, but creating
above all a legal system which codifies in law and defends in courts
with the use of bodies of armed men these laws. Russia developed and
reached on par with the USA in nearly all factors (education, heavy
industry, agriculture, armaments etc) with the USA. If this occurred
because it was state capitalism etc. why didn't India, or the
continent of Africa achieve the same? You are throwing out the baby
with the bathwater.
The ban on faction with hindsight was wrong. Lenin tried to correct it
in his last struggle against Lenin. His dying wish was to remove him.
That didn't happen as well. Whose fault is that Lenins? If one single
event is isolated from the generla course of historical development to
justify a political line it reminds me of PHd students who try to
invent a new story in order to write a thesis which has already been
written by others and needs no more elaborating. But they look for
that single event to base all on. This is what I believe you are
currently doing, unintentionally, as you aren't about to publish a
book or try to make money out of it like Pirani for instance.
> But apart from fairly isolated acts of opportunism, I would not criticize
> Lenin, on account that he failed to solve all the problems of the
> socialist movement. I cannot criticize Lenin for not having yet developed
> the theory that would allow him to see there can be no compromise in one
> party with a Kautsky, long before the war. This cannot justly be used to
> criticize Lenin, but must be used to n what went wrong. It doesn't seem
> widely appreciated, that by the theory of the international vanguard party
> developed by Lenin and elaborated by Trotsky, there really could be no
> question but that the German revolution would fail, and that the same
> would hold true anywhere else. The failure could have been foreseen
> because of the absence of any party in those countries, and the fatal
> character of errors in Russia were also largely inevitable without the
> democratic centralist discipline of an international party.
You are using again one variable and overriding all others again. Was
the failurre of the German Revolution due to the lack of a vanguard
party or the fact that the German ruling class having seen what
happened in Russia took pre-emptive action, ie they moved against
Luxembourg and Liebknecht? Bosses do learn from experience, they do
not stand still or operate in a vacuum. The obssession with the phrase
of vanguard party is a Spart/healyite obsession not for the purpose of
contructing such a thing but in order to justify to their own
followers how important they each are to themselves and to everybody
else. If the whole of human history and development boils down solely
in the lack of a revolutionary party then we are all doomed a priori
to failure.
The Russian Revolution took its revenge for the murder of Liebnecht
and Luxembourg in the defeat of fascism. When push came to shove
Europe was saved from absolutist imperialism. The same rules apply
even till today even if some believe history has been reversed in
Russia back to the point of no return.
>
> Also, while Lenin cannot be _blamed_ for failing to split earlier, the
> belated split should not be taken for a model, as it often is. You split
> after some world historic betrayal, on this line. Well, maybe in the sense
> of not having a primary entryist focus, but certainly you must plan long
> before that. We now have a doctrinal schizophrenia, in which the need for
> an international party is touted as pre-eminent, but the model revolution
> is presented as _possibly_ succeeding, possibly leading to successful
> international revolutions, when in fact on the theories Trotskyists are
> taught, the world at the time lacked a pre-condition for such success. The
> fact that the theory was developed subsequently excuses the mistakes
> caused by its absence, but it doesn't excuse failing to note the mistakes
> and failing to attribute the correct causes to events. The subjective
> conditions for international revolution had not been properly prepared
> anywhere but in Russia. To say they can be prepared on the even of
> revolution is to negate the need for a vanguard party as now understand.
>
> srd
I dont agree with the concept as you put it. Doctirinal schizophrenia
about the need for an international vanguard party exists for those
who like to give orders and be obeyed. I was never part of that system
as invariably the more advanced sections ie the ones based in Paris,
London or New York always gave the orders.
Look at the mess they have found themselves in.
rab
> I dont agree with the concept as you put it. Doctirinal schizophrenia
> about the need for an international vanguard party exists for those
> who like to give orders and be obeyed. I was never part of that system
> as invariably the more advanced sections ie the ones based in Paris,
> London or New York always gave the orders.
> Look at the mess they have found themselves in.
Trotsky considered the most important work of his life was the
founding of the fourth international. Whilst the international has
been dogged from the outset by difficulties and splits nevertheless it
is our most important instrument for obtaining workers' power.
Neither the trades unions nor any other political tendency will be
able to achieve this and individuals who carp from the sidelines are
in a long tradition from Deutscher onwards. These are the sceptics
that Trotsky often spoke of. The original setting up of the third
international was an historical advance over the legacy of Bolshevism
because it was understood in those days just how important
international revolution was for socialism. What followed was a
degeneration of the workers movement as the bourgeoisie fought back on
a world scale. Trotsky negated that degeneration through his tireless
battle against Stalinism and the setting up of the fourth
international. Moan all you like Vngelis but the fourth international
will do the job it was built for.
Roger
Vngelis
A prime example of doctrinal schizophrenia.
The Fourth International and by that one assumes the Healyite-Torrance
lot will save us all from hell.
There is no Fourth international as no successful revolution has
occurred since October 1917. It existed as long as Trotsky was alive.
Now for the offshoots that were created Healy, Lamber, Sparts, SWP,
Pablo, Moreno, etc in name they are all related to the Fourth
International but until one of them takes power, they will only be
related in name, not in deed.
An international revolution has to start somewhere. It does not start
in cyberspace and move backwards. Since the Healyites drank too much
water they became inflated like a frog and since then look down upon
everyone after accusing them of not being interested in
'internationalism' which they mean to mean, we give the orders boyo,
you take them.
Look at the mess they are in. From 10 sections to 1.
Bert Byfield
> international. Moan all you like Vngelis but the fourth international
> will do the job it was built for. Roger
When will that happen?