People calling for absolute and unconditional support for Iran, as "communists", is extremely retarded. I suppose being a dumbass makes it hard to be a marxist, so that's not really surprising.
I checked, Lenin's corpse is actually spinning from all of these out of context quotes of his being used to justify anti communist positions.
And I find it really fucking funny that these American cunts say that you can't talk about other countries but don't see the irony in Americans controlling what is being said about other countries.
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It's not just twitter. The situation is presented as a dichotomy, and this dichotomy itself is contained entirely within the bourgeois system. Every call for the sovereignty of the Iranian state, of the Iranian people, is a tacit call for the subjugation of the communist movement in Iran. The proletariat will never have it's revolution in Iran if it is to wed itself always to the Iranian state.
And the leftists here are a joke if they think that them calling for "support" will end up with any direct material outcome. They join in the chorus if bourgeois pacifism and will remain a small voice within that.
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Obviously the question of supporting one sclerotic government over another is easy to dismiss but that is beside the point.
It's besides the point because that isn't the point I'm making, dummy.
I expect you will erase my comment because it's not gassing you up personally and I will laugh if you do that.
lol alright laugh away
Or afterwards. Possibly up to 30,000 leftists executed in 1988. And it's likely those involved still operatelevels of power within Iran:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_executions_of_Iranian_political_prisoners
Communist parties, trade unions and independent worker's organizations are banned and members of such are flogged and imprisoned.
Honestly, watching these twitter ‘socialists’ is like watching a tragic comedy, except none of the characters are enjoyable
These people think that socialism is when the US doesn’t like you. Probably because they insist of viewing the world through a lens of global struggle, rather than class struggle.
I checked, Lenin's corpse is actually spinning from all of these out of context quotes of his being used to justify anti communist positions.
I'd say they should actually read socialism and war, but they would probably just end up reading their own opinions into it anyways
They could read the one they're quoting from but they don't actually care about communism. I wonder why they don't just drop the pretense but I guess they must want to make a career out of it.
Obviously any communist or really anyone claiming to be progressive can't endorse US intervention in, or war with Iran. That said, what does "support" even mean in this context? Is the PSL sending material aid to the Islamic Republic? Unless you have the Ayatollah's Venmo, don't come asking me to "support Iran."
Why are the comments always [Removed], so annoying.
The student movement during the revolution had the slogan, "East nor West". Iranians don't want to be in either sphere though their youth are very westernised.
What do students have to do with communism?
Nothing. They rejected it is the point.
Are you associating the Eastern Bloc with communism?
At the time, Iran was being pulled by both the USSR and the US.
I know about the geopolitical implications of the Islamic revolution. I was asking if you thought the students rejected communism because they refused to align with the USSR.
Ok, I see your question. If they wanted greater freedoms which the clerics promised them by way of secularism and liberal freedoms they were used to under the Shah as well as, economic redistribution of oil wealth then yes, it's fair to say they rejected Communism.
That still does not answer my question.
Why don't you tell me the answer you're looking for?
A simple yes or no suffices completely, no need to weasel around the issue.
How is being detailed in response equal to skirting the issue? If people can't understand the question it answers maybe they should rethink their question?
This isn't the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The question was perfectly clear and easy enough to answer by either yes or no. Fuck off.
If by “detailed in response,” you mean “so vague that you can’t gain any glimpse of understanding,” then yes, you were detailed.
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Pew pew
Curious that there has been almost no chatter at all regarding the fact that the Iranian government shot down a plane carrying 176 people, including iranians. I've had my share of arguments with people online as well, in one instance someone claimed that Soleimani was an "antifascist martyr", again the left with their endless fucking rituals. It's all so tiresome to be honest.
Where is this current chatter?
The Spectacle is all around us.
Apparently you need to spell out the sarcasm.
The Spectacle is an ill deinfed phenomenon that is all around but requires a degree in critical theory and situationism to understand, yet sarcasm remains a mystery.
Is it a spectacle if it's mindless trash anti-imperialist rhetoric said by alienated wet yutes tho
I'm sorry, but I don't really care for the opinion of some situationist cuck who posts to /r/criticaltheory
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If you need to have someone to tell you how to live your life then there are places that you can go to for that.
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The most eye boggling part of the film was when they travelled to China, and we saw the shit conditions they were working in. Then to see the union being like ‘oh we all work together and have 100% density’.
That shit was upsetting as tbh
Then to see the union being like ‘oh we all work together and have 100% density’.
Which union was that? A Chinese one?
Ah yes. It was the Fuyao workers union based at the Fuyao glass factory in Fuqing, Fujian Province, China. I’m abstracting a little, but the union secretary was making points of ‘for workers to be successful the company must be successful’, and that ‘unions and companies work together like cogs’. I find the structure of labour unions in China interesting, where they are directly attached to a company for the purpose of labour relations, with party cadre watching over. Which probably isn’t necessary now anyway in SOE’s anyway.
The differences between unions in different countries is interesting and a topic little discussed. Americans don't know how lucky they are with their unions. In Europe the state has taken over the function of many unions. They have to go through state controlled labor bazaars, safety at work is now a matter of the state and its law almost exclusively, etc. But any plan that involves bringing the workers into co-management, be it directly or through the union, is a distinctly backward step aimed at destroying the independence of organized workers.
You should check out some of the other things we've been posting here in regards to unions in China. It is a subject we're investigating at the moment.
I think I’ll hang around! I’ve been starting to study labor relations between workers and unions in different states, as I began to question trade unions in my country and the relationship they have to capital and how that affects us as workers. I’ve found worker protests in isolation really interesting and how they organise.
I’ve found worker protests in isolation really interesting and how they organise.
It is important not to elevate to the rank of cardinal virtue what is mere necessity, a fallback position, though.
Workers as a class can only succeed in associating, isolation is precisely what is to be overcome. If workers in some circumstances are forced to fight outside of unions, then this must not be celebrated in its immediacy. The goal is to unite the class around its independent objectives. This means that all manifestations of class struggle ought to be taken into consideration - both inside and outside of unions -, as well as the specific conditions and limitations that they correspond to. The immediacy of isolated struggles is to be positively resolved through association. This centralisation sharpens the class as such and allows the objectives of the overall fight to naturally come to the forefront: the property question, which communists always emphasise.
Of course the same applies to the immediate reality of unions as well - there's a discussion on this in the other thread about healthcare on the front page right now.
“We have some extremely diligent workers, but most workers are there just to make money”
Jesus Christ, we’re not even allowed to just show up and do the work anymore. We have to enjoy it (or at least pretend), all for our employers comfort. The way the guy says it like it’s so shameful too... you’d think he was from another planet.
Remember to always work with a smile!
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The future is yesterday and today... A Chinese company has been manufacturing shoes in Jefferson City, Tennessee for years. FIT moved in, when BAE Systems moved out.
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Stalin should listen
How was he anti-semitic? Used to be tankie, but don't know what you're referencing.
doctors plot
Night of the Dead Poets
Do we know when this speech was given?
This topic of unionized healthcare vs state granted healthcare is interesting for us because it exposes people's real feelings. The opposition to the small example we've given, the bizarre abstractions and projections, is pretty laughable.
One is a demand fought by the working class, in their organizations, against the bourgeoisie, the other is one granted to all classes in society.
So let's get to the facts. The Bernie M4A is being marketed as a cost saving measure for the bourgeoisie. On medicare4all.org, for instance, it says
Astronomical health care costs and lack of access continue to drive individuals, families, and businesses past their breaking point while insurance companies continue to soak-up billions of health care dollars as millions of children’s basic needs go unmet.
And many people whole heatedly believe that the savings to the bourgeoisie will trickle down to the workers. Just a few examples from reddit
M4A should remove healthcare from labor costs and create higher wages and more gainful employment.
and
If M4A is enacted the money spent by the employer is the same, except instead of health insurance it would go to a different benefit or wages. M4A would make it easier to negotiate better wages
And from this article
Union leaders reacted angrily when Sanders, at a town hall, told its members that their employers would save $12,000 per employee under Medicare for All, and that they’d see that money in their paychecks.
[...]
It’s not clear where the $12,000 figure came from, but the Sanders Medicare for All proposal would require employers to return any savings in health care costs back to their employees in wages or other benefits.
And further, Sanders wishes to bring the workers into management
Workers should not feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.
These are all things that will disarm the working class. Where the working class draws its strength is its association. We can complain forever about union leadership and their lack of initiative, their kowtow to the bourgeois norms, but this only highlights the need for a communist party.
What we have to deal with here is the class terrain. The problem is not that healthcare is expensive. Most healthcare in the US probably isn't as expensive as the health care in most European countries which take significant chunks out of your income. The problem is that people are unable to save to pay for health care, which means that wages are not high enough and the only way to get higher wages is to unionize.
Questions of price control is the concern of the petite bourgeoisie.
Secondly, people are abstracting over the fact that those in the Culinary Union voted to support to Bernie, blowing over that they also want to keep their health care.
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Most likely CTH or one of the other psychotic ‘communist’ (read: social-democratic) subs
sorry what does CTH stand for?
ah, thanks
Why would we brigade you guys?
Isn’t it obvious? This post is a critique of Bernie Sanders, the patron saint of CTH.
We're all pretty aware you guys don't believe in electoralism. Which, ultimately, neither do most of us
How can you not believe in electoralism and still spend time, energy and money supporting Bernie Sanders?
It feels like the more strategic decision, at least to a lot of us. I very much agreed with OPs position in 2016, but now I really don't see how ignoring this mass movement of people to instead hold meetings with the same 20 people is going to accomplish. I support Bernie Sanders as a step forward, while also trying my best to understand and prepare for the revolution that must come.
Having thousands participating in mass action is good practice and will expose the power that the working class holds, and having a more moderate (to a literal communist) president feels like a better way of achieving that then a perfectly articulated article in "Socialist Worker" that is only ever sold to people who already agree with you
It feels like the more strategic decision, at least to a lot of us.
It is a strategic decision, namely in that it has nothing to do with communism, and is not a means to it either. Communism is nothing else than the independent labour movement itself. The association of the proletariat develops from a mere means to an end in itself, and thus we arrive at "communist society".
Campaigning and voting for politicians that represent interests directly opposed to those of the self-movement and self-regulation of labour are not a means to communism at all.
I very much agreed with OPs position in 2016, but now I really don't see how ignoring this mass movement of people to instead hold meetings with the same 20 people is going to accomplish.
It seems the problem is that you project your misguided activity from 2016 onto communists.
I support Bernie Sanders as a step forward, while also trying my best to understand and prepare for the revolution that must come.
A step forward towards what? Because it surely is not communism. No revolution "must come" if there is no independently fighting proletariat, no matter how much you apparently "understand" it and "prepare" for it. You are the walking contradiction that is characteristic of the petty bourgeoisie, in that you throw yourself behind interests opposed to communism, yet claim to adhere to it. It reminds one of what Marx said about Proudhon:
Like the historian Raumer, the petty bourgeois is made up of on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand. This is so in his economic interests and therefore in his politics, religious, scientific and artistic views. And likewise in his morals, IN EVERYTHING. He is a living contradiction. If, like Proudhon, he is in addition an ingenious man, he will soon learn to play with his own contradictions and develop them according to circumstances into striking, ostentatious, now scandalous now brilliant paradoxes. Charlatanism in science and accommodation in politics are inseparable from such a point of view. There remains only one governing motive, the vanity of the subject, and the only question for him, as for all vain people, is the success of the moment, the éclat of the day. Thus the simple moral sense, which always kept a Rousseau, for instance, from even the semblance of compromise with the powers that be, is bound to disappear.
Your stance is just as paradoxical.
Having thousands participating in mass action is good practice
What is the social position of these "thousands"? What action are they engaging in? Practice for what?
and will expose the power that the working class holds
Why not instead practically strengthen the power of the working class?
and having a more moderate (to a literal communist) president
We argue for the dictatorship of the proletariat, not a communist president. The latter would be pointless.
feels like a better way of achieving that then a perfectly articulated article in "Socialist Worker" that is only ever sold to people who already agree with you
Again, it seems like you project your Trotskyist doings onto communism.
With their inability to conceptualise any political activity beyond electoralism the ‘Berniebros’ reveal more about themselves than they realise
Communism is nothing else than the independent labour movement itself. The association of the proletariat develops from a mere means to an end in itself, and thus we arrive at "communist society".
Not from CTH, I'm incredibly curious where you get this conception from. From what I've read, Marx certainly supported labor movements and labor aims, but I get no sense that the 'association' developed in the labor movement is to in any direct sense form the basis for communist association. Is this conception from later thinkers?
Is this conception from later thinkers?
No:
When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need – the need for society – and what appears as a means becomes an end. In this practical process the most splendid results are to be observed whenever French socialist workers are seen together. Such things as smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer means of contact or means that bring them together. Association, society and conversation, which again has association as its end, are enough for them; the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.
Or:
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle.
The first attempt of workers to associate among themselves always takes place in the form of combinations.
Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance – combination. Thus combination always has a double aim, that of stopping competition among the workers, so that they can carry on general competition with the capitalist. If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages. This is so true that English economists are amazed to see the workers sacrifice a good part of their wages in favor of associations, which, in the eyes of these economists, are established solely in favor of wages. In this struggle – a veritable civil war – all the elements necessary for a coming battle unite and develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.
Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle.
[...]
The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.
And there are a lot more passages like that.
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Association and union in both of these paragraphs does not seem to mean exclusively association and union in the "labor union" sense.
Yes, it does not refer to trade unions alone, but to the association of labour as such. Historically, cooperatives, factory councils and soviets are other examples of forms this can take on.
It seems that our association in general develops the proletariat, not necessarily a specific form of our association.
What is "our association in general"? When I'm talking to you, I don't do that as a proletarian for the purpose of defending my immediate interests against the bourgeoisie. What Marx is talking about is not some abstract "association as such".
What this means, perhaps to our horror, is that even our association online, on r/leftcommunism or twitter or wherever, for the purposes of discussing theory, is a form of association that too develops the proletariat.
You're retarded if you think that.
I can see now, however, how labor unions are one example of or space for association.
I don't think you have understood anything. You seem to be thinking very abstractly.
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Association becomes the end. No longer are they there for memes, but for each other.
lol jesus christ
You're one of those specimens that can read as much as they want and still not understand a thing of it. It's not worth to waste everyone's time by replying to your long-ass drivel featuring random italicisation. Utter brain damage.
When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need — the need for society — and what appears as a means becomes an end.
There is also the famous "real movement" quote, but you've probably heard that one enough.
The "thousands" you talk about are mostly from the ranks of the petit bourgeoisie, because Sanders is the candidate that represents their interests. That they are able to sway the working class to go against its interests is due to the weakness of the labour movement. Sanders is no closer to communism than Trump or any other bourgeois candidate, and by saying that he is you betray a lack of understanding of even basic features of communism. Voting for him isn't "mass action" it's the opposite, it's workers buying into the belief that a state bureaucrat can solve their problems, thereby sacrificing their resolve to fight for independent class interests.
No-one here is suggesting a retreat to insular so-called "socialist" magazines, all of which are petit bourgeois anyway. The proletariat has to fight for itself against all factions of the bourgeoisie, using its own organs.
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It isn't a class specific movement. It is just a large variety of people with bourgeois and petty bourgeois acting as spokespeople, as is customary for the eunuchs of bourgeois culture.
Thanks for the correction
For further information on how thoroughly antithetical to communism Sanders' programme is, it is worth looking into it directly. A good example is this page, on "Corporate Accountability and Democracy":
We will give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for
A measure that lots of corporates have long since identified as helpful for disciplining their workforce, and which they realised in subsidised purchases of stocks for employees. The Trump administration considers something similar. Do you know who also was extremely fond of employee ownership? Ronald Reagan. Or here, 22:53, you can hear the Carter administration pondering over the same ideas for "a healthier industrial climate". In other words: a pacified proletariat.
break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies
Fighting big capital, the wish of a powerless middle class threatened by it with proletarianisation.
and finally make corporations pay their fair share.
What is a "fair share"?
In America today, corporate greed and corruption is destroying the social and economic fabric of our society
If only capitalists obeyed to the moral conscience and decency of the petty bourgeois! Self-restriction for the good of all classes is the order of the day here. Fighting against corruption also is a typically petty bourgeois concern, as it disturbs the otherwise supposedly just workings of capital. And the complaint about the destruction of the "social and economic fabric of our society" is nothing else than bemoaning the decline of the middle class and the increasing hatred of the proletariat.
For too long, these greedy corporate CEOs have rigged the tax code, killed market competition
If only we could tax the middle class back into existence! It's also funny that there's whining about the killing of competition. It does not mean anything else than complaining about big capital ousting small capital.
Today, the richest 10 percent of Americans own an estimated 97 percent of all capital income – including capital gains, corporate dividends, and interest payments. Since the 2008 Wall Street crash, 49 percent of all new income generated in America has gone to the top 1 percent. The three wealthiest people in our country now own more wealth than the bottom 160 million Americans. And the richest family in America – the Walton family, which inherited about half of Walmart’s stock – is worth $200 billion and owns more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of the American people.
To speak of wealth inequality is again to speak of capital concentration - a fact which the petty bourgeoisie loathes, because it means its expropriation.
Instead of using their massive profits to benefit workers and our society as a whole, corporate America has pumped over $1 trillion into stock buybacks to reward already-wealthy shareholders and executives since the Trump tax plan was signed into law.
The key phrase here is again "our society as a whole", abstracting from class and talking about the nation.
Those who control these behemoth corporations have only one allegiance: to the short-term bottom line. What happens to their employees, what happens to the environment, and what happens to the community in which their firms function matters very little.
The reproach that corporations only have an interest in the short-term bottom line here has the content of reasserting the long-term interests of the industrial capitalist vis-à-vis the short-term interest of finance capital. If only all corporations paternalistically took into account the welfare of their employees, their immediate environment and the communities!
These are not really American companies – they are companies currently located in America at most, and increasingly aren’t even incorporated here but instead merely selling here. Tomorrow, if the economics made sense to them, they could be located in China – and already they are incorporating in offshore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Make America Great Again! The problem expressed here is that the transnationalism of capital is in contradiction with the aim of propping up a national middle class that safeguards capital from the proletariat.
The establishment tells us there is no alternative to unfettered capitalism
"Unfettered capitalism". So the alternative then is "fettered capitalism". Whatever happened to "democratic socialism"?
that this is how the system and globalization work and there’s no turning back. They are dead wrong.
They are right in saying that there is no going back to the conditions that prevailed in the period after the Second World War.
The truth is that we can and we must develop new economic models to create jobs and increase wages and productivity across America.
What is meant by an economic model? Jobs and increased wages for whom? And since when exactly does the proletariat have an interest in increased productivity?
Instead of giving huge tax breaks to large corporations that ship our jobs to China and other low-wage countries, we need to give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for, a say in the decision-making process that impacts their lives, and a fair share of the profits that their work makes possible in the first place.
A stake in the companies they work for, so that they stay bound there and have no interest in associating across companies, and so that they cut back on their interests as workers. Also, what's "a fair share of the profits"? Communism is about conquering the entire value in the economy, not just some meagre share of surplus value.
If workers had ownership stakes in their companies and an equal say on corporate boards:
- Corporations would be far less likely to shut down profitable factories in the United States and move abroad;
- CEOs would not be making over 300 times as much as their average workers; and
- Companies would be far less likely to pollute the communities in which workers live.
I wrote about these schemes to draw workers into management here.
Study after study has shown that employee ownership increases employment, increases productivity, increases sales, and increases wages in the United States.
What a great sales pitch, Mr. Sanders! Increased productivity and sales, I'm sure you'll find your buyers.
This is in large part because employee-owned businesses boost employee morale, dedication, creativity and productivity, because workers share in profits and have more control over their own work lives.
Great: higher morale, dedication and creativity in the workforce at the disposal of the bourgeois. Happy wage labourers are good wage labourers.
By giving workers seats on corporate boards and a stake in their companies, we can create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.
"We can create", "for all of us" - abstracting from class, appealing to society at large and not the proletariat.
Under this plan, corporations with at least $100 million in annual revenue, corporations with at least $100 million in balance sheet total, and all publicly traded companies will be required to provide at least 2 percent of stock to their workers every year until the company is at least 20 percent owned by employees.
Thereby making these workers petty proprietors.
Under this plan, 45 percent of the board of directors in any large corporation with at least $100 million in annual revenue, corporations with at least $100 million in balance sheet total, and all publicly traded companies will be directly elected by the firm’s workers – similar to what happens under “employee co-determination” in Germany, which long has had one of the most productive and successful economies in the world.
The German system of co-determination is the exact hellhole of asphyxiating class collaboration that I described in the post I linked above.
Establish a U.S. Employee Ownership Bank. Under this plan, a $500 million U.S. Employee Ownership Bank will be created to provide low-interest loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance to workers who want to purchase their own businesses through the establishment of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) or Eligible Worker-Owned Cooperatives. In order to be eligible for assistance under this plan, the ESOPs or worker coops would need to be at least 51 percent owned by workers.
Proudhonism's credit schemes and Lassalleanism's cooperatives through state aid combined! What did Marx again have to say about these two?
And this shit just goes on, and on, and on like this. It's hard to express just how disgustingly anti-communist this is.
It's astounding how many self ascribed "communists" are also the most fervent Bernie Bros.
which means that wages are not high enough
American workers haven't seen a real increase in their wage since the 70s. The wage increases we have seen have been largely to the middle class.
Stupid socdem trying to be a socialist here. What do you guys support? Like not as in theory you read but as in actual actions you take and movements you join. I'm not trying to do a gotcha but am genuinely curious.
edit: I got 6 replies all dodging the question, as to what you guys do besides reading theory.
edit: I got 6 replies all dodging the question, as to what you guys do besides reading theory.
That's a plain lie. You've been given straightforward answers.
Is it so difficult to understand what a communist party does? Do you want us to spell out how it works to walk up to a picket and to tell the workers that you can represent their independent interest, since you clearly don't have an idea of what class struggle is? Do you need a manual on how to negotiate based on need? How to fight the bureaucratic leadership in unions?
The movement is communism. The actions should be in service of communism. Shilling for Bernie Sanders and his programs that are rooted in middle-class interests is not that.
I'm asking the question in good faith precisely because I'm interested in what these actions are because I want to pursue communism as well. What actions do you guys take besides reading theory?
The communist movement is precisely the proletarian class fighting for its interests. In doing so, it moves from a state of disunity, to one of increasing association, clarifying its goals and becoming more powerful and able to take on the bourgeoisie.
In order for the class to progress, it has to fight for its own interests, separate from the interests of the petit bourgeoisie middle classes. For example: universal healthcare is a program that helps the petit bourgeoisie, so the communist position is not to support M4A, but rather to agitate for higher wages so that workers can afford health insurance. This position clearly demarcates proletarian interests, and in doing so, "trains" the working class to fight for itself. Another example in this vein is the communist position on housing issues, which you can read about in an Engels pamphlet: "The Housing Question".
So if you're a worker, you can help the movement by organising and unionising your workplace, and pushing for proletarian interests in that way. If you're not a worker, then the only way to contribute is through the communist party, the organisation which is capable of leading the working class and clarifying its goals by scientifically studying the situation as it stands and stood in the past, and fighting to overcome it.
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Personally I think union stuff is good. I'm asking because you guys seem hyper critical of any actual action people take, so I'm curious what you folks see as an alternative worth pursuing.
How can you square a support for a militant working class, using its organs, calling for the communist party, with being critical of people taking action? Do you think voting and giving money and time to millionaires to be doing something?
Surrendering one's own interest and praying that the capitalist state takes care of it doesn't seem particularly active to me. We argue for workers fighting for their interests independently, through their class organs.
What do you guys support?
You're asking this in a thread discussing supporting the working class in their trade unions? Oh jeez, reading really seems to be a huge problem. Or maybe it's lead in the water. How about campaigning with the petty bourgeoisie on that?
I was a part of the organizing committee to unionize my workplace, then on the bargaining committee for our contract negotiations, now a shop steward.
If we had Medicare for all we would have been able to demand much higher wages for our workers, giving them control of more of the surplus value of their labor and bettering their material conditions.
This isn't how wages work. You're trying to paint this picture where the worker takes in a share of the profits, exactly in the same way that the landlord or finance capital does. You're a good example of what is wrong with union leadership in that you've somehow become so enamored with bourgeois norms that you think of compromise and cohabitation with the bourgeoisie.
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This is how cucked unions work.
I can't believe I have to say this on a Marxist sub, but wages do not come out of the surplus value. Labor-power is a commodity, much like any other raw material commodity that a capitalist puts into the production process first in order to create surplus value. Suggesting that it comes out of the surplus value, that you even think that, puts you on the terrain of the bourgeoisie and their petty bourgeois lackeys.
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You’re both right in different contexts.
Uh, no. Only I'm right.
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Do you understand what class struggle is?
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Feeling a bit attacked here...
What do you expect? lol Us to welcome into our bosom the asinine opinions of morons?
There seems to be this belief that socialism is a zero sum game. All or nothing. Capitalism or nazis.
Lol how does this even begin to address the fact from me talking about wages and how no one here seems to understand how exploitation, wage-labor and surplus-value operate?
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If someone couldn’t buy diapers lady year and they can buy them now that feels like a pretty systemic change to that worker.
Seems to me that's more of an issue of wages not being high enough.
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The user's on this sub like to emulate u/dr_marx 's behavior without any kind of knowledge
Could Mr All-Kinds-Of-Knowledgeable please explain how "bettering the material conditions" of the workers in general is a goal communists should always subordinate themselves to? Because this is exactly what the logic of "M4A is good because it would better the material conditions of the workers" requires -- it requires this "bettering of the material conditions" to be preferable in abstract, regardless of what the proletariat needs to give up in any particular circumstances in order to achieve it.
Upholding this kind of a principle would be the best way of assuring that the proletariat remains always subordinated to various "improvers of the condition of the working class". A fact which clearly reveals what you and your buddy who might as well be a Python script are really after here.
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You know what they're trying to say. If businesses don't have to purchase healthcare, then there is a higher limit on the amount of wages workers can demand. Obviously they won't be able to capitalize on all of this, but some will.
lol this is tantamount to advocating cutting tax for businesses
Woke trickle down economics
That's not what trickle down economics is. Trickle down economics is the idea that tax breaks will create jobs. The idea is that businesses that pay less in taxes will reinvest more. I'm not saying anything about investment, I don't think free healthcare will increase it.
I'm just saying that the passage of free Healthcare will dramatically reduce wages by removing the benefit of health insurance. Workers will have more bargaining power as they will attempt to negotiate to increase wages to their former value. Some workers will be successful or more likely will find a halfway point. This is especially true for unionized workers, who know the value of their health insurance plan and will fight to convert that lost value into wages.
free Healthcare will dramatically reduce wages by removing the benefit of health insurance. Workers will have more bargaining power as they will attempt to negotiate to increase wages to their former value
what? making things worse will make it better somehow?
Workers will have more bargaining power as they will attempt to negotiate to increase wages to their former value. This is especially true for unionized workers, who know the value of their health insurance plan and will fight to convert that lost value into wages.
Why? This sounds like some crazy convoluted logic outside of the topic here. The issue was raised because what we have here is a proletarian solution to a problem, using their institutions, and on the other, a politician coming in who advocates for a more efficient capitalist state and less expensive workforce, with programs that will affect the whole of society, not just the working class.
What does increasing the bargaining power even mean? The bourgeoisie is going to fight the workers just as hard against wage increases whether they are giving them healthcare or not. "Decreasing the wages" by getting rid of healthcare is a dream scenario for the bourgeoisie, and they aren't just going to give up the extra profits to the workers.
No, but if the workers previously had the bargaining power to maintain the pre-M4A wages, then there is no reason they wouldn't attempt fight for the wages they had before. I'm not saying the bourgeoisie are just going to give up their new profits, but everyone will know that concerns of feasibility or threats of insolvency are no longer relevant. As unions will no longer have to negotiate Healthcare, so they can spend more energy on fighting for other wage increases. The majority of wage increases over previous decades has been devoted to Healthcare. With M4A, workers can fight for higher wages instead of Healthcare.
there is no reason they wouldn't attempt fight for the wages they had before.
There is no reason to say that they can't fight for higher wages now and better health plans.
everyone will know that concerns of feasibility or threats of insolvency are no longer relevant
They are already irrelevant. If you think that the bourgeoisie will be incapable of coming up with new lies as to why they can't raise wages, you are delusional
It's not the fact they can't come with new excuses, it's the fact that workers will know that any excuse they make is bullshit. That incentives them to struggle because they know that their jobs won't be outsourced when they win higher wages.
It's not the fact they can't come with new excuses, it's the fact that workers will know that any excuse they make is bullshit.
Workers already know that these excuses are bullshit
That incentives them to struggle because they know that their jobs won't be outsourced when they win higher wages.
Workers in industries prone to outsourcing will still run the risk of being outsourced for increased union action. M4A would slightly reduce the risk at best.
That incentives them to struggle because they know that their jobs won't be outsourced when they win higher wages.
how's undergrad going?
That incentives them to struggle because they know that their jobs won't be outsourced when they win higher wages.
When you truly need something, you don't give a shit about such a potential prospect. More, the labour movement itself can do away with that threat by linking up internationally.
No, but if the workers previously had the bargaining power to maintain the pre-M4A wages, then there is no reason they wouldn't attempt fight for the wages they had before.
When your so communist you oppose wage increases
What makes you think this will lead to wage increases? I suppose you also think corporate tax cuts will also lead to wage increases?
If unions do not have to negotiate for healthcare it frees them up to negotiate for things like better wages. Universal healthcare will only increases the collective bargaining position of unions. Being a Marxist who is opposed to universal healthcare has gotta be the most contradictory thing I have ever seen. I understand it's not the elimination of wanted labor, but let's get a win for the proletariat
If unions do not have to negotiate for healthcare it frees them up to negotiate for things like better wages.
Unions can only do 1 thing at a time guys
Because that is how it works you can either negotiate for healthcare or increased wages.
Right and if you don't have to negotiate for healthcare then you can negotiate for increased wages. Thats my point lol
What the actual fuck. That is not how it works you can negotiate for a variety of things. If the bargaining committee is so brain-addled they can't negotiate more than one item then you have a lot of issues going on.
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No I'm not we just discussed it in our last bargaining committee and ratified the agreement with a vote. Are you even in a union? Because it seems like you are just reading random news stories and extrapolating bullshit.
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I'm not in the UAW I'm in a union and we discuss healthcare on the regular you jackass. Honestly I don't believe you are in any union but merely a kid pretending you are because reasons. That you don't even know how a bargaining committee works shows what a stupid LARPing fuck you are. Teachers strike more than most professions in the United States so I really doubt what you are saying at all. This is some of the dumbest shit I have ever fucking read.
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LMFAO There is no argument here there is a kid pretending he is in a union yet talking about the UAW and unable to even understand how a bargaining committee works. That you think you owned anyone shows how fucking far up your own ass you are. Anyone with an iota of union experience can tell you are talking out of your fucking ass and it is hilarious. You are not fooling anyone but yeah think you won.
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You need to go reread my original comment since you seem borderline illiterate. I find it funny you are so obsessed with the UAW did Jacobin run an article on it? Since you don't have any actual experience it makes sense that you are latching on to this instance and think you are making a point when you are not.
Of course it eats up time everything eats up time that is the huge part of the bargaining committee is that it is a group of people dedicating their time to being eaten up arguing with the company kind of the fucking point. That you don't seem to get that is funny though. That you think it will be cured by M4A is even funnier like GM and shit won't be telling workers they don't need to be paid more because healthcare is now covered by the government? Yeah that is exactly what will happen. Then the the committee will be wasting all the time they were before arguing for pay increases like they were already doing.
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Because you can negotiate more than one thing. I can't speak to UAW as I am not in UAW so I have no insight into it. That they chose that position might be that is specific to their union that you are trying to make it into a national thing shows once again that you have no actual experience in a union and are using one specific instance to extrapolate a national policy from it. If you know people in UAW why the fuck are you not pestering them about it? How is anyone supposed to answer for a union they have no membership in? What a dumb goddamn line of questioning.
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LMFAO You just go on to prove you have never been in a union with more of this bullshit. Goddamn dude stop LARPing. Fucking A. I will say this I have worked in places with no union and places with a union and I will take a union shop 10/10 times no matter what. That dumb fucks like you think unions are ruining workers is beyond goddamn insanity and shows an utter divorcement from reality and the working class.
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There is something fucking funny about you dorks claiming people are aesthetic communists because they don't support class collaboration. The only people into the aesthetics are jackasses like you who are barely able to string together a thought and think if you obfuscate enough someone will just nod at the dumbassery pouring out of your mouth at a rapid pace. Honestly, if anything is aesthetic it is supporting a bourgeois political candidate and labeling it as revolutionary or radical activity while pretending you operate in a union.
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What do you want? How do you want it to happen? Who do you want to be involved?
Establishment of a communist party that is able to put forward the general interests of the proletariat in all its organs, so that it can win on its own class terrain, to the exclusion of all other classes.
Why should I care about what you support if I will never have affordable healthcare and a living wage.
If you have higher wages, affording healthcare is not a problem. More, you can fight for both wages and healthcare by associating with other workers.
Why should I care about unions if they dont support the wellness of all?
Because the "wellness of all" includes both the petty bourgeois and the bourgeois. The particular interests of the union leadership can be easily overcome through the association of the proletariat, aided by the communist party.
Power corrupts.
If you took this phrase seriously, then what would it tell you about Sanders? But of course it is nonsense, a lame anarchist formalism. There is no necessity that causes unions to act in a certain way, you just need capable people.
Your basic mistake is that you consider "bargaining power" to be a fixed magnitude that you have no capacity effecting, when in reality it is determined by the absolute number of workers involved, by the degree of their unity, their association across crafts, companies and industries, their combativeness, the size of the strike fund, as well as by the capability of union leadership.
You merely look at the situation as it presents itself to you immediately, and in an isolated example at that, and declare it a necessity around which you need to work. It might very well be that some present negotiations proceed this way, but then the task of communists is to intervene and change that, rather than to accept it as given and operate within the margins demanded by capital.
You are trying to argue in favour of M4A on the basis of the limited bargaining power on the part of the unions, at a time when US unionisation rates are historically low. Can't you see how ridiculous this is? Why are you more interested in reducing costs for the bourgeoisie within the limits that the capitalists can enforce based on the current balance of power, instead of overcoming these limits altogether? Unionisation rates have been dwindling for decades while real wages have simultaneously been stagnating, and you argue in all seriousness that the lack of M4A is what prevents higher wages for the proletariat. Glancing at countries with universal healthcare might cure this folly.
And the lack of M4A is certainly not the reason for the low unionisation rates either - if anything M4A might decrease membership. I'm not saying that pure unionisation rates tell the whole story either: Scandinavia shows that a high degree of unionisation need not be of value in itself. The point is to look at the entire picture.
If we had Medicare for all we would have been able to demand much higher wages for our workers
So you're already modelling your negotiation margins according to the wishes of capital, and not the needs of the workers. This means you conceive of your role as being a mediator who tells the proletariat what it can supposedly only work with, so it cuts back on its own interests. This is precisely one of the problems of trade unionism that can be overcome through further association, aided by the communist party. Instead of working to offset the balance of power between capital and labour through a higher degree of unionisation, which is what limits your bargaining power currently, you desire to reduce costs for the bourgeois. It is absurd that after decades of declining union membership coinciding with stagnating real wages you try to paint the lack of M4A as the central issue.
With the same logic you could argue for health and safety regulations at work being cut down. Eliminate railings! They only cause costs that diminish what workers can demand!
More, you should read Capital, so you know what wages are, and how they are determined.
giving them control of more of the surplus value of their labor
I wrote this already elsewhere in this thread, but maybe it's helpful to repeat it here: Communists fight for the conquest of the entirety of value in the economy, not some meagre share of surplus value.
bettering their material conditions.
You should read the chapter on socialist and communist literature in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, specifically the section called "Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism". It directly comments on what you espouse.
Dude what? Have you ever had to deal with American healthcare?
No, it's not a communist programme at all, but statements like
Most healthcare in the US probably isn't as expensive as the health care in most European countries which take significant chunks out of your income.
Are completely and utterly unhinged, and reveal that you have never had to enter the insurance market in the US and deal with medical issues.
Are completely and utterly unhinged, and reveal that you have never had to enter the insurance market in the US and deal with medical issues.
It's not. The problem is that most people can't save up money, with many recent studies repeating that fact. In European countries it is taken as a flat tax from your pay check. They are already saving up except that it isn't in their own bank account.
The costs are just in different leagues
Not for the productive working class. Ending up in a 40%+ tax bracket as a construction worker in Sweden for example. Imagine paying 30k tax on a 70k salary
Okay so you'd be paying 30k in taxes, a fraction of which is going to healthcare, vs the USA where the average person spends 10k a year on healthcare. Overall it still costs the worker more
The "average person" is dead. If that abstraction has any meaningful content, it denotes the middle class. But communists are interested in the proletariat.
Your assumption that it is only a fraction is wrong. 25% of the Dutch government spending is on healthcare. Another 25% is on (unemployment) benefits. It is not a small fraction at all.
That is literally the definition of fraction my guy
Yeah everything smaller than 1 and bigger than 0 is a fraction, but what you meant is the colloquial sense a fraction which means something very small. 25%, or 1/4, is not a fraction at all but quite significant.
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Berners just want capitalism [...] with new lies to make it look like it's working
The problem with capitalism is not that it's not working, but with what it is as such. What you probably conceive as its failings is just its normal state of operating.
The middle class mentally assigns bourgeois society the function of generalising its own petty condition. When this imaginary task embarrasses itself when compared to reality, they conclude that reality is dysfunctional, rather than examining whether their idea of it was wrong. This then leads down the powerless path of contemplating how reality ought to be constituted instead in order to fulfil this vain wish, with the corresponding search for a subject which is to grant it.
The issue that is that Bernie isn't a communist and wishes to preserve the bourgeois order.
He's good at making it look like he doesn't. That's why a lot of people like him. Hell that's why a lot of people liked trump.
If anything, aren't you even a little bit curious what's gonna happen to bernie stans' heads when he wins and nothing changes for 4 years again.
As someone who lives in a country with universal healthcare, I can tell them exactly what will happen: an initial uptick in working conditions, followed by a sharp reaction and decline as employers adjust their mechanisms of surplus-value extraction to the new arrangement. In the UK, tens of thousands have died as a result of austerity in recent years. The labour movement is utterly decrepit. Child poverty is at its highest level in decades. M4A is not the panacea its proponents think it is
The problem is not that healthcare is expensive. Most healthcare in the US probably isn't as expensive as the health care in most European countries which take significant chunks out of your income.
It clearly is. It doesn't take "significant chunks out of our income". In fact I will use my french pay slip to showcase it to you. There is a withholding (not sure of the word) of 20% of my wage in total (19.6% exactly). Half of it isn't for healthcare but stuff for the retirement or for the unemployement benefits... If you only take the percentage of my wage that is about healthcare, it's about 8% ( 8,1% exactly). I don't pay anything else for healthcare. How much do you pay in healthcare compared to your wages, it is more than 8% ? Keep also in mind that I don't have any student debt beacause college is free.
In what world is 8% not a significant chunk?
In the First World. A World where every countries except one have "Medicare for All" and where insulin doesn't cost 1000$ a month which for the record, is way more than 8% of my wage. A world where people doesn't rely on Gofundme to pay for their healthcare.
Also I'm curious, how much do you pay in healthcare private insurance compared to your wages ?
Why are you all so interested in the price of commodities?
The distribution of this surplus value, produced by the working class and taken from it without payment, among the non-working classes proceeds amid extremely edifying squabblings and mutual swindling. In so far as this distribution takes place by means of buying and selling, one of its chief methods is the cheating of the buyer by the seller, and in retail trade, particularly in the big towns, this has become an absolute condition of existence for the sellers. When, however, the worker is cheated by his grocer or his baker, either in regard to the price or the quality of the commodity, this does not happen to him in his specific capacity as a worker. On the contrary, as soon as a certain average level of cheating has become the social rule in any place, it must in the long run be leveled out by a corresponding increase in wages. The worker appears before the small shopkeeper as a buyer, that is, as the owner of money or credit, and hence not at all in his capacity as a worker, that is, as a seller of labour power. The cheating may hit him, and the poorer class as a whole, harder than it hits the richer social classes, but it is not an evil which hits him exclusively or is peculiar to his class.
And it is just the same with the housing shortage.
And it is just the same with the cost of health care.
One could add another passage:
Let us assume that in a given industrial area it has become the rule that each worker owns his own little house. In this case the working class of that area lives rent free; expenses for rent no longer enter into the value of its labor power. Every reduction in the cost of production of labor power, that is to say, every permanent price reduction in the worker’s necessities of life is equivalent “on the basis of the iron laws of political economy” to a reduction in the value of labor power and will therefore finally result in a corresponding fall in wages. Wages would fall on an average corresponding to the average sum saved on rent, that is, the worker would pay rent for his own house, but not, as formerly, in money to the house owner, but in unpaid labor to the factory owner for whom he works. In this way the savings of the worker invested in his little house would certainly become capital to some extent, but not capital for him, but for the capitalist employing him.
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Incidentally, what has been said above applies to all so-called social reforms which aim at saving or cheapening the means of subsistence of the worker. Either they become general and then they are followed by a corresponding reduction of wages, or they remain quite isolated experiments, and- then their very existence as isolated exceptions proves that their realization on a general scale is incompatible with the existing capitalist mode of production. Let us assume that in a certain area a general introduction of consumers’ co-operatives succeeds in reducing the cost of foodstuffs for the workers by 20 per cent; in the long run wages would fall in that area by approximately 20 per cent, that is to say, in the same proportion as the foodstuffs in question enter into the means of subsistence of the workers. If the worker, for example, spends three-quarters of his weekly wage on these foodstuffs, then wages would finally fall by three-quarters of 20 = 15 per cent. In short, as soon as any such savings reform has become general, the worker receives in the same proportion less wages, as his savings permit him to live cheaper. Give every worker a saved, independent income of 52 talers a year and his weekly wage must finally fall by one taler. Therefore: the more he saves the less he will receive in wages. He saves therefore not in his own interests, but in the interests of the capitalist. Is anything else necessary in order “to stimulate in the most powerful fashion the primary economic virtue, thrift?”
What does this tell us about healthcare?
Well here is the problem. People here are either too stupid or too invested in stupidity to understand this. This is the sort of thing they'll call dogmatic because they don't understand it.
The fact that almost everyone in this thread assumes that wages come out of the surplus value (even writing that gives me a headache) probably goes a long way to explaining the huge amounts of nonsense and petty bourgeois positions being put forward.
user reports:
1: tax agency shill
Good one.
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The party is the result of actual human activity. https://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/f2xnw9/interesting_union_flyer_in_regards_to_health_care/fhmeed0/
People are attempting to build it in the real world, actually attached to a labor movement. It’s sad to see comments like this as a gotcha moment lol really shows where your class interests lie.
It wasn’t meant as a gotcha. I want to know where to look and what to look for but I realized I should pose the question when I can phrase it more eloquently.
Unfortunately it requires people who understand what is required and a culture to promote that; two things sorely lacking in the US.
I’m not from the US. This is a global struggle, isn’t it?
Yes, but it has to begin within the confines of individual nation states. And unfortunately again, this is a world wide problem but as it stands, we can't comb the whole world and investigate every group.
When you say “people who understand what is required”, do you have specific people in mind or is it more a sketch of who these people should be?
It's both. Pretty much every single communist and socialist party in existence in the world is composed almost entirely of students and other members of the petty bourgeois classes. This has a detrimental effect on the party, for obvious reasons. Especially when the people have never had real jobs and lack any real life experience, and in essence, have no idea what it is that they're doing.
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I take it you consider yourself one of the people with the understanding and experience communism needs?
No. The benefit of the party is that it is a collective organism. I rely on others just as much as they rely on me (in theory that is). This is the culture aspect that I mentioned, and it is difficult to get this going and to maintain it. Personalities tend to get in the way.
In regards to experience, that already is out there. There has been over 200 years of the communist movement.
Is there any way for me, or anyone else, to make any goddamn difference?
There is nothing to say that you can't join a party or a trade union. It's just that they're likely to a pointless waste of time out of which you gain experience in recognizing pointless wastes of time. It is possible that you'll meet like minded people, other contacts and so on, and it is possible that you could move on from there.
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agree personally I think not having to worry about family members and friends having healthcare disarms the working class.
Provided you're a worker and healthcare is a need for you: Why would you, instead of fighting for either higher wages so that you can afford it, or fighting immediately for healthcare itself, perhaps for both, surrender by merely resorting to casting a vote or even going as far as campaigning for a millionaire politician, and hoping he gets to enact some lousy compromise that nets you a few crumbs?
I also think the employer having the power to cut off healthcare benefits with snap of a finger like they did to the striking GM workers is more empowering to the working class than having universal healthcare (you can tell that puts the workers in a better bargaining position).
The workers' isolation is the problem here, not the fact that their healthcare is not provided by the state. Here, Engels describes a similar situation with regard to housing:
Long before the struggle between Bismarck and the German bourgeoisie had given the German workers freedom of association, the English factory, mine and foundry owners had had practical experience of the pressure they could exert on striking workers if they were at the same time the landlords of those workers.
Isn't it curious that in the same pamphlet, he also argues against the state providing housing? The reason is that housing is a need that transcends class. Engels instead aims for further association of the proletariat; class struggle. How class struggle can amend a housing shortage has been explained here.
having to worry about losing your job or being unable to quit or switch jobs when you're miserable because you worry about losing your coverage is especially most empowering to you as a worker.
Three "worries" and a "miserable" in three sentences - sounds more like someone is afraid of losing their petty social standing.
you can tell by the fact that in European countries where they have universal healthcare the labor movement is in a much worse position than the labor movement in the US where they don't have universal healthcare.
You have no clue about the conditions in Europe if you think the labour movement is strong there. Additionally, many of the policies concerning co-determination which Sanders proposes are in place there, and they do their part in pacifying workers.
you can also tell that medicare for all is actually beneficial to the bourgeois that's why they're overwhelmingly supporting it and lobbying to get the bill through in congress.
You do realise that the bourgeoisie is fractured in its economic interests itself? Big capital and small capital; commerical, industrial and finance capital; exporting and importing industries - I could go on like this. In countries with plenty of parties, these interests are each represented by a party. In countries with few parties, they take on the form of factional struggles within these parties themselves.
edit: u/DrRedTerror can't reply since i got banned cause' god forbid anyone interrupts while you guys defend private health insurance using marxist phraseology. funny enough these arguments are against pretty much all social pograms. you actually managed to convince yourselves using marxism that dismantling the welfare state is better for the working class. keep that up and i'm sure you'll have great careers ahead.
I like how singularly determined you are to be this stupid. It's really something.
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They're being sarcastic.
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You don't have to read Marx to not be a moron.
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Who is attacking communism? Pretty sure most of us know what communism is and "ensure the working class remains sick and poor to accelerate revolutionary fervor" is not it. But hey maybe American Republicans are just better leftists then me.
Who is attacking communism?
All the Sanders supporters in this thread do, whether they know it or not.
Pretty sure most of us know what communism is
Pretty sure you don't.
"ensure the working class remains sick and poor to accelerate revolutionary fervor"
No one argues this.
But hey maybe American Republicans are just better leftists then me.
No one is interested in "who is the better leftist". The question is about communism, nothing else.
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That isn't the issue. The point is that there are class orientations and there are these degenerate plans of the bourgeoisie to make capitalism more efficient, to reduce the costs of labor and to disarm the working class and its institutions, by people with latent petite bourgeois ideas trying to associate themselves with the communist movement.
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Wage slavery would surely be more tolerable with M4A, universal childcare, 15$ minimum wage, teacher pay raise, access to Education, ect. If you want to deny Bernie would greatly benefit the material conditions of the proletariat be my guest, but I would ask you to please get your mind out the 19th century please
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This is what happens when you don’t read books
People can read hundreds of books and still say stuff like this.
People do read hundreds of books and still say stuff like this.
Would all of these things not benefit the working classes material conditions?
Wage slavery would surely be more tolerable with M4A, universal childcare, 15$ minimum wage, teacher pay raise, access to Education, ect.
Slavery would surely be more tolerable if the masters could be convinced to give us less beatings and a bit more food! Actively fighting them to wrest concessions away from them, and ultimately do away with slavery, is out of the question!
If you want to deny Bernie would greatly benefit the material conditions of the proletariat be my guest
All sorts of policies "benefit the material conditions of the proletariat" in the abstract. This is not what communism is about.
but I would ask you to please get your mind out the 19th century please
Would you please get your mind out of petty bourgeois nonsense?
Lol who said that is the goal of the communist movement? No shit that my life would be better under m4A but to pretend it is a communist demand or a thing that communists should support is laughable. If people read 25% of what us posted in this sub they wouldn’t make dumb statements like this.
I’m saying this as someone who at one point didn’t read shit either.
I didn't say that it was a communist program, but why should a communist not support it? I don't understand how a communist could not support such a clear material benefit to the workers. The first people funded movement that directly challenges bourgeois hegemony in America.
I have read Marxist literature and I would say if you take their disdain for electoral politics so seriously in the 21st century you haven't been paying attention. If your waiting for a communist revolution in America then you'll die waiting. You will be a arm chair communist while the workers change their livelihoods the only way they can, which right now is electoralism
Did you even bother to read the original post?
Yes I did and what they OP fails to neglect is that Bernie wants to empower unions and that M4A will drastically improve their bargaining position for better wages
I suggest you reread the post carefully.
The first people funded movement that directly challenges bourgeois hegemony in America.
From the M4A website
A single payer system dramatically reduces administrative bloat by reducing billing complexity. The increasing complexity of our fragmented health care system is a primary driver of increasing costs. In fact, we currently spend an unnecessary 503 billion annually in bureaucratic costs. Medicare for All will simplify our system by eliminating fragmentation and ensuring more seamless, efficient, and streamlined administration.
Competitive advertising can make up as high as 15 percent of an insurer’s operating costs, costs that will not exist under Medicare for All. A major source of waste in our current healthcare system is the 30 billion dollars annually spent by insurers on advertising. Private insurance will have nothing to advertise under Medicare for All, saving billions a year in costs that do nothing to improve health.
Something about a more efficient capitalist state seems at odds with the idea that it directly challenges "bourgeois hegemony" in any way.
Presidents come and go, but classes and exploitation remain.
If your waiting for a communist revolution in America then you'll die waiting.
This is a truism. We're advocating for strengthening the labour movement, not for waiting.
You will be a arm chair communist while the workers change their livelihoods the only way they can, which right now is electoralism
I doubt that the majority of people rallying behind Sanders are workers. Also, it's hilarious that you call others "armchair communists" while claiming that the only way workers can change their livelihoods is electoralism. Do you know what a trade union is? Weren't you boasting to another person about your experience with unions in this very thread?
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He already told you that communists don't support electoralism.
That's not exactly correct. Electoralism is one thing, but participating in elections is just a tactic like anything else.
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skilled labor unions are not for the betterment of the entire working class, just their members
How is a culinary union a skilled labor union?
Wins secured by labour unions tend towards extension by the dynamics of capitalist competition. Here Marx describes the effects of the Factory Acts, in a passage that is applicable also to union victories:
'There are two circumstances that finally turn the scale: first, the constantly recurring experience that capital, so soon as it finds itself subject to legal control at one point, compensates itself all the more recklessly at other points; secondly, the cry of the capitalists for equality in the conditions of competition, i.e., for equal restraint on all exploitation of labour.'
By engaging in more reckless exploitation at other points, capital stirs a more determined and united opposition against itself; by crying for equality in the conditions of competition, capitalists inadvertently tend to universalise (or at least extend) the victories of the workers throughout their branch of industry, and even into other branches.
This level of dogmatism and sectarianism is ridiculous. You think you'll ever accomplish anything (let alone communism) by never compromising and never seeking alliances?
Allies with who? The capitalist class? Interesting proposition you're making here.
What point do you think you're making here?
Deriding a group of people that is
is stupid tactics. Instead of running purity tests and trying to find ways to disavow each other, people on the left would be much better off by focusing on what common ground they have and how they can turn that common ground into policy. You know, like how every change in the real world ever is done. You think capitalism came about when a small group of capitalists somehow convinced the whole world to do everything exactly how they wanted it in one fell swoop? You think labour rights or any other progressive goal that has been realised came about by shunning everyone who doesn't share your exact vision of it?
Aside from the fact that communism is not about ideals but needs, we might reply with Engels:
The issue is purely one of principle: is the struggle to be conducted as a class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, or is it to be permitted that in good opportunist (or as it is called in the Socialist translation: possibilist) style the class character of the movement, together with the programme, are everywhere to be dropped where there is a chance of winning more votes, more adherents, by this means. Malon and Brousse, by declaring themselves in favour of the latter alternative, have sacrificed the proletarian class character of the movement and made separation inevitable. All the better. The development of the proletariat proceeds everywhere amidst internal struggles and France, which is now forming a workers' party for the first time, is no exception. We in Germany have got beyond the first phase of the internal struggle, other phases still lie before us. Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand higher than unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one's life long against the alleged Socialists than against anyone else (for we only regarded the bourgeoisie as a class and hardly ever involved ourselves in conflicts with individual bourgeois), one cannot greatly grieve that the inevitable struggle has broken out.
Or Marx:
Just as the democrats abused the word “people” so now the word “proletariat” has been used as a mere phrase. To make this phrase effective it would be necessary to describe all the petty bourgeois as proletarians and consequently in practice represent the petty bourgeois and not the proletarians. The actual revolutionary process would have to be replaced by revolutionary catchwords. This debate has finally laid bare the differences in principle which lay behind the clash of personalities, and the time for action has now arrived. It is precisely these differences that have furnished both parties with their battlecries and some members of the League have called the defenders of the Manifesto reactionaries, seeking thereby to make them unpopular, which however does not worry them in the least, as they do not seek popularity.
On the matter of "right", here is an excerpt from the German Ideology:
As far as right is concerned, we with many others have stressed the opposition of communism to right, both political and private, as also in its most general form as human rights. See the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, where privilege, the special right, is considered as something corresponding to private property inseparable from social classes, and right as something corresponding to the state of competition, of free private property; equally, the rights of man themselves are considered as privilege, and private property as monopoly. Further, criticism of right is brought into connection with German philosophy and presented as the consequence of criticism of religion; further, it is expressly stated that the legal axioms that are supposed to lead to communism are axioms of private property, and the right of common ownership is an imaginary premise of the right of private property.
Likewise, the Holy Family on "progress":
the category “Progress” is completely empty and abstract
people on the left would be much better off by focusing on what common ground they have and how they can turn that common ground into policy
And what do you imagine this common ground between communists and social democrats would be?
You think capitalism came about when a small group of capitalists somehow convinced the whole world to do everything exactly how they wanted it in one fell swoop?
Don't exert yourself, this analogy you're constructing will never be apt. The fragment below also addresses the illusory conception of supposed shared goals you might hold.
The revisionist thesis establishes a fallacious analogy between the situation of the bourgeoisie in feudal society, where this class has unquestionably obtained growing economic power with the related ideological-cultural assets, and the “condition” of the proletariat in bourgeois society (where it is by definition without reserves, devoid of everything, disinherited). Such a vision denies as a whole the entire scientific analysis of “Capital”, the whole Marxist program of the constitution of the proletariat as a class (through its constitution as a party) and of its emancipation. This cannot be conceived as the rupture, the abrogation of legal ties enshrining an outdated relationship of social domination, if only because no legal principle obliges the proletarian to sell its labour power, the only commodity at its disposal and which has the particular character of generating surplus value. This point was brilliantly developed by Rosa Luxemburg in “Reform or Revolution?” (Part Two, Chapter 3: ‘The conquest of political power’):
“Bernstein, thundering against the conquest of political power as a theory of Blanquist violence, has the misfortune of labelling as a Blanquist error that which has always been the pivot and the motive force of human history. From the first appearance of class societies having the class struggle as the essential content of their history, the conquest of political power has been the aim of all rising classes. Here is the starting point and end of every historic period. […] Every legal constitution is the product of a revolution. In the history of classes, revolution is the act of political creation, while legislation is the political expression of the life of a society that has already come into being. Work for reform does not contain its own force independent from revolution. During every historic period, work for reforms is carried on only in the direction given to it by the impetus of the last revolution and continues as long as the impulsion from the last revolution continues to make itself felt. Or, to put it more concretely, in each historic period work for reforms is carried on only in the framework of the social form created by the last revolution. Here is the kernel of the problem.
“It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long-drawn out revolution and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according to their content. The secret of historic change through the utilisation of political power resides precisely in the transformation of simple quantitative modification into a new quality, or to speak more concretely, in the passage of an historic period from one given form of society to another.
“That is why people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the wage labour system but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself.”
You think labour rights or any other progressive goal that has been realised came about by shunning everyone who doesn't share your exact vision of it?
Achieving goals typically requires getting rid of the influence of interests that are working against you reaching those goals. And why are you assuming those are the goals of communists anyway? You made it seem like you were talking about a compromise, but it seems awfully like this compromise consists of all the goals of social democracy and none of the goals of communism. Go figure!
And what do you imagine this common ground between communists and social democrats would be?
Less control of society for the capitalists, more control for everyone else.
Don't exert yourself, this analogy you're constructing will never be apt:
Even if it's a bad analogy about capitalism (which I don't think it is and I don't think your quote proves it), you still have to admit that social movements that brought results weren't based on purity checks, infighting and exclusionary tactics.
but it seems awfully like this compromise consists of all the goals of social democracy and none of the goals of communism. Go figure!
That's the balance of power right now. It's a social democrat who has popular appeal and can win the presidency, therefore they get the most out of it. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a compromise between equals is the only acceptable outcome when one party represents the opinions of hundreds of millions and you represent just a handful of people. That doesn't mean that communist goals aren't advanced by social democracy at all. Gradualism in policies and increased class consciousness are not boons that should be scoffed at. If Sanders was so useful to the capitalist class and so useless to the working class as you imply, then capitalists wouldn't be throwing billions of dollars trying to thwart him and his movement.
Less control of society for the capitalists, more control for everyone else.
Capitalists would have the same, if not more, control over society. The working class will never be emancipated if it does not not organize as a class with the communist party. What you are proposing is a weakening and disarming of the class for some garbage about alliances and compromises with classes that are opposed to that.
If Sanders was so useful to the capitalist class and so useless to the working class as you imply, then capitalists wouldn't be throwing billions of dollars trying to thwart him and his movement.
Funny, do you think that capitalists are organized into one monolithic unit?
Well, we know what the movement that actually fulfills the goals of social democracy is.
I don't know what you're talking about
I’m referring to how fascism National Socialism fulfills the program of social democracy. Social Democrats like the one you replied to essentially fall into antisemitism without Jews; they still view capital as a cabal that is working against them in particular instead of a hegemony with diverse views. It’s still the socialism of fools, it’s just whitewashed for diversity-conscious liberals.
Edit for more precise language
I still have no idea what you're trying to say
Less control of society for the capitalists, more control for everyone else.
Do you realize that the state is an organ of the capitalist class? Transferring control from the hands of the capitalists to those of their state would achieve nothing. And who is this "everyone else"? The petty bourgeoisie with the proletariat on a leash, I presume? How about the proletariat takes over control over its own healthcare instead of ceding it to the capitalist state? Less control for the capitalist state, more control for the proletariat. How about we let that be the common ground?
you still have to admit that social movements that brought results weren't based on purity checks, infighting and exclusionary tactics
But they were! Of course I'm talking about excluding those interests which were opposed to bringing those results about. You're still operating under the false assumption that we're dealing with a common goal and not opposite goals.
That's the balance of power right now.
The capitalists are in power right now, we better give up and rally behind their candidates!
That doesn't mean that communist goals aren't advanced by social democracy at all.
You aren't being a very good salesman right now. I'm already ahead of your script. I already provided you with an explanation for why they aren't.
Gradualism in policies and increased class consciousness are not boons that should be scoffed at.
Because nothing "increases class consciousness" like ceasing to fight for healthcare on class basis and instead surrendering this area to the bourgeois state!
If Sanders was so useful to the capitalist class and so useless to the working class as you imply, then capitalists wouldn't be throwing billions of dollars trying to thwart him and his movement.
If Trump was so useful to the capitalist class and so useless to the working class as you imply, then capitalists wouldn't be throwing billions of dollars trying to thwart him and his movement.
"everyone else" is an abstraction that's not rooted in class. Communism is an explicitly class-based movement. It is the doctrine of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat. It's not a scheme to improve the general welfare and divvy up surplus value.
It’s very clear you have no idea what communism is with this... barrage of jargon
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I understand your criticisms of Bernie
It does not seem like you do.
we can talk all day about the good and bad that he's done
Good and bad in relation to what? There is no such thing as an abstract category of good or bad as such. Marx once commented on this kind of thinking:
He [Proudhon] looks upon these categories as the petty bourgeois looks upon the great men of history: Napoleon was a great man; he did a lot of good; he also did a lot of harm.
You see the point?
but what ACTION do you actually suggest?
Is it so fucking difficult to at least read this very thread?
You either vote for him, someone else, or nobody at all.
So the entirety of what constitutes ACTION (written in capital letters!) to you is voting? It's interesting to me when people actively appropriate the meagre say in political matters the capitalist state lines out for them with such enthusiasm. It usually points to their powerless petty bourgeois social standing.
The way I see it, voting for him will improve the quality of life for many Americans
It has been established in this thread that:
I'm not saying the only action we can take is within the voting system, of course we should take action outside of it, that goes without saying. But the two are not mutually exclusive.
Who is "we" here? The two are not mutually exclusive should a communist party decide to run in elections for tactical reasons. This is not the case.
I'm simply asking what ACTION should be taken in regards to the election?
"Should be taken" in relation to what? No one here is particularly interested in telling you how to live your life. What do you mean by "ACTION" now? Voting for any particular candidate, respectively not voting at all? If we are talking about communism, then it should be obvious that all of the available candidates are opposed to it, meaning that if you're a communist actually worth the name, you won't vote for any of them. This follows logically from all that has been laid out here already.
I'm simply asking what ACTION should be taken in regards to the election?
That should have been clear from the answers given in this thread multiple times.
When we're all drowning underneath the flood waters because you fucks were too preoccupied with having a "real revolution" remember that you made this post and remember that you willingly chose to say fuck you to the only candidate that has a climate change plan with any real teeth. I'm sorry he's not "left enough" for you but while you sit here on your high pedestal regurgitating second rate Marxist theory to people that don't give a shit because they just want healthcare, there are people out there actually taking action and trying to acquire small victories for the people that need it.
The chances of a full rate armed revolution to overthrow the bourgeois in the next 20 years are slim to none. Accept that and fucking compromise or perish underneath your own unwillingness to realize that we don't have the fucking time to pursue class consciousness of the proletariat so that they can overthrow the ruling class. We'll all be dead by the time that could even remotely happen. There's not going to be a worldwide revolution if there's no world for it to happen on.
I swear, you all need to get off your entitled theory filled asses and recognize that we need to sacrifice our ultimate goals as communists and as anarchists and as leftists in general for the sake of the planet. If you can't recognize that than you are actively contributing to the extinction of our species. No one's going to care if this is "real Communism" and the fact that "Bernie just wants happy Capitalism" while the world is destroyed all around you. Seriously. Fuck off with this trite bullshit and actually help the working class instead of yelling online about how they aren't going far enough. This is what we have right now. We don't have the luxury of full revolution. And god knows we don't have the time.
When we're all drowning underneath the flood waters because you fucks were too preoccupied with having a "real revolution"
Oh no, you've exposed how powerful we are. A handful of people shit posting and trolling idiots has doomed the world.
remember that you made this post and remember that you willingly chose to say fuck you to the only candidate that has a climate change plan with any real teeth.
lol are you threatening me or something? Oh no, the Ghost of Christmas Past will come haunt me in my sleep.
sit here on your high pedestal
You sit on a high horse. Not on a high pedestal.
there are people out there actually taking action
I hear that you can vote from home now.
The chances of a full rate armed revolution to overthrow the bourgeois in the next 20 years are slim to none.
Not with that attitude lol
Accept that and fucking compromise or perish underneath your own unwillingness to realize that we don't have the fucking time to pursue class consciousness of the proletariat so that they can overthrow the ruling class.
Repent, sinner!
We'll all be dead by the time that could even remotely happen.
If it meant that you'd die because of me then I'd die happy. Now I'm glad that I sprayed all of that hairspray back in the 80s.
your entitled theory filled asses
lol
recognize that we need to sacrifice our ultimate goals as communists and as anarchists and as leftists in general for the sake of the planet.
Which Captain Planet character are you cosplaying as?
If you can't recognize that than you are actively contributing to the extinction of our species.
Now I'm going to go around and leave the doors of chillers open in grocery stores just to spite you.
No one's going to care if this is "real Communism" and the fact that "Bernie just wants happy Capitalism" while the world is destroyed all around you.
I'm not surprised that a soft-skulled new-age liberal retard doesn't care about real communism.
Seriously.
Bruh, seriously?
Fuck off with this trite bullshit and actually help the working class instead of yelling online about how they aren't going far enough.
How does one yell online on a text based website?
This is what we have right now. We don't have the luxury of full revolution. And god knows we don't have the time.
I'm not exactly sure where you think we're saying that this will result in a luxuriously full revolution.
When we're all drowning underneath the flood waters because you fucks were too preoccupied with having a "real revolution" remember that you made this post and remember that you willingly chose to say fuck you to the only candidate that has a climate change plan with any real teeth.
You're a moron if you think a Sanders presidency would do away with environmental destruction. The only way it can be dealt with properly is through communist action. This is explained in detail in this thread.
I'm sorry he's not "left enough" for you but while you sit here on your high pedestal regurgitating second rate Marxist theory to people that don't give a shit because they just want healthcare, there are people out there actually taking action and trying to acquire small victories for the people that need it.
The issue is not that Sanders is not "left enough". The issue is that he represents interests entirely opposed to communism. We are arguing for creating a communist party and for workers fighting for their needs through independent class organs. You tell them to submit their surrender through the ballot box, and pray that some bourgeois bestows some leftovers on them. I wonder who of us is sitting in an armchair here.
The chances of a full rate armed revolution to overthrow the bourgeois in the next 20 years are slim to none.
Therefore, we won't work towards it at all.
Accept that and fucking compromise
The issue is not with compromise as such, but understanding to distinguish between those compromises that are permissible for the labour movement, and those which are not. What you mean by compromise is nothing else than class collaboration. You think it's merely a matter of compromising on ideals, but communism is not an ideal.
or perish underneath your own unwillingness to realize that we don't have the fucking time to pursue class consciousness of the proletariat so that they can overthrow the ruling class. We'll all be dead by the time that could even remotely happen. There's not going to be a worldwide revolution if there's no world for it to happen on.
I wish people would always be this frank, it would make things a lot easier. Go and take your middle class angst somewhere else. If you understood bourgeois society, you would have understood that if anything, your call for class collaboration prevents a fight against environmental destruction. The association of labour immediately provides remedy against environmental destruction, as the cause of the latter lies in the estranged metabolism of man and nature through labour mediated by private property to begin with. There is no better and more effective environmental action than the independent movement of labour itself.
I swear, you all need to get off your entitled theory filled asses and recognize that we need to sacrifice our ultimate goals as communists and as anarchists and as leftists in general for the sake of the planet.
Entitled theory filled asses? What has been argued in this thread requires no reading, just a brain. Anarchists and leftists can get fucked. And who are you to tell communists and workers what they need to do? Go fuck yourself, and go cry in your petty bourgeois cave.
If you can't recognize that than you are actively contributing to the extinction of our species.
Boo-hoo, I'm cowering in fear before the Last Judgement. I hope I won't be punished for my sins!
No one's going to care if this is "real Communism" and the fact that "Bernie just wants happy Capitalism" while the world is destroyed all around you.
Reading your post makes me want the world to end faster.
Seriously. Fuck off with this trite bullshit and actually help the working class instead of yelling online about how they aren't going far enough.
We argue for the association of the proletariat, while you openly argue for it to renounce its interests.
This is what we have right now. We don't have the luxury of full revolution.
You heard them, proles? Back to work and bend over!
And god knows we don't have the time.
Raise your hand next time before sharing your shenanigans with the class.
You’re utterly detached from reality
When we're all drowning underneath the flood waters because you fucks were too preoccupied with having a "real revolution" remember that you made this post and remember that you willingly chose to say fuck you to the only candidate that has a climate change plan with any real teeth.
Do you really think the 10-15 people that frequent this subreddit, some of which are probably not even American, are going to have any meaningful impact on the result of the election in November?
less than 10% of the population are in unions, seems bougie
btw this is called sarcasm, you banhappy dipshits
Hot leftist take: unions are bourgeois
10 percent of what population?
And even less are communists.
btw this is called sarcasm, you banhappy dipshits
Sure is. Funny joke.
59 replies:
So what I have gathered you either can support America or Iran, beating workers is not only ok it is abjectly communist, revolutionary defeatism is for cucks, having a shitty garden is revolutionary, Nintendo dildos make people very defensive, and backwater shitholes are anti-imperialist while engaging with their halfassed attempts at imperialism. Did I miss anything?
Did I miss anything?
And apparently it is the duty of the communists to maintain the balance of power between the US and Iran in the same way that the Congress of Vienna sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe.
Ah yes the role of communists is to bring a balance of power for bourgeois states. Like comrades Metternich and Richelieu! What a moron that Lenin was trying to advocate for defeatism when he should have been tweeting to figure a way for a return to a perpetual status quo!
Iranian workers are getting lashed for striking, while in the US you have middle class cucks with Nintendo-themed dildo collections posing as communists when they attempt to create a community "garden".
More on recent activity of Iranian workers: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/workers-at-iran-restive-industrial-complex-on-strike-for-second-week/30685851.html
Do you know of any other good news sources for the middle east? The only other ones I know are Aljazeera and Labourstart Middle East, which updates pretty infrequently for some countries.
I often just use Google News to keep myself updated about the labour movement around the world. It works pretty well to use keywords like "labour", "workers", "strike", "union" and so on, and combine them with the respective region to get decent results. Otherwise it's too much of a hassle to remember all the relevant websites.
If you know about any other good sites consolidating news of the labour movement without too much political bullshit being included, let me know though.
Thanks, I'll try Google News.
Otherwise it's too much of a hassle to remember all the relevant websites.
Maybe you could put sites that you like into an RSS feed. They can be organized into folders however you want, like by region, and then you can search for keywords within those folders.
There is also /r/labor, but about 80% of the posts there are stupid leftist nonsense.
One of the idiotic things that American Middle classes believe is that they are indistinguishable from workers. Everyone that isn't as rich as Bill Gates is technically working class to them.
That's not only the US-American middle classes. It's their behaviour everywhere.
although it makes absolutely no material difference, it's always been funny to me that american politicians always frame their policies in terms of protecting the middle class, whereas in the UK the idea of a "middle class handout" is an insult. But everyone is still perfectly happy to defend the livelihoods of "small and medium enterprises" through attacks on labour rights, permanently delayed increases in wage, cuts to business tax and the like.
Do they? I would have said that mainstream American discourse distinguishes between middle class and working class. Most people identify as middle class, no matter how much wealth they have or what their relationship to capital is. Working class implies struggling economically; it is code for poor people.
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Lol why is my name in quotation marks? and of course we have a german complaining about dildos.
what do you mean while ?
do you think these people should lob for their government to somehow... intervene? or do you in some way condemn this spontaneous reaction of people whose friends are being unaccountably murdered
What the fuck are you even trying to say? It would be nice if people weren't so insecure and vague about shit.
how fucking dare you (OP, or both of you idk), elitist narcissist piglet thinking you are so much better than all the anti-imperialists, with your immaculate ability to stand on the left and simultaneously critique anti-imperialist governments, to disregard the wilful but righteous protesters in their legitimate cause in the US.
If there is an inplication in your comment, shut the fuck up about internal issues in anti-imperialist states. At some point you have to face the reality that these are an unpleasant necessity, for instance in providing food to VZLA. In these circles, there are numerous examples of infiltration designed to foster leftwashing - look for instance at Chuang's citations in regards to their position on HK. Social-chauvinism has been written about for 150 years for a reason.
to conclude; if you are implying something then shut the fuck up. If you aren't then I won't mind the poor framing of the comment, and thank you for the bit of education.
Also, what the fuck is that about cucks and dildo collections? Did you guys jump shit straight from gamergate or what?
Are you honestly suggesting that workers being flogged for striking is a good thing? The mind of a tankie!
Hi friend are you doing okay? :)
It seemed so strange that you would spam me with 5 comments, all of them being completely void of any thoughts. I briefly noticed that you only post insults or condescending garbage on here, so I thought I'd check on you. Let me help you out, my man! We can leave behind us this stupid Iran stuff.
lol are you serious? you're being so incredibly vague and yet outraged that you come across as complete fucking lunatic
So, to get to the bottom of this: are you seriously in favor of workers being flogged over striking?
how fucking dare you (OP, or both of you idk), elitist narcissist piglet thinking you are so much better
I'm already bored at you trying to tell me what I can and can't do. I really can't be bothered with clowns like you. Grow up.
anti-imperialists, with your immaculate ability to stand on the left and simultaneously critique anti-imperialist governments
I'm sure the Iranian government is shuddering in fear before users in this subreddit criticising them for flogging workers. Give me a second before I collect my CIA paycheck for linking to an evil propaganda website. Sometimes I forget that morons like you even exist.
to disregard the wilful but righteous protesters in their legitimate cause in the US.
I forgot that communists have to parasitically claim each and every petty bourgeois protest in the world for themselves in its immediacy. The fact that you talk in terms of "righteousness" and "legitimacy" about the needs of people is something else. Are you a government agency?
If there is an inplication in your comment, shut the fuck up about internal issues in anti-imperialist states.
"Anti-imperialist states", haha. The tiny internal issue of labour organisations being persecuted and workers being jailed and lashed. What makes you the moral instance determining who gets to talk about the actions of states?
At some point you have to face the reality that these are an unpleasant necessity
The bourgeoisie tells me the same.
for instance in providing food to VZLA
Is this a joke?
In these circles, there are numerous examples of infiltration designed to foster leftwashing
Which circles? What infiltration? What is "leftwashing"?
look for instance at Chuang's citations in regards to their position on HK
I'm not interested in that rag. But please explain what is objectionable about their citations, given that you have already brought them up as an example. Are they citing the evil CIA-backed China Labour Bulletin?
Social-chauvinism has been written about for 150 years for a reason.
Okay?
to conclude; if you are implying something then shut the fuck up.
How about no? How about you piss off to the "circles" you came from?
If you aren't then I won't mind the poor framing of the comment, and thank you for the bit of education.
If you shut up now, then I might not mind you having the audacity to bother me with this pile of shit you left here.
Also, what the fuck is that about cucks and dildo collections? Did you guys jump shit straight from gamergate or what?
Boo-hoo, no-no language being used! Meme brain can only link it to internet drama!
Give me a second before I collect my CIA paycheck for linking to an evil propaganda website.
This is a secret. Don't tell anyone. Btw, Russia, if you're reading this, we go for minimum wage.
Do people here think that bullet point quotations actually have any rhetorical value? Quoting a sentence and "refuting" it by dismissing it is something I haven't really seen since the Koch funded fascist youtube channels started to pop up. You're funny bro.
Hey listen Im all for a healthy old dispute but Ill provide what thou seek: leftwashing. Might just be an ironic circumstance that you correctly identify Chuang as a rag but unaware of that term.
But what I don't understand is that you ask me if In joking. Do you not share my view that pressuring states that are alligned with socialists/liberatories causes an increased risk of these states to end or weaken their support?
Do people here think that bullet point quotations actually have any rhetorical value? Quoting a sentence and "refuting" it by dismissing it is something I haven't really seen since the Koch funded fascist youtube channels started to pop up.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I don't seek to refute you. I merely provide a bit of commentary for general amusement. It's fitting that you talk about YouTube channels.
Hey listen Im all for a healthy old dispute but Ill provide what thou seek: leftwashing.
And then we get Twitter! It is funny to see that academics and their acolytes make a sport out of inventing ever new terms that serve for creating an always perfectible moral vocabulary that can then be benevolently taught to the unwashed masses. Don't you feel like a clown when you go around and talk about "leftwashing" as if people were supposed to know what you are saying? I'm not even going to comment on the asinine content of the tweet itself. No one here rallies behind leftism, democracy or anti-authoritarianism.
Might just be an ironic circumstance that you correctly identify Chuang as a rag but unaware of that term.
It is very likely that I consider it a rag for different reasons than you do.
Do you not share my view that pressuring states that are alligned with socialists/liberatories causes an increased risk of these states to end or weaken their support?
We're talking in an internet forum. How is that pressuring anyone? I'm not concerned with the cause of nations, I'm concerned with the cause of the proletariat. I couldn't give less of a fuck about the concerns of the Iranian, US-American or Venezuelan state or bourgeois "socialists/liberatories".
incredulous that 1989 didnt hammer this lession into everybodies head. This shit is literally purity olympics. VZ isnt a bougie project, these are the people actually struggling to create a path forward. Be patient and be generous. How dare you to hold these fantasy standards above the heads of people? Do you have this little regard for human beings?
edit:
we need iran to thrive to provide the utility that they do, the hegemonic pushback and the direct aid, and we need iran to be protected from a fate that is immeasurably worse than now. With your attitude, both these objectives are denied. Why? Either you are the amazing creation of a pro-imperalist leftist, a psyop or you are so blinded by ideology that you are incapable of maneuvering the realities of this one shitty world that we have.
This is hilarious. You should stop calling yourself a communist. You can't even get a solid grasp on recognizing worker oppression; I bet you believe in socialist profit too. Highly unlikely you've ever read a text by Lenin, much less Marx.
Edit: lol, this tankie went into my PMs to link me to Left Wing Communism and shill for the unity of 'left wing communities', not realizing how much of an infant they are
He DMd me this:
Hi! I'd love to hear your issues with my position that anti-imperialists must be left standing in order to safeguard their allied actual leftist communities against the west.
I can't even parse what he's trying to say.
They're trying to say that when people discuss the flogging of workers in Iran on an internet forum, then they would effectively be calling for NATO to bring down the government - what they call "anti-imperialists" - there, which would be a problem, because this would cause the Venezuelan government - what they call "allied actual leftist community" - to collapse. And they're asking you why this would be wrong.
They sent me a personal message recommending some asinine book by an academic on Venezuela, saying that "the people" in that state would be weeping at my bitter disregard for them. They were saying that the country would be undergoing a "left-process", and that I was merely swallowing propaganda, which would be "heartbreaking".
After I told them to fuck off, said that the Iranian and Venezuelan proletariat weeps for their indifference, and linked them to the collected works of Marx and Engels, they tried to imply that I hadn't understood the critique of the Gotha programme - which is probably the only text by Marx that they've ever read. Fucking hilarious.
Edit: lol, this tankie went into my PMs to link me to Left Wing Communism and shill for the unity of 'left wing communities', not realizing how much of an infant they are
Unity, hmm?
Experience has shown that opportunism always infiltrates our ranks under the guise of unity. It is in its interest to influence the largest possible mass, and it is therefore behind the screen of unity that it puts forward its most deceitful proposals.
we need iran to thrive to provide the utility that they do, the hegemonic pushback and the direct aid, and we need iran to be protected from a fate that is immeasurably worse than now. With your attitude, both these objectives are denied. Why? Either you are the amazing creation of a pro-imperalist leftist, a psyop or you are so blinded by ideology that you are incapable of maneuvering the realities of this one shitty world that we have.
Holy moly.
incredulous that 1989 didnt hammer this lession into everybodies head.
Incredulous that you seem to think that people here cried when the USSR collapsed.
This shit is literally purity olympics.
No, it's called being a communist.
VZ isnt a bougie project, these are the people actually struggling to create a path forward.
It isn't a fucking "project" at all, it's a fucking nation state. Only an academic could talk about social developments as "projects" or "experiments" - as if the actions and wants of people were a function of the mind of intellectuals! Venezuela has its own national bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, proletariat and all the other layers too, like any other state on earth. The fact that you speak of "the people" there, abstracting from class, substituting it with the national community, shows what interests you have in mind. And then you're talking about "creating a path forward". A path towards what? The Venezuelan government certainly does not follow the communist programme.
Be patient and be generous.
Our bosses tell our union the same everytime we demand more pay!
How dare you
Did you learn this from that Greta girl?
hold these fantasy standards above the heads of people?
You have fantasies in your head when you tell people that the Venezuelan state fights for the communist cause.
Do you have this little regard for human beings?
I have an interest in the cause of the proletariat, of labour, which mediately means to care for humanity at large as well. The "human being" in the abstract does not exist. We live in class society. I'm not sure if you've noticed yet.
we need iran to thrive to provide the utility that they do, the hegemonic pushback and the direct aid and we need iran to be protected from a fate that is immeasurably worse than now.
Who are we? The Venezuelan state? The Iranian state? What is the proletariat's or my business with either of those?
With your attitude, both these objectives are denied. Why?
Because communists care about class struggle and not nations.
Either you are the amazing creation of a pro-imperalist leftist, a psyop or you are so blinded by ideology that you are incapable of maneuvering the realities of this one shitty world that we have.
It's interesting that you speak about ideology when you put forward all these wrong dichotomies.
I find it amusing that you prefer to respond to the more reasonable drredterror with this complete and utter bullshit than rather answer the question of you supporting flogging workers
we need iran to thrive to provide the utility that they do, the hegemonic pushback and the direct aid, and we need iran to be protected from a fate that is immeasurably worse than now. With your attitude, both these objectives are denied. Why? Either you are the amazing creation of a pro-imperalist leftist, a psyop or you are so blinded by ideology that you are incapable of maneuvering the realities of this one shitty world that we have.
So it's ok for workers to be flogged? The end result of stalinism, people. Defend a country where it's illegal to oppose the regime as communists.
How dare you to hold these fantasy standards above the heads of people?
Your life would infinitely improve if you just stopped pretending to be a communist out of some asinine psychological reason and left it to us experts. That way you'd have a lot more time to spend on your super mario dildos and your nintendo swtich.
Where are the flogged workers? I can't see them. Must be out of my sphere of influence and participation. Sucks! But hey! There is another thing I can do, and that is stand against any imperialist actions against Iran. Lucky me!
Im still here if you need someone to talk to. It's okay, I don't mind a person struggling with their own stuff to spam me with garbage.
I'm not exactly sure what you think you're getting out of this. No one thinks you're sane by this point. You're even coming across as a complete retard. You're actually now, after having been pressed on this question of flogging, denying that it happened? This isn't even the first time that it has happened nor is it exceptional in Iran. The fact is that that organizing as an independent working class is hampered by the regime there. So I reiterate, why are you even pretending to be a communist? It would do us a favor if you just ate your own shit and a room by yourself with your own nintendo dildos.
If you're actually a paid agent of Iran then hit us up. We'll switch over to your side for some cash.
Where are the flogged workers? I can't see them. Must be out of my sphere of influence and participation. Sucks!
Yeah, better to leave the Iranian proletariat helplessly shackled to the confines of the Iranian nation state. That will surely further the communist cause. One might wonder what you think the IWMA was for.
There is another thing I can do, and that is stand against any imperialist actions against Iran. Lucky me!
Standing against imperialist actions like people posting on Reddit about floggings, by replying on Reddit.
We are just one reddit post away from causing the complete collapse of the Iranian state, have mercy
What the fuck are you trying to say? lol Are you being so fucking vague because for you to say that it's okay for workers to be flogged over wages is ok is something that is too much for you to write publicly?
"Leftwashing" is when Western leftists demand we support protests abroad that are funded & used by the US to imperialize global south nations by rebranding those protests as having supposed "leftist" & "pro-democracy" traits. They've done this in Syria, Iran, China, Bolivia, etc.
Yeah, why don't you go fuck yourself? It's disheartening that white western liberals will say that we should support countries like iran, where communist parties and trade unions are illegal.
What the fuck is leftwashing? Are you seriously angry over someone saying that whipping workers is bad just because those whippings came from an “anti-imperialist country”(which is especially hilarious considering Iran’s actions in the Middle East, but I guess that’s good imperialism to you)
So you do have nintendo themed dildos?
What are you even trying to say?
If there is an inplication in your comment, shut the fuck up about internal issues in anti-imperialist states. At some point you have to face the reality that these are an unpleasant necessity, for instance in providing food to VZLA. In these circles, there are numerous examples of infiltration designed to foster leftwashing
Jesus this is embarrassing
At some point you have to face the reality that these are an unpleasant necessity, for instance in providing food to VZLA
Please tell me you are trolling with this.
do you think these people should lob for their government to somehow... intervene?
As if the only options are support the Iranian state or lobby the US to invade it. For a supposed communist, your line of thinking sure stays within neat, bourgeois confines.
what do you mean while ?
It should be clear what I mean with that. I was saying that both events happen simultaneously, and that they make for quite the contrast.
do you think these people should lob for their government to somehow... intervene?
Who are "these people"? The people at "CHAZ"? I don't think I ever said or implied anything about anyone intervening anywhere, but thank you for the interesting insight into your addled brain. Maybe try to think for once before you unwind your memorised passive-aggressive tirade.
or do you in some way condemn this spontaneous reaction of people whose friends are being unaccountably murdered
I'm not one to call for the foot to be put down on the petty bourgeois playground in Seattle. And what would it matter if I did? I was merely poking fun at the idea that there would be some relation to communism.
Who are "these people"? The people at "CHAZ"? I don't think I ever said or implied anything about anyone intervening anywhere, but thank you for the interesting insight into your addled brain. Maybe try to think for once before you unwind your memorised passive-aggressive tirade.
Is this seriously about chaz?
My initial comment was aimed at that, so I assumed they picked up on that.
When I read the initial comment I assumed it was a general statement on the BLM protests as a whole, not just CHAZ. But now that this user has gone off the deep end in their subsequent comments throughout this thread, I have no idea.
The fact that I referred to that stupid garden should have made it clear what I was getting at. After all, there was a lengthy thread on the protests themselves on the frontpage already. If I was being too vague still, a short question would have sufficed for clarification.
Oh sorry, to clarify, when I said "initial comment" I meant the person initially responding to you, not your comment. I now realize I worded that in an unclear manner.
regarding your other reply to me:
why on earth would you write this comment instead of reading the other I made, which comprehensibly stated my position
this one:
You went the distance to quote my full text, while only replying with insults and backpedaling. It was very comedic to come into the thread where you would berate and ridicule protestors, as If your mission to shed lights on the Iranian judiciary was in any way more important. These people are in a process of winning major change. You aren't going to do shit to Iran. The only way you have to impact Iran, is through an alliance with an aggressor state, which thought historical precedence will be much worse than what you currently oppose.
Also the seattlites are mostly anarch leaning radlibs. You fucking imbecile.
I'll have some of what this person is having. May the Lord take away the antinomies your mind has entangled itself in!
It was very comedic to come into the thread where you would berate and ridicule protestors
Yeah, I make fun of the people in "CHAZ". What's the problem with that?
as If your mission to shed lights on the Iranian judiciary was in any way more important.
From the communist point of view, the struggles of workers are more important than the adventures of petty bourgeois college kids - certainly.
These people are in a process of winning major change.
You mean having a Christiania within Seattle? If you're talking about the protests at large, then I don't see how police reform, which is what I assume you mean since I have to guess, is "major change" for meeting the needs of the protesting people.
You aren't going to do shit to Iran.
I'm writing here in my capacity as a private individual. Of course that does not mean that I "do shit to Iran". It's interesting that you see the concerns of the Iranian proletariat as a threat.
The only way you have to impact Iran, is through an alliance with an aggressor state, which thought historical precedence will be much worse than what you currently oppose.
I'm not interested in "impacting Iran". I'm interested in the lot of the Iranian proletariat, its needs and interests. "I" won't be impacting that either, unless through active participation in the communist party. Are you suggesting that the activities of Iranian proletarians are a function of US foreign policy?
comprehensibly stated my position
Are you high?
You went the distance to quote my full text, while only replying with insults and backpedaling. It was very comedic to come into the thread where you would berate and ridicule protestors, as If your mission to shed lights on the Iranian judiciary was in any way more important. These people are in a process of winning major change. You aren't going to do shit to Iran. The only way you have to impact Iran, is through an alliance with an aggressor state, which thought historical precedence will be much worse than what you currently oppose.
I repeat, are you high? Should we not report about it then? Lol is your problem actually that we touched a nerve when the topic of nintendo themed dildos came up?
Surely it would've been more pointed to bring up the so-called communists on reddit and twitter expressing "critical support for Iran" back in January after the Soleimani assassination.
That would have also worked, but I wanted to throw a jab at more recent events.
Maybe. It's anyhow a discussion, not a cheap rhetoric point to be thrown around like this. I believe this sub in particular has a great challenge in balancing regime critique and leftwashing.
Why don't you start discussing and stop making cheap rhetoric points? How is anybody supposed to know what the fuck "leftwashing" even means? Why don't you say what you mean instead of pussyfooting around?
What exactly are you upset over? Do you actually have a nintento themed dildo collection?
Do you have mental issues?
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A true cyberpunk
God Bless the Hackers.
Thousands of scribblers are mobilised in these days to "celebrate" the centenary and a half of Lenin's birth and to show the "topicality" of his teaching. They are the ones who every day trample upon it and deform it, this teaching, after having transformed the great revolutionary into a "harmless icon".
"Those who recognise only the class struggle are not yet Marxists; they may be found to be still within the bounds of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois politics. To confine Marxism to the theory of the class struggle means curtailing Marxism, distorting it, reducing it to something acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested..."
"The essence of Marx's theory of the state has been mastered only by those who realize that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from "classless society", from communism. Bourgeois states are most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat. "
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What will always boggle my mind are the peddlers of such things like settler decolonization and "actually existing socialism" who will actively recommend Lenin's works. What goes on in someone's head for them to reccomend something they have never read or have misunderstood so terribly? It'd be amusing if it wasn't so sad.
What texts are these quotes from?
Thank you.
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In the 1950s, the International Communist Party undertook a world-historic task: unravelling the Russian enigma. Through a series of articles they attempted to grapple with the nature of the Russian revolution – “Dialogue with Stalin”, a one way conversation with Stalin and his “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”. Through a careful textual analysis, reference to Marx and Engels and the Marxist method, the ICP systematically reveals what is left unsaid but implied, by the admissions of the Stalinist bureaucracy: That capitalism had triumphed over the revolution.
fiiiiiiiinally. Thank you so much for this translation!
My most sincerest thanks for your work on the translation, it is a very enjoyable read.
My favorite excerpt so far:
In 1919 we bestirred ourselves together with Lenin (and Stalin) until exhaustion, to force down the stubborn social democrats’ and anarchists’ throats, that the means of production cannot be conquered on a single day and by coup, and that precisely because of this – and only because of this – the terror, the dictatorship, is necessary. And today, new textbooks on political economy shall be published, that the absurdity, that all products lose their character as commodities on the day on which a functionary ascended to the Kremlin presents some Stalin with a decree for signature, which expropriates the last chicken of the last member of the last kolkhoz, is accepted.
In another paragraph, Engels talks about the seizing of all means of production, which is why we now need to hear that the above cited “formula of Engels cannot be described as entirely clear and exact” [Stalin, p. 11].
By the beard of the prophet Abraham, that’s strong stuff! Friedrich Engels, of all people, the contemplative, calm, sharply defining, crystal clear Friedrich, master of the patience to get a holed ship going again and to straighten the historical doctrine; whose modesty and prowess are unreachable (behind the impetuous Marx, who occasionally might seem difficult to understand because of his far sight and excellent language, and because of this strength maybe – maybe – might be easier to distort); Engels, whose language is so fluid, and who by talent and because of scientific discipline doesn’t omit a necessary word, nor add an unnecessary one: of all people, one accuses him of a lack of precision and clarity!
One must put things into their place: We are not in the organizational office or in the agitation committee here, where you, ex-comrade Josef, might be able to persuade yourself to be able to have something on Engels. We are in the school of principles here. Where is the talk of the seizure of all means of production? Maybe there, where the talk is of commodities? Never. “Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of production, the appropriation by society of all the means of production has often been dreamed of, more or less vaguely, by individuals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of the future.”, reminds us Engels. Precisely because for us it is not a thing of an ideal, but of science, we cannot let a “more or less” clear, respectively unclear, pass.
Bordiga thrashes Stalin for, among other things, essentially doing what just Stalinists do now, that is quote mining and misinterpreting the words and context of the quotes from Marx and Engels, and how you can spin enough of it to support bullshit insofar as you sound vaguely Marxist.
I wasn't before, but I am now strongly religious. Whoever translated this is my god
Is this translated directly from italian or is it the translation of a translation?
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But the miners say they aren't going to be pawns in anybody's political propaganda.
"We all agreed when we first started that we're not going to make this political and we're not aiming this at politicians. This is between workers and an employer. Nothing to do with politics," Willis said — a point he reiterated several times throughout the interview.
Quick! somebody lecture them on why they need to vote Democrat!
Why are you celebrating self-limitation?
I'm not sure what you mean. Do you think these people should be voting for Democrats?
Obviously not.
Your initial comment on the article does not give any analysis or perspective, but suggests that you posted it to vindicate your own political ideas in the face of people disagreeing with you. Such a gotcha is not interesting or productive.
That the workers in this case rejected becoming poster childs for the campaign of some Democrat candidate is in itself not particularly surprising, nor does it give an additional communist content to their fight - it is significant in that it is a step above bowing down to politicians or worse: not fighting at all. But it is not much more.
If you read the article, you see that these are workers of a single business - they are not associated across companies. Moreover, their stated objective is to get their missing pay after the mining firm employing them went bankrupt. Such strikes are very common in China for example, where especially migrant workers often are not paid regularly, and they also occur every now and then in the West for compensation when industry moves towards countries with cheaper labour.
When the worker quoted here says:
We all agreed when we first started that we're not going to make this political [...]. This is between workers and an employer. Nothing to do with politics.
- then they're merely proclaiming the fact that they are not struggling as a class, as Marx says in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle.
It is strong stuff for self-proclaimed communists to revel in the immediacy of this battle - after all, it lies even beneath the level of the economism criticised by Lenin, respectively trade unionism (or as some people call it to obfusciate what it is: syndicalism). This position rejects the need for the communist party, which the IWMA justified like this:
In presence of an unbridled reaction which violently crushes every effort at emancipation on the part of the working men, and pretends to maintain by brute force the distinction of classes and the political domination of the propertied classes resulting from it;
Considering, that against this collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes;
That this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes;
Further, it takes pride in finding itself confirmed in the immediate expressions of this or that proletarian. But, as Marx explained in the Holy Family:
It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today.
The goal is to overcome struggles like this through further association with other workers, not to celebrate them - which is not to say that criticising attempts to coopt them for bourgeois ends is not useful; but it's not enough.
You're counterpoising a left opportunism, workerism, against a right opportunism.
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More relevant than ever:
It is an inevitable manifestation, and one rooted in the process of development, that people from what have hitherto been the ruling class also join the militant proletariat and supply it with educative elements. We have already said so clearly in the Manifesto. But in this context there are two observations to be made:
Firstly, if these people are to be of use to the proletarian movement, they must introduce genuinely educative elements. However, in the case of the vast majority of German bourgeois converts, this is not the case. Neither the Zukunft nor the Neue Gesellschaft has contributed anything that might have advanced the movement by a single step. Here we find a complete lack of genuinely educative matter, either factual or theoretical. In place of it, attempts to reconcile superficially assimilated socialist ideas with the most diverse theoretical viewpoints which these gentlemen have introduced from the university or elsewhere, and of which each is more muddled than the last thanks to the process of decay taking place in what remains of German philosophy today. Instead of first making a thorough study of the new science, each man chose to adapt it to the viewpoint he had brought with him, not hesitating to produce his own brand of science and straightaway assert his right to teach it. Hence there are, amongst these gentlemen, almost as many viewpoints as there are heads; instead of elucidating anything, they have only made confusion worse — by good fortune, almost exclusively amongst themselves. The party can well dispense with educative elements such as these for whom it is axiomatic to teach what they have not learnt.
Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook. These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In a country as petty-bourgeois as Germany, there is certainly some justification for such ideas. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. If the gentlemen constitute themselves a Social-Democratic petty-bourgeois party, they are fully within their rights: in that case we could negotiate with them and, according to circumstances, form an alliance with them, etc. But within a workers’ party they are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come. How the Party can suffer the authors of this article to remain any longer in their midst seems to us incomprehensible. But should the Party leadership actually pass, to a greater or lesser extent, into the hands of such men, then the Party will be emasculated no less, and that will put paid to its proletarian grit.
As for ourselves, there is, considering all our antecedents, only one course open to us. For almost 40 years we have emphasised that the class struggle is the immediate motive force of history and, in particular, that the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is the great lever of modern social revolution; hence we cannot possibly co-operate with men who seek to eliminate that class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. Hence we cannot co-operate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes. If the new party organ is to adopt a policy that corresponds to the opinions of these gentlemen, if it is bourgeois and not proletarian, then all we could do — much though we might regret it — would be publicly to declare ourselves opposed to it and abandon the solidarity with which we have hitherto represented the German Party abroad. But we hope it won’t come to that.
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"You and others" isn't very personal, I don't speak for others. I didn't answer myself because I had trouble seeing what you were trying to accuse me of and why, I didn't think it would help to get into a debate about whatever it is, and I don't owe you a response whether you demand it or not.
I have difficulty understanding what 'young' has to do with it, to my knowledge I've never brought age into my comments, it is irrelevant. The message I quoted was intended for communists - it was a circular letter to the leaders of the communist movement in Germany. Marx's criticism of them is not that they are bourgeois, he says himself that people from the ruling class can become communists and provide the movement with "educative elements" if they "adopt the proletarian outlook". The problem was that some of them were "chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas." It is relevant today because a lot of leftists are also full of petty-bourgeois ideas, they "reconcile superficially assimilated socialist ideas with the most diverse theoretical viewpoints which these gentlemen have introduced from the university or elsewhere, and of which each is more muddled than the last" instead of "making a thorough study of the new science" i.e. reading Marx et al.
I did say that it was relevant today, not that it is relevant only for people on reddit today. Maybe you would agree that there are such people this applies to today on reddit. We don't really know who is behind posts on reddit but it is my view that if they have petty-bourgeois ideas they are most likely petty-bourgeois, to think that workers have such ideas seems a calumny to me - it isn't my experience. If they are workers with petty-bourgeois ideas for whatever reason that does not mean that we should pass over it in silence. I try not to go around simply declaring people to be "opportunist" anyway.
It is also relevant for other reasons but that is beside your point. Since you mention reconciliation perhaps we can agree that people should be more thoughtful in accusing others of things, that they should be more charitable to their interlocutors and try to hear them out instead of trying to dismiss them out of hand and so on. That seems to be what you are going for and I think it would be helpful if people on reddit heeded that sentiment.
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Chen Weixiang’s case once again focused public attention on the plight of sanitation workers who struggle with low pay, long hours, dangerous working conditions and exploitative management regimes, exemplified by one company in Nanjing that forced workers to wear GPS trackers in order to monitor their movements and issue an alarm if they remained stationary on a break for more than 20 minutes.
Shit like this is my absolute worst fear
Yeah there was a post on here about how some workers became badly disabled after just a few months to a year of working at Amazon. Shit is seriously fucked. I'm lucky as hell that I have a fairly secure job that doesn't push my body to the limit every day.
Article I refered to if anyone is interested: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazon-warehouse-reports-show-worker-injuries/602530/
See also the CLB's 40 page review of 2019.
This is fairly interesting, reporting that many factory jobs are being eliminated. The report of work hours being increased in the face of an industry in crisis, in regards to tech, is pretty much standard. Socialism, huh?
Also in regards to China and the coronavirus, where is the call to fight against the sacred union to fight this man made disaster?
Also in regards to China and the coronavirus, where is the call to fight against the sacred union to fight this man made disaster?
Ask the Nuevo Curso cucks. They will call anything a "sacred union", doesn't matter if it's petty bourgeois protesting against environmental destruction, or feminism.
I'm predicting that either my posting about it will either further it on into a real thing, or have it hushed up because I'm the one who mentioned it.
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Among previous experience desired it listed "officer in the intelligence community, the military, law enforcement, or a related global security role in the private sector
Marianne Rawlins, principal at management consultancy Bradley Risk Management, told the BBC: "The job description implies labour spying, and that has been illegal in the US for 80 years. I expect that sadly it is pretty common among big corporations, but putting it is black and white for all the world to see looks like a mistake."
Seems like an oversight. A low level's fuck up? Lack of marketing concern despite their current "image"? I don't see why they didn't go through the normal backchannels to recruit spooks. Either way, now they will.
There's more information on the matter here, by the way:
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I find it interesting that a trade union would counter pose their healthcare to Sanders universal healthcare, with something gained from worker militancy against the programs of state bureaucrats.
I wonder if it can be some sunk cost kind of thinking, that they've gone through all the effort to negotiate benefit deals. They aren't making the connection to the collective bargaining power of/ideological connection to a people's healthcare program, or the fact that they don't have to bargain for healthcare anymore means they can focus their efforts on other employment benefits.
It probably has more to do with them wanting to keep the workers reliant on their trade union for healthcare
You're missing the point. We can say what we want about why they put this forward, but the fact that this comes from trade union action over it being granted by Sanders in some petite bourgeois program of saving money makes it substantially more interesting.
And workers being in trade unions is better than workers not being in trade unions.
I agree with you. I just thought the 'sunk cost' argument was a bit ridiculous
Well that might play a part, but I would think that in the forefront of their minds is that they've managed to secure a high quality of healthcare, and anything else would be a step backwards for them.
Mainly I'm posting this because I don't think that most people really know quite how unique North American trade unions are and how much power they have in comparison to other places. I'd be hard pressed to point out where else a trade union gets you work and sorts your healthcare.
Mainly I'm posting this because I don't think that most people really know quite how unique North American trade unions are and how much power they have in comparison to other places. I'd be hard pressed to point out where else a trade union gets you work and sorts your healthcare.
It's especially interesting to me that US Americans would be so hostile towards unions as such, when their involvement in state affairs is much bigger in other countries, as for example in Europe.
Most European countries have some sort of co-determination laws in place, which means that union representatives sit in the supervisory board of companies, pocketing the corresponding salaries for the union bureaucracy. Together with the prevalence of works councils, this results in unions actively pursuing co-management, companyism: The unions abandon the immediate interest of the workers, and instead appropriate the interest of the industrial capitalist vis-à-vis finance capital for themselves in the first instance, and later, via social corporatism, submit to the interests of national capital. They no longer assert an interest opposed to that of the capitalists, but merely criticise them for not doing their job properly. The money unions accept from employers through co-determination also serves to employ a vast array of degenerate petty bourgeois humanities students, who have never worked a day in their lives and who spend their time working out Keynesian programmes to be put forward against state-imposed austerity.
It's a system designed for asphyxiation of any sort of independent initiative and militancy of workers. In Germany, workers were killed for their attempt to prevent the Works Council Act. It's sickening to see supposed communists today be conciliatory towards social democracy, and even speak favourably of such measures.
It's especially interesting to me that US Americans would be so hostile towards unions as such, when their involvement in state affairs is much bigger in other countries, as for example in Europe.
lol it might have to do with the majority of American leftists being unemployed students from petite bourgeois backgrounds, and are thus excluded from this organizations.
Which if anyone is playing along should be able to understand is that the removal of such things as healthcare, and the subjection of the trade unions, to the state makes perfect sense for degenerates who are looking for careers in politics. Away from class organizations and into the realm of individual politics.
Are student leftists relevant to this? Unions have been gutted by decades of class warfare, to the point of only 10% membership among the labor movement. In other words almost all workers are outside of unions and not due to their class position. Nevertheless they’ve organized an impressive string of strikes over the past few years.
I worded myself imprecisely in the initial comment, hence the confusion. I said "US Americans", when I really meant "some supposed communists from the US". These are not merely critical of the present state of unions, but they instead reject them wholesale. Others flirt around with joke organisations like the IWW, but shun investigating or contacting any proper unions. /u/dr_marx correctly inferred what I meant, but I should have been more clear. I wasn't talking about the low union membership in general, even though this is of course also an interesting question.
Got it, thanks. On the healthcare question, I will throw out my own anecdote, which is that at my old job I was a head steward for the local, and we had decent personal healthcare, but for dependents it was a ridiculous cost. "Luckily" the pay was low enough that for my family size I still qualified for Medicaid (like Medicare for poor people, but worse, but something) for my kids. Now I work two non-union jobs with no benefits and "unfortunately" no longer qualify as below the poverty line, so trying to get the Obamacare for our state, frustrated by the cost. I understand that universal healthcare is not a demand that centers class, but it would be amazing to take my son to the dentist. The proletariat (employed or not) are majority more in my situation or worse rather than in the position of the culinary workers leadership. This is one of many reasons why Sanders is more popular among workers than Klobuchar, who appears to be the culinary workers' pick based on the flyer in the OP (she is placed as best in "Good jobs" category. She is famously best at berating and assaulting her own employees).
"Luckily" the pay was low enough that for my family size I still qualified for Medicaid (like Medicare for poor people, but worse, but something) for my kids. Now I work two non-union jobs with no benefits and "unfortunately" no longer qualify as below the poverty line, so trying to get the Obamacare for our state, frustrated by the cost.
That fucking sucks.
I understand that universal healthcare is not a demand that centers class, but it would be amazing to take my son to the dentist. The proletariat (employed or not) are majority more in my situation or worse rather than in the position of the culinary workers leadership.
Yeah, this is clear. This is why it would be important to have a proper communist party in the US, which would be able to help workers associate more, and help generalise class-based solutions.
This is one of many reasons why Sanders is more popular among workers than Klobuchar, who appears to be the culinary workers' pick based on the flyer in the OP (she is placed as best in "Good jobs" category. She is famously best at berating and assaulting her own employees).
I'd assume no one here agrees with the union in that picking another bourgeois would be the way to go. The point was to show how social democracy is at odds with an independent, properly class-oriented labour movement.
This is why it would be important to have a proper communist party in the US, which would be able to help workers associate more, and help generalise class-based solutions.
100%. What do you think should be done today to help build such a party?
The party won't manifest itself from the bosom of the absolute idea, so if there is no one there willing to put in the work, it will forever stay non-existent. There is no secret magic recipe of how to bring about a communist party either, but I can provide you with a more or less abstract description of the process.
The first step is that capable people need to come together, people with a passion for communism. It is not possible to give an extrinsic yardstick of what would constitute suitable individuals. I can give you an idea of what the myriad of problems are, however. The influence of middle class ideology is something that needs continuous treatment in order to not lead to ruin. George Orwell in "The Road to Wigan Pier" once put it like this:
The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible -- the really disquieting -- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.
You need people who are not in it for the aesthetic, who do not live in the past, who do not investigate problems to revel in them, but to work towards overcoming them, who have a critical attitude and much more. Often it should be easy to see that certain individuals are unsuited from the outset. However, of course these aspects need not and cannot be present all at once from the beginning. But it will become apparent whether individuals are able to shed them and overcome their one-sidedness in the process of working together. Many of these traits simply can't be taught.
Some have problems in understanding what communism even is. This can stem from an unwillingness to study the matter, itself a symptom of a lack of passion, while in other cases people can read a book five times and still not grasp the meaning of it. You need clarity on trivial questions, such as what the proletariat even is, or the analysis of present conditions, going up to matter of how the labour movement tackles for example the housing question or environmental destruction. You can find a lot more samples if you look into older threads in this subreddit.
It is certainly not necessary that every member knows the collected works of Marx and Engels inside out, but they should be firm on the fundamentals, that is, the interests of the proletariat and the fact that these can only be advanced through association. This is more than can be said of at least 99% of self-proclaimed communists. With these gathered, you can start studying conditions, and then look to bring in contact disparate struggles of workers where they are actually happening in order to advance their cause, and further the development of the general movement.
Many groups forever stay at the level of self-clarification, suffer from "the usual formalism of secret societies" in that they draw up programmes and theoretical documents for no reason, while getting tangled up in ceaseless criticisms of and by other groups, have difficulties connecting with any worker organisation or just reject them outright, lack direction and more. In some sense, Lenin's "Left-Wing Communism" is helpful here, even with the provision that it needs the same kind of proper treatment that I indicated above.
Some have problems in understanding what communism even is. This can stem from an unwillingness to study the matter, itself a symptom of a lack of passion, while in other cases people can read a book five times and still not grasp the meaning of it.
It's worth emphasizing that in general, those who have no understanding often are elements from outside of the class, mostly from the "educated" classes. These people tend to then over abstract and intellectualize the most mundane of topics, due to their perverse predilections, and will always go and look for cover under those other great abstract subjects (such as petty nationalism, the people, the masses). This element needs to be stepped on.
I'm not saying that communist parties have to be composed of only workers. It's just that the majority of so-called communists have never had a job, and their parties are composed of only students.
I was going to ask the same question.
Most people I know in the US are either overworked (12+ hour days) or unemployed and unable to find adequate work. If not that, they're chronically ill (awful diets, poor healthcare) or severely depressed, or both. Suicide rates are high, and rising.
I could see the argument that many US workers are just too mentally/physically drained, which is a major factor preventing organization. Or afraid of losing their employer-sponsored health insurance.
These are things I can see that seem to be holding back organization at the moment.
Now, what positive actions could be taken to form a genuine communist party in the US? That I don't know, and would have to defer to someone more knowledgeable than me.
Though I think passing some form of Medicare for all program would be a major start, even if not related to a communist party. I can not stress just how sickly and mentally ill most Americans are. It is a huge hurdle to any kind of meaningful organization.
Most people I know in the US are either overworked (12+ hour days) or unemployed and unable to find adequate work. If not that, they're chronically ill (awful diets, poor healthcare) or severely depressed, or both. Suicide rates are high, and rising.
I don't understand how this is an argument. Do you think that people in 1850 worked less hours and were healthier? They didn't even have antibiotics.
Though I think passing some form of Medicare for all program would be a major start
Why? Social welfare programs like this didn't exist in a mass scale until after the second world war.
I don't understand how this is an argument. Do you think that people in 1850 worked less hours and were healthier? They didn't even have antibiotics.
Well in those days when workers got sick they would just die and quickly be replaced. Nowadays people can carry on working for years in a state of sickliness.
So you're saying that it is easier for a communist movement to emerge if workers are dying and being replaced quickly? Do you realize how insane that sounds? I think you're just trying to find an excuse to promote this as a communist position. You're either completely and stupefyingly ignorant, insane or just flat out idiotic if you think people weren't maimed, disfigured and disabled in higher numbers 200 years ago, through work and through disease, than people today.
So you're saying that it is easier for a communist movement to emerge if workers are dying and being replaced quickly?
Not really, I'm just trying to point out that what happens to the sick and injured has changed over time. I don't know enough to know how or if this affects a communist movement.
Obviously people were maimed, disfigured, etc. by work and disease in much higher numbers back then. But it was my understanding that in those days, due to any lack of legal protections, an employer would simply fire and replace any worker in an unskilled field who wasn't functioning at full capacity, assuming unemployment was low at least and they could easily be replaced. Such people would then be unable to find work, and would either have to be supported entirely by family (thus dragging down the family further into poverty), become beggars on the streets, or simply die of disease/infection/exposure/starvation. Whether they actually died or carried on living, their lives as workers were over if there was no job they could perform as well as a relatively healthy person.
It is possible I am misinformed though.
It is possible I am misinformed though.
I think it's more likely that you don't understand what communism is and insist on trying to associate it with petite bourgeois politics, to the point where you come up with ad hoc arguments such as the one above, where you have no idea what you are talking about and are just making assumptions. Pretty spot on, right?
and insist on trying to associate it with petite bourgeois politics, to the point where you come up with ad hoc arguments such as the one above, where you have no idea what you are talking about and are just making assumptions
Not really, I just thought it was worth considering that things have changed. I wasn't even trying to argue in favor of anything (unlike the other person above me in the thread); I know enough to know that that is best left to others who know more than me.
I don't understand how this is an argument. Do you think that people in 1850 worked less hours and were healthier? They didn't even have antibiotics.
This sounds really similar to the "there are starving children in Africa" kind of argument. Human suffering isn't a competition. Just because workers of 1850 experienced awful living/working conditions, doesn't make anyone living out of their car today (with cancer, unavailable health services, working for $10/hr) life conditions any more bearable.
You say "they didn't even have anti-biotics", while lots of working Americans effectively still don't today. So I don't understand what point was trying to be made with that. The existence of antibiotics as an invention doesn't magically make it available to all sick people who need it. You might as well have mentioned that "they didn't even have private jets", as if the existence of private jet planes alone has any effect on workers who will never be able to afford them.
Marx himself was chronically ill for large periods of his life. It would ingenuine to say that that it didn't slow his work.
My point is, people who are deathly/chronically ill, bedridden, depressed, won't have the energy to fight. And there are a lot of unnecessarily ill people in the US. If nothing else, having access to medicine and regular doctor visits would be a huge morale boost for working people. Morale is extremely low in the US.
Of course improved morale could swing in many directions (support for capitalist parties, or unions, or any number of goals). But ultimately, dead workers can't organize. It is a major pressing issue for US workers.
This sounds really similar to the "there are starving children in Africa" kind of argument.
"Sounds really similar" is one way of introducing completely unrelated ideas into statements. You must be very determined to read something into that post which was just not there.
Human suffering isn't a competition. Just because workers of 1850 experienced awful living/working conditions, doesn't make anyone living out of their car today (with cancer, unavailable health services, working for $10/hr) life conditions any more bearable.
You say "they didn't even have anti-biotics", while lots of working Americans effectively still don't today. So I don't understand what point was trying to be made with that.
You were the one pointing to the life conditions in the US as a major obstacle for the labour movement there. /u/dr_marx gave you a historical example to show that this is not the case.
The existence of antibiotics as an invention doesn't magically make it available to all sick people who need it.
Thank you for attempting to explain the concept of private property to communists.
You might as well have mentioned that "they didn't even have private jets", as if the existence of private jet planes alone has any effect on workers who will never be able to afford them.
Truly an apt comparison!
Marx himself was chronically ill for large periods of his life.
And yet he worked all his life to aid the labour movement.
It would ingenuine to say that that it didn't slow his work.
Weird that you can't read him write in support of universal healthcare, right?
My point is, people who are deathly/chronically ill, bedridden [...] won't have the energy to fight.
These usually can't work either, but somehow the US economy still exists. That must mean that the majority of US workers are not "deathly/chronically ill" or "bedridden".
And there are a lot of unnecessarily ill people in the US.
People are unnecessarily ill everywhere on the world due to the existence of private property.
If nothing else, having access to medicine and regular doctor visits would be a huge morale boost for working people. Morale is extremely low in the US.
Finally a reason for the "working people" (why not the proletariat?) to be more happy with their state! You sound like an officer complaining about the lack of discipline of his troops.
Of course improved morale could swing in many directions (support for capitalist parties, or unions, or any number of goals).
So what would be the significance for communism again? What is the necessity of shilling for social democracy, instead of directly engaging with the labour movement as it is with regard to communism?
But ultimately, dead workers can't organize.
Workers were dying at far faster rates in the past, yet the labour movement was stronger. This is a point that has been belaboured at length in this thread already.
It is a major pressing issue for US workers.
If this is the case, then they will be able to fight for healthcare on a class basis, instead of the petty bourgeois measure of universal healthcare being introduced by the capitalist state at best in an extremely watered down form.
Weird that you can't read him write in support of universal healthcare, right?
To be fair, Universal Healthcare in 1850 would have been an absurdity on its own terms. The field of medicine had barely advanced beyond professional quackery at that point. Bloodletting and surgical procedures with unwashed hands free at the point of service? You'd probably have better results with Universal Faith Healing.
I see your point, but the first national health insurance was already set up in the year of Marx's death in Germany, so it isn't completely absurd to talk about. Besides, we can draw analogies to other matters, such as the housing question.
Interesting, I had not heard of that. Thanks for the links.
You're welcome.
You say "they didn't even have anti-biotics", while lots of working Americans effectively still don't today. So I don't understand what point was trying to be made with that. The existence of antibiotics as an invention doesn't magically make it available to all sick people who need it. You might as well have mentioned that "they didn't even have private jets", as if the existence of private jet planes alone has any effect on workers who will never be able to afford them.
Unlike some other technologies, the mere existence of anti-biotics quite literally does benefit people who don't have direct access to them, because of herd immunity. Also the simple knowledge and implementation of sanitary practices/infrastructure has made even those without direct access to healthcare much safer from deadly diseases than people in the 19th century were. The "private jet" comparison isn't warranted.
What has any of that to do with what I have been saying? You should be lucky that you don't have mental health care because you'd be locked up. You're just repeating yourself and I've already made clear my answer. If you want to go whine about healthcare and landlords, or any other petite bourgeois concern, there are other places for you to go to.
Most people I know in the US are either overworked (12+ hour days) or unemployed and unable to find adequate work. If not that, they're chronically ill (awful diets, poor healthcare) or severely depressed, or both. Suicide rates are high, and rising.
I could see the argument that many US workers are just too mentally/physically drained, which is a major factor preventing organization.
[...]
Though I think passing some form of Medicare for all program would be a major start, even if not related to a communist party. I can not stress just how sickly and mentally ill most Americans are. It is a huge hurdle to any kind of meaningful organization.
I agree with /u/dr_marx in that I don't think that exhaustion is the reason for the lack of a strong labour movement in the US. You just have to read Capital, or Engels' "Condition of the Working Class in England" to see how crippled the English workers of the labour movement in the 19th century were. If there is no proper communist party in present conditions, then there won't be one with universal healthcare either - as can be seen in Europe.
You seem to be viewing this in too abstract terms - you imagine to bring the entire class into play all at once, but this is not how it works. You need to start with the elements that are already combative and help them in their struggles. Since this can only be accomplished by associating with other workers, it means that formerly non-combative elements necessarily and naturally join the movement gradually - of course subject to occasional setbacks.
Or afraid of losing their employer-sponsored health insurance.
Worry is a mood found mainly among the middle class, i.e. those that have something to lose, while the propertyless proletarian's condition produces passion. If these people are otherwise proletarian, they will be dragged into the struggle once the development of the more combative layers has proceeded further. If they are more on the side of the petty bourgeois, time will tell which side they will choose.
You seem to be viewing this in too abstract terms
They're also ascribing class politics to things that have no inherent class bias. It is like arguing that only the working class can solve climate change.
"Condition of the Working Class in England" is on my reading list. I'll have to bump it up, thanks for the reminder. I'm currently about halfway through Capital, so it's possible Marx writes more about English workers later. Though the section where he wrote about the increased number of fatal train collisions due to engineers passing out from 20+ hour shifts, was very enlightening on just how bad the working conditions were.
If there is no proper communist party in present conditions, then there won't be one with universal healthcare either - as can be seen in Europe.
I agree with this statement. So maybe I worded my previous post poorly, if it seems I meant otherwise. I think the adoption of universal healthcare in the US would be an indifferent move towards the existence of a communist party. What I meant more to emphasize was that millions of US workers having access to doctors to treat long standing chronic illnesses (many people currently unable to work due to such easily treatable, yet unaffordable illnesses) would be a huge morale boost -- if not to say anything of the obvious benefits of medicine on its own merits.
Now that morale itself could sway many ways. I think that morale could (but not necessarily) push more working people to realize they have power, as a lot of US residents are very apathetic, and feel isolated, that they have no power whatsoever.
No if that energy is actually funneled into worker organization, or just more support for capitalist parties and welfare programs, remains to be seen.
You need to start with the elements that are already combative and help them in their struggles.
This makes sense, and I agree. But are there combative elements in the US currently? If so, I'm not aware of them. I actually live in a historically union heavy area, but union engagement has been largely squashed by decades of propaganda and "at will employment" legislation. Any talk of organization gets a person promptly removed and fired.
I think I am just struggling to see what the next immediate step is in such a situation.
Worry is a mood found mainly among the middle class, i.e. those that have something to lose, while the propertyless proletarian's condition produces passion.
I agree with the sentiment for the most part, though its a bit hyperbolic.You do realize that health insurance is compulsory in the US, right? Its illegal to not have insurance, by penalty of fine, even if you can't afford it. I know plenty of propertyless and pennyless people, living paycheck to paycheck, afraid of losing access to employer health insurance, necessary for life-supporting medicnes such as insulin, because they (or their children) would die in days without it. If that makes them "middle-class" then I don't know what definition you're using for middle-class. I get the impression you don't understand how health insurance works in the US, or how its tied to labor. Employer-sponsored health insurance is a major bourgeois policy pushed in the US.
When your very ability to live is directly tied to your employer, I can't really see how this is as a uniquely "middle-class" issue separate from the larger labor movement.
So maybe I worded my previous post poorly, if it seems I meant otherwise.
This is what you wrote:
I could see the argument that many US workers are just too mentally/physically drained, which is a major factor preventing organization. Or afraid of losing their employer-sponsored health insurance.
These are things I can see that seem to be holding back organization at the moment.
Now, what positive actions could be taken to form a genuine communist party in the US? That I don't know, and would have to defer to someone more knowledgeable than me.
Though I think passing some form of Medicare for all program would be a major start, even if not related to a communist party. I can not stress just how sickly and mentally ill most Americans are. It is a huge hurdle to any kind of meaningful organization.
A "factor" is a category used by someone who wants to establish an arbitrary connection between two disparate phenomena. The notion that a lack of healthcare is a "major factor preventing organisation" is uncriticisable, since you're not establishing any determinate relation at all. You claim that somehow, healthcare is related to organisation, which to me gives the impression that you merely desire to somehow link Bernie Sanders' programme to communism. It doesn't help that you're completely indeterminate as to what you mean by "organisation" too.
I think the adoption of universal healthcare in the US would be an indifferent move towards the existence of a communist party.
So what is your business arguing in favour of it on a subreddit dedicated to communism, then?
What I meant more to emphasize was that millions of US workers having access to doctors to treat long standing chronic illnesses (many people currently unable to work due to such easily treatable, yet unaffordable illnesses) would be a huge morale boost
And since when exactly is communism about a "morale boost"? This sounds like the talk of a politician who is unhappy about the mood of the nation.
if not to say anything of the obvious benefits of medicine on its own merits.
Communism is not a scheme for improving the condition of the working class.
Now that morale itself could sway many ways. I think that morale could (but not necessarily) push more working people to realize they have power, as a lot of US residents are very apathetic, and feel isolated, that they have no power whatsoever.
If it doesn't lead to a push in the combativeness of the proletariat by necessity, then what's the point? More, a feeling of powerlessness is again a middle class sentiment, not a proletarian one.
No if that energy is actually funneled into worker organization, or just more support for capitalist parties and welfare programs, remains to be seen.
So you're arguing in support of a capitalist party and welfare programmes and wonder if that will lead to more support for capitalist parties and welfare programmes?
But are there combative elements in the US currently? If so, I'm not aware of them.
Then it might be time to look at the news every now and then.
I actually live in a historically union heavy area, but union engagement has been largely squashed by decades of propaganda and "at will employment" legislation. [...]
I think I am just struggling to see what the next immediate step is in such a situation.
Clearly the next immediate step is to shill for the Democrats, so unions are squashed even further.
Any talk of organization gets a person promptly removed and fired.
In the 1930s, unionists in the US were attacked and murdered by hired thugs and the police. In other countries they continue to do so today. That didn't and doesn't prevent them from accepting the risk. What does that tell you?
I agree with the sentiment for the most part, though its a bit hyperbolic.You do realize that health insurance is compulsory in the US, right? Its illegal to not have insurance, by penalty of fine, even if you can't afford it. I know plenty of propertyless and pennyless people, living paycheck to paycheck, afraid of losing access to employer health insurance, necessary for life-supporting medicnes such as insulin, because they (or their children) would die in days without it. If that makes them "middle-class" then I don't know what definition you're using for middle-class. I get the impression you don't understand how health insurance works in the US, or how its tied to labor. Employer-sponsored health insurance is a major bourgeois policy pushed in the US.
When your very ability to live is directly tied to your employer, I can't really see how this is as a uniquely "middle-class" issue separate from the larger labor movement.
This section to me just confirms that you're being dishonest and deliberately derailing this thread in order to further your social democratic agenda. You write this in reply to me, but you don't quote me in entirety. This is what I wrote:
Worry is a mood found mainly among the middle class, i.e. those that have something to lose, while the propertyless proletarian's condition produces passion. If these people are otherwise proletarian, they will be dragged into the struggle once the development of the more combative layers has proceeded further. If they are more on the side of the petty bourgeois, time will tell which side they will choose.
The bolded part, which you omitted, makes this entire section of yours redundant.
More, a feeling of powerlessness is again a characteristic of the middle class, not the proletariat.
Lol let's find out what this absolute dullard thinks of things. Here they write
In Karl Marx's time, the term "middle class" actually meant something more concrete. It was a term for people who were in the middle of the Bourgeoisie (business owners) and Proletariat (wage workers).
This gives me chills. This person claims to speak for Marx lol.
A "middle class" person may also be someone who owns businesses or stock as a primary income, but also does some wage work or spec work. Again, someone who is "in the middle" of doing labor, and profiting off others labor. They are neither fully proletarian or bourgeoisie.
This person should just stop posting about communism.
Petit bourgeois are one type of middle class. And not all landlords are necessarily Bourgeois, because they don't control production. Rent seeking is still shitty though.
If they're going to be this embarrassingly stupid online then they should at least openly admit to being a regular liberal and step over on to their side.
Communism is not a scheme for improving the condition of the working class.
I'm pretty sure that is is easier to train a dog than it would be to get these leftards to understand how this is a petite bourgeois programs.
Why are liberal morons like you attracted to communism?
Do you really not know why?
Can confirm, lol. Don’t forget the opioid epidemic, basically self medicating for these conditions.
I don't deny that having a universal healthcare would be an improvement in the lives of many, and I understand that it is inhuman in this day and age to have to forego your health due to its exuberant price.
But I don't think that this should be left in the hands of politicians. I think it would be unlikely for it to come about in a real meaningful way even if Bernie was president. I also don't deny that unions have their own interests and short comings either, but I find this one example to be interesting enough to post about it.
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We have run the experiment of not having social democracy, and it's not as if that helped the communist movement somehow...
That was never the point. If communism is the end, then the means need to be in harmony with it. These bourgeois movements are all practically opposed to communism. They are no means to it.
Or to be more precise, communism is the labour movement itself, so social democracy does nothing for it.
Yeah totally. Sorry for this ridiculous sidetrack.
All good.
If the unions are being attacked by the state to the point that it consists of only 10% of workers that means we should just abandon them?
Why on earth would it mean that? I already said I was a union steward. Not following your logic at all.
I just thought the 'sunk cost' argument was a bit ridiculous
It's extremely idiotic. It's an instance of social democrats coping - when workers don't go along with their programmes, they ascribe misperceptions to them.
They aren't making the connection to the collective bargaining power
Yes they do. It's mentioned in flyers and in that quote I posted.
I wonder if it can be some sunk cost kind of thinking
Or perhaps workers simply don't have the same interest as the middle class?
They aren't making the connection to the collective bargaining power of/ideological connection to a people's healthcare program
What is the "collective bargaining power of a people's healthcare program"? And what do you mean by "ideological connection to a people's healthcare program"?
the fact that they don't have to bargain for healthcare anymore means they can focus their efforts on other employment benefits.
Apparently, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I think it's funny how all of the posts on this are being downvoted by someone.
Several sections of the flyer feature mock quotes from Sanders’ visit, during which he said Medicare for All is a way to fix health care for everyone, and employers will reinvest savings from the policy into workers’ salaries.
“Those politicians have never sat at our bargaining table or been on a 24/7 six years, four months and 10 days strike line,” the flyer reads.
Coming back to this thread, it seems that the Culinary Union rank and file largely broke with management and went for Sanders
And what do you think of that?
I'd imagine the 'upper management' of the Culinary union felt that M4A would threaten their control over the members of their union. For example, it's a lot easier to organize strikes w/o upper management approval knowing that your healthcare won't be cut off.
Are you incapable of understanding what you are reading or did you just ignore the rest of the thread to post this?
I'm reading through the rest of the thread now, I did just initially post this. No need to be so hostile, I was just sharing my initial thoughts on the matter. I think your points about Unions wanting to keep what they fought for and their position in collective bargaining/representing their workers are interesting. Sanders's plan would be an undercut to the gains made by the Culinary Union.
I'm reading through the rest of the thread now, I did just initially post this. No need to be so hostile, I was just sharing my initial thoughts on the matter.
Given that this subreddit is not exactly active, the thread being two weeks old and having much less comments than your average Reddit post, I would hope for people to read first before shitting up the comments with stuff that has been talked about already in detail.
my apologies
All good.
Do you really think that workers "largely broke" with "management" over the ability to strike?
Your point being?
After reading this, I am curious if there is financial benefit individual unions receive from healthcare plans, friendly employers at the hiring hall, or contracts put in place to lock in one particular healthcare provider. Im also guessing some unions could be looking at loss of dues received by members who are only signed up for healthcare benefits.
I’m not attempting to be claim malfeasance by labor organisers, but if there is some financial loss for unions with M4A, then I can see why some would oppose the policy. It does have the flow on effect of stifling rank and file organising, and militant worker organising, but I don’t think this is the main aim for these unions who see themselves as the bridge between worker and company.
None of that is relevant to the point of this thread. What we have here is an example, and there are many like this, of the class winning this concession on the class terrain in their class organization. Not one of being granted it by the capitalist state. Leftists would gladly abandon these organizations in support of Bernie, thus exposing them (if it really needed exposing) as being just petite bourgeois shills. The problems with trade union bureaucracy and leadership is extremely minor. The key ingredient missing here is a communist party that is able to act within these organizations against the bureaucracy and leadership.
Hello. So apparently the working class people inside the unions voted predominantly for Sanders.
I would like to request an explanation for how it appears that what Sanders is offering to them is more desirable than what the union is offering them.
The short answer is that it is because there is no communist party.
The longer answer is that I don't know why each individual member chose to vote one way or another. We haven't conducted a mass survey.
Presenting it as a rejection of their own union for Sanders offering them more seems extremely naive and simplistic. If we go by this we get a whole range of reasons. It isn't a question of being offered a more desirable health care, which doesn't seem true in the slightest.
The real issue, that I constantly seem to have to reiterate for some reason, is that this doesn't matter. The point of this thread was to show a class action conducted by a class organization against the bourgeoisie.
This becomes clearer when we look at what the Sanders program actual promises. Here, in this article is states that
Union leaders reacted angrily when Sanders, at a town hall, told its members that their employers would save $12,000 per employee under Medicare for All, and that they’d see that money in their paychecks.
The Medicare for All package is being sold as a cost reduction to the capitalist class, which it undoubtedly will be. However, the idea that these cost savings will then be passed on to the employee is laughably ridiculous.
A class action conducted by a class organization that went against the wishes of the class it's supposed to be representing.
I was being too generous in giving you the benefit of the doubt that this wasn't the asinine logic you were using. If they all went out and voted for Trump, would that be any better or worse? I don't think that any of the people involved there are communists and won't act accordingly.
It would be worse, but it appears to me that you wouldn't ask yourself why these working class people were voting for Trump, and would be fine with saying it was the ideas they have in their heads.
Much like now where you are saying that it is these damned ideas the working class of this union has in their heads, of solidarity with other people who don't have union healthcare, that causes it to fail to see how their trade union leadership and good communists like yourself know what's best for them and their friends.
Calling yourself Marx but your politics are Proudhon's 🥴
Do you have a learning disability?
Karl Marx would be rolling in his grave were he to see what you're doing with his name lol
We could solve the electricity needs of mankind for eternity if we hooked up Marx's spinning corpse to a generator, would he be able to read the stuff you peddle:
Socialism as a goal does not want to strip things into bare-bones necessities, but to structure society in a different way that benefits the working class.
Damn yeah, I guess that quote is devastating.
It is extremely stupid, which you would know, had you read Marx.
It would be worse
Neither is more advantageous for communism.
but it appears to me that you wouldn't ask yourself why these working class people were voting for Trump
We linked a post that discusses why some workers voted for Trump elsewhere in this thread.
and would be fine with saying it was the ideas they have in their heads.
The point would be to explain how these ideas get there.
Much like now where you are saying that it is these damned ideas the working class of this union has in their heads, of solidarity with other people who don't have union healthcare, that causes it to fail to see how their trade union leadership and good communists like yourself know what's best for them and their friends.
"Other people" is a nice weasel word to introduce non-proletarian strata into the equation. Clearly you don't have a problem with interclassist sentiments being present among the proletariat. More, are you so moronic as to think that we consider the main task of the communist party to be endowing people with "correct ideas" by means of education?
Calling yourself Marx but your politics are Proudhon's 🥴
It's obvious that you don't know shit about either Marx or Proudhon.
I'm under the impression that they believe that what ever people who work do then that must be communism. Any excuse to shill for Sanders.
As has been repeated ad nauseam, the important organisation here that is able to transcend the particular interests of union management is the party. What is significant is merely that the healthcare plan here is a product of class struggle.
And the momentary "wishes of the class" are simply irrelevant. Was the racism of the English workers against the Irish that Marx was writing about communist?
So apparently the working class people inside the unions voted predominantly for Sanders.
If workers vote for Sanders, then that must clearly mean that he is the communist choice! On the other hand, if they vote Trump, then that means that they're all closeted reactionaries that need to be abandoned. Do you see the problem with this logic?
It's not important what the opinion of individual workers, or even the proletariat at large, at a given moment is. A very neat paragraph by Marx on this topic can be found in the Holy Family, but I'm not going to reproduce it here, as it has been brought up often enough on this subreddit. So it is in order to quote him on another occasion:
I have always defied the momentary opinions of the proletariat.
Clear enough?
I would like to request an explanation for how it appears that what Sanders is offering to them is more desirable than what the union is offering them.
First of all, the customer-like manner in which you demand an answer is disgusting. How about talking like a normal person instead of "requesting an explanation" as if you were just approaching some counter? /u/dr_marx rightly stated that we don't know what happens in the minds of each individual worker, respectively what their reasoning was, but from the article they linked it is possible to draw some conclusions. Take this statement for example:
Health care is “the number one issue,” said Monica Smith, a Culinary Workers member since 1987 and an in-room dining server at the Bellagio, who caucused for Sanders.
“We have so many people that have walked that picket line — blood, sweat, and tears — for us. We’re going to be here to protect it, but I worry about other people that aren’t protected by unions. How do they get health care? What's the dollar amount that they have to go through? Do they have to worry about not being able to go to a hospital?”
From the outset, it is significant that the woman quoted here is a member of the union since 1987, which implies an aging workforce. More, given that she mentions money being a concern, I do not assume that she has sympathy for the middle class, but has non-unionised workers in mind. So, what she's here effectively lamenting is the low degree of unionisation, which prevents the union's own solution from being generalised for the rest of the proletariat, and which in turn leads her to embrace Sanders' proposal.
Given a communist party with a proper capability to act within unions however, a lot of the problems arising from the autonomous interest of the union bureaucracy which currently dissuade some workers from unionising would diminish. Also, even though an increasing rate of unionisation is of course to some extent in the interest of the communist movement, the party would pay attention to struggles happening outside of unions as well (Scandinavia shows that high rates of unionisation need not be of value in themselves). Finally, the success of workers' struggles always depends on the extension of the association of labour. Labour gets stronger with larger numbers and unification. Hence, helping already currently combative elements succeed by necessity implies further unionisation. All these aspects taken together would help US workers generalise class-based healthcare.
The essential difference here is that between achievements of the labour movement itself, and measures of the capitalist state. The old bourgeois catchword of "cheap government" is still how Sanders and his proponents argue for universal healthcare. The difference is that between social democracy and communism:
The peculiar character of social-democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Only one must not get the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie, on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within whose frame alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be as far apart as heaven and earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter practically. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent.
Another example to showcase this difference is how Marx, Engels and the IWMA considered cooperatives. They had praise for the cooperative movement that arose among workers independently of the middle class preachers calling themselves socialists, to the extent that it exemplified the desire of the proletariat to establish its dictatorship. They knew of the immanent limits of cooperatives though, which is why they pushed for the overcoming of this form of struggle within the labour movement.
On the other hand, they did not have the slightest sympathy for people like Lassalle who proposed to bring about cooperatives on a large scale through state aid. The underlying aim of such measures is always to pacify the proletariat. Lassalle's modern epigones are people like Richard Wolff. Bernie Sanders is the same when he argues in favour of the same co-management whose effects I already described elsewhere in this thread. "Communist society" on the other hand is nothing else than the development of the association of proletariat, the independent labour movement, to a certain level.
How about talking like a normal person instead of "requesting an explanation"
Alright: I used to believe leftcoms were in some way wise but I only see now that the only reason this was true was because you were pitted against the even stupider tankie brigade. On your own, you are completely and utterly listless, boring, whatever. When you see a trade union supporting a liberal as opposed to supporting a social democrat at the very least, you say that the trade union is correct, and then go on to say how a true communist party would be able to lead this trade union to the promised land. In addition you also don't even offer any class-based analysis of any sort to a person who asks why the workers would vote for this social democrat instead.
There is no communist party. I don't know why you two "doctors" keep mentioning that. Is it supposed to be some sort of rallying cry to create one? How, if losing your job means losing your healthcare? Is not universal healthcare preferable to privatized? Doesn't it improve the lot of the working class? To me you both seem like you're ignoring actual events and actions of the working class to continue preaching whatever it is you want to preach. I also don't see how either of you are more radical than this despised social democrat. The same social democrat who supports this national healthcare system precisely because it makes unionising easier. Seems a tad bit better than fantasizing about your perfect communist party that exists only in your mind, no?
So yeah, that was it - I saw a completely humorless guy who insists on doing weak insults to anyone who disagrees with him and I decided to challenge him on his "working class credentials" or whatever. I challenged him and he gave me nothing other than what you are giving me right now - a defense of union leadership that is out of touch with its own rank and file. Proving, to me, that you two are out of touch with the working class. In addition, I had a hearty laugh that both of you call yourself doctors and jump to the defense of the other. Left-communism, if this is what it is, is a joke.
There is no communist party.
lol got ourselves a real genius over here
I had a hearty laugh that both of you call yourself doctors
I wonder if you even know what the doctor thing is a reference to.
The fact that I would have to repeat myself, again, in this same thread, if I went through each one of your points kinda tells me that you've just came in here to shill for Bernie. Either that or you really do have a learning disability. It's okay to have one. My brother had one and we sent him to the funny farm, and now he's in charge of the coronavirus response.
When you see a trade union supporting a liberal as opposed to supporting a social democrat at the very least, you say that the trade union is correct
No, this is not what anyone in this thread has said, which you would know, had you read what has been written. The point was that the union's healthcare plan arose from class struggle. No one agreed with the union leadership in supporting any bourgeois, no matter if Sanders or someone else.
and then go on to say how a true communist party would be able to lead this trade union to the promised land.
The talk was of a communist party as such, not an imaginary "true" one. The "promised land" is something that religious quacks can dream of - the topic here is communism.
In addition you also don't even offer any class-based analysis of any sort to a person who asks why the workers would vote for this social democrat instead.
I'm not sure what you demand here. I provided an excerpt from Marx that explains what social democracy is. There is no necessity for any additional explanation.
There is no communist party. I don't know why you two "doctors" keep mentioning that. Is it supposed to be some sort of rallying cry to create one?
Obviously. You can continue to sit in your armchair and vote Sanders though, and imagine that you thereby advance the communist cause.
How, if losing your job means losing your healthcare?
This has been addressed in this thread already as well.
Is not universal healthcare preferable to privatized?
Preferable by what yardstick? The communist one is that of labour.
Doesn't it improve the lot of the working class?
The fact that communism is not a scheme for improving the condition of the working class has been mentioned in this thread before, and it's also elaborated at length in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. It is a petty bourgeois idea, intended to pacify the workers. Here, you can also read Engels on it, in a pamphlet whose topic can be seen as analogous to healthcare. The same garbage he criticises is what you argue.
To me you both seem like you're ignoring actual events and actions of the working class to continue preaching whatever it is you want to preach.
To me it seems like you desperately want to connect Bernie Sanders to communism.
I also don't see how either of you are more radical than this despised social democrat.
Yeah, it's obvious that you are utterly confused about communism.
The same social democrat who supports this national healthcare system precisely because it makes unionising easier.
You should perhaps ponder over what it means when the capitalist state acknowledges unions.
Seems a tad bit better than fantasizing about your perfect communist party that exists only in your mind, no?
Working towards establishing a communist party in the US so that workers' struggles can be centralised actually advances communism and is productive for providing proper healthcare. I don't see how voting for a bourgeois politician does either.
I challenged him and he gave me nothing other than what you are giving me right now - a defense of union leadership that is out of touch with its own rank and file.
This is - again - nothing that anyone in this thread put forward.
Proving, to me, that you two are out of touch with the working class.
Go put on your flat cap!
In addition, I had a hearty laugh that both of you call yourself doctors and jump to the defense of the other.
I hope you know what the "Dr." in the username references, but I'm not sure if you do.
The rest of your drivel is not even worth addressing.
I hope you know what the "Dr." in the username references, but I'm not sure if you do.
I'm actually curious about this. Mind explaining?
Well, Marx held the academic title of a doctor, even though he obviously never gave a shit about that. It's funny to play on that, given the audience on Reddit. His dissertation dealt with "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature", and it's very much worth looking into, if you find the time:
The proofs of the existence of God are either mere hollow tautologies. Take for instance the ontological proof. This only means:
"that which I conceive for myself in a real way (realiter), is a real concept for me",
something that works on me. In this sense all gods, the pagan as well as the Christian ones, have possessed a real existence. Did not the ancient Moloch reign? Was not the Delphic Apollo a real power in the life of the Greeks? Kant's critique means nothing in this respect. If somebody imagines that he has a hundred talers, if this concept is not for him an arbitrary, subjective one, if he believes in it, then these hundred imagined talers have for him the same value as a hundred real ones. For instance, he will incur debts on the strength of his imagination, his imagination will work, in the same way as all humanity has incurred debts on its gods. The contrary is true. Kant's example might have enforced the ontological proof. Real talers have the same existence that the imagined gods have. Has a real taler any existence except in the imagination, if only in the general or rather common imagination of man? Bring paper money into a country where this use of paper is unknown, and everyone will laugh at your subjective imagination.
My username specifically comes from London parliamentarians, who used to refer to Marx as the "Red Terror Doctor". He mentions this in a letter to Sorge (page 277 in the link):
But more especially it was through him that, for months on end, I sustained incognito a cross-fire against that Russomane Gladstone in London's Fashionable Press (Vanity Fair and Whitehall Review), as also in the English, Scottish and Irish provincial press, unmasking his underhand dealings with the Russian spy Novikova, the Russian Embassy in London, etc.; it was through him, too, that I exerted influence on English parliamentarians in the Commons and the Lords, who would throw up their hands in horror if they knew that it was the Red Terror Doctor, as they call me, who had been their souffleur during the oriental crisis.
The ICP also recall that episode in their commentary on the 1844 manuscripts:
He did his doctorate in philosophy and commanded as a dictator (wrinkle your nose quietly about the word you hate) all of you, professors of business and economics of his time and ours, and the one still to come. You aptly called him Dr. Red Terror, and he didn’t mind; he was even happy about it.
Thanks a bunch for the in-depth explanation!
Again, you're welcome.
I hope you know what the "Dr." in the username references, but I'm not sure if you do.
Some cancers can’t be cured
Go put on your flat cap!
Fellow citizen, have you yet solved the navy bean problem?
13 replies:
First translation from the Croatian internationalists (Kontra klasa). Originally published on the Workers' Offensive website.
Another good article. It's always good to see texts from comrades in other parts of the world. Though I don't think this text is going to convince any of the rabid nationalists on the left to drop their nation-state fetish it is a concise and easy to follow summation of the communist argument against nationalism.
Yeah it probably won't but it was intended as a pamphlet more than anything. IMO we shouldn't even consider "converting" common leftists when writing these texts, the only people we should have in mind are workers.
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To clear this up, when I say leftist I don't mean your run-off-the-mill guy with a 'leftist' view of the economy or something like that. Most workers - in my experience - are economically to the left, if that makes sense. What I mean by leftist is someone invested in the "radical leftist" scene, be it as an active member of this or that organization or as an individual. At least where I come from, such people are rarely workers and are mostly in it for the aesthetics and a sense of belonging. And even if/when they are workers, they're not the workers we should (primarily) think about when agitating. That's my opinion at least.
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I'm kinda influenced by leftcom jargon, that is true, and leftist is oft used kind of derogatory in these circles from my experience.
Are you from Croatia/the Balkans? If so, please do show me these vast numbers of workers in various leftist grouplets (yea including leftcom ones, I know we're insignificant). I do admit though that what I wrote earlier is a somewhat eurocentric view (maybe even eastern-eurocentric) since I suppose there really are a lot of workers influenced by various leftist ideologies in other regions; India and Turkey come to mind, so I'm sorry for that.
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I don't think I understand what you're talking about, sorry. I explained what I meant by leftist already so...
Is this a Finnish left communist publication?
Croatian. I'm not aware of any Finnish leftcom groups tbh but I'd like to know if such exist :)
Ah I see, sorry I am not good at distinguishing languages
In the intro to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Marx writes:
”As philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy.”
and
”The head of this emancipation is philosophy, its heart the proletariat. Philosophy cannot realize itself without the transcendence of the proletariat, and the proletariat cannot transcend itself without the realization of philosophy.”
Later in The German Ideology Marx writes:
”Where speculation ends – in real life – there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men.”
Does this mean Marx’s view of philosophy changed overtime? Did the theory of historical-materialism mark some kind of break with “philosophy proper”, its resolution being communism?
Finally is reading philosophy, such as the works of Foucault, Heidegger, and Deleuze, at all relevant to my study of communism or is critically reading them some irrelevant/wasteful hobby?
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To understand what Marx is saying in the first two quotes, it is necessary to have an understanding of what philosophy even is. Most people will know that it means the love of wisdom. But its object, the knowledge of which it aims at, is somewhat different from that of the sciences. In science, the existence of its object is presupposed. Through concept, judgement and syllogism, science aims at demonstrating the necessity of its object, the necessity of what is. But since each science is preoccupied with a restricted circle of objects, it generally does not ponder over what it shares with all other sciences. This is a task of philosophy. It aims to show the genesis of an object of science, and the way in which thinking considers it. Science and philosophy both rely on a logical and actual necessity: what can be demonstrated to be necessary in mind must also be necessary in actuality. There is thus an inherent relatedness of philosophy and science.
Now, mankind does not merely think about nature scientifically - it does the same with relations between humans it has created itself: money, the state, the family - all of them condition the way in which we live. If these institutions were conscious products towards a certain end, they would not be in contradiction with needs and hence would not require inquiry about them. But clearly, even though these relations often collide with needs, they continue to exist. Simply rejecting them, with an "but they ought to be different!" or an "they should not be!", is not enough, as one will still be bound by them, whether one wants it or not. This contradiction between needs and the actuality of institutions gives rise to philosophy. Hegel puts it like this, in his "Lectures on the History of Philosophy":
It may be said that philosophising only commences when a people has left its concrete life in general, when separation into and difference of estates has emerged and that people approaches its fall, where a rupture has arisen between inner striving and external actuality, when the hitherto shape of religion etc. no longer suffices, when spirit announces indifference towards its living existence or dwells unsatisfied therein, when ethical life dissolves. Spirit flees into the spaces of thought, and, against the actual world, forms for itself a realm of thought. Philosophy is then the reconciliation of the ruin which thought has begun. Philosophy begins with the fall of a real world; when it enters the stage with its abstractions, painting grey in grey, then the freshness of youth, of liveliness, has already gone, and its reconciliation is reconciliation not in actuality, but in the ideal world.
Hegel thinks that thought is to blame for the rift between people's needs and the cruel ways in which their self-created but alien institutions force them to live (note here how the abstraction "people" ignores class). His solution also keeps within the mental realm, and it consists in philosophy. As one of few philosophers, he remarks something about the result of the activity in which he engages in, and he calls it reconciliation. This reconciliation is not, in Hegel's belief, a purpose to which he subordinates his activity, but what must inevitably arise from it. When we find out about the necessity of things, we become reconciled to them. We are supposed to be shown by Hegel that the reason inside our head is at work in the world; that it is merely concealed from us.
As Hegel says in the introduction to his "Encyclopedia":
Similarly it may be held the highest and final aim of philosophic science to bring about, through the ascertainment of this harmony, a reconciliation of the self-conscious reason with the reason which is in the world — in other words, with actuality.
Likewise, in the introduction to his "Philosophy of Right":
To recognise reason as the rose in the cross of the present and thereby to delight in the present - this reasonable insight is the reconciliation with actuality which philosophy grants to those who have received the inner demand to comprehend, and as well as to preserve their subjective freedom in what is substantial, to stand with their subjective freedom not in what is particular and contingent, but in what is in and for itself.
Hegel here employing a religious metaphor - everyday life as a cross to be borne, in which a higher meaning can be found - is no accident. The notion of necessity that philosophy aims to bring forth condemns the world to its suffering, but consoles those who share it in a spiritual community by way of them being united in considering themselves to know that reason is to prevail. However, "reason" here has no other content than whatever the relations corresponding to bourgeois rule engender. It is a manner of coping with the everyday treadmill - ideology. Correspondingly, Hegel can also call philosophy a theodicy at the end of his "Lectures on the History of Philosophy":
The ultimate goal and interest of philosophy is to reconcile the thought, the concept with actuality. Philosophy is the true theodicy, against art and religion and their sentiments, - this reconciliation of the spirit, namely the spirit that has grasped itself in its freedom and in the richness of its actuality.
Similarly, the final sentence of his "Lectures on the Philosophy of History":
That world history is this course of development and the actual becoming of spirit, under the changing spectacles of its stories, - this is the true theodicy, the justification of God in history. Only the insight, that what has happened and is happening every day is not only not without God, but essentially the work of himself, can reconcile spirit with world history and actuality.
Or put differently, in his "Lectures on Aesthetics":
For, after all, philosophy has no other object but God and so is essentially rational theology and, as the servant of truth, a continual divine service.
Philosophy aims to accomplish by means of reason what religion does as mere belief. The content is the same, philosophy merely makes it accessible in a more satisfying way than religion, which does the same job for the "masses". Hegel is not a preacher, he invites us to critically examine the necessity of what he lays out, to be convinced by truth, on which he has no influence either.
His procedure looks like this: From the standpoint arrived at by following the road laid out in the "Phenomenology of Spirit", Hegel sets out to demonstrate the allegedly presuppositionless movement of pure thought in the "Science of Logic". The logical categories he gains in this endeavour are to create actuality out of themselves - reason producing the world. Hegel, in the introduction to the "Logic":
Logic is thus to be understood as the system of pure reason, as the realm of pure thought. This realm is the truth as it is without veil in and for itself. It can therefore be expressed that this content is the representation of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite spirit.
But it is impossible to arrive at an institution, or a characteristic of it, through empty logical categories themselves. For example, the abstractions "general", "particular" and "singular" will never lead to the practical separation of powers in a state on their own. Thus, Hegel is forced to think about various institutions as they already exist. We know that his central interest is not scientific - it lies not in the object in question itself, but in presenting it as an emanation of the logical forms he has uncovered. However, as these forms do allow for some accurate and novel ways of conceptualising the determinacy of actual relations, he attains some genuine insights nevertheless. For the rest, it is enough for him to take characteristics of the given institution known to everyone, and associate them with some convenient category of the "Logic". Presenting this patchwork as a continuous derivation gives his claim the semblance of being fulfilled; of profanely existing institutions actually being created from holy forms of thought.
To make this digression not even longer than it already is, and to wrap back around to your question, let's come back to the quotes you mentioned:
As philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy.
Generally, speaking of philosophy means to speak of Hegel, and to speak of Hegel also means to speak of philosophy (Hegel thinks he is no longer pursuing, loving wisdom, but has finally attained it). Hegel is the apex of philosophy, he is the furthest philosophy could go, the same way in which David Ricardo marked the highest point of political economy. Neither could go further than they did, because doing so would have meant coming into contradiction with the standpoint inherent to their disciplines and the interests to which those correspond: bourgeois society. I talked about this in more detail here.
What came after Hegel and Ricardo were regressions from what they had achieved - the Young Hegelians and the vulgar economists. To both, however, there are notable exceptions: Feuerbach and the Ricardian socialists, which, in continuing the previous work more consistently, indicate already a break with it, being half-way stuck between philosophy, respectively political economy, and communism.
When Marx talks about the proletariat finding "its spiritual weapon in philosophy", he refers to what Feuerbach has laid out. Marx, in a letter to Feuerbach from 1844:
In these writings you have provided — I don't know whether intentionally — a philosophical basis for socialism, and the communists have immediately understood them in this way.
But Marx's outlook already goes vastly beyond Feuerbach's. It is merely the concepts that he employs that are affected by the limitedness of the Feuerbachian standpoint, not the content which they are meant to express itself. Marx will make the former appropriate to the latter in the course of further self-clarification.
The next quote you produce reads:
The head of this emancipation is philosophy, its heart the proletariat. Philosophy cannot actualise itself without the sublation of the proletariat, and the proletariat cannot sublate itself without the actualisation of philosophy.
After what we learnt about philosophy earlier, it should be clear what it means to "actualise" it: the reconciliation it aims to bring about in thought is to be achieved in the practical, social realm instead. The need for reconciliation that gives rise to philosophy must cease through the practical healing which Hegel deemed impossible. The proletariat necessarily carries out this practical reconciliation, communism, when it fights for its independent class interests, and that's why Marx establishes the relation here. That is also why he can call the proletariat the "material weapon of philosophy" in the previous quote. Or, put differently in 1844:
Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.
Marx in 1843 is still verbally affected by coming to critical-scientific communism through the at this point not yet complete critique of philosophy. He is still to investigate the anatomy, the actual relations of bourgeois society by means of the critique of political economy - which is what he will turn towards as a result of his grappling with Hegel's Philosophy of Right.
From the same text that also contains your two quotes:
You cannot sublate philosophy without actualising it.
The same mistake, but with the factors reversed, was made by the theoretical party originating from philosophy.
In the present struggle it saw only the critical struggle of philosophy against the German world; it did not give a thought to the fact that philosophy up to the present itself belongs to this world and is its completion, although an ideal one. Critical towards its counterpart, it was uncritical towards itself when, proceeding from the premises of philosophy, it either stopped at the results given by philosophy or passed off demands and results from somewhere else as immediate demands and results of philosophy – although these, provided they are justified, can be obtained only by the negation of philosophy up to the present, of philosophy as such. We reserve ourselves the right to a more detailed description of this section: It thought it could actualise philosophy without sublating it.
When Marx here speaks of "sublation", he does not mean the mental operation of philosophy, which considers something sublated when it has dispensed with it in thought while leaving its practical existence intact. "Sublating philosophy" means not merely its theoretical elimination - already accomplished by critical-scientific communism - but it practically becoming superfluous.
See also, in the German Ideology:
“Let us, therefore, take a look at the activities which tempt” Stirner’s ancients.
“'For the ancients, the world was a truth,’ says Feuerbach; but he forgets to make the important addition: a truth, the untruth of which they sought to penetrate and, finally, did indeed penetrate” (p. 22).
“For the ancients”, their “world” (not the world) “was a truth” — whereby, of course, no truth about the ancient world is stated, but only that the ancients did not have a Christian attitude to their world. As soon as untruth penetrated their world (i.e., as soon as this world itself disintegrated in consequence of practical conflicts — and to demonstrate this materialistic development empirically would be the only thing of interest), the ancient philosophers sought to penetrate the world of truth or the truth of their world and then, of course, they found that it had become untrue. Their very search was itself a symptom of the internal collapse of this world.
So the "ruin" that Hegel speaks of, which philosophy was supposed to heal, was not begun by thought as he maintains, but is the consequence of a practical development. Hence, it can be done away with by "practical-critical activity".
The German Ideology, which you quote from too, is written down two years after the first quotes you brought up, in the course of which Marx produced two other important works of self-clarification: his critique of Hegel's philosophy in the 1844 manuscripts, and the Holy Family. In these, Marx demonstrates the procedure by which philosophy achieves its result, and consequently, why it is wrong. The objection to philosophy is not merely that it is conciliatory in thought while leaving actuality as is, but also more simply that it is false. After all, if philosophy did indeed provide proof of the necessity of bourgeois relations, reconciliation would merely be a side effect and could hardly be held against it. Marx does not essentially change his standpoint, he is just more clear about something that he did not have the proper concepts to express earlier on.
Did the theory of historical-materialism mark some kind of break with “philosophy proper”, its resolution being communism?
Communism does break with philosophy as such. To speak of communist philosophy would be like speaking of communist religion, or communist political economy. A complete absurdity. Critical-scientific communism has shown how religion and philosophy are wrong, as well as how they proceed and why they arise. If one has grasped communism properly, it is simply not possible to still be religious or to philosophise.
However, communism does not exhaust itself in attacking these in their partial aspect of being a mental error - by education, in the manner of the Enlightenment - but aims at their social, practical root. Communists treat philosophy as already done for before its final withering away will approach in communist society, while for the majority of the proletariat it might as well not exist to begin with. Coming to communism through the critique of philosophy rather than through immediate, economic, proletarian needs usually means that one is (petty) bourgeois, or aspiring to it. In this case, the need for reconciliation that gave rise to philosophising is transformed into passion for the proletarian cause, which can be furthered in the manner we've indicated here, or in the pinned threads on Sanders.
Finally is reading philosophy, such as the works of Foucault, Heidegger, and Deleuze, at all relevant to my study of communism
No. You don't need to read any philosophy to understand communism - not Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel or Feuerbach. Reading Marx is completely sufficient. The philosophers you mentioned are, in conjunction with the bourgeoisie losing its revolutionary role, a degeneration from Hegel anyway. The little insights they might occasionally produce are already accounted for, at least implicitly, and these are not important for communism in any case. In a somewhat macabre comparison, one might say that philosophy is already dead, and we are merely witnessing the twitching of its decaying body in the works of later philosophers. It might still exist as form, but its content has long since vanished. The "putrescence of absolute spirit", a "decomposing caput mortuum" are the words Marx uses at the beginning of the German Ideology.
If you're interested in the relation of communism to philosophy in a more detailed manner than I expressed above, I recommend reading this book or the writings of Cyril Smith on the matter, albeit with the provision that both suffer from abstract humanism and don't grasp communism fully.
is critically reading them some irrelevant/wasteful hobby?
It is, when one has understood what philosophy is. One will also have lost the desire necessary for occupying oneself with it. If one nevertheless attempts to keep up the contradiction, then that usually means that the person in question is petty bourgeois and does not want to forfeit their social standing. What Marx said about Proudhon still rings true here. But you need not take me at my word for it - you can find this out yourself.
Thank you, I couldn’t have asked for a more comprehensive answer.
You're welcome.
A short follow-up: I made some edits to those two posts above, to make them as clear as possible. I also remembered that there's another quote, from the chapter on Saint Max from the German Ideology as well, which helps to clarify what I wrote above a bit more:
Owing to the fact that Feuerbach showed the religious world as an illusion of the earthly world — a world which in his writing appears merely as a phrase — German theory too was confronted with the question which he left unanswered: how did it come about that people “got” these illusions “into their heads"? Even for the German theoreticians this question paved the way to the materialistic view of the world, a view which is not without premises, but which empirically observes the actual material premises as such and for that reason is, for the first time, actually a critical view of the world. This path was already indicated in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher — in the introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right and On the Jewish Question. But since at that time this was done in philosophical phraseology, the traditionally occurring philosophical expressions such as “human essence”, “species”, etc., gave the German theoreticians the desired reason for misunderstanding the real trend of thought and believing that here again it was a question merely of giving a new turn to their worn-out theoretical garment — just as Dr. Arnold Ruge, the Dottore Graziano of German philosophy, imagined that he could continue as before to wave his clumsy arms about and display his pedantic-farcical mask. One has to “leave philosophy aside” (Wigand, p. 187, cf. Hess, Die letzten Philosophen, p. 8), one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality, for which there exists also an enormous amount of literary material, unknown, of course, to the philosophers. When, after that, one again encounters people like Krummacher or “Stirner”, one finds that one has long ago left them “behind” and below. Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and sexual love.
What Marx describes here at the outset, the question as to how people got religious illusions in their heads, is the same question as to what causes the need for philosophy - see the aforementioned quote about the world of the ancients disintegrating due to "practical conflicts", and this material development being the only thing of interest. Additionally, when Marx here says that an empirical view is not without premises, then this is him taking a jab at the pretense of speculative philosophy to be presuppositionless - see my remark about Hegel's "Logic" above. Marx also explicitly says here that the problem with the exposition in his early works was mainly a matter of terminology, and not content. And finally, in the end he answers your question as to the relevance of studying philosophy.
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How does communism relate to other "social sciences"
Irrespective of communism, the social sciences in the form in which they are taught at university are pretty much a joke that miseducate aspiring petty bourgeois quacks. They give the semblance of a technique of administration to the bourgeois. Some texts here address the topic, but they do not treat the matter exhaustively, and the general outlook of the group that is publishing them is deficient too (see here, for example). I also discussed this matter a bit here, in the post which I already linked in the initial comment in this thread.
like psychology?
I'm not particularly interested in psychology, hence I cannot say too much about it. Besides the link I provided above, there's also this text that I found worth reading, albeit also with substantial reservations.
Psychology is supposed to be the study of the human mind and behavior.
The "supposed to be" is key here. For the most part, psychology does not actually investigate subjectivity. It even explicitly avoids it with approaches like Behaviourism, that declare the content of consciousness to be unknowable to begin with.
Does communism through its critique of political economy bring us closer to reconciling psychology with other sciences?
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean.
Or is psychology like philosophy, trying to tie real observable phenomena (suicidal gestures, dissociation, substance abuse) to meaningless abstractions (borderline personality disorder)?
It often seems to do so, but I don't know enough about the subject to feel comfortable opining on it in detail without further investigation.
Without knowing the answer to the first part, I'd say this; you're allowed to have hobbies. You're allowed to like things just because you like them.
You're right in that it would be idiotic to mandate that communists should not have philosophy as a hobby. By your own wording of "being allowed", you show the relation of morality to right, its thinking in the categories of permissible and forbidden, and thereby one reason as to why it does not have a place in the communist movement: one cannot demand the immediate presence of what is mediated, a result (cf. Bordiga before the Comintern about centralism).
Communists do not decree non-religiousness, rather non-religiousness is a property of consummate communists necessarily, as they know what religion is (note that I'm talking about communists here, and not society at large). In the same manner, a person capable of fully coming around to the communist standpoint will finally dispense with philosophy as a hobby, and if they are not capable of doing this, this means that they are likely stifled by their social standing which they do not want to give up, which is not expressing a moral condemnation of them, but merely an empirical fact. The same goes for appeals to morality themselves, of course.
If you thoroughly understand critical-scientific communism, you won't be religious:
In this discussion all the illusions of speculation are brought together.
[...]
Thus, for instance, after superseding religion, after recognising religion to be a product of self-alienation he yet finds confirmation of himself in religion as religion. Here is the root of Hegel’s false positivism, or of his merely apparent criticism: this is what Feuerbach designated as the positing, negating and re-establishing of religion or theology – but it has to be expressed in more general terms. Thus reason is at home in unreason as unreason. The man who has recognised that he is leading an alienated life in law, politics, etc., is leading his true human life in this alienated life as such. Self-affirmation, self-confirmation in contradiction with itself – in contradiction both with the knowledge of and with the essential being of the object – is thus true knowledge and life.
[...]
If I know religion as alienated human self-consciousness, then what I know in it as religion is not my self-consciousness, but my alienated self-consciousness confirmed in it. I therefore know my self-consciousness that belongs to itself, to its very nature, confirmed not in religion but rather in annihilated and superseded religion.
To a religious "communist", communism is philosophy. Like with Hegel, for them "reason is at home in unreason as unreason". They make a matter of mind what is one of practice. The problems that give rise to religion and philosophy, cannot be solved by either:
All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
Apologies for necromancing an old thread, but I’ve found a challenger to the analysis provided in this thread that might be of use in filling out the edges of what’s provided here. I’ve kept my own commentary out of it, as you might prefer.
I’ve reproduced what the interloper has said below:
It takes a special kind of idiocy to come out with an interpretation of Introduction to a Contribution to a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right that's directly opposite to the one in the text.
[referring to the point beginning with “when Marx here speaks of sublation”]
it’s okay up to here, and then it delves into the depths of clownery. We begin with the separation of theoretical elimination and practical elimination, as if theory and practice was separable, and then we come up with an inane redefinition of aufheben. OP posts a quote that makes it very clear what the sublation of philosophy entails.
[referring to this quote]
The MECW translation is considerably better than the MIA translation, so I'll post that. Philosophy is "cancelled" - self-sufficient philosophy, which deals with a realm of thought either entirely independent of or preceding the material world, is done for. It is also "picked up", so an analysis of the laws of thought remains. Engels writes nearly the same thing almost 40 years later:
To figure out the "laws governing thought", you need to actually look at philosophy and critique it. Per Engels, again:
DrRedTerror takes the opposite of Engels' advice and dismisses philosophy as "already done for" in a desperate manner. The critique of philosophy is no longer necessary, since Marx did all that, innit?
Later on...
it's conspicuously missing Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, which is a shame because that one text answers the question.
Further on again:
Theoretical work is just as important as practical action, and if your theoretical work runs straight into an abyss i'm not going to give you the practical benefit of the doubt.
When asked to clarify what they meant about the definition of aufheben:
He redefines it to something meaningless... [Aufheban means] "both overcome and preserved". In marx and engels' dialectics, the "negation of the negation", what happens when a thesis and antithesis interact. The antithesis destroys the thesis but eventually re-establishes an altered form of the thesis on a more expansive basis. Engels gives a definition of the sublation of philosophy in Anti-Duhring which makes DrRedTerror's "this is completely different to sublation in philosophy, because it makes philosophy superfluous" look like the joke it is.
[the next Engels quote from the Anti-Duhring part 1]
Anything particularly noteworthy in this, positive or negative? I (and perhaps OP if they end up seeing this) might find a response interesting. In the case that you disagree strongly, I hope that I’ve provided a laugh as well as a criticism.
There isn't anything of value in this. That person plainly and simply does not have the faintest clue of what they're talking about. None of the quotes they produce even have the slightest relation to what I laid out here. In any case, if they had an actual argument that they'd be able to defend, they'd post it here.
Thanks.
They’ve had this opinion for a while, but I think they have their head so far up their ass that they see actually posting criticisms here as beneath them, considering they used this one thread as a reason to unequivocally dismiss the entire subreddit. Pretty typical self-labelled Internet Marxist/leftcom it seems.
I think they have their head so far up their ass that they see actually posting criticisms here as beneath them
I've noticed that a lot of leftists like to feign superiority up until the point when they are pushed to defend their position. Then they completely crumble, and start to whine and get defensive. It's bizarre. If they want to preserve that initial egotistic sentiment, then they can't afford to expose themselves.
Perhaps they’re never challenged properly due to associating with similar leftists who are also unable to defend their positions, so that all discussion they’re exposed to just pointless headbutting and they can keep up the act. Twitter and Discord have become very effective at creating social circles full of just that kind of person and giving them the social reinforcement needed to make them go into hysterics when someone has a serious and evidenced disagreement.
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you cia or something
🕵️
Also helpful: https://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/
What's with the vaguely swastikish/Enronish logo?
It's because it's a CIA operated front for the Illuminati.
Who gives a fuck about their logo?
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There are rage-inducing yellow press hacks currently out there, writing about how "we are all in one boat" and that "the virus does not discriminate". This is the reality in Germany right now: the biggest COVID-19 outbreaks are in meat processing plants employing migrant labour under terrible working conditions, as well as in social housing for poor people.
is it even worth distinguishing the "yellow press" from bourgeoisie media in general?
"Yellow", as in capitalist, in the past used to be distinguished from "red", for communist. An example is the "yellow" trade-union International of Amsterdam, as opposed to the "red" Profintern.
I wasn't aware that the term "yellow press" had different origins. I thought it only later started to mean tabloids, and I wanted to reappropriate the supposed original meaning. I was thinking of it in the sense of bourgeois media in general. That wasn't exactly helpful, as most people won't understand it, and a "red press" does not exist properly anyway.
fair enough. i've heard of yellow unions, and yellow socialism before, but i've only ever heard yellow press in the context of liberals complaining about the profitability and spread of complete misinformation. But misunderstanding aside, you are completely right. its noteworthy that in the UK, over 80% of news editors and over 50% of journalists were privately educated, compared to ~7% of the general population. Obviously this is a symptom as much as a cause, and merely mandating that private and state run news organisations hire more state educated people is not much of a solution, especially given that being state educated is no guarantee that someone is a worker.
Journalism in general is in a sorry state. There are of course millions of reasons for this: online journalism, a general decline in literacy and maturity, the fact that many writers merely rewrite what agencies present to them, them being utterly detached from the reality of ordinary people, and so on.
With a proper communist party, a corresponding press would also follow.
Besides the ICP's annual Communist Left publication, is there any at least halfway decent source of journalism today? I would be interested in reading more on current events from a labor-oriented point of view.
I find it useful to look at political journals every now and then, of all political stripes - liberal, conservative, social-democratic, you name it. Often what they say about each other is quite accurate, and the more you become acquainted with their limited views and proposals, the more you see the whole about the bigger questions of the time, and how labour is to tackle them. Aside from that, it's always good to know what the various factions of the bourgeoisie think. For empirical matters, it's also handy to look into published statistics by governmental or transnational institutions, as well as think-tanks.
You're right, it is important to know all the arguments of one's time to help better fight the wrong ones. For this reason and others, I've been considering a subscription to The Economist. Would you consider it worth it to purchase a subscription? It seems like a big journal for bourgeois opinions, but also for some empirical content on the state of the world. I don't want to waste that much money if I could get the same data elsewhere though.
I've been considering a subscription to The Economist. Would you consider it worth it to purchase a subscription?
You know, it's really very easy to pirate all the popular journals nowadays.
but also for some empirical content on the state of the world. I don't want to waste that much money if I could get the same data elsewhere though.
Your best bet for that would be a factbook, not a journal. The UN, IMF, CIA and all the major nation's departments of finance, commerce and labor regularly publish most statistics of relevance for free. They come with the same one-sided presentation that ordinary bourgeois journals come with, of course.
You know, I probably should've thought of both of those things sooner. These are very helpful, thanks
You're right, it is important to know all the arguments of one's time to help better fight the wrong ones.
I don't think fighting arguments is particularly important. What's important is the labour movement and how it can overcome the challenges it faces.
Would you consider it worth it to purchase a subscription?
No. I don't think it's worth it, especially given that it will present you a very one-sided picture. There's so much information on the internet for free, that I'd refrain from paying for anything unless you can find a particular piece of information nowhere else.
Thank you for the advice, I appreciate all the help you and dr_marx give out
You're welcome.
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Would be funny if this actually lead to socialism by 2050.
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So umm, to any new people visiting this sub, no one was doxxed, a public picture was reused in a meme. They just wanted an excuse to pull the trigger.
On top or this, the rape joke claim is a reference to red-rooster and is entirely unsubstantiated. He's been hated online for a long time and people just like having excuses to ban him. In fact the word "rooster" is banned all together on revleft.
Revleft is such a pile of garbage I got swept up in the LeftCom bans that happened there when the admin of the place got exposed as a DNC shill.
Was this part of the pre-election CTR surge or did it happen more recently, i.e. during the much-larger ShareBlue brigading that we've been seeing site-wide over the past few weeks
This was years, and years back. Their adminship used some fascists are infiltrating us excuse and that supporting or running as a democrat is a totally legit tactic.
deleted Whatisthis?
Not likely it was a long time ago and the video was circulating for a while but she cleaned up any mention of the behavior after the bans. I don't really care either to be quite honest. Rooster and others were banned along the same time.
Not a DNC shill. A democratic party city council member in NOLA or something. :100: Not a fan of even Bolsheys prolly.
That is right it was city council in NOLA. She was a real piece of work and still runs the Che store and Revleft last that I checked.
one of the mods was banned from multiple places for making rape jokes
that's just a straight up lie, i see bjorn keeps up his tradition of making shit up about the people he hates
Load of nonsense.
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Maybe relevant here is that there was also just a wage increase at Volkswagen's plant here in Mexico after a strike was just about to begin, of course also in the context of concerns about the effects of the pandemic. Couldn't find English coverage of it but here's a Spanish article if anyone can read: https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/empresas/Volkswagen-de-Mexico-alcanza-acuerdo-con-sindicato-de-revision-contrato-colectivo-20200818-0034.html
Very cool - do they have a strike fund we can promote here?
I would be happy to contribute to the fund if they have one
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Source, for the uninitiated - Great Moments in Leftism
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Do you guys think people will shill for Syriza again, come the next election?
My thoughts exactly.
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However, he also defended low wages, saying they help ensure firms invest in Ethiopia rather than countries where manufacturing is more established.
“If wages are high and investment doesn't come, new employment is not going to be created," Arkebe said.
“The livelihood of workers can improve when their productivity improves," Arkebe added, comparing the process to the "industrial revolution" in Britain and the United States.
At least they’re honest.
can
certainly not "will"
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I'll try to provide a short write-up of the state of the Chinese labour movement - if somebody with more knowledge on the conditions in China can confirm/contradict some of the following points, it would be very helpful to hear about:
Apparently strikes in China are really frequent. The existing unions however seem to be completely integrated into the state, and are directly subservient to the CCP. Their leadership is almost entirely made up of members of the executive branches of Chinese companies, and they frequently dispatch armed goon squads to beat striking workers back to work.
Smartphones ease communication among workers, but at the same time the vast surveillance network of the CCP gives them trouble organising (it is however mostly the middle class that actively submits to and goes along with this surveillance system). Strikes seldomly go beyond single factories, and workers are not able to organise well across industries, let alone on a national scale.
There's a student movement comprised mostly of people stemming from rural regions (people who know poverty and who increasingly realise that they won't escape it by means of studying in Beijing), which tries to help workers associate, but it is being cracked down upon heavily. There have both been arrests as well as bans of further studies. The latter is also a very draconian measure: Often a whole family works to ensure the possibility of a child studying.
The CCP employs several measures to separate workers from each other. People born in China are registered in the Hukou system, identifying them as a resident of a certain area. Depending on which area this is, people are assigned rights: a Beijing resident will for example have the right to a job, which a rural resident does not enjoy. But since a lot of the jobs are in cities like Beijing, workers from rural regions are forced to move there too, without the securities come with a Beijing resident status. These workers often don't get paid, or only get paid extremely little. Wages frequently are below 100 dollars per month, with living costs within cities approaching Western levels.
Companies let workers live in containers on the company area, in order to keep wages down, as this measure eliminates the cost of transporting the workers to their job, as well as lowers the cost of living. There are also several hundred million superexploited migrant workers moving across the country. Working safety is often very low, and workers often need to work day and night. Construction workers are being hidden from their surroundings with large plastic planes, so that no one sees their toil.
The demands of workers are changing: Whereas in the past, many struggles were about equalising living standards across areas, or about actually enforcing the promised minimum wage, a lot of struggles now seem to be about wage increases, which when successful are often sacked by means of inflation in short time.
There have been attempts by informal Chinese workers' networks to reach out to American workers, which have been largely unsuccessful.
I’d qualify as an idiot by u/dr_marx’s standards, but I have lived in China for over a decade, so I’ll try my best to contribute something of (some) substance. I had to get some of the more obscure information about the Hukou off my mother and father who both grew up in rural China, so credit where it’s due. But overall, your points are more or less correct! I’ll only expand on what you’ve written.
Smartphones ease communication among workers, but at the same time the vast surveillance network of the CCP gives them trouble organising (it is however mostly the middle class that actively submits to and goes along with this surveillance system).
Since all foreign social media is not on the CCP’s whitelist, the app workers with smartphones frequently use to communicate with each other and with family (in a group) is WeChat. It was made primarily for the more bougie members of society, but the company which owns it (Tencent) has a monopoly on communications technology in China. The enterprise does collaborate with the CCP through a shared division. Paying for food, utility bills, and travel (for most workers, this would be via the train which gives passengers the option to stand for the entire 14-hour trip) can be done through this one app. Currently, the national and provincial governments are cracking down on profiles which aren’t linked to people on their federal database through the user’s personal photo, national identification number, bank card, or phone number. The CCP’s also claiming that users must provide personal identification in the name of “anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism”. There’s simply no efficient way for workers to use any communications technology without the CCP breathing down their necks.
There’s a student movement comprised mostly of people stemming from rural regions (people who know poverty and who increasingly realise that they won’t escape it by means of studying in Beijing), which tries to help workers associate, but it is being cracked down upon heavily.
Also true, as far as I’m aware. Most major cities are surrounded by farmlands. In the province where I live, Guangdong, the majority of people who work towards helping workers organize can be found primarily in the smaller cities. The crackdowns on any grassroots movements working in favour of proletarian organization by authorities have been very harsh, especially in Shenzhen. From what I’ve heard, they’ve also already begun confiscating the personal property of adult organizers.
The latter is also a very draconian measure: Often a whole family works to ensure the possibility of a child studying. […] The CCP employs several measures to separate workers from each other. People born in China are registered in the Hukou system, identifying them as a resident of a certain area.
Yes, the Hukou is absolutely crucial for any Chinese person, especially migrant workers, and so is the citizen ID card. The citizen ID card isn’t very different from the passport, except it’s used nationally. The CCP and some companies have also been dabbling in biometrics lately, at least more so than in the previous years.
But back to the Hukou. I can’t confirm the wage, but the rest about the Hukou system is correct. Chinese families would receive a little book (similar to a passport) as proof of one’s Hukou, and it includes the one’s name, place of birth, as well as other info stated in the Wikipedia page. One thing that the Wikipedia page doesn’t mention (or I haven’t been reading closely) is that it also includes the highest level of education achieved. When another child is born, a new page with information about the child will be added to the Hukou book by a division belonging to the local authorities. The Hukou book might also be required (in some instances) for employers to make their choice regarding migrant workers. For migrant workers with a rural Hukou, they wouldn’t be able to afford housing at a reasonable price if the city is different than their Hukou. Healthcare also becomes more inaccessible and expensive outside of what’s covered by company insurance (if anything at all).
I combined the comment about education with the one about the Hukou because, especially for migrant workers, they’re related. The point of raising money for children to receive a post-secondary education is that, if they’re allowed to study in a big city (namely Beijing and Shanghai) after doing exceptional on the national exam, they can change their Hukou to match the location of their post-secondary institution and the entire family can receive more rights and benefits. To my knowledge, this was the primary goal of many rural families five decades ago, and this is still the case now.
Many migrant workers can’t afford to bring their children with them because it’s difficult to enrol in a public school in a city different from their Hukou without paying some sort of fee or attending private school. Furthermore, the national exam after year 12 must be taken within the region specified in one’s Hukou. If the child of a migrant worker completes their secondary school education in a reputable school in Shanghai but sits their exam in Nanjing, then the literature sections (amongst others) will have content they’ve never studied in class before. They won’t be able to apply to a post-secondary institution in a big city regardless of how well they did in their Shanghai school since they would’ve scored much lower in the Nanjing exam. In low-tier post-secondary institutions (i.e., occupation prep colleges offering two or three year degrees), there’s no such thing as transferring to another institution or changing majors. Along with housing and healthcare expenses, this is one of the reasons why many migrant workers leave their children with grandparents in rural China. Many migrant workers can only afford calls with their family or visits a couple times a year.
Companies let workers live in containers on the company area, in order to keep wages down, as this measure eliminates the cost of transporting the workers to their job, as well as lowers the cost of living.
This is definitely true. As an example, construction workers are often required to either live in cargo containers or set up their own transportable plastic and metal cabins in construction sites. These cabins aren’t exclusive to construction workers by any means. I’ve also seen gas station employees and manufacturing workers occupy the same type of cabin. From what I can remember, one room is usually no bigger than nine to twelve standard British telephone booths (this was my cousin's sleeping area for a while), with the largest I've seen so far at around the size of a cargo container (I'm gaging this is from a short distance off the ground, though), but it really depends on the employer. They eat elsewhere. In bigger construction sites, these cabins would have more than one floor. Another example of shitty working conditions is that companies will rarely provide construction workers with (cheap!) face masks so there’s nothing stopping workers from inhaling the the dust particles tossed into the air in construction sites.
Low-wage workers are also often forced to work overtime if they want longer breaks. Workers often have to save up their vacation days for a short two week break with their family over the summer. The other breaks are mostly from national holidays.
Construction workers are being hidden from their surroundings with large plastic planes, so that no one sees their toil.
Absolutely correct! In most cases (construction for roads, public facilities, etc.), the city will erect a barrier around workers. They’re usually large, blue metal panels with a wave-like pattern for better stacking and transportation. Nobody would be able to see over it from either side without standing on a car and jumping.
edit: Adjusted size a bit. I got a chance to speak to my cousin who worked on a construction project and he said the ones which are about four telephone booths in size are typically "resting areas" away from the scorching sun or storage rooms for handheld tools.
Thanks a lot for the effort put into this very detailed and lengthy answer, this is exactly what I had hoped for.
It is of course a mundane statement, but the labour movement in China is of extraordinary importance, so any bit of information on it is helpful, especially with how difficult it is to get reliable reports. If there are any other developments that you hear about and that you deem noteworthy, it would be cool if you could post them here - I will do the same.
Will do! And thank you so much for your service to this sub.
I’d qualify as an idiot by u/dr_marx’s standards
The first step towards knowledge is to know that you know nothing.
I think you’ve begun to cure me of cancer, doctor. Thank you!
you seem to know a thing or two so i thought i'd ask.
are you familiar with chuang? if so what are your thoughts on it?
Just looking at the article that seems to be their poster child, you find passages such as this:
This first section covers the non-capitalist period, in which the popular movement led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) succeeded in both destroying the old regime and halting the transition to capitalism, leaving the region stuck in an inconsistent stasis understood at the time to be “socialism.” The socialist system, which we refer to as a “developmental regime,” was neither a mode of production nor a “transitional stage” between capitalism and communism, nor even between the tributary mode of production and capitalism. Since it was not a mode of production, it was also not a form of “state capitalism,” in which capitalist imperatives were pursued under the guise of the state, with the capitalist class simply replaced in form but not function by the hierarchy of government bureaucrats.
This sounds much like the usual Ticktinesque claptrap that was criticised here just a few days ago.
If we read on, we find a more than muddled account of Chinese history, a variant of what might be called "Chinese exceptionalism", as well as an outlook that comes off as an amalgamation of Maoism and communisation, with the worst aspects intrinsic to these being present.
Their more empirical accounts of present day affairs might be of interest. But then again, who knows if they try to insert their weird politics into these? Also, you can get the same information without the accompanying annoying prose peculiar to all those "journals" in the China Labour Bulletin.
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It's really not that difficult to navigate the site: https://clb.org.hk/content/aboutus#aboutus-5
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Dr Marx here, curing the left of cancer. Let's look at one of Eden's most recent posts, a meandering and editorially terrible shit show. This is me not even trying hard. I'm a terrible doctor.
Lately, this person was called one of "the best contemporary Left Communist political leaders" even though this blog post displays zero connections with the communist left. In fact, it looks like more what passes for communization these days.
They start from, of course, a strawman and false premises
Lenin and Kautsky think that the problem is that the working class is limited to “trade-union consciousness” and as a result, cannot obtain “political consciousness”, which it needs to transcend capitalism.
Neither of them think anything because they're dead, and lenin never thought this his whole life with his opinion changing after 1905.
The reason why the working class is the revolutionary agent under capitalism is not only because the working class has its hands over the levers of the economy at the point of production (and also at the point of distribution, which is also very important), but also because (1) the mere self-defense and assertion of working class “greedy”, “trade-union”, “selfish” material-economic interests under a system of capital accumulation (for higher wages and less working hours, and struggling outside of both the trade unions and petitioning the capitalist state for higher wage laws), which is class interest positively posed, as well as (2) the anti-political and nihilist expression of the working class’s class hatred (workers rioting, looting, destroying or sabotaging private property; workers injuring or killing capitalists, politicians, police officers, military, and academics), which is just another form of material class interest albeit negatively and destructively posed, taken to their logical conclusions, (3) will inevitably bring the working class in direct conflict with the bourgeoisie and capitalist relations of production, by literally destroying capital or blockading the relative and absolute extraction of surplus value, sabotaging the ability of capital to valorize itself. fuck sake
The problems here are just mounting. We can tell because later on they repeat the exact same points.
Eventually the workers’ pursuit of their collective self-interest and class hatred comes into violent contradiction with the entire system of private property and alienated wage-labor. Economic crisis is a symptom of this conflict with the bourgeoisie and bourgeois relations; it is a sign that the bourgeoisie is beginning to place economic pressure on the working class in retaliation for its attacks on class society, and that bourgeois relations are beginning to creak and weaken from proletarian attack.
Economic crisis here is presented as a "symptom" of workers striking for wages. This really isn't true. But I'll get to the point later. Also, lol what the fuck is "alienated wage-labor"?
this part is him describing what will happen in a revolution
The counter-revolutionaries in the Academy and the political arena tell the working class to do this or that, or believe in this idea or that. The police and military pick up their guns and get tied up in all the various working class struggles taking place. The working class continues to follow its self-interest against its clear class enemies and thus engages in street fights against the police and military, and conducts the fullest suppression of the Academy and its ideas. The workers push farther and farther economically and the global economy begins to shut down more and more. The police and military are drained and saturated; as a result of the severe economic crisis, they no longer have the resources to fight the militant working class. Property rights lose all meaning, money loses its value, nothing can be valorized, nothing can be produced, production chains melt down, and capital flows cease.
communization in 2017
Finally, the spell of the capital-form completely breaks.
Spells and "capital-form"! The illusion is shattered at last!
Some but not all of the capitalists leave their workplaces, running off to various places in the world away from the angry and greedy militant working class. Various politicians and bureaucrats have long lost any sort of political power and now are declassed and toothless strata. The police and military, who have nothing left to defend, also bail out and either join the workers or drop out of society. At this point, consistent defense of their material self-interest leads the working class to seize collective control over the levers of production, so that they can get food, water, shelter, and other essential use-values. The working class will have to coordinate among different workplaces as well, because it is unlikely that one workplace will have the ability to produce all essential use-values. The communization process sparks up spontaneously in some regions, sometimes as a means of survival and sometimes as a spontaneous rejection of the forms of capitalist society. Communization implies collective planning and the rejection of barter; it also implies the weakening and gradual dissolution of social identities predefined by class society. Workers from various workplaces and regions link up in larger and larger collectives of workplaces, communization of one region leads to communization of another, the counter-revolution of the working class’s class enemies dwindles down to nothing, and the world approaches global communization.
Notice the distinct lack of communist party. Doesn't sound very left communist, does it? Sounds a lot more like a shitty communization parody.
the last couple of sections are totally bizarre it's like he's arguing for a weird automatic type of revolution
I want to note at this point that the purpose of Marx’s Capital was not merely to trace the development of the capital-form out of the value-form to show why abolition of the value-form is a prerequisite for abolition of capital, nor just to describe the laws of motion of capital, but also to show that due to the exploitation of the working class by capital, workers’ material interests are antagonistic with the interests of capitalists as well as with the capitalist mode of production. In short, one of its purposes was to show that due to capital’s existential necessity of extracting surplus value from the proletariat, if workers push their material interests far enough, along with capital in its tendency towards crisis being unable to accommodate these demands, then the capitalist mode of production will grind to a halt due to an inability to accumulate capital from this blockade of surplus value extraction.
This is david harvey levels of stupid. He's saying that workers should demand higher wages, not to demand the abolition of wage-labour. Although I'm sure he doesn't know this and would argue otherwise, being stupid and all.
The selfish, greedy, low, base interests of the working class will undermine capitalism, not principles of morality, justice, equality, or freedom
or lead to lynching and holocausts. Brexit therefore is totally a working class demand based around the workers greedy desire to have jobs that poles are taking. Has this person never watched the news, seen any interviews with people on the street, never had a job (of course they haven't, they're one of those in the "academy" that they claim to hate) or have anyone on their facebook who also doesn't write shit blog posts?
They argue for a bizarre type of revolution where the workers just come to revolution unconsciously, by actions they perform leading to capitalist crisis (which isn't a theory of crisis in Marxism). Instead of arguing for the adoption of such communist slogans as the abolition of the wages-system, Eden would have you having the slogan "fight for higher wages so as to prevent surplus value extraction", there by supporting trade unions and reformist parties. The logic here is all over the place, the whole post is all over the place.
This charge of them supporting an "unconscious", spontanous and mechanical revolution isn't the first time it's been levied at them. Look here on Critique of the Consciousness-Raising Model of Revolution (Supplemental Reading to Monsieur Dupont’s “Nihilist Communism”) where they say
[NOTE]: If you think this piece is advocating “doing nothing” or “historical determinism”, you need to finish reading the entire thing. Also, if you want to get an idea of what I believe are the tasks for communists today and in the future, take a look at both How Can We Move Forward? and Why Is Working Class Self-Activity the Transformative-Revolutionary Agent under Capitalism? (And Related Questions).
Presumably they wrote this amendment after they got their ass handed to them in this previous thread
It's pretty obvious with all of the little quotes ("revolutions are made by classes, not ideology", the constant repeating of "the real movement") is that they get all of their ideas almost exclusively from other users on reddit, then they mash them all up and vomit them out in long blog posts in a garbled fashion.
You can tell that this person has had zero practical activity. Can you imagine this turgid writing style, with it's constant back tracking, logical inconsistencies, redundant paragraphs and phrases in a pamphlet? I can't even imagine it for a crap paper. Who this is blog is directed at I have no idea. It's certainly not anyone who is a stereotypical worker nor is it anyone who knows anything about Marx or history. Feels a lot more like they're trying to argue against imaginary tendencies from reddit!
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Is this a critique of him directly, or just of the notion that he's a leading figure in left commiunism?
yes
I want to note at this point that the purpose of Marx’s Capital was not merely to trace the development of the capital-form out of the value-form to show why abolition of the value-form is a prerequisite for abolition of capital, nor just to describe the laws of motion of capital, but also to show that due to the exploitation of the working class by capital, workers’ material interests are antagonistic with the interests of capitalists as well as with the capitalist mode of production. In short, one of its purposes was to show that due to capital’s existential necessity of extracting surplus value from the proletariat, if workers push their material interests far enough, along with capital in its tendency towards crisis being unable to accommodate these demands, then the capitalist mode of production will grind to a halt due to an inability to accumulate capital from this blockade of surplus value extraction.
This reminds me of the Trotskyist transitional program, the proposal that the working class should be led to make increasingly less fulfillable demands within capitalism until they are led to break with capitalism entirely. Trots don't view this as an unconscious thing, however.
/u/dr_marx Hilariously, Eden is a Brezhnevite now. I can show you a screenshot from Facebook if you like. Can't believe I ever found this guy's blog useful outside of the reading lists.
Can you show some facebook pics?
Could you expand on these points:
- that doesn't apply to actual history
- [...] merely hating the system doesn't mean anything nor is it a "class interest"
Specifically, I was hoping you could clarify what you mean in the first one, and, on the most basic level, I'd've thought "hating the system" would be a class interest.
Really? I'm lifting trying to get swole rn. Let's take the example of every major riot. They did not move beyond the barest level of just a reaction. Only leftoids who had nothing to do with them have made a big deal. The whole Arab spring did not lead to a socialist revolution. There's also the whole issue of riots aimed at minorities. Merely hating it without knowing it is stupid and goes nowhere.
Really? I'm lifting trying to get swole rn.
Dude-bro communism
Are you actually against the notion of someone exercising for physical improvement?
Lift-communism
Thanks for writing this instead of just being so dismissive as you were previously. You seemed to mistake my asking for clarification as to why you think Eden is so bad as me accepting their positions uncritically and/or defending them as some "communist left leader" as that other user claimed, which wasn't the case, I was just curious and prefer specifics to simply "cos they're dumb".
As for the stuff about consciousness, I agree a lot about the vulgar materialism and didn't read Eden in this way, perhaps projecting my own thoughts into them because I like how they seem to be making progress in learning. My own position is that material conditions don't produce any sort of consciousness at all. Unless you have changes in material conditions, changes in our situation that force us to become thinkers in order to figure out the changes in our position and world, people don't really think about the world and their position (with some exceptions*), everything is kinda taken for granted. A break in conditions kinda causes "mind" to arise, like a weapon or evolutionary adaptation or something, to understand the changing conditions. Then we can talk about class consciousness / false consciousness ("ideology") /etc. *The exception to this is, usually petty bourgeois / bourgeois almost pseudo-consciousness, where people are taught to "think" but their thinking is always corrupted by how most people, especially "philosophers" are taught to just think without reflecting on how their conditions of existence give them the privilege of being able to think, and how this position influences their thinking. Part of this kinda thinking also explains why you get the college leftist phenomenon where they think that you can just change people's consciousness to bring about revolution, and their elitism about proles being dumb and needing to be convinced, that they just eat up ideology etc. I say nope, there is no ideology at play, there is nothing there at all because there was no need for it to be. College leftists are taught in a way that makes them convinced that ideas can simply win combined with their pseudo-equality-moralism BS ("ideas won me over and I'm no better than them, so they should be convinced!") without thinking about the fact that their ability to think in this way, this disposition towards accepting ideas and acting consciously rather than how most proletarians don't have that "scholastic disposition" and opportunities to sit and think (thinking requires real leisure time, not this "leisure" time that is work to recuperate ready for the next day at the factory) and how their upbringing, which is often influenced by class as education and family institutions reproduce conditions of existence etc. Basically, materialism where conditions produce consciousness is true, but the material conditions determining the form and content of consciousness is what's vulgar, and it's changes in material condition that make people conscious at all.
Keep in mind, this is summarised to a huge extent so parts here might even seem a little vulgar but I'm writing a book which has a big focus on this shit and I'll be writing about it soon on my own blog, which you can check out unless you are so put off by the amount of shit blogs (which I agree most are shit) that you can't believe that any might have decent stuff worth reading. Maybe you like proper websites but sorry I'm actually poor and can't justify giving a week's money away just to get rid of the .wordpress web suffix.
Btw, I disagree about this "culture of accommodation" existing as you see it here, I think people usually are fairly critical and a lot of people getting annoyed by you, and me thinking you were a troll, is because you respond saying shit like "why are you getting upset?" but write comments that imply you are getting upset by things. I've changed my mind about you now as you hopefully can tell, but it might be worth reflecting on the attitude that people can infer from your comments, even if you think it's fine. I'm not saying at all that you should be less ruthless in your critique, but it might stop these kinda pitiful leftist type shitshows of a reddit threads if you used a different tone.
How's your blog called?
The last thing I wrote is kinda specific and written for sociologists and/or people interested in the work of Pierre Bourdieu (and countering a shit article by the new "journal" which Jacobin Mag are publishing) but here: https://unwelfarestate.wordpress.com/
It's pretty obvious with all of the little quotes ("revolutions are made by classes, not ideology", the constant repeating of "the real movement") is that they get all of their ideas almost exclusively from other users on reddit, then they mash them all up and vomit them out in long blog posts in a garbled fashion.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I felt the same way reading this gem; take out the leftcom phraseology (muh "INVARIANT PROGRAM"), ignore the virtue signaling and distill down the basic points, and what you're left with is a vague set of basic principles that wouldn't at all be incompatible with most Trotskyists, Maoists, etc.
For instance:
There is, in short, the ongoing internal tasks of the communist nucleus of (1) maintaining our invariant program, while also (2) refining revolutionary theory and line, through the critical analysis of pre-existing communist literature, capitalism-in-itself, and current or historical struggles against it, (3) through uniting together all good-faith communists, as well as by (4) expelling all kinds of opportunists and chauvinists who are unwilling to amend their bad praxis.
^ i.e. what every fucking communist group in existence has always said. And usually with less pointless, meandering asides.
In fact I think this person would be right at home in the ISO, they should go join.
There's too much of a culture of accommodation around here. This is obvious trash from someone who doesn't seem to know anything but it's constantly posted and reposted. My impression is that they only read reddit comments and maybe commentaries on endnotes or what ever.
Lets be honest, a lot of us aren't exactly genius Marxists but at least were honest and don't act like it.
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Some of the takes? All of his takes are awful. It's amazing at how much complaining is going on here from people who don't seem to post here. Are you a part of this same god awful clique that only seems to write blog posts that have no point or any real content? Is this why you're so touchy about the subject?
Yes. I am clearly the touchy one here.
Go on, show me your blog so that I can laugh at that too.
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Using the same word twice in a sentence kinda shows how poor your language skills are.
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Pretty sure it's also a sign of poor language skills in French, mon ami. Maybe you could write for Eden as well. Are you going to make a point or continue with your bland complaining?
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Don't blame me. Someone asked for it. Besides, Eden is just an example of a whole trend.
No, I'm aware someone asked you to explain your position on their blog, it's just that I think you've gone off the rails a bit. This could've (should've) been educative, encouraging, and guiding, and instead it's insulting, caustic, and vain.
Edit: And u/Per_Levy (since you seem to be the presiding mod of this thread) why was my comment above this removed? Sorry, but there's no rules posted on the sidebar, so I don't really know in advance what might be a rule-breaking comment.
I think you've gone off the rails a bit
lol get to fuck. You're the only person who actually attempted a reply and now you're joining in the rest of this chorus of shit posters?
Little of column A, little of column B, I guess, but I'm not sure how any of my comments here are "shitposting." And what "chorus"? You argued with literally 2 people.
You argued with literally 2 people.
Then what the fuck are you complaining about?
I'm not "complaining" about anything. You were 'amazed' by the reproach and downvotes you've gotten, and I explained that, despite nobody really objecting to your thesis, it's actually not that confounding. Do let me know if I haven't laid that out clearly enough, though.
I'm amazed by the amount of people who appear to have nothing to do with left communism coming into a left communism sub to do nothing but complain. I'm amazed that I haven't been downvoted a lot more.
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How about you go fuck yourself? If you can't deal with me writing like this then I'm just going to lol when mean ol capitalists start torturing you. Oh I see, you're a weirdo religious "socialist". Why are you even here?
This place and its sister subs needs LESS of the exclusionary Leftypol sperglord vibe they have, not more.
This place and its sister subs needs LESS of the exclusionary Leftypol sperglord vibe they have, not more.
just look at sts to see where that would lead. also, dont you even dare compare our spaces to leftypol.
I'd like to be able to come here without seeing grown men say things like "MUH INVARIANT PROGRAM".
i never seen you around here, so what are you even talking about? besides what is "MUH INVARIANT PROGRAM" even suppose to mean in the context of anything here?
and one final note, this is not a democracy.
I mean, it is a direct quote of the original post in this thread.
its a quote from the critiqued blog post, yes, and?
It is not a quote from the blog, it is the way someone responded to the blog in this thread. It is the style of the critique, not what is being critiqued.
What are you even talking about? Are you trying to argue about "ideological purity"?
You should stop reading that blog. It appears to have given you brain damage. Trust me, I'm a doctor.
You need to shape up, skip. No one posts here for ever and suddenly all of you come creeping out of wood work.
You have a two week old account and behave like a child. Congrats on your superiority.
You have a two year old account and you're still a moron? lol who are you anyway and why should I care? If you have an actual problem then you can just say instead of complaining about how awesome I am.
Jeezus this is sad to watch
aren''t you missing that eden calls themself an ultra-leftist, not specifically a left communist?
aren't you only attacking the belief that someone else has of him being a left communsit figure, not eden's own claim of left communist greatness (as if there could be such a thing).
also i feel like you're cherry picking his article to make it seem more incoherent than it is, especially when its prefaced with
'A common thread throughout all of my works and throughout the currents that make up the ultra-left is a belief that the working class and specifically, working class self-activity, is the transformative agent under capitalism.
You may ask why I believe that the unhindered self-activity of the working class has the best chance out of all approaches to lead to communism (a classless, stateless, moneyless society is the negative content of communism and the real human community, in which all social barriers to the full development of human potentials no longer exist, is the positive content of communism). If you claim to be some kind of “radical” or at least “pro-working class”, you should be ashamed that I need to go out of my way to justify such things. Unfortunately, due to the grave influence on the workers’ movement of reformism, vanguardism, and various variants and tweaks upon those two models, it is not immediately obvious to most people, even “radicals”, that unhindered working class self-activity leads to communist society.'
also "This is david harvey levels of stupid. He's saying that workers should demand higher wages, not to demand the abolition of wage-labour. Although I'm sure he doesn't know this and would argue otherwise, being stupid and all."
that is a way to understand it, but im sure he's saying that they would push for their interests beyond wages because you also quote him saying
"(2) the anti-political and nihilist expression of the working class’s class hatred (workers rioting, looting, destroying or sabotaging private property; workers injuring or killing capitalists, politicians, police officers, military, and academics), which is just another form of material class interest albeit negatively and destructively posed, taken to their logical conclusions, (3) will inevitably bring the working class in direct conflict with the bourgeoisie and capitalist relations of production, by literally destroying capital or blockading the relative and absolute extraction of surplus value, sabotaging the ability of capital to valorize itself"
i feel like you're only left standing on his stance towards Lenin
"). Instead of arguing for the adoption of such communist slogans as the abolition of the wages-system, Eden would have you having the slogan "fight for higher wages so as to prevent surplus value extraction", there by supporting trade unions and reformist parties. The logic here is all over the place, the whole post is all over the place. "
"(2) the anti-political and nihilist expression of the working class’s class hatred (workers rioting, looting, destroying or sabotaging private property; workers injuring or killing capitalists, politicians, police officers, military, and academics), which is just another form of material class interest albeit negatively and destructively posed, taken to their logical conclusions, (3) will inevitably bring the working class in direct conflict with the bourgeoisie and capitalist relations of production, by literally destroying capital or blockading the relative and absolute extraction of surplus value, sabotaging the ability of capital to valorize itself"
Eden does claim to be a left-communist on his website.
"When the world revolution comes, there will be thousands of leftist organizations, some establishment, some populist, some Bolshevist, some Stalinist, some Trotskyist, some Maoist, some anarchist, even some left communist (sadly enough), all claiming to have the best line for the proletariat to follow. In reality, they are the counterrevolution, whose goal is to cease the revolutionary process and return the exploiter class back into political power. They justify this in various ways through their various ideologies. It is the job of pro-revolutionaries to not only attack the Right but also bitterly denounce and criticize all of the organizations (possibly even wreck them, if necessary) of the Left and discredit them in front of other workers, so that they will not be able to co-opt the real movement of the proletariat for state capitalist ends. Leftism in all of its forms, from establishment to populist to radical, is a cancer upon the proletariat, almost as counterrevolutionary and bloody as fascism in its continued prolongation of capitalism through subversive means. It must be discredited or destroyed for communism to succeed."
he does critique it a bit too at earliest article
aren''t you missing that eden calls themself an ultra-leftist, not specifically a left communist?
aren't you only attacking the belief that someone else has of him being a left communsit figure, not eden's own claim of left communist greatness (as if there could be such a thing).
You know, I thought that with the advent of the internet and mass communication, free access to millions of books, that people's reading ability and general comprehension skills would improve. How wrong I was. If you notice, him being called a left communist or what ever is entirely ancillary to him being shit and having shit ideas.
Wait, what's the difference between left communism and ultra-left?
Who this is blog is directed at I have no idea.
Themselves. They write to learn.
They appear to have learnt nothing. Not really a good sign, is it?
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If we're going by Eden it means doing nothing because revolution is automatic.
This is david harvey levels of stupid. He's saying that workers should demand higher wages, not to demand the abolition of wage-labour.
Rosa Luxemburg wrote that reformist struggles can be productive not from their successes but from their violent failures as working class retaliation becomes more militant.
And that is precisely why no one should take Luxemburg seriously.
Why not both?
This charge of them supporting an "unconscious", spontanous and mechanical revolution isn't the first time it's been levied at them. Look here on Critique of the Consciousness-Raising Model of Revolution (Supplemental Reading to Monsieur Dupont’s “Nihilist Communism”)
I did comment on this terrible article bach when I was an MLM. Maybe it still holds up: https://smashingnirvana.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/into-the-nonsense-of-communization-a-maoist-review-of-critique-of-the-consciousness-raising-model-of-revolution/
E: This is a poor article, given my ideological nature at the time. So, no, it doesn't hold up.
Well right off the bat it conflates left communism with nihilism/political quietism, so no, it doesn’t hold up.
Of course that's wrong and was a result of my ignorance on left-communism. But that wasn't the meat of the matter.
Nah, there’s plenty of other stuff that’s wrong here, including the fallacious assertion that the only alternative to fetishized spontaneity is “building the left”
Oh, that slipped my mind. Well thank you for the comments, though!
I don't know who this is but they sound like a moron.
Are you against Brexit?
An invariably social-democratic party that has no communist demands. If they are actually communists then they sure try to mask their language. From their "about" page.
There's no word of revolution here, or class action.
We believe the Republicans and Democrats are both parties of big business, and we are campaigning to build an independent, alternative party of workers and young people to fight for the interests of the millions, not the millionaires.
Giving the impression that they are a party of the average person, against Big BuisnessTM which is something that I believe even Donald Trump is running under. This is further reinforced by the tag "Fighting for the 99%". This is typical of Trots around the word who just find popular slogans and then try to appropriate them.
As capitalism moves deeper into crisis, a new generation of workers and youth must join together to take the top 500 corporations into public ownership under democratic control to end the ruling elites’ global competition for profits and power.
This is just plain nationalisation and state-capitalism which is used to protect capital. See Engels " But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism", and this state nationalisation is in opposition to actual revolutionary class activity of "nationalisation from below".
We believe the dictatorships that existed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were perversions of what socialism is really about. We are for democratic socialism where ordinary people will have control over our daily lives.
Implying that the problem with those places is that they weren't democratic, which again, stems from Trotsky and his ideas of degenerated and deformed workers' states.
Furthering emphasising their social-democratic outlook is the list of demands they provide.
Create living-wage union jobs for all the unemployed through a massive public works program to develop mass transit, renewable energy, infrastructure, healthcare, education, and affordable housing.
Which isn't much more than New Deal type politics in order to stimulate the capitalist economy.
Free, high quality healthcare for all. Replace the failed for-profit insurance companies with a publicly funded single-payer system as a step towards fully socialized medicine.
A good thing but again, this is a fairly common social-democratic thing and is in fact an actuality in many European states, and others around the world, already. I don't think that there's any consideration of the fact that these welfare programs came from the conservative parties in opposition to socialists who had none of their own.
No budget cuts to education & social services! Full funding for all community needs. The federal government should bail out states to prevent cuts and layoffs. A massive increase in taxes on the rich and big business, not working people.
More social-democracy.
Raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hour, adjusted annually for cost of living increases and regional differences, as a step towards a living wage for all.
A minimum guaranteed weekly income of $600/week for the unemployed, disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and others unable to work.
Also not a specifically socialist demand and is also an actuality in places.
Stop home foreclosures and evictions. For public ownership and democratic control of the major banks.
A nationalised bank is still a bank.
No more layoffs! Take bankrupt and failing companies into public ownership and retool them for socially necessary green production.
More implications that they are a social-democratic party that has no visions of society outside of capitalist production. Green capitalism is still capitalism.
Free, high quality public education for all from pre-school through college. Full funding for schools to dramatically lower teacher-student ratios. Stop the focus on high stakes testing and the drive to privatize public education.
Free education is already an actuality and a plain social-democratic demand. More appeals to nationalisation as a solution to capitalist crisis, as if it was private capitals that caused it.
Repeal all anti-union laws like Taft-Hartley. For democratic unions run by the rank-and-file to fight for better pay, working conditions, and social services. Full-time union officials should be regularly elected and receive the average wage of those they represent.
Corbyn calls for the same repeal of anti-unions laws (and in order to get around that the need to keep workers pacified, there's also a proposed co-operative and democratic management involving workers). A democratic trade union is still a trade union and would still serve the same purpose of being a go-between between labour and capital. Also not sure how they propose to break up existing trade unions but what ever.
For a guaranteed living wage pension.
Repeat
Shorten the workweek with no loss in pay and benefits – share out the work with the unemployed and create new jobs.
Just create new jobs out of nothing, comrades.
Money for Jobs and Education, Not War
These demands are just like every other liberal demands on war.
Environmental Sustainability
Proposed capitalist solutions to the environment.
Equal Rights for All
Repetition of demands couched in terms of civil, social and economic equality under a capitalist frame work.
Break with the Two Parties of Big Business
More things said by every want to be left wing of capital group.
Capitalism produces poverty, inequality, environmental destruction and war. We need an international struggle against this system.
Sure, but it's not going to come about with people who support protectionist economic politics and nationalisation such as
Repeal NAFTA, CAFTA and other “free trade” agreements which mean job losses and a race to the bottom for workers and the environment.
Which is pretty much suggesting a step backwards instead of a push for a revolutionary change, or even for a discussion on such a topic (cause all they really want is "socialism").
Solidarity with the struggles of workers and the oppressed internationally – An injury to one is an injury to all.
Solidarity be with you
Take into public ownership the top 500 corporations and banks that dominate the U.S. economy and run them under the democratic management of elected representatives of the workers and the broader public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small investors, not millionaires.
Repetition of the same nationalisation plans, also support for the "small investors". Probably stemming from the petit-bourgeois nature of state-capitalists and Trotskyist groups.
And right at the very end
A democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment. For a socialist United States and a socialist world.
So a fairer capitalism that goes under the banner of "socialism", where much of the demands are already accomplished facts in many other countries.
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What I find the funniest is that members of SAlt on Reddit give a ruthless critique of Bernie Sanders because he is a Social Democrat, but fail to realise that they're just barely better.
Clearly, Sanders just needs to come even closer to the left of capital, comrades! Then the USA will become a worker's state!
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They're no different to every other trot group that I deal with on almost a daily basis.
what about the AWL? It seems trot groups not standing in bourgeois elections have the capacity to be less social democratic since they don't have to formally 'sell' themselves in the framework of bourgeois society (unlike Socialist Alternative which can only orientate itself relative to the mainstream political climate at the time...and in periods of low struggle irrecoverably tend towards keynesianism).
Implying that the problem with those places is that they weren't democratic, which again, stems from Trotsky and his ideas of degenerated and deformed workers' states.
could you expand?
could you expand?
I think rooster's talking about how the theory of "degenerated workers' states" and the criticisms of Stalin as 'tyrannical' by Trots ignore the fact that the USSR was state-capitalist from the get-go, and sort of imply that things would've been a lot better under Trotsky or someone of his ilk.
It's true to an extent that Trotsky probably would not have been as brutal and paranoid as Stalin, but Kronstadt showed how Trotsky and the Old Bolsheviks were already more than willing to crush workers' uprisings, so it's a moot point anyway.
Some links and quotes I got when I wanted to show SAlt's commitment to small businesses beyond Sawan't recent plan.
https://www.facebook.com/smallbusinessforsawant/
http://www.socialistalternative.org/2014/02/17/fight-15-hour-minimum-wage/
Socialist Alternative is very open to helping small businesses...
Help for small businesses can be organized by taxes on big business (which are at historically low rates) and eliminating corporate welfare to subsidize small businesses...
Raising the minimum wage will help small businesses by increasing the spending power of their potential customers...
http://www.socialistalternative.org/2014/04/10/oneseattle-big-business-disguise/
It’s big business that crashed our economy in 2008 and has stacked the deck against workers and small businesses...
When was the last time the state legislature had a special session to give $8.7 billion in tax breaks to small businesses like they did for Boeing? Boeing’s handout was destructive and divisive – it will be paid for by slashing funding for critical social services and raising taxes on working people and small business...
We need unity of Seattle’s residents, workers, communities and small businesses...
support for the petty-bourgeoisie is socialist you god damn ultra left-deviationist
Something something united front against big business and fascism.
Something something, what do you mean this is basically what anarcho-capitalists talk about?
I used to think socialism had to cater to the petty-bourgeois, until I realised that almost nothing would change for them, except their sweet, sweet profits, and that such kind of thinking only makes sense for peripheral microbusiness owners who truly aren't that much better off than their proletarian compatriots (and not even all of them).
As a Stalinist I though Trots were slightly liberal but still comrades.
As a leftcom I think Trots are the most annoying group on the "left." Their opportunism knows no bounds and whenever you call them out their only response is, "yeah well what have leftcoms ever accomplished."
I'm friends with a couple of older, more working class trots, who generally have a pretty clear picture of Marxism but then they'll just go into crazy mode when it comes to actual political stuff, with supporting any sort of vague lefty over some other political group, which reached a nadir around Corbyn.
"yeah well what have leftcoms ever accomplished."
We'll never know what some of them could have, since Trotsky led utterly brutal suppression of them.
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Stronger rhetoric that what was quoted above, no doubt, but parts of it stick out to me for one reason or another. They're not in parliament, it should be added. Not a believer in that process, to their credit. At the least their rhetoric is recognisable as revolutionary.
It's actually one thing to resort to rhetoric and another when we look at their practice and actual political demands. This is of course ignoring the whole Trot thing of socialism = democracy. Partly this is why both Trots and Stalinists argue over democracy like a pack of liberals rather than modes of production (because for trots a nationalised economy is a socialist economy minus the revolutionary party running it).
Dauve: "If one goes back to Trotsky's quarrel with Lenin in 1903-4 and in the following years, in the "Menshevik" period of his life, one must admit that he rightly saw the flaw in the Kautsky-Lenin view that "class consciousness" arises outside the workers' movement, and is then introduced into it by the "party." This is explained in Our Political Tasks, although it is considerably blurred by many other ideas. Trotsky refutes Lenin's conception from a democratic point of view: he does not see communism as the abolition of the commodity economy and the creation of a new world, but as the rule of the workers over society [...] to him socialism was equivalent to workers' power."
But as we can see, Trotsky didn't stray far from regular social-democracy, and Trotskyism itself just completely succumbed to it with the whole popular front strategy and the "transitional program". Much of the demands are just purely reformist in nature in the US equivalent.
Someone mentioned in the other thread that while the rhetoric and demands aren't revolutionary, the inner workings of the party are different. Which doesn't help anyone and is actually how the majority of trot groups work, by having all of these front groups while never really revealing this fact, all with a lack of democracy when dealing with the inner core and so on. Usually this involves the need to actually connect to the working class, usually by taking over slogans (or trying to propagate some) so that they become more widely recognized, and then more popular at elections, all in order to gain a mass party or something.
The membership requirements are also pretty loose for this rank and file numbers reason, ignoring the fact that in only a minority will ever become actual communists in times of social-peace, leading to the prevailing ideas of the ruling class becoming the prevailing ideas of the party. That is if they actually have any real communist positions that they hold secretly. I don't doubt that there are some actual communists in these parties but they appear to be an impotent minority.
Also looking at some of the other material they put out, such as this article Kshama Sawant re-elected - Seattle’s political revolution continues, where if one was to read it just as it is all they could take from it is that SA are just trying to disentangle the state apparatus from the "corporations", with all that is needed is just building a mass movement to vote people into office. This is an incredibly common idea amongst trots as I have said.
Slightly off topic, but bloody hell the Adelaide branch is annoying.
I went to a meeting once back before I became a left com after seeing them around Uni and by the end of it they were already pestering me to sign up for a year for their newspaper and to either give them money to join as a member or as a sign of "solidarity".
A pair of friends of mine, an older couple who have never been politically active until tax cuts, spoke to one of them here (must have been on the street at some demo) where they were then pestered every day by phone calls trying to get them to join. They also told the CWI person about me, which then resulted in them trying to call me as well! Lamenting on the phone about "how dire the situation is" and how "we need to do something" and how I should come along to one of their meetings.
When "building a mass party" looks just like trying to sell someone a new vacuum cleaner.
This is why we call them the used-car salesmen of the left.
Unfortunately for me, the only socialist organisations in the city where I live (Wellington) are some random hardline tankie group and a local branch of the ISO (blech). There are some good enough discussions that happen in the ISO meetings, and I've started a reading group with some members that seems like it'll be worthwhile, but damn do they enjoy trying to hock off their magazine at every chance they get. Really annoying when I'm at a demo or a march with them and they zip around from person to person with a stack of magazines constantly.
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Australian Socialist Alternative are a section of International Socialists
Thanks for that. Three months and I still hadn't figured that one out.
While I agree their policies aren't communist, given the current climate in the united states, this is best they can get away with. I rather have social democratic reforms in my lifetime than nothing now while I wait for a revolution that won't come.
this is best they can get away with.
Exactly, but that doesn't keep people from calling them a revolutionary party.
I rather have social democratic reforms in my lifetime than nothing now while I wait for a revolution that won't come.
I honestly think revolution will come sooner than a return to social democracy. In the current crisis, it isn't going to happen.
I honestly think revolution will come sooner than a return to social democracy. In the current crisis, it isn't going to happen.
That's interesting, what makes you think that? I know that social democracy obviously isn't going to return any time soon due to the miserable state of the world economy/the high debt burdens of many developed countries, and it most likely won't ever return. But what about the prospects for revolution?
A lot of things the last ten years or so seem to suggest an increase in the revolutionary attitude of the working class. From the immigrant protests ten years ago, to the Arab Spring, to the reactions against Islamophobia in Europe and police brutality in America, to the rise of labor strikes in China and other places around the world, as well as a host of other thing I'm either forgetting or unaware of.
To paraphrase Dauve (because I don't think I'll be able to find the quote I'm looking for), revolution happens when people decide they can no longer stand one more day under their present conditions, and it just seems to me that people are starting to get tired of it.
Well that's definitely an angle I hadn't thought of, I was more fixated on old-fashioned labour strikes etc in the developed world :P But yeah it does seem that there's a lot more restlessness and protests of that sort happening in the past few years. Like even though I've only started to take notice of world news since after the GFC, I never remember hearing about that much unrest when I was growing up in the late 90s/early 00s.
In addition, what do you make of this blog post from the Marxist economist, Michael Roberts? He basically says that Europe and the US have run out of ways to make an actual recovery from the GFC, and that the next global crisis will also hit the BRICS economies (notably China) very hard as well. So if there's another major economic meltdown coming in the next 5-10 years, that seems like there could be buried potential for revolution in there. Idk, maybe i'm just too optimistic
late 90s/early 00s.
I didn't hear about it at the time either but the "Battle of Seattle" happened in 1999.
He basically says that Europe and the US have run out of ways to make an actual recovery from the GFC
My understanding is that the only way for capitalism to get out of crisis is to devalue capital and that the only effective way to do that on a large scale is global imperialist war. The developed countries originally planned to stave off crisis by shifting production to underdeveloped countries is the 70's and 80's, but as things continue to stagnate war ends up being the only option left. I think there might be some analogues here with the rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, left-liberals who want to increase the power of the state, and the election of FDR in America, Hitler in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy around the time of the Great Depression.
I don't know that big economic crisis is something that breeds revolutionary energy. The biggest economic crisis in history led to World War II, and outside of Spain I don't know of any places where the workers rose up against their conditions.
Nice research.
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Surely even the most vulgar and self-serving of trade unions are better than no unions at all. I can sympathize with WSWS position here, but at the same time it seems to me that I would rather see workers frustrated that their self-supported organization is inadequate than workers who lack even an awareness of how organization can benefit them.
As usual, don't pay too much attention to the conclusions of the SEP.
Here therein lies the need for a communist party.
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All texts that Marx wrote about the IWMA are interesting, especially ones that deal with day to day operations and the various tendencies within it.
I wonder if Marx could have predicated that this
And the history of the International was a continual struggle on the part of the General Council against the sects and amateur experiments which attempted to assert themselves within the International itself against the genuine movement of the working class.
Would still be something that we'd have to deal with.
Where the working class is not yet far enough advanced in its organisation to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, i.e., the political power of the ruling classes, it must at any rate be trained for this by continual agitation against and a hostile attitude towards the policy of the ruling classes.
How things haven't changed.
What I also like as well was the description of Bakunin's theoretical baggage; "the assembled rubbish he has scraped together from Proudhon, St. Simon, etc". What I don't think that people understand is that it was only later that Proudhon and proudhonists were considered to be anarchists (they called themselves socialists). Really not surprising that modern day anarchists eagerly accept all shades of bourgeois socialism when it was already in their theoretical baggage back in the time of Bakunin.
All texts that Marx wrote about the IWMA are interesting, especially ones that deal with day to day operations and the various tendencies within it.
The practice of the IWMA makes for quite the contrast to the Second and Third International, which aped modern parties in many respects.
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Pretty typical for an anarchist to engage in semantic hand wringing
It’s incredible to me that the idea of an ‘epistemological break’ between early Marx and late Marx continues to hold currency in many ‘leftist’ circles when correspondence like this exists and is widely available.
Can you explain what this letter has to do with a supposed distinction between an early and a late Marx? I don't see how it is related to that discussion.
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If you're writing this to try to sound smart then you've spectacularly failed.
I wanted to reply to them, but people seem prone to hiding that they've taken a stance, instead of discussing it. The dialectic of speaking out of one's ass and being afraid of getting "cancelled" for it can be overcome in a very easy way: putting down one's ego and having enough curiosity to acquire knowledge by oneself. Then one does not need to resort to indeterminacy in order to avoid to be pinned down, an art which people learn so thoroughly by writing university papers.
Nevertheless, a few comments:
Marx can be seen here touching on many of the same themes identified in his earlier, supposedly ‘more philosophical’ texts - the need for the proletariat to constitute itself as a class and conquer political power, for example, is heavily emphasised both here [...] and in much earlier texts like the German Ideology and the Communist Manifesto.
The need for the proletariat to consitute itself as a class and conquer political power is not something only belonging to a "young Marx" for proponents of a supposed "epistemological break". More, Althusser initially, in the earlier 60s, argued that the German Ideology would mark that break, so it doesn't make sense to list that work and the Manifesto that was written even later as examples of "young Marx". Only after the availability of a French translation of the Grundrisse in the late 60s made it clear how erroneous this notion is did he double-down to the extent of claiming that merely the Critique of the Gotha Programme and some chapters of Capital would be free from ideology, speaking of a process instead of a clear break, and making his position even more ridiculous.
a letter from Marx’s last years
This letter was written in 1871. Marx died in 1883.
There is no clean break between Marx’s philosophical and economic criticisms; the same themes recur, often explored from different vantage points, but always driven home as crucial points of emphasis. Anyone who can’t see the critical-philosophical undertones present in Capital, an ostensibly ‘economic’ work, for example, is likely blind.
Marx does not make "philosophical and economic criticisms" in the sense of merely criticising a given subject matter from a philosophical or economic standpoint. He engages in a critique of philosophy and political economy as such.
This letter reveals that Marx was very much still committed to the revolutionary project elucidated in his early years, and to the criticisms levied in his original works.
Communism is not a "project". It is not a matter of mind, much less that of an individual one.
Thanks, I’ll think on the points you made. I think I worded my reply poorly and was far too hasty with my original judgement. Do you have any reading recommendations for this subject beyond Althusser’s For Marx?
Do you have any reading recommendations for this subject beyond Althusser’s For Marx?
No. I don't think it's a particularly interesting subject. The notion of an "epistemological break" is not sound, but whether it is should only bother Marxologists to begin with.
What do you mean by Marxologists? People who fixate on Marx the man rather than Marx’s actual writings?
People who are more interested in Marx's writings as such than they are in communism.
Thanks, I’ll think on the points you made
Mommy: Now, Imperator461, the stove is hot. If you touch it you'll burn yourself Imperator461: Thanks, I’ll think on the points you made.
I think I worded my reply poorly
You didn't word it poorly; you wrote gibberish because you didn't understand what you were talking about.
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You may have no clue, but how many Italians today still revere Bordiga? A quick Google search told me that most Italian "Communist" parties today are sadly either Trotskyist or ML, but I was wondering how big the LeftCom movement over there is.
The Italian communist left claim to have something along the lines of over 2,500 members. How true that is I have no idea. It's not unusual to find some left communist papers or see a Bordiga book in a chain book store. Then again, this is a country that has big events set up by the socialist and communist parties (the crap ones), where most towns have a communist party office and where you have places named after leftists and places like Via Stalingrado.
The Italian communist left claim to have something along the lines of over 2,500 members.
Is this just from one party, or across multiple organisations?
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I hope this isn't off-topic, I just wanted to share this site I made with a group of people most probably interested in it.
This is definitely very helpful, thank you very much!
Great work! Redtexts.org is now updated to include links to your site.
epub
Sweeeeet!
Hello all
I have been looking at Lebanon and one thing that stands out is a relatively high level of worker struggle prior to the civil war, and a lower level after (and basically nothing during). The major mobilisations prior to the war were of industrial workers (for wage increases, equal pay, maternity leave, reduced hours, etc) whereas the only mobilisations of size afterwards were of the middle class -- teachers, professionals, public servants, etc.
The authors I have read so far link this to the destruction of the manufacturing sector and the failure to rebuild it. The post-war economy was built on speculation, foreign aid and remittances from overseas. It is not particularly productive and smaller firms dominate. This ILO report [.pdf] notes that only 5% of workers belong to enterprises with over one hundred employees.
Is this a trend that has been identified in other examples, or something mostly unique to Lebanon in the time period in which the war + recovery occurred? Are there other case studies or secondary literature at hand that help us to identify what this means for the constitution of a militant proletariat?
Thank you in advance for any help.
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Is this a trend that has been identified in other examples, or something mostly unique to Lebanon in the time period in which the war + recovery occurred? Are there other case studies or secondary literature at hand that help us to identify what this means for the constitution of a militant proletariat?
The question is interesting, but I don't know enough about Lebanese conditions to give you a satisfying answer. If industry indeed was destroyed by the civil war and was never rebuilt, then you're probably right about this being a major source for the retreat of the labour movement there.
What might also contribute to this standstill is the toll war takes on proletarian institutions themselves. The war could also have brutalised workers' consciousness, brought forth a change in needs, and directed workers away from their own aims. It might be useful to look into the effect the First World War had on the British proletariat, or the consequences of the Russian civil war on proletarian institutions and the Bolshevik party, for reference.
Thinking about it a bit more I suppose I was being a bit short-sighted looking at it only in terms of the Lebanese economy, considering how connected it all is to regional economies/politics, particularly Syria. I'm leaning towards the conclusion that this may be something unique to Lebanon as opposed to a general trend -- not many other countries have the kind of political system Lebanon does, and the patronage system it is build on is bound to cause the economy to develop in odd ways.
Thank you for the suggestions, I will look into those. Did you have any particular books or articles in mind that covered this?
Thinking about it a bit more I suppose I was being a bit short-sighted looking at it only in terms of the Lebanese economy, considering how connected it all is to regional economies/politics, particularly Syria.
That's always true. You can never consider a state in isolation.
Thank you for the suggestions, I will look into those. Did you have any particular books or articles in mind that covered this?
No, not really. As far as I remember, the common histories dealing with the British labour movement and those dealing with the Russian revolution will cover those matters.
https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/7fkkin/auschwitz_or_the_great_alibi_left_communism_and/
Several claims and positions associated with Bordiga are misleading, some border on myth. Anyone with greater textual knowledge able to challenge what this Trotskyist is presenting as given. As for the overall topic of the thread, the relevant Auschwitz essay is undoubtably controversial, but with all its problems it feel more that its being used as an emblem for a piece of sectarianism posing as analysis.
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There's literally so much wrong with it literally that it's literally a real effort to even be bothered to literally try to literally debunk all of it. I tried with the more egregious examples but lol mhl is either literally a moron or a genius, but I'm literally going for the former, literally.
this author thinks they're some marxist, damn. anyway I'll delete this thread now, I just got angry before I had scrolled down and seen /r/dr_marx comment
Nah keep it up.
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thanks. just saw your comment!
It's really disappointing that it got 200+ upvotes on /r/badhistory. I always considered that sub to be pretty good at dispelling bullshit.
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Either Herr Heinzen here understands “injustice in property relations” as the above-mentioned pressure to which the absolute monarchy still subjects the bourgeoisie even in its “most sacred” interests, in which case he is only repeating what has just been said — or he understands “injustice in property relations” as the economic conditions of the workers, in which case his pronouncement has the following meaning: The present bourgeois property relations are “maintained” by the state power which the bourgeoisie has organised for the protection of its property relations. The proletariat must therefore overthrow the political power where it is already in the hands of the bourgeoisie. It must itself become a power, in the first place a revolutionary power. Again, Herr Heinzen is unconsciously saying the same thing as Engels is saying, but again in the steadfast conviction that he is saying the opposite. What he says he does not mean, and what he means he does not say.
I think anarchists, and indeed a good many so-called communists, would do well to read this passage.
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Berti further reported that Bordiga then would have got up and left. Togliatti, concerned about Bordiga’s behaviour, would have suggested that the central committee of the RCP be informed about the situation and the questions raised.
This image of Bordiga as the rock that was standing in the way of Bolshevisation in Italy, and generally the counterrevolution internationally, is pretty funny. Only the fascists managed to finally dismember the party enough to pave the way.
With this account of Togliatti being concerned about Bordiga simply leaving, it's amusing to recall that when Togliatti visited Naples during the Second World War, he did not want to believe that Bordiga, after being expelled from the party, and being under fascist police surveillance, had stopped his political activity. He apparently replied that this would be impossible, and that people should find out what's going on, saying that they would still have an account to settle. On the other hand, it's not particularly surprising that a Stalinist would not understand that the communist movement can be momentarily defeated.
As late as 1945, government officials apparently still believed Bordiga to be behind the small, still resolute communist networks that existed, due to his popularity among workers - 15 years after he was expelled from the PCd'I. Even with all the tedious work the Stalinists did to force the left out of the party, it still haunted its class enemies.
We reproduce the dialogue like an incomplete transcript, in part falsified (according to Angelo Tasca by the Gramscian-Togliattian centre), has handed it down.
Well, given for how long the PCd'I leadership tried to suppress the history of its formation, cultivated Bordiga as being a persona non grata while playing up Gramsci, I suppose this is not that surprising. After all, it's in line with the general trend of forgeries by Stalinists.
In no country can the ruling class hold the direction of public affairs alone. The wealthiest class so far has been the bourgeoisie, but it has always ruled with the help, albeit passive, of other classes.
Interestingly, this sounds very similar to the stupid ideas of Gramsci about "imposing hegemony on the subaltern classes" (very normal notion!), which exemplifies how he was already ready and available as the useful idiot of counterrevolution.
Today we have the proletarian class in power, but it keeps itself in power mainly at the expense of the peasants. The proletariat is in the minority and is not rich enough to hold and manage the state alone. The state is therefore forced to live for the most part at the expense of the countryside, of the peasants.
This is very frank and it makes me wonder about Stalin's plan going into this meeting, given that it was him that offered it. Such a statement should have raised a lot of eyebrows, but considering how confused all delegates of the Comintern seemed to have been, it's probably not surprising that most of them didn't react. With Stalin sounding almost the exact same ten years later, this just confirms that Bordiga's later in-depth analysis about Russian social relations, particularly with regard to agriculture, was entirely correct. The form of the kolkhoz contributed to this standstill. Marx:
I say on the contrary; the social movement will lead to this decision that the land can but be owned by the nation itself. To give up the soil to the hands of associated rural labourers, would be to surrender society to one exclusive class of producers.
Then:
The difference lies in this: comrade Trotsky began with an analogy and constructed his entire critique on it. What was his goal? He wanted to change horses during the race without taking into account of the essentials. But one cannot build on an analogy.
Stalin says, while making an analogy.
Our industry is capitalist in the administrative aspect, but viewed organisationally, it is socialist.
It would be interesting to hear what this is supposed to mean.
It should be noted that these questions are essentially Russian.
Haha.
Besides the Western parties are not yet prepared to discuss them.
Well, Stalin clearly was right in the sense that most other parties were utterly confused. In this context, Bordiga's long statements before the ECCI should also be read. In fact, those minutes are something people with an actual interest in communism should read in any case.
Certainly the position of the Russian party in the International is a privileged position. We are aware of the existence of this privilege and we also feel the responsibility that comes with it.
It seems they were more aware of the privilege, and less of the responsibility. But at this point, the Russian conditions, and consequently also party life, were already a complete clusterfuck, so I suppose the conduct of the Russians within the Comintern is not that surprising. Which is what obviously must happen if the problems the Russian labour movement had entangled itself in are attempted to be solved within the boundaries of the nation. Proper, non-abstract internationalism remains somewhat of a litmus test for communism, and it's symptomatic of the whole situation that almost no one in the Comintern seemed to have understood this at the time, respectively what the significance of the International even is. Instead, the delegates went there with the intention to learn from the Russians how "revolution is made". Apparently the Germans were even wearing top hats. Given their history, it's probably what they were used to from the Second International.
Interestingly, this sounds very similar to the stupid ideas of Gramsci about "hegemonising the subaltern classes", which exemplifies how he was already ready and available as the useful idiot of counterrevolution.
It is surprisingly similar. I suppose Stalin was already at this point a well developed petty bourgeois cretin.
This is extremely frank and it makes me wonder about Stalin's plan going into this meeting, given that it was him that offered it.
The parts where he starts saying that the Russian question can no longer even be debated in the various parties implies to me that Stalin already felt secure enough of the situation that he could start putting out dogma. Here already he is putting forward the myth that he and Lenin had no disagreements whatsoever.
This just confirms that Bordiga's later in-depth analysis about the conditions of Russian social relations, particularly with regard to agriculture, were entirely correct.
It's possible that he was already working towards that based on how this conversation developed. After Stalin starts going on about the relations in Russia (which if we were to take his own words here, remained the exact same from 1926 to 1936), Bordiga immediately starts questioning him about the connection of Russian problems with the comintern.
Here already he is putting forward the myth that he and Lenin had no disagreements whatsoever.
Stalin's wish to be worshipped as a genius is pretty funny when you keep in mind how early on, on the occasion of disagreements, he sometimes started sulking alone in his dacha, and it took the persuasion of several Old Bolsheviks to get him to leave. A true manchild.
It's possible that he was already working towards that based on how this conversation developed.
In his 1970 interview, he confirms that his suspicions were a lot deeper even than what he had brought before the ECCI:
At the same Congress of Moscow, in 1920, your conduct led some to believe, as reported, that you ‘without daring to say so, were afraid of the influence of the Soviet state on the Communist Parties, and the temptations of compromise, demagogy and corruption; and that, above all, you did not believe that a peasant Russia was capable of guiding the international working-class movement’. Does this interpretation correctly reflect your thinking?
I did in fact harbour the reservations stated in your question, and articulated in the quotation from Victor Serge.
Also:
Bordiga immediately starts questioning him about the connection of Russian problems with the comintern.
And Togliatti immediately tried to shut that down.
We reproduce the dialogue like an incomplete transcript, in part falsified (according to Angelo Tasca by the Gramscian-Togliattian centre), has handed it down
Reading over it again, I suspect that this Bordiga may have been more confrontational with Stalin. His reaction in the middle seems too out of place for such a simple statement. I wonder what else could have been falsified in this. It's already pretty damning as it is.
His reaction in the middle seems too out of place for such a simple statement.
I agree. Unless Stalin's ego was already that big back then.
I wonder what else could have been falsified in this.
Well, from that footnote mentioning what Bordiga recalled about the meeting, the actual tone seems to have been a lot rougher, with more questions being put on the table than what we find here. As an anecdote, this is what Stalin remarked about Bordiga at the same congress:
I can respect and believe Bordiga, although I do not consider him a Leninist or a Marxist; I can believe him because he says what he thinks.
The fitting commentary to an environment where the majority had already learnt to not say what they thought.
I agree. Unless Stalin's ego was already that big back then.
He did seem awfully concerned about not wanting to discuss Russian problems with any foreigners. Either Stalin was perceptive enough to understand the implication, or someone repeated the question twice in the transcript.
He did seem awfully concerned about not wanting to discuss Russian problems with any foreigners.
Coming back to what I said earlier about internationalism, it's very noticeable how prevalent national narrow-mindedness was at the time among delegates of the Comintern.
Just look at Radek and Bukharin, who both were part of the Russian left communists early on: Radek went on to court people with "National Bolshevism", while Bukharin's national outlook is apparent even from his early work on the imperialist state. The superficial criticism of the councilists-to-be didn't consider the international situation either.
One reason for this might have been that most of the delegates were not actually workers - except for members of the Hungarian and Italian parties. I'm sure most of them conceived themselves as generals commanding armies. People like Trotsky did, in any case.
If you look at actual documents, it becomes even more clear how clueless many of the delegates must have been. Zinoviev produced this assessment of the Italian PSI in December 1921. In June 1922, so barely six months later, he came along with this piece, which could not stand in a more stark contrast to the first. The speed and degree to which flip-flopping happened was insane.
Bukharin's national outlook is apparent even from his early work on the imperialist state
Bukharin's cretinism was apparent from then and it took no change in tack for him to formulate socialism in one country.
One reason for this might have been that most of the delegates were not actually workers - except for members of the Hungarian and Italian parties. I'm sure most of them conceived themselves as generals commanding armies. People like Trotsky did, in any case.
The third international seemed to operate more like the second, with the various national sections. Much unlike the IWMA which was concerned about bringing workers together to manage their own affairs. I suppose that's why in this way the only real parties of any worth in the comintern were the ones that had actually had a large proportion of workers in their ranks.
If you look at actual documents, it becomes even more clear how clueless many of the delegates must have been. Zinoviev produced this assessment of the Italian PSI in December 1921. In June 1922, so barely six months later, he came along with this piece, which could not stand in a more stark contrast to the first. The speed and degree to which flip-flopping happened was insane.
While at the same time the Russian envoy to Italy was praising Mussolini while the PCI was being persecuted. This can only make sense in the context of them trying to convert the CI into an arm of the Russian foreign policy.
Today we have the proletarian class in power, but it keeps itself in power mainly at the expense of the peasants. The proletariat is in the minority and is not rich enough to hold and manage the state alone. The state is therefore forced to live for the most part at the expense of the countryside, of the peasants.
I dont understand why eyebrows should be raised, isnt it true? Is there an implication here im not understanding? Could the proletariat hold and manage the state alone?
Yeah why would the dictatorship of the proletariat involve only the proletariat holding power
lmao true, I guess i was under the impression that the proletariat was too weak because of the civil war and famine
Which is why Bordiga was stressing that the problems in Russia could not be solved within the confines of Russia, it was up to the international proletariat. The solution to the weakened dictatorship wasn't further concessions to the peasants, that's the exact opposite of a solution.
makes sense, thanks
Yeah and that was one of the factors that was damaging the state’s proletarian character
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The rebellion of the middle classes against the regime explains the mass and popular character of the Iranian revolt. But the proletariat still has powerful links with the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie, and in the absence of a bourgeois revolution, which could have exposed the broad masses to an intense political struggle, the interests of the various classes had not become differentiated. The terrible consequences of the Stalinist counter-revolution condemn the young Iranian proletariat, in spite of its great combativity, to fight without a party which could guide its steps, hasten the assimilation of its own experience, and teach the proletariat its own program.
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They had to [break safety regulations], they said, or they would lose their jobs. So they took the risk.
Then, if they got hurt, they would lose their jobs anyway.
Reading that made me angry.
This shit happened to me. Broke a bone at a facility on a 60+ hour week, and they made me keep working on it for 3 days. They tried to get me to admit I hurt myself outside of work. I kept demanding xrays. Finally saw an "approved" doctor, Doctor confirmed broken bone. It healed ok, but is misaligned now. Occassionaly get pain and nerve tingles. Not sure if that will get worse with age.
I was out of work for months, and they delayed my comp pay for 3 months -- no income. Talking to other coworkers, I was told the same shit happened to them. Lots of injuries. Many of them had comp pay delayed, denied, etc.. One woman was being paid off in Chili's gift cards (and they included it as taxable income on her paystubs!). Some were evicted in the periods they went without pay.
I had to threaten lawsuit, with proof of their negligence. They promptly paid me a lump sum and changed their attitude after that. They pretty much left me alone, didn't lose my job... but it was tense after that, they were definitely pestering me about "performance" issues very frequently.
Fucking Amazon. More testimonials and reporting, the better.
She started the job in April 2018, and within two months, or nearly 100,000 items, the lifting had destroyed her back. An Amazon-approved doctor said she had bulging discs and diagnosed her with a back sprain, joint inflammation, and chronic pain, determining that her injuries were 100 percent due to her job. She could no longer work at Amazon. Today, she can barely climb stairs. Walking her dog, doing the dishes, getting out of her chair—everything is painful. According to her medical records, her condition is unlikely to improve.
Capital sucked her labour power practically dry. The product literally consumed her.
fucking scum
Fucking vile shit
But, hey, I’m sure this would all be solved if only the workplace had more democracy /s
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Yes, what do workers have to do with communism at all?
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A text that utterly destroys the myth of Trotsky as a heroic opposition to Stalin.
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Very engaging/clarifying articles. Also,
“By its above-mentioned casting-off of all private property..., communism necessarily also abolishes individual existence.” (So Herr Heinzen is reproaching us for wanting to turn people into Siamese twins.)
Obviously if you don't have private property you don't exist.
Proletariat? Never heard of 'em!
Only some notable excerpts, in the hope that someone actually reads the article:
But how does the great “agitator” Herr Heinzen conduct his propaganda? He declares the princes to be the chief authors of all poverty and distress. This assertion is not only ridiculous but exceedingly damaging. Herr Heinzen could not flatter the German princes, those impotent and feeble-minded puppets, more than by attributing to them fantastic, preternatural, daemonic omnipotence. If Herr Heinzen asserts that the princes can do so much evil, he is thereby also conceding them the power to perform as many good works. The conclusion this leads to is not the necessity of a revolution but the pious desire for a virtuous prince, for a good Emperor Joseph. In any case, the people know far better than Herr Heinzen who their oppressors are. Herr Heinzen will never transfer to the princes the hatred which the serf feels for the feudal lord and the worker for his employer. But of course Herr Heinzen is working in the interests of the landowners and capitalists when he puts the blame for the exploitation of the people by these two classes not on them but on the princes; and the exploitation by the landowners and capitalists is after all surely responsible for nineteen-twentieths of all the misery in Germany!
Herr Heinzen calls for an immediate insurrection. He has leaflets [Heinzen, Teutsche Revolution. Gesammelte Flugschriften] printed to this effect and attempts to distribute them in Germany. We would ask whether blindly lashing out with such senseless propaganda is not injurious in the highest degree to the interests of German democracy. We would ask whether experience has not proved how useless it is. Whether, at a time of far greater unrest, in the thirties, hundreds of thousands of such leaflets, pamphlets, etc., were not distributed in Germany and whether a single one of them had any success whatever. We would ask whether any person who is in his right mind at all can imagine that the people will pay any attention whatever to political sermonising and exhortations of this kind. We would ask whether Herr Heinzen has ever done anything else in his leaflets except exhort and sermonise. We would ask whether it is not positively ridiculous to trumpet calls for revolution out into the world in this way, without sense or understanding, without knowledge or consideration of circumstances.
Herr Heinzen appears, to be alluding here to the fact that Communists have made fun of his sternly moral demeanour and mocked all those sacred and sublime ideas, virtue, justice, morality, etc., which Herr Heinzen imagines form the basis of all society. We accept this reproach. The Communists will not allow the moral indignation of that, honourable man Herr Heinzen to prevent them from mocking these eternal verities. The Communists, moreover, maintain that these eternal verities are by no means the basis, but on the contrary the product, of the society in which they feature.
Herr Heinzen imagines communism is a certain doctrine which proceeds from a definite theoretical principle as its core and draws further conclusions from that. Herr Heinzen is very much mistaken. Communism is not a doctrine but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts. The Communists do not base themselves on this or that philosophy as their point of departure but on the whole course of previous history and specifically its actual results in the civilised countries at the present time. Communism has followed from large-scale industry and its consequences, from the establishment of the world market, of the concomitant uninhibited competition, ever more violent and more universal trade crises, which have already become fully fledged crises of the world market, from the creation of the proletariat and the concentration of capital, from the ensuing class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.
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I stumbled upon this old video and found it interesting in so far as it exemplifies various phenomena very well.
The worker starting to talk at around 2:03 in a somewhat crude manner expresses the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat - a healthy antidote against the dogma of a necessarily limited "trade-union consciousness" without education from non-proletarians. The movie itself of course subsumes this utterance under support for the movement towards worker's ownership which it tries to promote.
At the same time, the whole documentary showcases the necessity for the communist party, which is able to help overcome the limitations of these struggles, clear up confusion, drive further the association of workers that we can already see here in embryonic form (thereby also overcoming the latent nationalism here), and show that worker ownership is a dead-end: imagine the hell of what the guy at 15:53 describes, with workers taking on the tasks of marketing or the law department.
The video also shows in a clear manner how conservative the supposedly communist and ever rehashed idea of "economic democracy" is, by putting forward its bipartisan support in the US under the Carter administration (cf. also Reagan later), as well as arguing that it would amount to a "healthier industrial climate" - i.e. a pacified proletariat.
The Il Partito ICP also talks about the early cooperative movement in the US in its newest issue of Communist Left.
I loved this video, it's very interesting. Thank you for sharing it. This quote from the worker really stood out to me:
"I feel that the rich man made the law. There's no legal way a working man can walk in a courtroom and fight, like they're trying to fight US steel. No, I don't believe you can really fight US steel. You're gonna lose. Anytime you jump on somebody big with money, you're gonna lose, legally. You can't do nothing legally. Not legally, I can't see a thing legally you can do. The whole country is in a mess, and the only way that's gonna be changed, there's only one way it can be. In the mill, I have a boss that tells me, 'hey, go do your job.' I better go do my job or I'm fired, alright? You got politicians, and you got big business people. You don't tell them what to do. It doesn't make sense! Somebody has to tell somebody what to do! And until the working man, he's the one... I think it's always been said that someone better get out there willing to do something. I'm afraid it's me, if the working man don't start standing up to the government, to the whole setup, because we've been stepped on all our lives. That's all I can see."
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More on rank-and-file unionism in Italy:
On the arrest and the charges against the national SI Cobas coordinator Aldo Milani:
Just last week some militants close to Autonomist inspired groups had their house searched without any motivation. The political situation in Italy is getting worse by the day.
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Particularly section 2, 5 and 6 should be interesting for people who haven't read this before.
I also found 3 and 4 very interesting, especially given the climate of proposed 'bandage' reforms in the US (and other countries) today. As someone who is still very much learning, it helped clear up the difference between the reforms proposed by the IWA, which were meant to strengthen the working class, and all of the hogwash that gets thrown around today.
Thanks for sharing.
I also found 3 and 4 very interesting, especially given the climate of proposed 'bandage' reforms in the US (and other countries) today.
There is a letter by Engels to Bebel in which he also mentions not consenting to any increase in the power of the government as a rule of thumb for the attitude of the communist party to political questions, just like you can find here in section 4.
While this might work as an indication of the general marching direction, it is insufficient to make adherents of middle class ideology understand why each particular of their moralistic plots to "improve people's lives" is incompatible with the labour movement fighting for itself.
This could be seen very well in the thread on Sanders, where people even when presented with a proper explanation would either come up with poorly considered ad hoc arguments to attempt to connect their position with communism, or would wish to not draw the practical consequences from what has been laid out. They go to extreme lengths to avoid questioning their petty bourgeois presuppositions, let alone practically forfeit their social standing.
A proper understanding within the party is important not only to make aspiring members from the middle class shed their outlooks, but also to prevent opportunism of any sort. In this circular letter for example, Marx and Engels comment on how the lack of understanding of the SPD on the matter of protective tariffs in the given circumstances lead to it embarrassing itself in parliament. Thus, the communist party must study all questions which can practically confront the labour movement thoroughly.
As someone who is still very much learning, it helped clear up the difference between the reforms proposed by the IWA, which were meant to strengthen the working class, and all of the hogwash that gets thrown around today.
It is also worth noting that the IWMA was very cautious to not argue for any measure that would potentially prop up a middle class. This is mentioned in many of their documents, which can be found in the book I recommended here. This consideration is just as important today.
From section 5:
(b) Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wages slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the co-operative system will never transform capitalist society. to convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves.
(c) We recommend to the working men to embark in co-operative production rather than in co-operative stores. The latter touch but the surface of the present economical system, the former attacks its groundwork.
I found this part particularly striking, as it highlights the difference between the leftist fantasy of "workers owning the means of production" and the communist goal of greater proletarian association leading to their dictatorship.
This part should also drive home what communism is about:
It is the business of the International Working Men's Association to combine and generalise the spontaneous movements of the working classes, but not to dictate or impose any doctrinary system whatever. The Congress should, therefore, proclaim no special system of co-operation, but limit itself to the enunciation of a few general principles.
Likewise, in the Manifesto:
They [the communists] do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
This should be shown to every Wolffite leftoid out there.
Sometimes there is reference to a middle class. Is the middle class the same as the bourgeois term or does Marx means something else?
It depends. In most cases, it is a historical reference in the context of the developed countries at the time, denoting the bourgeoisie for its past middle position within society, between aristocracy and rabble, before the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. Remnants of the aristocracy survived within bourgeois society for a certain period, which means that calling the bourgeoisie "middle class" was well understood for a long time. In other countries, pre-capitalist relations of production prevailed, for which the term therefore simply described the present condition of their national bourgeoisie. This is also why Marx will sometimes refer to the petty bourgeoisie as the "lower middle class".
"Middle class" can also be used in relation to the current, globally fully developed capitalist society, in which case it means the petty bourgeoisie. This use is explained thoroughly in this thread, and the comments by /u/pzaaa linked there, in which they describe the boundaries of this class. Given that many people still seem to think of nothing else than small business owners when they read the term "petty bourgeoisie", this should be relevant. This text and this article might also be of interest to you.
As to this particular text, when I CTRL + F "middle", I come across these sentences:
If the middle and higher classes neglect their duties toward their offspring, it is their own fault.
The combination of paid productive labour, mental education bodily exercise and polytechnic training, will raise the working class far above the level of the higher and middle classes.
Here Marx is presumably deliberately not more specific, as at the time of his writing the capitalist mode of production was not dominant in every country yet - as mentioned before. He is writing for the proletariat, so for an international audience, which means that what he says needs to encompass the conditions in all countries. By saying "higher and middle classes", Marx addresses the most advanced countries (referring to the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie) and those in which pre-capitalist formations, or their vestiges, still exist (referring to the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie).
On the other hand, unconsciously to themselves, the Trades' Unions were forming centres of organisation of the working class, as the mediaeval municipalities and communes did for the middle class.
In order to prevent co-operative societies from degenerating into ordinary middle-class joint stock companies (societes par actions), all workmen employed, whether shareholders or not, ought to share alike.
Why do the workmen of Europe take up this question? In the first instance, because the middle-class writers and agitators conspire to suppress it, although they patronise all sorts of nationalities, on the Continent, even Ireland. Whence this reticence? Because both, aristocrats and bourgeois, look upon the dark Asiatic power in the background as a last resource against the advancing tide of working class ascendancy; That power can only be effectually put down by the restoration of Poland upon a democratic basis.
The deleterious influence of large standing armies upon production, has been sufficiently exposed at middle-class congresses of all denominations, at peace congresses, economical congresses, statistical congresses, philanthropical congresses, sociological congresses.
In each of these cases Marx obviously means the bourgeoisie.
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This article is dog shit. It just ignores criticisms, doesn't understand some apparently, and just plods on with this weird mythical "antifa". I don't know why these people want to use genuine anti racist struggles as some sort of prop or cover to promote their terrible leftism.
The identification of fascism with racism is liberal at core. It shows that people do not know a lot about historical fascism, especially its Italian variety. This kind of conflation also enables the leftist hobby of calling everything they don't like fascist - a racist democratic government is called "fascist", so that one can counterpose it to an idealised democracy.
It pretty much takes out every class and historical aspect of fascism and racism. Maybe this is a reflection of a lack of an actual working class movement in the US, so that these posers have to attach themselves to everything that comes along their way. The tactics employed also only serve give ammunition to the people opposing them. If, for example, the racists in portland were allowed to march around, then what would they have accomplished? I doubt it would have even made the news, and they would only make the news through their own actions.
It pretty much takes out every class and historical aspect of fascism and racism.
Amidst the worst class collaboration, and the lack of a strong organised labour movement, somehow fascism is supposed to stand at the doorstep! And then look at the disgusting moralistic attempt at dismissing arguments:
While Trotsky’s Fourth International eventually committed to a defense of the Soviet Union and liberal democracy, the Bordigists remained “revolutionary defeatists.” Fascism was merely bourgeois dictatorship, a reaction to the inability of liberal democracy to adequately defeat proletarian revolution. World war and dictatorship could only make such a revolution more likely, as it had in Russia in 1917.
In the aftermath of the fascist period, the extent of its horrors now known, such a position is more scandalous than ever.
When it's in reality the anti-fascists that are abusing the "horrors now known" to defend capitalism! Besides, I do not know what they attempt to say with bringing up revolutionary defeatism here. Do they argue in favour of participation in the Second World War? It would not be the only case of conceptual confusion in this text.
Maybe this is a reflection of a lack of an actual working class movement in the US, so that these posers have to attach themselves to everything that comes along their way.
You just need to watch this video to know about the social basis of this publication.
Holy fuck that video lmao
Grab your tote bag and hoodie while you can can!
You know, you really can't fight climate catastrophe without manufacturing and shipping a completely pointless tote bag.
1,074 backers pledged $65,828 to help bring this project to life.
lol holy fuck who falls for these scams? I guess there are scam artists on both sides.
look at this. This person hasn't even read the title lol
Let alone the article, or the comments here.
Maybe the stupid in stupidpol is self referential.
I cross-posted that when there were like 2 comments. The only reason I'm subbed to this subreddit at all is for the occasional articles posted here that catches my eye. Otherwise, I have no desire to engage with the smug, overeducated nerds that populate like every online leftcom space.
The only reason I'm subbed to this subreddit at all is for the occasional articles posted here that catches my eye.
And then you tragically manage to pick the most stupid article posted here for ages!
Otherwise, I have no desire to engage with the smug, overeducated nerds that populate like every online leftcom space.
If the regulars of this subreddit are already "smug, overeducated nerds" for you, what would you then call Marx and Engels?
Not online leftcom dorks, for one.
I do not get this cancerous attitude of looking down on people taking things seriously, particularly online. Apparently you have to take an ironic distance towards everyone and everything, including yourself. It's like it's impossible to operate on any other mode except memes. Oh, you're serious about wanting communism? And you post on the internet at that? Fucking overeducated nerd!
Just fuck off with this.
Agreed, but I think it's a little naive to think any meaningful change is going to come from posting articles and texts on the internet.
Did anyone say or even suggest that?
You're just annoying tbh, and this spiel out of nowhere kind of proves my point.
haha do you finger your mother with those digits?
The stereotype of the smarmy, know-it-all leftcom is real. But this is the last time I grace you with a response.
The stereotype of the smarmy, know-it-all leftcom is real.
lol have you seen the people who write for commune magazine, the magazine that you're defending here?
But this is the last time I grace you with a response.
Damn, dude. Really hurts me in the feels. I really don't know how I'm going to go on and live my life after this.
Haven't read the mag, article has issues but some of it's premises ring true.
Here, here's a video of these totally non-yuppie, proletarian, salt of the earth, uneducated working class heroes.
Jesus Fucking Christ. They are like their own parodies. The amount of cringe is just overwhelming it really seems like a workplace sitcom of leftist organizing. That and all the merchandising makes this even more gross.
The kickstarter page is just cringe
Commune is a popular magazine for a new era of revolution. By popular, we mean that we will publish articles as easy to read on a bus or while you are slacking off at your office job as anything you find in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, or Jacobin. By revolution, we mean a magazine of politics and culture that knows what so many already intuitively recognize: everything must go.
"By popular, we mean that we will publish articles as easy to read on a bus or while you are slacking off at your office job" lol
Other magazines have shown that people will subscribe to a publication like ours, even when they can read much it for free online, as long as they get something attractive and collectible in return and as long as they believe it a project worth supporting.
We began this project with a wager: there is a hunger for a magazine that does what we are uniquely placed to do. Our initial social media and website rollout has confirmed this: within 48 hours of setting up our account we had 5000 followers. Though that’s a fraction of the attention we need to succeed, it confirms our intuition that there is a real excitement for this kind of project, and a real dissatisfaction with existing magazines.
The internet has ruined people.
Boy am I glad we were graced with another response!
article has issues but some of it's premises ring true.
The epitome of determinacy.
overeducated
lol what kind of attitude is this? Do you unironically post in stupidpol because you've taken up stupidity as an identity?
It is their only identity.
Is it an identity when it's just an inherent part of you?
That is fair. Probably not but they seem awful proud of being stupid so who knows.
It's really not surprising that they're yuppie student degenerates.
It is pretty interesting to see how fascism has been shifted to mean racism for whatever goddamn reason. It was also interesting how little contemporary liberalism cared about fascism and its rise in Italy with sometimes outright open support. That leftists have latched onto this definition of fascism equating racism and that they think fascism is something unique or seperate from capitalism says so much about leftists. That and it always leads to anti-fascism being a reinforcement of the status quo and the defense of liberal democracy.
The dumbest thing about this article is the ending
Reflecting on this experience, some Atlanta antifascists have called for abandoning the black bloc as a default tactic in favor of a “gray bloc” that allows militants to blend into the crowd, allowing for new forms of solidarity. This tactic was used in Charlottesville, skewing the usual opposition between right wingers and black-clad antifa. The resulting media coverage offered a vision of the form of struggle necessary to actually win: a group of violent racists against an entire town that had decided to fight back. In moving forward, antifa and pro-revolutionary groups more broadly should continue to change their wardrobe, ideas, and targets, in an effort to build a more effective movement against the state and capitalism. Or, for anarchy and communism, if that is indeed really what they want.
Antifa is only effective when it's not antifa. lol
It is pretty interesting to see how fascism has been shifted to mean racism for whatever goddamn reason.
The equation isn't that surprising. When the liberal bourgeoisie are writing history then they're not going to highlight the class conflicts that lead up to the counter revolutionary assault of fascism, so they'll focus on the things that they saw as problems of that period: the death camps and the scientific racism etc. The focus on racism, as distinct from or as a substitute, to class, is a petty bourgeois reaction.
I think there's a passing comment about it in regards to England in the 90s on one of those libri texts but I don't think it's developed much. Not that I recall anyway.
So stop being antifa....while being antifa...to be a better antifa? You think somewhere along the line of their logic they would see the gaping hole of what the problem seems to be, but no.
It is not surprising I just find it fascinating that so many people claim they are against the state, capitalism, status quo, and are super hypercritical leftists (lol) just take bourgeois history hook, line, and sinker and regurgitate it nonchalantly. Ok, I am not even surprised by that either. I guess I do find it amusing that the liberal bourgeoisie not only came up with such bizarre hair-splitting that even Trotsky could be proud of but they managed to make people forget how ok they were with fascism until it started threatening their investments. I mean fascism was one of the great allies of liberal democracy as they were strong-armed union busters and had no problems smashing strikes in the most violent ways but let's remove the class dynamic and focus on obscure racism that as you state removes class from the perspective entirely.
I guess I do find it amusing that the liberal bourgeoisie not only came up with such bizarre hair-splitting that even Trotsky could be proud of but they managed to make people forget how ok they were with fascism
Another example of this is them making people forget about their co-responsibility in the Holocaust, or also that the Madagascar plan was first contemplated by the British, French and Polish governments - and basically accepted by them later through the departure of the remaining Jews to the Middle East in the context of the population transfers after the Second World War.
The bourgeoisie finally got their wish. This sort of thing reminds me of slavery in the US, where it was abolished in principle but continues to exist through the prison labor system.
This kind of conflation also enables the leftist hobby of calling everything they don't like fascist - a racist democratic government is called "fascist", so that one can counterpose it to an idealised democracy.
There is even hysteria among leftists around individuals from fringe political parties. When Pauline Hanson was somewhat relevant here, leftists were using her as proof of a "looming fascist threat", even though her party held no political sway whatsoever. Of course, once she became irrelevant leftists parasitically attached themselves to the next fad.
Racism is sufficient for fascism, but not necessary.
I hope this is a joke.
the main North American antifa website, called for “an autonomous anti-capitalist force” that will “break out of the stranglehold of the symbolic, demand-based, and spectacular mode of activism.” This sort of reflectivity is common. Another antifa group cautioned against appearing in the “reactive role” in a “mere frontal clash between opposing forces” that allows the state to appear as a neutral enforcer of order.
Where has "antifa" ever broken "out of the stranglehold of the symbolic, demand-based, and spectacular mode of activism"? How is this even pictured? The fact that antifa hasn't, and only resorts to counter protesting says a lot about how much important these people place in empty posturing.
Instead of territorial disputes with skinheads, “anti-racist” activism focused on the societal and political bases of white supremacy, moving away from a view that saw racism as the bad ideas of bad men.
By attacking institutions. Right.
Antifa groups were among the first to sound the alarm that Trump’s campaign was an opening for explicitly white nationalist and anti-Semitic elements. They participated in the disruption of Trump campaign events in Chicago, Phoenix, and California.
And that was the last time we ever heard of this Trump fella.
Antifa groups were among the first to sound the alarm that Trump’s campaign was an opening for explicitly white nationalist and anti-Semitic elements. They participated in the disruption of Trump campaign events in Chicago, Phoenix, and California.
And that was the last time we ever heard of this Trump fella.
This is something that is perhaps the most puzzling about the defenders of anti-fascism - they insist on it, even though it has been shown time and time again that it fails to achieve what it aims at (if we buy for a second into the assertion that Trump would be a fascist). Look at what the article says about the Arditi del Popolo:
Many today believe that they would have had the power to stop Mussolini
Cutting edge analysis right there! And then the author has the audacity to bring up the Spanish Civil War, where the bankruptcy of anti-fascism was displayed in full. On that occasion, the text en passant conflates Bilan as being "Bordiga's magazine", but that's almost secondary considering the rest of this garbage.
There was an article on libri recently that went into the arditi that I thought was quite good. But it's stunning how this author keeps bringing up ghosts to vanquish but only then seems to agree with them.
Continually it makes a false equivalence to the 20s and 30s with present time
A revolutionary criticism of antifascism today ought to acknowledge that the dangers of contemporary fascism are real, offer a solid analysis of the phenomenon, and propose how it can be properly overcome.
Antifa’s critics are correct to note that this is not the Weimar era, but they don’t offer any alternative explanations or responses to today’s developments.
Continually it makes a false equivalence to the 20s and 30s with present time
It also attempts to historicise the position of the left without providing an actual reason for doing so.
I have also noticed that people will on the one hand disagree with the ICP about fascism being just another capitalist reaction, but then they will say that everything is fascism. Can't have both.
Nazism - both unique and always just around the corner simultaneously.
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The late 1960s and early 1970s represented a period of great debate in the communist left in the face of contemporary class struggles. On one side you have the invariant Marxism of the traditional communists, on the other you had attempts at the rehabilitation of the council communist current. This texts represents an attempt at a critique by proxy of Pannekoek of the then contemporary debates that still has relevance today.
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I hope it covers their ambiguity positioning towards diverse nationalisms such as Palestinian nationalism. I doubt it does tho, and not gonna check. It's good to imagine that in some far away land (that is, far away from the US) there is a mass class movement, but sadly it is neither and it can't be, or it wouldn't be a permanent mass organization.
I hope it covers their ambiguity positioning towards diverse nationalisms such as Palestinian nationalism.
As you didn't bother to explain yourself beyond throwing a few passive-aggressive sentences, I assume you to be alluding with this to the 1982 disintegration within Il Programma Comunista. If you knew anything about the question, you'd realise that the texts here are linking to Il Partito Comunista, which explicitly criticised the merger formula that lead the other party to the precise situation you're bringing up.
I doubt it does tho
It doesn't take a genius to understand that texts dealing with the union question will not deal with a political dispute almost 40 years ago. It sounds like you're attached to the idea of an infallible party, rather than dealing with the issues that pose themselves to an actual one.
and not gonna check
If you are not going to check, then what is the point of leaving a half-assed comment? Do you think you're acting on behalf of some sort of higher morality against what you assume to be the prevailing opinion in this subreddit?
It's good to imagine that in some far away land (that is, far away from the US) there is a mass class movement
Had you read the texts, you'd realise that they were translated to be circulated by the British section of the party, and that they come with an explicit provision stating that this is the situation in Italy and is not to be taken as being universal. I don't see what the point is of bringing up the situation in the US, unless you want to provide your own analysis of the situation there, and thus give a point of departure on whose ground one can discuss what the implications of that would be. The immediate struggles of proletarians in every country can only be overcome on an international level. If you're uninterested in the affairs of proletarians in other countries, you're unable to resolve the issues in the country you're based in, except within national terms - that is, you're not solving them at all.
but sadly it is neither and it can't be
You earlier admitted that you won't read the linked texts, yet here you are apparently able to state with necessity that the situation in Italy is not, and cannot be, a class movement. What great abstraction of yours does allow you such a sweeping judgement?
or it wouldn't be a permanent mass organization.
So the organisations of the working class can only exist on a transitory basis, otherwise they would immediately lose their class character? That's a good way of ensuring perpetuated proletarian impotence.
A couple of quick points: I'm talking about the ambiguity inside the SICobas, not Il Partito. And I'm talking about permanent mass organizations, not permanent vanguard organizations or mass organizations which arise to fulfill an immediate revolutionary task (e.g. Soviets).
Also, I can imagine that it was not for Italian comrades, yes. The situation in Italy is not only not universal, it's also not particularly different from the situation of the working class in southern Europe, and believe me I know what I'm talking about here. I don't live in the US BTW, but most of the Reddit userbase does.
Admittedly there's no much point in commenting that way, but I don't think Reddit is the place for a serious discussion with commited comrades, there are more productive and, above all, safer ways. My reason for commenting was just that I'm tired of reading about SICobas as it had anything in special more than being slightly influenced by Il Partito.
Anyway, don't take it very seriously.
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A 1971 essay on the KAPD, its positive features (its break with the ideology and practice of social democracy) and its shortcomings (“ideology of the producers”), with discussions of, among other things: Lenin’s Infantile Disorder; the KAPD’s relations with the Third International; National Bolshevism; the AAU and AAUE; the KAPD as vanguard party; the counterrevolution, Stalinism and fascism; the crucial importance of Germany for the proletarian revolution; the KAPD’s influence on the communist currents of the 1960s; and the next, “human revolution” entailing the “abolition of the proletariat” (communism: “the mode of production in which the goal of production is man himself”).
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So?
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This text reads much better than most of the other stuff put out by the ICP. It's clear and to the point. Perhaps the difference is that this was written by Germans and not Italians or Frenchmen. It reminds me a bit of pre-WWII Bordiga.
Italians or Frenchmen
Degenerate romance languages smh
I was reading up on the Laval affair in Sweden and was interested if people here had anything to comment on the issue of labour unions in Europe having to compromise their real, physical influence and all it entails because of EU and this court decision in particular.
The Swedish unions quickly began a blockade of Laval sites and eventually the case found its way to the European Court of Justice. The ECJ found in favor of Laval in 2008; while the right for unions to take collective action is important, the court said, the right to free movement of services takes priority.
It seems to me that issues of this kind are creating a genuine rupture between the Social Democratic parties with their commitment to "European Integration" and the mainstream labour movement, despite the latter's deep entanglement with Social Democracy: Here are the main Swedish labour union's (LO) commentary on the issue. In particular:
The judgement is a setback for all wage-earners in Europe. We share this opinion with every trade union organisation in Europe, even the union organisations of the new member states.
and another, in particular the opinion piece by Thorwaldsson at the end:
If EU regulations facilitate, or in the worst case force, competition with wages and working conditions, the EU has no future. --
The basic simple fact is that social acceptance of free movement requires regulated labour markets and equal treatment of workers. Otherwise, people will turn against free movement --
If the part bolded my me is true, there would be an immense unity in European labour organizations on this issue, despite the general differences between wage levels etc. in the EU. It is also obviously true that the EU couldn't possibly continue its existence as it is without the support of Social Democratic parties, which in turn could not exist without the support of mainstream labour movement.
Why then the timidity to employ this potentially immense influence? Why evoke the boogeyman of popular nationalism instead of making the threat to EU explicit and class-based? Why let yourself be strangled by the cloak of legalism in the first place, when it didn't bother the labour movement in the past? Obviously there is also lot of other liberal and social-democratic baggage in the LO pieces.
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It’s not just the Social Democratic parties that have changed with the times, most the big unions have too. Here in Norway our LOs leadership isn’t actually radical enough to do the things your suggesting. The simple answer to why the unions bother with legalism now is that they are a legal part of our political system, their interest is more in line with keeping the status quo going than doing anything that potentially might upset it.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Is it some surprise that the EU is an organization of capital?
It is also obviously true that the EU couldn't possibly continue its existence as it is without the support of Social Democratic parties, which in turn could not exist without the support of mainstream labour movement.
You yourself qualify your statement with the bolded part. I doubt that a change in the attitude of the unions would immediately pose a threat to the continued existence of the EU. That seems naive. Also, do you think the EU is the most important obstacle that the labour movement faces in Europe?
Why then the timidity to employ this potentially immense influence? Why evoke the boogeyman of popular nationalism instead of making the threat to EU explicit and class-based? Why let yourself be strangled by the cloak of legalism in the first place, when it didn't bother the labour movement in the past?
Mostly because a large part of the national trade union leaderships are not interested in proper class conflict, for various reasons. This is one aspect that communists ought to combat.
To preface, my original intention was just to post the Forbes article, which I found interesting in various ways, but then I decided to add my own thoughts and some questions, which got very rambly, I admit.
I doubt that a change in the attitude of the unions would immediately pose a threat to the continued existence of the EU. That seems naive.
This is really what I have thought, but perhaps I've been mistaken.
Also, do you think the EU is the most important obstacle that the labour movement faces in Europe?
No.
Mostly because a large part of the national trade union leaderships are not interested in proper class conflict, for various reasons. This is one aspect that communists ought to combat.
Is the problem here more so in the unions (way they are structured, their walled-in leaders etc) or a lack of proper political expression for the unions' (and workers' therein) interests?
Of course it's a different situation anywhere, but let's say I have in mind the Nordic countries, which are interesting in that they have a Labour movement, which is on the face of it very succesful in membership and power etc.
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Here's some important context on the different rank and file unions in Italy, and the USB itself: http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/TheCPart/TCP_007.htm#Two%20strikes
What is the difference between these rank and file unions and other unions in Italy?
It's explained in the texts that are linked in the stickied thread about class unionism, specifically this one covers it in detail:
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/TheCPart/TCP_002.htm#FirstCongress
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We wish only to point out that the iron fist of fascism is concealed within the soft glove of democracy
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I was hoping that the writer wouldn't forget the environmental side to all of this, which they didn't. Which is good because I think it is enormously neglected in the communist milieu generally. 'Ecological armageddon' is basically guaranteed at this point. It seems really bad right now, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe i'm too cynical but I can't really see how the communist movement, if it can still be called a movement, could possibly defeat capital now. Environmental disaster is escalating and I think it's more likely that the human effects of that, namely mass migration, will not produce a new communist wave but rather accelerate the barbaric trend of the 21st century.
another possibility is that were a revitalised, genuine communist movement to resurface and threaten capital, that the ruling class (the elites of the elites) would simply prefer instant nuclear armageddon to defeat and proletarian dictatorship. A final "fuck you, suckers, where are the codes?"
True, but I'm not that pessimistic (yet). First off, the point you raise about communists in general not talking enough about the environment is unfortunately very much true; and even when they do talk about it they usually end up in some techno-utopistic vague-talk. The machines and computers will solve everything! Yeah, sure.
On the other hand, I believe that capitalism is nearing its next, and possibly final, global crisis. I'm not sure if there will be another world war - actually for now it seems the article is correct insofar as it claims that "failed states" and endless civil wars are the order of the day - but there certainly will be a major crisis, of which environmental degradation will definitely be a factor.
Now, will communists be ready to activate when shit hits the fan is another matter... but that's why we should solidify our ranks during "peacetime".
I was hoping that the writer wouldn't forget the environmental side to all of this
Are there any books you or anyone else can recommend? Recent, reliable summaries of the state of the research and projections up until now, I mean. I've read 500 news articles on the endless upcoming doom just like every other asshole and I'm at the point where I need something more substantial.
Let the capital fall! Isn’t that what we want? Capatalism goes down communism up Yee? Don’t avert! Down with the capital!
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Here, for the first time in English, is Camatte’s introduction to the 1974 edition of Bordiga’s, and the Italian Left’s, long study on the nature of the Russian revolution. Camatte provides a very brief outline of the perspective that Bordiga took on in order to answer this question. Camatte also provides his own commentaries on the nature of capital today, not all of which we fully agree with.
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There are additional notes taken of the second of the two speeches here:
Complete abstention from political action is impossible. The abstentionist press participates in politics every day. It is only a question of how one does it, and of what politics one engages in. For the rest, to us abstention is impossible. The working-class party functions as a political party in most countries by now, and it is not for us to ruin it by preaching abstention. Living experience, the political oppression of the existing governments compels the workers to occupy themselves with politics whether they like it or not, be it for political or for social goals. To preach abstention to them is to throw them into the embrace of bourgeois politics. The morning after the Paris Commune, which has made proletarian political action an order of the day, abstention is entirely out of the question.
We want the abolition of classes. What is the means of achieving it? The only means is political domination of the proletariat. For all this, now that it is acknowledged by one and all, we are told not to meddle with politics. The abstentionists say they are revolutionaries, even revolutionaries par excellence. Yet revolution is a supreme political act and those who want revolution must also want the means of achieving it, that is, political action, which prepares the ground for revolution and provides the workers with the revolutionary training without which they are sure to become the dupes of the Favres and Pyats the morning after the battle. However, our politics must be working-class politics. The workers' party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its goal and its own policy.
The political freedoms, the right of assembly and association, and the freedom of the press — those are our weapons. Are we to sit back and abstain while somebody tries to rob us of them? It is said that a political act on our part implies that we accept the exiting state of affairs. On the contrary, so long as this state of affairs offers us the means of protesting against it, our use of these means does not signify that we recognise the prevailing order.
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Are there any practical slogans here? This article, while great at detailing the situation and its history, ends with vague calls for internationalism -- but how can this be propagated among the South Korean and Chinese proletariat?
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Who let all the SocDems in here?
Can we stop removing comments please. I can't see what some people are saying (regardless of how stupid it may be), that is no good and not helpful at all.
This article asserts that Trump, Le Pen and the new populists aren't going to want to change the democratic foundations - that they're not really fascists. Fair enough. But are we going to turn a blind eye to their followers? Just look at Charlottesville, that's happening right now. There are literal nazis there, white supremacists, who feel that Trump is their guy. Trump may not be explicitly fascist, but he is changing the frame of reference - white supremacy is being reinvigorated. The Alt-Right definitely has elements of fascism, in rhetoric and in their goals. And not to forget that the Alt-Right made Trump a candidate - just look up how Steve Bannon and Breitbart went and met with Trump before his candidacy and became his propaganda platform right after he did.
But are we going to turn a blind eye to their followers? Just look at Charlottesville, that's happening right now.
1,000 people who represent less than 0.0003% of the population and possess absolutely no political power. They represent absolutely no threat to either capitalism or communism yet the left feel determined to expend 99.9% of their energies on them. Why?
I'm not arguing that point, we do spend a lot of effort into those people. However, they're not just in Charlottesville. There's a larger movement within the alt-right, and they're gonna keep getting larger.
What I am arguing is that we shouldn't give up on anti-fascism - and it's entirely misleading to say we're spending 99.9% of our energy on it - the left is much much larger than a few college campus demonstrations. I'd dare say anti-fascist demonstrations doesn't even make up the largest demonstration forces - just look at G20, that was huge, which brought leftists from all over Europe to Hamburg for anti-capitalist demonstrations.
What I am arguing is that we shouldn't give up on anti-fascism - and it's entirely misleading to say we're spending 99.9% of our energy on it - the left is much much larger than a few college campus demonstrations.
Antifa in the last instance means supporting one set of bourgeoisie against another. A fact that you reinforce with your gotta vote against Trump and Le Pen shit.
I'd dare say anti-fascist demonstrations doesn't even make up the largest demonstration forces
Then why give a fuck if it's such a nothing?
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Only ideologues think that anti-fascism must mean pro-democracy
Could you please point out where I even mentioned democracy? The rest of your post is shit, and you probably know it by the pitifully weak point you add at the end in order to prop it up.
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It's quite clearly implied that you are saying Antifa opposes "fascist" bourgeoisie in favor of a "progressive, democratic" state configuration or whatever. If you did not mean this, I'd like to hear what section of capitalists you think Antifa prefers to fascists.
And where haven't calls for anti fascism ended up doing this? And again, what has this got to do with being "pro-democracy" at all?
You are apparently unable to understand that organizing against specific forms of oppression (i.e. racism, xenophobia) is necessitated by the structure of the capitalist world, and that fortifying communities who are victims of those types of oppression is actually important, and can be done in a way that does not rely on the state (even if, obviously, capital and its state will do anything it can to subsume extra-governmental movements and this is always a concern for any organization regardless of its nature).
No I'm not, do you think I'm stupid? How shallow is your understanding of fascism that it only includes overt racism? Does this imply that the struggle against slavery was a struggle against fascism?
I always felt this position Leftcoms hold is ridiculous since it's usually not them who are at risk for violence against their race. It's the same for other movements like BLM.
I always felt this position Leftcoms hold is ridiculous since it's usually not them who are at risk for violence against their race. It's the same for other movements like BLM.
You're going to have to explain this.
Violence against minorities. Fascists target people who aren't white.
Are Marxist tendencies racially specific?
what? I'm not sure where you got this from.
Read your own post again.
That it's minorities who are the target of these race-motivated crimes?
Read the highlighted part of your post.
The claim I made that most Leftcoms tend to be white?
Explain what you mean.
Leftcoms tend to be white which makes it hard for them to see why minorities would support these groups. It's not their life that's in danger so it's easy for them to say it's "worse than fascism"
Please cite your sources.
I don't have a source. Unless you can find that one bordiga meme where he apparently said it's worse than fascism. Which Leftcoms love. The rest is anecdotal so I'm afraid I can't a cite a source where I encountered a leftcom who said so and so.
Why are you here?
I agree with many of the leftcom positions but I tend to disagree with them on many social issues.
Oh I see, the "I have no idea what left communism is" position. It's very popular on reddit, I hear.
Because I don't think minorities should have to face violence from fascists? And that it's much better for them to be alive than for them to you know not be? I disagree with Leftcoms on one thing and now all of a sudden I have no clue what left communism is.
You don't "disagree with Leftcoms on one thing," you've made up this fantasy position that says they're okay with minority groups being targeted by fascists, and that Leftcoms don't think it's better for them to be alive than not to be
Whatever you say.
Fascists target people who aren't white.
I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit. Lots of people attack people who aren't white. Was the slave trade fascist now?
I did not say all attacks on POC is fascism. There are motivated groups of white nationalists who do so and many people who individually do so.
It's the only fucking criteria you've made. Your idea of fascism is about as complicated as a bag full of rocks and vague as shit.
It's pretty pathetic reading all these commenters put words in your mouth. These white people don't know and look, they've even brought in their 'black friend' in.
It did get annoying. It's pretty ironic for a group of people so against misinterpretations.
The first comment was sort of contradictory, so it kinda said that BLM is not a target for violence due to their race. Well, that's how I read it. Anyway, thanks for the clear up but I think should fix it by removing the "same goes for BLM" comment because it contradicts itself.
EDIT: some words
Lol get the fuck out of here. Do you think that black people can't be communists? I'll be sure to tell my black comrades and other POC comrades the next time I see them that they should be Maoists or something.
I never said that. I said most Leftcoms are white not that they should be white. I never said all Leftcoms are white either. Or that POC commies should be Maoists....
I said most Leftcoms are white
Oh? Are you a cop now or something? I don't even have a database of the ethnic make up of every communist left party and left communist associate in the world.
I don't doubt that thjey're right about the numbers of black left-communists, I've never even met another black communist in general, myself. That doesn't take away the fact that they're an asshole for this comment
I always felt this position Leftcoms hold is ridiculous since it's usually not them who are at risk for violence against their race. It's the same for other movements like BLM.
Especially considering that I fear for my safety as a result of this far-right surge in the last few years. I would hope that my white comrades feel solidarity with me, rather than feeling perplexed by the fact that anyone white would stand with me.
Lol you liberal communists better be afraid of the AltRight. White people on the right are sick of your shit. And we're ready to do battle. 88
What do you expect your battle to accomplish?
I'm so scared.
Trump may not be explicitly fascist, but he is changing the frame of reference - white supremacy is being reinvigorated.
How surprising, the great man of history theory with a liberal sprinkling of idealism on top? How out of the blue this is!
To be fair, and not that I agree with their point, but it doesn't seem like there's anything in the quoted text that's explicitly idealist, and they could be referring to Trump not as an actor of any change, but as a representative of a movement that has been reinvigorated.
Glad to see at least the leftcoms haven't lost it.
Just to let you know, this is a subreddit for communists. Your reactionary views are not allowed here.
Oh, it appears you have met me before then. Sorry thought police. I'm gonna go wait for my ban PM.
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No, I'm done. I have been subbed here for a long time because I was willing to hear you guys out, but at the point where I see "fuck antifa because it might not result in the exact communism we want" with 100% upvotes, I finally realized how full of shit this perspective is. If you can't even come together over the question of literal nazis, then you do not deserve my consideration anymore.
"fuck antifa because it might not result in the exact communism we want"
lol how long did you say you were reading things here for?
You should read the actual text instead of vague hand-waving about "muh exact communism", it's worth a read (and it's short).
Is fascism really what Trump, Le Pen and others of their ilk represent? There’s nothing that indicates that their aim is to do away with the basic rules of the democratic game. That doesn’t mean that they are not dangerous. But democracy can accommodate repression, war crimes and attacks on the working class just as well, if not better, than fascism. The common denominator is increased nationalism and militarism. Most of the ruling class may have preferred Clinton but they are more than willing to see if Trump can use these tools to protect and increase their profits. The health care bill, recently approved in the House of Representatives, amongst other measures, shows clearly that the new administration is launching a ferocious attack on the proletariat. No wonder it evokes disgust and anger, which we share. We express our solidarity with the protests and struggles against the attacks of the state, while at the same time pointing out that this is capital attacking the working class, not fascism attacking democracy. In fighting back, the choice comes up: do we ally ourselves with factions of the ruling class in opposition in order to defeat the faction in power, or do we fight them both? By framing the conflict as one between fascism and democracy, the partisans of antifa are making the first choice seem logical and necessary, and are thereby, despite their combativity, acting as water carriers for capitalism.
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You've completely misunderstood the article.
Nor are there multiple kinds of communism
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The article even links antifa with Stalinism.
Antifa was literally the purpose of the majority East European Stalinist states.
Antifa are anarchists.
They're supporters the bourgeoisie who are more than happy to drop any revolutionary principle. Maybe you should take a long look at Stalinism, you might find something in common.
I've been subbed here for years
I'm fairly certain that you're a moron liar. How many things have been posted here about fascism that you've yet to comment on?
You are a moron.
There is no such thing as purity test.
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Fortunately it's not a position being pushed by this essay, nor by leftcoms in general
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I actually think I might agree with you here, though you may disagree with why. The historical critique of antifa doesn't quite apply to the situation in the US today, mostly because there isn't a major fascist movement in the US today. Fascism is an existential threat to bourgeois democracy, hence the criticism that antifa movements defend said democracy, but the milieu of white nationalist that this so-called "antifa" arrays itself against is well within the wheelhouse of neoliberalism.
Holy shit dude just read the fucking article. Don't comment if you aren't going to read it. They aren't saying that standing up to white nationalists are bad, they are saying the logic of anti-fascism is bad because it plays into the hands of Capital (historically and in contemporary times) and binds the proletariat to the petite-bourgeoisie:
Is fascism really what Trump, Le Pen and others of their ilk represent? There’s nothing that indicates that their aim is to do away with the basic rules of the democratic game. That doesn’t mean that they are not dangerous. But democracy can accommodate repression, war crimes and attacks on the working class just as well, if not better, than fascism. The common denominator is increased nationalism and militarism. Most of the ruling class may have preferred Clinton but they are more than willing to see if Trump can use these tools to protect and increase their profits. The health care bill, recently approved in the House of Representatives, amongst other measures, shows clearly that the new administration is launching a ferocious attack on the proletariat. No wonder it evokes disgust and anger, which we share. We express our solidarity with the protests and struggles against the attacks of the state, while at the same time pointing out that this is capital attacking the working class, not fascism attacking democracy. In fighting back, the choice comes up: do we ally ourselves with factions of the ruling class in opposition in order to defeat the faction in power, or do we fight them both? By framing the conflict as one between fascism and democracy, the partisans of antifa are making the first choice seem logical and necessary, and are thereby, despite their combativity, acting as water carriers for capitalism.
Not really sure why you think the bolded parts refute or even address my initial post.
In what way, frankly, is using non state sanctioned violence against white supremacists allying with the Democratic Party or anyone? I haven't seen Antifa distributing flyers for Kamala Harris. Antifa is not a force for lesser evil electoralism.
Because you seem to think "standing up to white nationalists is bad" is their argument. Which isn't the argument they are putting forward, that's a misunderstanding of what the article is saying, which is why I quoted and bolded parts, to help and make that clear.
In what way, frankly, is using non state sanctioned violence against white supremacists allying with the Democratic Party or anyone? I haven't seen Antifa distributing flyers for Kamala Harris. Antifa is not a force for lesser evil electoralism.
Because the logic and framework of anti-fascism leads (or already has begun leading to) class collaboration. The rhetoric of anti-fascism, because it is not class based and is rather framed as "democracy vs fascism", necessarily brings about a class collaborationist front. It allows liberals whom are filled with their own petty-bourgeoisie conception of society to join the anti-fascists and fight for democracy.
Rather the framework or rhetoric should be "socialism or barbarism" to express the nature of Capital in it's manifestation of Fascism. The logic of anti-fascism will necessarily play into the hands of Capital as it continues. Communists should oppose fascism of their own agency instead of allowing the logic of anti-fascism to play out and class collaboration-ism to take place.
You can tell this because of this sentence here:
In fighting back, the choice comes up: do we ally ourselves with factions of the ruling class in opposition in order to defeat the faction in power, or do we fight them both?
I propose that we fight them both. Which is what I think this article was implying or alluding to.
Hopefully that clears it up a bit.
Because the logic and framework of anti-fascism leads (or already has begun leading to) class collaboration. The rhetoric of anti-fascism, because it is not class based and is rather framed as "democracy vs fascism", necessarily brings about a class collaborationist front.
But this is merely asserted rather than actually shown.
I propose that we fight them both. Which is what I think this article was implying or alluding to.
That is an argument for a different KIND of Antifa, not anti-antifa
This reads like trying to import tactical lessons from Europe in the 20th century to a context where they are not relevant and probably actually counterproductive. (Assuming they weren't also counterproductive then, which I think is an open question.)
[removed]
1 reply:
Follow-up: https://www.ericlee.info/blog/?p=2015
Second follow-up: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/01/ukra-o01.html
https://twitter.com/StupidpolX/status/1274480450224959488
What's up with that?
36 replies:
who once called anti-fascism the "most sinister" product of Fascism
Make sure it sounds as scary as possible!
and fought against attempts by Italian Communists to form a broader anti-fascist alliance
These "Italian Communists" were just defending democratic capitalism. Why would communists defend one form of capitalism against another?
Fascists and social-democrats are but two aspects of tomorrow's single enemy
The author should think about what Bordiga is saying here, then they should think about what this means for their "Bordiga liked Fascism" theory.
Several of Bordiga's followers went on to become prominent Holocaust deniers
Who?
a trend started by the revisionist essay "Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi"
That's odd. I don't see how that article would turn anyone into a Holocaust denier given that the entire point of it is to explain why the Holocaust happened.
Bordiga himself was expelled from the Italian Communist Party following his releases from prison in 1930
Hmmm I wonder what happened in the PCI that might have caused that.
Bordiga expressed critical support for the Axis powers on many occasions
When?
and reiterated this position in his publications after the war.
Which publications?
Living up to the name of their subreddit, it seems.
Make sure it sounds as scary as possible!
Considering this post was supposedly made by the /r/Stupidpol mods (an anti-idpol subreddit) I'm under the impression that the claims of offense taken are entirely facetious/trolling.
Several of Bordiga's followers went on to become prominent Holocaust deniers
I recall reading that some advocacy groups extend the definition of holocaust denial not just to denying that the event happened, but also to other things such as:
Claiming that the victims were not killed because they were Jewish.
Claiming that the holocaust was not an exceptional historical example of mass killing.
Obviously "The Great Alibi" does not deny that the holocaust happened, but it could perhaps be made to fit under those two categories, so I assume that could be the origin of the claim that Borgida's followers were holocaust deniers (if it's not just a simple misinterpretation of the piece's title by someone who didn't read the text at all).
Considering this post was supposedly made by the /r/Stupidpol mods (an anti-idpol subreddit) I'm under the impression that the claims of offense taken are entirely facetious/trolling.
Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.
I recall reading that some advocacy groups extend the definition of holocaust denial not just to denying that the event happened, but also to other things such as:
1. Claiming that the victims were not killed because they were Jewish.
Does the Great Alibi claim that?
2. Claiming that the holocaust was not an exceptional historical example of mass killing.
What does this even mean? Each mass killing has some particularities to it. The very fact that we can speak of it as a mass killing shows that there is some commonality, even though there are differences in other aspects. Attempting to make the Holocaust some supernatural, incomprehensible event is anti-scientific garbage with a clear agenda.
so I assume that could be the origin of the claim that Borgida's followers were holocaust deniers
That isn't the origin. The reasons for this slander are social, it has a clear interest behind it, and it is much more dishonest, as can be read in the texts the ICP have written on the matter. Libri Incogniti hosts them all.
Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.
Fair enough, I was just guessing after a quick look.
Does the Great Alibi claim that?
I'm not saying it does, but by giving a materialist/economic explanation for the events rather than just "antisemitism, case-closed" some may interpret it as such (I believe this was addressed in the text "Race and Class" directly). In other words, it's not as much of a stretch compared to saying that the Great Alibi denies the events happened at all; that was my only point.
What does this even mean?
I don't know, I'm not the one making the claim. I'm just reporting what I've seen. Here's an example from auschwitz.org's page on "Denial forms":
The aim of denying the existence of the gas chambers is, first, to negate the mass scale of the crime of genocide. The second aim is to make it easier to contend that people have always been killed on a greater or lesser scale throughout history, and that the things that the Nazis did during the Second World War were hardly exceptional, but rather examples of the kind of repression that always occurs during war.
Obviously the Great Alibi isn't denying the existence of the gas chambers, but the second half of this paragraph seems to put a lot of emphasis on "exceptional"-ness of the holocaust.
That isn't the origin. The reasons for this slander are social, it has a clear interest behind it, and it is much more dishonest, as can be read in the texts the ICP have written on the matter. Libri Incogniti hosts them all.
I'm sure you're right that it's not the origin, I guess I phrased that poorly. However, I've previously seen random users on reddit reference these various "forms of holocaust denial" while talking about the Great Alibi. So while it is not the origin, it has become mixed in there somewhere in recent years.
I'm not saying it does, but by giving a materialist/economic explanation for the events rather than just "antisemitism, case-closed" some may interpret it as such (I believe this was addressed in the text "Race and Class" directly).
Who cares about what people "interpret"? What matters is what the text actually says, irrespective of what people want to read into it. And the text does, among other things, precisely give an explanation of the rise of antisemitism.
In other words, it's not as much of a stretch compared to saying that the Great Alibi denies the events happened at all; that was my only point.
How can it be more or less of a stretch? Either it's a correct reproach, or it isn't. Is there a degree of truth?
Obviously the Great Alibi isn't denying the existence of the gas chambers, but the second half of this paragraph seems to put a lot of emphasis on "exceptional"-ness of the holocaust.
But the Great Alibi does not ahistorically equate the Holocaust with all sorts of mass killings that happened throughout history and war. In fact, one of its central points is to determine how the Holocaust arose exactly from capitalist society, and there in very specific conditions. This is explaining the particularity of it, and at the same time giving a whole proper basis to judging and comparing it with different genocides.
However, I've previously seen random users on reddit reference these various "forms of holocaust denial" while talking about the Great Alibi. So while it is not the origin, it has become mixed in there somewhere in recent years.
People like to come up with all sorts of poorly considered ad-hoc arguments to throw at the essay. Their motivation lies somewhere else, presumably in the a priori wish to defend anti-fascism.
People like to come up with all sorts of poorly considered ad-hoc arguments to throw at the essay. Their motivation lies somewhere else, presumably in the a priori wish to defend anti-fascism.
Speaking of ad-hoc retardation. Check out this moron
Look here’s the issue with left communists trying to “well actually” the piece “Auschwitz or the Great Alibi”: a defence that relies on “anti-semitism denial” is just as bad, particularly in the eyes of the descendants of Holocaust victims, as Holocaust denial.
Obviously left communists have a point when they say fascism is A FORM of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie just as bourgeois democracy is, but so what? A labour strike is usually a form of reformism in practice, and rarely can be said to challenge bourgeois rule as such.
Reducing the Nazi Holocaust to a form of primitive accumulation and nothing more is certainly consistent with left communist disdain for ascribing a special historical role to fascism and is a manifestation of their unwillingness to take up anti-fascism as a cause unto itself.
The issue of course is that we now live in a time of fascism rising again and most everyone but Bordiguists can see with their own eyes that there is an importance to fascism as ideology and subjectivity and not merely as some mechanical inevitability barely worth commenting upon
Oh no, it’s a meme that will be accused of oversimplifying matters, but who could be oversimplifying matters more than those accused above?
They don't appear to know what primitive accumulation is, what fascism is, or even what reformism is. Or even class struggle, or what that text actually says. It's amusing that they even start out as saying "he's right but...". And this person is apparently some sort of bastion of tankie ideology.
a defence that relies on “anti-semitism denial” is just as bad, particularly in the eyes of the descendants of Holocaust victims, as Holocaust denial.
Aside from the fact that the text does not deny antisemitism, one can see here how leftists can never let go of their moralising.
A labour strike is usually a form of reformism in practice, and rarely can be said to challenge bourgeois rule as such.
So as you said, they don't know what reformism is. And even beyond that, I'm not sure what point they are making here.
Reducing the Nazi Holocaust to a form of primitive accumulation
They probably haven't read Capital, but David Harvey. Or they are just this dumb.
and nothing more is certainly consistent with left communist disdain for ascribing a special historical role to fascism
This is deliberately worded so vaguely that it could mean anything, which tells us that they have no idea of what they're talking about. What is a "special historical role"? If fascism were not "special" at all, it would not be distinguished from democracy to begin with.
and is a manifestation of their unwillingness to take up anti-fascism as a cause unto itself.
One could just as easily claim that people's rejection of the Great Alibi is "a manifestation of their unwillingness to let go of anti-fascism".
The issue of course is that we now live in a time of fascism rising again
Haha, good joke. Orange man bad! Is there a time for leftists at which fascism is not on the rise? They certainly have no clue of what fascism is.
and most everyone but Bordiguists can see with their own eyes that there is an importance to fascism as ideology and subjectivity
This is what they actually want to get back to: Anti-materialism.
and not merely as some mechanical inevitability barely worth commenting upon
This mechanical inevitability exists solely in their own head.
Who cares about what people "interpret"? What matters is what the text actually says, irrespective of what people want to read into it.
I mean that's the entire topic of this discussion isn't it? I don't disagree that what the text says is what actually matters, but this is a thread about people making untrue claims about the Great Alibi, whether by misinterpretation/misunderstanding, hearsay without reading it themselves, or outright lying.
How can it be more or less of a stretch? Either it's a correct reproach, or it isn't. Is there a degree of truth?
No there is not a degree of truth, but surely some distortions are more detached from the content of a text than others, even if both are equally incorrect. Twisting an author's words to make an incorrect claim about his position is not exactly the same as making a statement that has no relevance to the content of the text whatsoever, in terms of how you would respond to it, is it? If someone said the Great Alibi asserts that "all elephants are pink" would you respond the same way?
I have no disagreement with the rest of your comment.
I mean that's the entire topic of this discussion isn't it? I don't disagree that what the text says is what actually matters, but this is a thread about people making untrue claims about the Great Alibi, whether by misinterpretation/misunderstanding, hearsay without reading it themselves, or outright lying.
You initially said "some may interpret it as claiming that the victims were not killed because they were Jewish". What I wanted to stress is that the people doing this are wrong. Talking about different "interpretations" gives the impression that they would each be equally valid, quite like academics act when they need to carve out a niche for themselves. Such differing "interpretations" only arise because people want to find something in a text, much like with Marx. When you investigate a matter, you as an individual subject disappear. You have no freedom in choosing what reality looks like - it is one.
No there is not a degree of truth, but surely some distortions are more detached from the content of a text than others, even if both are equally incorrect. Twisting an author's words to make an incorrect claim about his position is not exactly the same as making a statement that has no relevance to the content of the text whatsoever, in terms of how you would respond to it, is it? If someone said the Great Alibi asserts that "all elephants are pink" would you respond the same way?
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I don't see how saying that the Great Alibi would put forward that "Jews were not killed because they were Jews" is in any way closer to the content than saying that the text denies the event took place altogether. It does not say either of them, neither does it approach one of them. Your elephant analogy is stupid, because no one would bring up such an example anyway.
You initially said "some may interpret it as claiming that the victims were not killed because they were Jewish". What I wanted to stress is that the people doing this are wrong. Talking about different "interpretations" gives the impression that they would each be equally valid, quite like academics act when they need to carve out a niche for themselves. Such differing "interpretations" only arise because people want to find something in a text, much like with Marx. When you investigate a matter, you as an individual subject disappear. You have no freedom in choosing what reality looks like - it is one.
I did not mean to imply that such an "interpretation" would be valid. I just meant "I could see how someone could twist that interpretation out of the words to fit their preconceived notions or agenda". I did not mean "interpretation" in the way that academics say it, where they absurdly consider their contradictory "lenses" as equally valid.
Fair enough, at least we clarified that now.
If someone said the Great Alibi asserts that "all elephants are pink" would you respond the same way?
That is a stupid argument. It starts off from the fact that it happened. Suggesting that it even approaches holocaust denial would miss the entire point of the article.
Oh, the tweet itself is definitely sarcasm. I was more focused on the image linked since that sort of rhetoric towards “the Great Alibi” is not uncommon coming from leftists.
While the idea of it being Holocaust denial probably did start from someone applying that rather loose definition, no doubt there’s a great number of people that never read it who think it straight up denies the Holocaust even happened, especially when quotes like that are paired up with fear-mongering about Bordiga “fighting against attempts to form a broader anti-fascist alliance”.
the tweet itself is definitely sarcasm.
It comes from here
Don't know why I expected any better from a sub named "stupidpol".
Looking at that sub now, they sure do seem to care a lot about TV shows and Twitter users.
While the idea of it being Holocaust denial probably did start from someone applying that rather loose definition
People start from the premise that they want the essay to be wrong. The search for how to slander it only starts then.
I find it weird that anyone would take anyone on libcom as being mentally capable enough to be considered an "expert" on anything. If they were, they wouldn't be posting proudly on libcom as if it was some sort of great meeting of the minds.
Most of this nonsense stems seemingly from this one user under the name anythingforproximity, who has previously been demonstrated to falsely (knowingly or otherwise) translate certain passages and then to make a big deal over the tone of the text, rather than the actual content. They either can't read or they're attempting to cherry pick an argument, for what reason, we hazard the guess at carving out some sort of pathetic niche in the annals of libcom research. For instance, in the original post it links to him quoting this
Le mie tesi che non avevano altro di abile che la esatta corrispondenza a quanto pensavo non hanno mancato di trascendere la modesta competenza e preparazione di questi specialisti di polizia politica.
Which comes out as
My theses, which had nothing but the exact correspondence to what I thought, did not fail to transcend the modest competence and preparation of these political police specialists.
But for afp they only highlight "which had nothing but the exact correspondence to what I thought", missing the fact that Bordiga is saying that the police informants were too stupid to catch on to the joke. Afp apparently is on the same level as fascist police informants.
Besides, the little part where this quotation comes from essentially spells that out.
In regards to the whole
The great and authentic revolutionaries of the world are two: Mussolini and Hitler. But Mussolini's past shows that Il Duce has always been against the plutocracy and against the democracies, which paralyze the life of nations
That more or less is the position of the ICP and I find it funny that people are unable to catch on mainly because bombastic language he used. Seems to be a pattern forming here, no? In fact, it's rather similar to the libs who go around complaining about the language used by Marx and try to paint him as a racist, an anti-semitie, a male chauvinist and whatever else one fancies. If we take away that, there is little to complain about. People who do are the ones who fall again for the bourgeois use of the holocaust for their own ends, people who take at face value fascist propaganda.
AFP even writes
It is difficult to interpret this in any other way than as saying that the victory of the Axis would have been the preferable outcome.
It is hard to imagine anyone who thinks in terms of communism (that might be the problem) can say this after we've had 75 years of triumphant capitalism and a moribund labor movement. Especially when we see people post stuff like this. This may explain why all of these who profess to be on the left seem to do little but invoke the decrepit images of people from the communist movement past. Or why it seems to exist mostly in the study rooms of academics, pouring over it like some dead civilization.
Back to these stupidpol libs the irony is not lost on us when they write
who once called anti-fascism the "most sinister" product of Fascism
Better check under your bourgeois beds!
fought against attempts by Italian Communists to form a broader anti-fascist alliance against the Blackshirts on the eve of Mussolini's rise
I wonder if they actually believe that the Party actively did nothing. They look like they don't even know the situation and think that Mussolini and state repression just began one night in October 1922. This has been gone over to death before, but, unfortunately, you can take a lib to water but you can't make it drink.
Bordiga expressed critical support for the Axis powers on many occasions
He did not express "critical support". Nor did he, according to afp, "sympathize" with, or "put his hopes in" the Axis powers. Someone is hypocritically trying to set off the lib moral panic alarm.
/u/dr_marx in another comment linked the source of the image from the tweet. Presumably the OP of that Reddit thread also runs that Twitter account, or is one of the people running it - another egomaniac so proud of the garbage they piled up that they feel comfortable quoting themselves.
Oddly enough, LibCom's Antifa politics are compatible [with?] their site serving as largest [sic!] online platform for the ideas Italian ultra-left [sic!] Marxist Amadeo Bordiga, who once called anti-fascism the "most sinister" product of Fascism, and fought against attempts by Italian Communists to form a broader anti-fascist alliance against the Blackshirts on the eve of Mussolini's rise.
It seems like that person invokes Bordiga because they have an axe to grind with Libcom for them criticising one of /r/stupidpol's patron saints. No doubt that Mike Harman and his anarchist entourage are utter morons. It would indeed be preferable if they were to remove all hosted ICP articles altogether, given their phony attempts at slandering them. But the OP of that tweet is not an ounce better.
It is interesting that a moderator of a subreddit dedicated to criticising identity politics would bring the hosting of texts into connection with endorsement of their content. You'd think that they would abstain from such hysteric "cancel culture", which more often than not consists precisely in this establishing of arbitrary relations to supposedly "reactionary" stances. It means judging individuals and institutions by anything but their practical actions. But apparently this person likes to point out this behaviour in others, while having no qualms indulging in it themselves.
Going around, scolding others for distributing "wrong ideas" is an outlook both Libcom and this /r/stupidpol moderator share. But people do not become practical fascists because they read "Mein Kampf", irrespective of what they might claim themselves. They do so because of the need their social position, and the conditions in which they find themselves, produce in them. In the same manner, people don't become practical communists because they read Bordiga on Libcom. Communism wasn't born when Gracchus Babeuf suddenly had some smart ideas, but it emerged alongside the industrial proletariat.
Even accepting these ideological premises which abstract from the interests of class society, this manner of judging what is to be hosted does not fly. It denies readers the capacity of coming to the correct conclusions themselves. If Libcom were fully convinced of their anti-fascism, they would think that it would survive scrutiny - hence, they would have no problem hosting texts critical of it. The fact that they do not do this without writing long-winded disclaimers as prefaces shows their insecurity; that they want to taint their readers' views. Clearly they are accustomed to lie for defending their position.
To wrap back around to the quote above: It isn't true that Libcom is the "largest online platform for the ideas Italian ultra-left Marxist Amadeo Bordiga". Maybe in terms of views (we can hardly know that), but MIA, Sinistra, the websites of the ICPs and various blogs host more texts than Libcom. The term "ultra-left" - in so far as it isn't a simple reproach by Stalinists thrown at all dissent - also does not apply to Bordiga and the ICP. As for the rest, this cuck obviously thinks that fighting against "a broader anti-fascist alliance" would be damning in itself, which only shows their bourgeois framework, as well as their lack of acquaintance with fascism and the conditions in Italy back then.
Presaging the ultra-left "Third Period" policy of the Comintern, Bordiga wrote in 1921:
Fascists and social-democrats are but two aspects of tomorrow’s single enemy.
In the link provided, Bordiga says that the Stalinists had to acknowledge that the judgement of social-democrats and fascists being two faces of the same enemy was put forward by Italian left communists before. This does not mean that this statement presaged the "Third Period", as that policy included the directives to attack social-democracy above all other bourgeois factions, as well as to abandon all "reactionary" trade-unions on principle in favour of founding new, communist ones. Bordiga and the ICP did not agree with either of these policies - here being in full accordance with what Lenin lays out in his "Infantile Disorder" by the way. Were the Stalinists the real infantile ultra-leftists all along?
Several of Bordiga's followers went on to become prominent Holocaust deniers - a trend started by the revisionist essay "Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi", in French Bordigist publication (note: authorship of the piece is disputed).
The people quoted here became Holocaust deniers precisely when they had already disavowed critical-scientific communism proper, and accordingly had ceased to be "Bordiga's followers" (what a stupid notion to begin with!). This dumbass here showcases their ideological standpoint again when they assign this mental degeneration such importance, and above all attribute it to the mere publication of a text. What supernatural powers this article must possess to invoke the devil in the minds of people! It also is not true that "Auschwitz or the Great Alibi" is a "revisionist essay", but this has been belaboured at length ad nauseam. The authorship of it isn't disputed either. It used to be wrongly attributed to Bordiga himself, but was indeed written by Martin Axelrad. Not that it matters though, as it is in the end a collective work of the party and should be understood as such. This is not controversial.
Bordiga himself was expelled from the Italian Communist Party following his releases from prison in 1930, and had maintained an amicable relationship with OVRA agents throughout the 30s and 40s (during the Mussolini regime).
Bordiga was expelled from the PCI for accusations of "Trotskyism" at a time when the Stalinist counterrevolution was already in full force. Constructing some "amicable relationship with OVRA agents" is nothing but a dishonest attempt at bringing the communist left into connection with fascism. All Bordiga did was talk to them when he was under house arrest. How this would indicate sympathy, I do not presume to know.
Bordiga expressed critical support for the Axis powers on many occasions, both to OVRA agents and left-wing acquaintances, and reiterated this position in his publications after the war.
Here that person again shows their obsession with the moral purity of people's ideas. They are so detached from practical matters that a pure analysis of what the most favourable outcome in a situation of defeat would be already constitutes "critical support" to them. What tangible support should that have been, when we just heard that Bordiga was expelled from the party and stood under house arrest? Do they seriously think that Bordiga argued for the communist party to rally behind the axis powers, for the proletariat to fight on their behalf? Bordiga, who riled against Stalinism first precisely for allying with the fascists, and then for teaming up with the Allies? But even assuming this counterfactual is idiotic. The fact that fascism assumed power, caused in part by the disastrous policy of anti-fascism, precisely meant defeat of the labour movement, of which the expulsion of Bordiga from the party was just one small aspect.
Let's look at some of those "incriminating" quotes. First, we have those contained in that Libcom thread (let's disregard that they might even be forgeries):
Therefore, June 10 (the date of Mussolini's declaration of war) was for me what you call a great day. But now that Hitler has grown soft, I begin to lose the trust I had placed in the Axis to strangle and pull down the so-called British colossus, that is, the greatest exponent of capitalism. They are afraid of bringing down England, they are afraid because they know that with it, the whole capitalist system will collapse. [...] I still hope that Hitler will not renounce the struggle, and will go all the way, to the extreme consequences.
The great and authentic revolutionaries of the world are two: Mussolini and Hitler. But Mussolini's past shows that Il Duce has always been against the plutocracy and against the democracies, which paralyze the life of nations.
Stalin, allying himself with London and Washington, has betrayed the cause of the proletariat. Moreover, I can say that on this I agree with Il Duce, when he says, as he did in his speech from last November, that if there is a man who desperately wanted the war, who first prepared it and then instigated it, it is the American president. From my point of view, however, I clarify that Roosevelt is nothing but the exponent of supercapitalism that aims at the conquest of a totalitarian imperialism.
If Hitler can make yield the odious powers of England and America, while making thus precarious the capitalist world balance, long live the butcher Hitler who works in spite of himself to create the conditions of the proletarian world revolution … All the wars henceforth - it is an general observation - find their final epilogue in revolutionary facts. After the defeat succeeds the revolution.
Now where is the problem? Do you need to picture Bordiga winking through the text? What is so reprehensible about what he says?
Then, we have those, from what has been called "publications after the war" by that /r/stupidpol moderator:
The evidence of contemporary events has shown everyone how the exit from the war situation has meant at the same time, in the whole area, the salvation of democracy and the death of the workers’ revolution. And that saved democracy, without any surprise to the Marxists, resembles, like two drops of water, the defeated fascisms. Therefore it is right to say that a greater evil could not be envisaged; that the lesser evil would be the defeat of the powerful English and American centres of world imperialism.
https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/on-the-thread-of-time-compasses-gone-mad/
This party, in the Second Imperialist War 1939-45, should also have supported breaking the policy and action of war within all states. A Marxist could, however, preserve the right, without fearing that the usual libertarian ideologists would accuse him of sympathising with a tyrant, to make calculations and to investigate the consequences of Hitler's victory over London and of an English collapse. This same Marxist will retain the right, while demonstrating that Stalin's regime has not, for at least twenty years, been a proletarian regime, to consider the useful revolutionary consequences that would result from the - unfortunately unlikely - collapse of American power, in a possible third war of states and armies.
https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2019/08/02/on-the-thread-of-time-romance-of-the-holy-war/
Already immediately after the First World War, at the first appearance of fascism in Italy in 1919, we solved the historical and strategic question: No joining a liberal-democratic bloc against fascism – and just as little any bloc forming with fascism against the liberal bourgeoisie. We also immediately said why: Because they are not two social classes, but one and the same.
To have practiced the bloc strategy, even in both directions, is enough for us to explain the retreat of our revolution.
https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2018/02/23/on-the-thread-of-time-forward-barbarians/
Even within the cycle during which the proletarian International refuses any support by its own organised political forces for wars between States, and denies that the presence on one side of despotic feudal States (or States that are less democratic than others) is a reason to abandon this historic international position, and everywhere adopts a defeatist stance within the “own” country, it can and must however consider the different effects of this or that outcome of the conflict in its historical analysis.
We have given many examples in other texts: in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877, in which Franco-British democracy rooted for the Russians, Marx ardently sympathised with the Turks. In the Greek-Turkish war of independence of 1899, without going as far as to volunteer to fight like the anarchists and republicans, left-socialists were for Greece; later, they took sides with the Young Turks’ revolution and also for the liberation of the Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians in the territories under Ottoman domination in the Balkan wars of 1912. And the same thing could be said of the Boer War against the English, a war, like the Spanish-American War of 1898, which had extra-European impacts and was fought for imperialist purposes.
But these were only episodes that punctuated the great period of calm that lasted from 1871 to 1914.
Next came the world wars: every proletarian party that supported its State or its allies in war committed an act of treason; everywhere, the tactic of revolutionary defeatism had to be applied. From this crystal-clear conclusion, however, one must not deduce that the victory of one or another side would make no difference in terms of the development of events from a revolutionary perspective.
Our position on this question is known. The victory of the Western democracies and of America in the first and second world wars set back the possibilities for the communist revolution, whereas the opposite outcome would have accelerated them.
https://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/53FaRNen.htm#38
Does it get any more clear than this? Bordiga and the ICP did not harbour any genuine sympathies for Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin and the USSR. In fact, they believed that the Axis powers would not win, in all likelihood:
Bordiga was arrested and questioned by the German military authorities during their brief occupation of Naples in 1943. The story is that this time he actually utilized the occasion "to prove mathematically" to his captors that Germany could not win the war.
They are stating which outcome, on which the proletariat had no political influence, would be the most favourable so that the proletariat could have a political influence again in the future. We are talking about a situation in which the communist party was already practically destroyed by the Stalinist counterrevolution. Bordiga was under house arrest, and the labour movement under almost complete control of Stalinism. Appeals to revolutionary defeatism fell on deaf ears.
When communists do the most that can be done to fight the momentary political incapacity of the proletariat, but they see that it will still be incapable of having an effect on the outcome in due time, what is there to do with regard to the respective present situation beyond prudently assessing which outcome would help the proletariat regain political capacity the most? The ICP even explains that the essential characteristics of fascism have been absorbed by the victorious democracies anyway! And as /u/dr_marx mentioned, 75 years of triumphant capitalism show that they were right.
Marx and Engels often did the same, as explained in that quote above, when they were saying that certain individuals act "in spite of themselves" as "revolutionaries" (used in the broader sense of the word) for the communist cause. They also were faced with counterrevolution when they liquidated the IWMA. They wanted to avoid it falling to the hands of the Proudhonists, which would have meant a similar fate for the labour movement as the Comintern falling to Stalinism. In such a situation of defeat, they also frequently talked about what the most favourable outcome of a war would be for the labour movement, which does not mean that they argued that the communist party, the political organ of the proletariat, should have thrown itself behind either of the combatants had it been capable of intervening to begin with. Remember old Engels:
The workers' party, which in all questions at issue between reaction and bourgeoisie stands outside the actual conflict, enjoys the advantage of being able to treat such questions quite cold-bloodedly and impartially. It alone can treat them scientifically, historically, as though they were already in the past, anatomically, as though they were already corpses.
It also is not true that "Auschwitz or the Great Alibi" is a "revisionist essay"
If anything, it was so ahead of its time that only within the last few years have regular bourgeois historians have began to stagger in this "revisionist" direction.
It also is not true that "Auschwitz or the Great Alibi" is a "revisionist essay", but this has been belaboured at length ad nauseam.
I'm not sure if this is relevant, but in the context of holocaust history the term "revisionist" seems to be positively counter-posed with the negative term "denial". According to Wikipedia:
Scholars use the term denial to describe the views and methodology of Holocaust deniers in order to distinguish them from legitimate historical revisionists, who challenge orthodox interpretations of history using established historical methodologies.
Of course it seems more likely the writer of the reddit post being responded to was using it in the colloquial sense meaning "distortion of theory" or whatever.
With regard to the Holocaust, "revisionism" is typically used as a synonym for "denial". You're correct in saying that this is not the case in other histories.
Lowly stupidpol janny here. I believe that's tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, given the context.
The libcom twitter account put forth a woke but largely ahistorical criticism of Grant as having been some sort of racist/genocidal anti-semite. Given that sort of addlepated 'critique', it would seem inconsistent to then also maintain an archive of Bordigist literature which included the essay "Auschwitz or the Great Alibi"- and yet nonetheless they do so.
I believe that's tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, given the context.
Well damn. Personally I think its a shame our top mod is hostile to Bordiga but then otherwise receptive to defense of Nagle against her critics.
Why? stupidpol is essentially a sub for libs and idiots.
we do tolerate all kinds of users, yes.
we do tolerate all kinds of users, yes.
You do understand that your mod list is public and we can all see what they post?
yes, of course. we also have ~80 mods which means there is a diversity of opinions and ideologies at work- for better and for worse.
i personally think it would be better if we had a more unified outlook and moderatorial policy, but I'm like mod# 70 out of the 80 total, and as such I don't shape the subreddit beyond the content I cull.
i personally think it would be better if we had a more unified outlook and moderatorial policy, but I'm like mod# 70 out of the 80 total, and as such I don't shape the subreddit beyond the content I cull.
You're one of the morons we're talking about here.
It's not a shame. It's exactly what is to be expected of the subreddit.
I am working through the version found here.
My concern is actually the first sections of this document, and I really have just not been able to figure out what is meant by
(2) Communism (α) still political in nature – democratic or despotic; (β) with the abolition of the state, yet still incomplete, and being still affected by private property, i.e., by the estrangement of man. In both forms communism already is aware of being reintegration or return of man to himself, the transcendence of human self-estrangement; but since it has not yet grasped the positive essence of private property, and just as little the human nature of need, it remains captive to it and infected by it. It has, indeed, grasped its concept, but not its essence.
My understanding is that crude communism and this type of communism in (2) are historical forms that communist theory takes before the proletariat is sufficiently developed as a class such that scientific communism, which I believe is what (3) is referring to, can come on the scene. I think that's correct with the references to Proudhon, Fourier, and Saint-Simon and the endnote in (1) referring to older crude communism?
But the other two sections make sense to me, and I just can't seem to wrap my head around what is meant here. I would guess it's referring to Fourier or Saint Simon (neither of who I know much about at all) thinking a particular form of labor is the problem, but when I read it that way it's not clicking. Like, they understand it as the end of self-estrangement but mistakenly place the source of estrangement in a particular form of labor, type of private property, rather than private property itself? Or am I just completely misunderstanding the manuscript to begin with?
This probably falls under the 'basic questions' rule but I have kept coming back to this on my own without getting it.
Thank you for any help you can offer in understanding this bit.
What does it mean when marxists (particularly leftcoms) say Marx was opposed to "economics"? I understand Marx was against capitalism and things like the market, but surely leftcoms believe in some kind of economy (by which I mean a system of production and distribution of goods and services)? What are some leftcom ideas of how a society should be organized?
I know some other leftist ideas such as parecon, however, I know that a lot of leftcom marxists don't subscribe to it because its utopian. I've also heard similar criticisms of Paul Cockshott (on top of the fact that he is a Tankie).
Also it seems like every Marxist (more broadly speaking, not just leftcoms) have their own interpretation of how a society's system of production should be organized, sometimes being completely different from that of other Marxists. How can we create a "socialist movement" with so much division? It's hard enough to win the hearts and minds of people on relativley simple issues, let alone the radical restructuring of society.
Is this an impossible task?
25 replies:
What does it mean when marxists (particularly leftcoms) say Marx was opposed to "economics"?
First of all: The people calling themselves "leftcoms" on the internet are perhaps bigger morons than the people they are talking to. They don't understand this themselves, and will likely just repeat whatever is explained in this thread here.
Now on to the actual question: Consider the significance of Capital's subtitle - "Critique of Political Economy". The term itself originates in a 1843 essay by Engels, called "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy", which was published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, and which starts like this:
Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment.
Marx takes up the task of criticising political economy that Engels started with this essay. He says as much in the preface to his "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" from 1859:
Friedrich Engels, with whom I maintained a constant exchange of ideas by correspondence since the publication of his brilliant essay on the critique of economic categories (printed in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, arrived by another road (compare his Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) at the same result as I, and when in the spring of 1845 he too came to live in Brussels, we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience.
Likewise, a year earlier, in a letter to Lassalle:
The work I am presently concerned with is a Critique of Economic Categories or, if you like, a critical exposé of the system of the bourgeois economy. It is at once an exposé and, by the same token, a critique of the system.
What he means by this is that he does not aim to put forward another "lens" or "theory" for political economy to look through, but to criticise the entire discipline. Private property is the legal expression for the production relations corresponding to the rule of the bourgeoisie. Its movement brings forth different forms in which it exists, which can then be conceived in categories: prices, money, wages, value, etc. These existed before there being a systematic account of them (political economy).
What political economy now did, in its best times, was to accept these categories as given, as if they were objects independent of human activity: like being the first human to encounter a tree, and attempting to explain what it is. It then proceeded to attempt to show the necessity of these categories, and to uncover the laws of how they relate to each other. The political economists, like Adam Smith or David Ricardo, coldly followed their subject matter, without holding back on the implications of their findings. They did this in order to prove the superiority of these categories over feudal society, as Marx explains in the Poverty of Philosophy:
We have the fatalist economists, who in their theory are as indifferent to what they call the drawbacks of bourgeois production as the bourgeois themselves are in practice to the sufferings of the proletarians who help them to acquire wealth. In this fatalist school, there are Classics and Romantics. The Classics, like Adam Smith and Ricardo, represent a bourgeoisie which, while still struggling with the relics of feudal society, works only to purge economic relations of feudal taints, to increase the productive forces and to give a new upsurge to industry and commerce. The proletariat that takes part in this struggle and is absorbed in this feverish labour experiences only passing, accidental sufferings, and itself regards them as such. Economists like Adam Smith and Ricardo, who are the historians of this epoch, have no other mission than that of showing how wealth is acquired in bourgeois production relations, of formulating these relations into categories, into laws, and of showing how superior these laws, these categories, are for the production of wealth to the laws and categories of feudal society. Poverty is in their eyes merely the pang which accompanies every childbirth, in nature as in industry.
But they never completed their task - Ricardo for example could not understand labour power, the nature of money, or the role of demand. The reason for this is that the bourgeoisie was already in the process of ceasing to be a revolutionary class, at least in England, the country where political economy originated: the advent of capitalism meant that the proletariat entered the stage of history finally as a first rate class. Correspondingly, the bourgeoisie was forced to defend itself against it in the class struggle. Ricardo's findings, most obviously laying bare the lot of the proletariat in bourgeois society, suddenly were a big inconvenience. Hence, the contradictions in which Ricardo had entangled himself were used as an argument to dispense with his theories entirely. Marx, in his afterword to the second German edition of Capital Volume I:
Political Economy can remain a science only so long as the class-struggle is latent or manifests itself only in isolated and sporadic phenomena. [...] In France and in England the bourgeoisie had conquered political power. Thenceforth, the class-struggle, practically as well as theoretically, took on more and more outspoken and threatening forms. It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois economy. It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic.
Likewise, in the Poverty of Philosophy:
The more the antagonistic character comes to light, the more the economists, the scientific representatives of bourgeois production, find themselves in conflict with their own theory; and different schools arise.
[...]
Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class, so the Socialists and Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class.
The fact that Marx calls political economy the science of the bourgeoisie, respectively economists the "scientific representatives of the bourgeois class", should already tell you that Marx did not conceive of himself as an economist, nor considered his work as simply finishing what Smith and Ricardo had started. So what did Marx then do? He explains it in The Holy Family:
As the first criticism of any science is necessarily influenced by the premises of the science it is fighting against, so Proudhon's treatise […] is the criticism of political economy from the standpoint of political economy. […] Proudhon's treatise will therefore be scientifically superseded by a criticism of political economy, including Proudhon's conception of political economy. […]
All treatises on political economy take private property for granted. This basic premise is for them [the economists] an incontestable fact to which they devote no further investigation, indeed a fact which is spoken about only ‘accidentellement’, as Say naively admits. But Proudhon makes a critical investigation — the first resolute, ruthless, and at the same time scientific investigation — of the basis of political economy, private property. This is the great scientific advance he made, an advance which revolutionises political economy and for the first time makes a real science of political economy possible. […]
Proudhon does not consider the further creations of private property, e.g., wages, trade, value, price, money, etc., as forms of private property in themselves, as they are considered, for example, in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (see Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy by F. Engels), but uses these economic premises in arguing against the political economists; this is fully in keeping with his historically justified standpoint to which we referred above.
Accepting the relationships of private property as human and rational, political economy operates in permanent contradiction to its basic premise, private property, a contradiction analogous to that of the theologian who continually gives a human interpretation to religious conceptions, and by that very fact comes into constant conflict with his basic premise, the superhuman character of religion.
In order to carry out his task, he had to start where Smith, Ricardo, Mill and all the others left off. He thus corrects their mistakes (but this is not what "critique" in the title of Capital refers to!), but not to stop at a finally completed political economy - how it should have been - but to go further and dispense with the standpoint which characterises the entire discipline, that which Marx calls "the standpoint of old materialism" in the Theses on Feuerbach. Political economy is the "theory of private property" (Engels, in his "Outlines"), it has private property and the existing bourgeois society as its standpoint. It cannot question the necessity of this presupposition without ceasing to be what it is.
Marx on the other hand, described his standpoint as that of "human society, or social humanity" (also in the "Theses"), that is, communism. This is not an arbitrary presupposition like the standpoint of private property is, but what necessarily remains when looking at humanity while recognising that private property is no necessity. This also means that communism is not constructed or built, but comes about through doing away with what prevents it - and this is not possible in an arbitrary manner, but follows from the determinacy of bourgeois society itself. Marx does not merely treat the categories resulting from the movement of private property as natural, but starts with showing that they express actual relations between people. He goes on to demonstrate how these relations themselves are produced and reproduced under the rule of the bourgeoisie. Then he explains how they acquire the object-like appearance that enabled the political economists to treat them as if they were mere objects to begin with, and how finally these relations appear in an inhuman form which stands over and against people - capital. Properly speaking, Marx does not have a "theory" in the actual sense of the word akin to the political economists at all, since he demonstrates the categories expressing the relations of bourgeois society to only be of a relative necessity - they depend on the existence of private property, respectively these very relations. He does not simply assume the necessity of their existence, like non-critical science, a theory, does. This is also why the subtitle of Capital Volume I is not "The Process of Capitalist Production", as some older translations put it, but "The Process of Production of Capital". Marx explains what capital is, and how it is produced and reproduced, and finally how its concrete forms of appearance come to be.
The people who call themselves "Marxist economists", and generally most "heterodox economists" basically work to restore classical political economy against the modern idiocies of marginalist ideology (you can find marginalism completely destroyed here). Some even seem to have understood this, which is why people like Anwar Shaikh no longer call themselves Marxist economists, but classical economists. Even if their endeavour were possible, it would not be desirable, as it would simply be a step back from Marx and critical-scientific communism. University is the institutionalised form of bourgeois science, and it would not be an advance towards communism to attempt to change it by means of some sort of Gramscian cultural revolution, as it merely creates aspiring recruits for the petty bourgeoisie. Communism is about labour, not thought. It's pointless to endlessly monitor the rate of profit in order to predict crises originating from this or that industry. The investigation of the movement of private property must always be connected to labour. What does it mean for the association of the proletariat when the centre of gravity of capital shifts? This is what communists should look at. Modern economics has essentially degenerated into creating the semblance of a technique of administration, whereas classical political economy would attempt to confine consciousness within a cage of ostensible necessity. Both manufacture ideology - false consciousness, since they're unable to conceive human activity outside of private property. Marx on the other hand is a communist - dragging him into the realm of political economy would be like dragging him into religion or philosophy.
Reading Marx's letter to Annenkov could also help you understand his standpoint better - he is very explicit in it.
What are some leftcom ideas of how a society should be organized?
I know some other leftist ideas such as parecon, however, I know that a lot of leftcom marxists don't subscribe to it because its utopian. I've also heard similar criticisms of Paul Cockshott (on top of the fact that he is a Tankie).
Also it seems like every Marxist (more broadly speaking, not just leftcoms) have their own interpretation of how a society's system of production should be organized, sometimes being completely different from that of other Marxists.
This is the prime barrier for you to understand what communism is. It's not about putting an idea of how society ought to be into practice. Again, ignore whatever "leftcom marxists" on the internet think.
How can we create a "socialist movement" with so much division? It's hard enough to win the hearts and minds of people on relativley simple issues, let alone the radical restructuring of society.
The matter is not one of creating a movement, let alone a "socialist" one, i.e. a movement of Marxists. The point is to give voice to the already existing labour movement and help it overcome the limitations it is entangled in.
Is this an impossible task?
Questions about possibility are a tiresome affair - this is a skepticism of the unproductive kind.
BTW, I'm a little confused about this:
Questions about possibility are a tiresome affair - this is a skepticism of the unproductive kind.
in that post you linked you said
So you no longer look for errors to amend them, but construct consciously deficient theories since they need to be "falsifiable".
What do you mean by this? Why is having a theory be falsifiable a bad thing? Why does it produce defiant theories? you say
it's a way of immunising deficient theories from critique.
but isn't a theory being falsifiable mean the exact opposite. That empirical evidence will inevitably prove that it is wrong (if it is)?
Also I had some other question.
you said in you response to this post that
It's not about putting an idea of how society ought to be into practice.
Isn't that the whole point of the communist movement? To create a world which is free of exploitation and where humans can be naturally free? I'm a little confused by what you meant. I understand Marx wanted to explain and critic how society functioned but he also wanted to change it for the better, right? Or hoped someone in the future would.
Also, another problem is that I don't really understand how communist logistics would work. in u/dr_marx's post, he quotes Vol 1 of Capital where Marx describes Robinson Crusoe. The society Marx envision's sounds a lot like pre-agricultural society where a community would just produce the things they need to live and share them based on who needs what and spend the rest of their time on hobbies. Except for Marx, this society wouldn't necessarily be primitive, and could rely on technology.
But what I don't get is how exactly would this scale to a society of, say, the United State's size. It's simple enough when you are just talking about food, shelter, basic tools and you population may be a few hundred to a thousand people max. But when you are dealing with 300M people, and tools that require resources from all around the world, and a lot of specialization, how does Marx or Marxists envision this be accomplished? Would their be some sort of work councils? Would there be labor vouchers? How do people know what the community needs?
So you no longer look for errors to amend them, but construct consciously deficient theories since they need to be "falsifiable".
What do you mean by this? Why is having a theory be falsifiable a bad thing? Why does it produce defiant theories? you say
it's a way of immunising deficient theories from critique.
but isn't a theory being falsifiable mean the exact opposite. That empirical evidence will inevitably prove that it is wrong (if it is)?
The criticism is not against the existing or non-existing falsifiability of a theory. It's about the positivist dogma that makes this the criterion of what is to be called science. This is how Karl Popper, who is the most commonly invoked positivist, launches into his book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery":
A scientist, whether theorist or experimenter, puts forward statements, or systems of statements, and tests them step by step. In the field of the empirical sciences, more particularly, he constructs hypotheses, or systems of theories, and tests them against experience by observation and experiment.
If science draws its conclusions from experience from the outset, then this idea is at best superfluous. Why should one, after having developed a theory, go back to the very experience from which one set out? This is even less a procedure through which theories would be able to be tested: wrong conclusions are drawn from the very same experience as right ones. So how are you then to distinguish between the two by "testing them against experience"? To assess these conclusions, it's necessary to examine them, not some experience imagined to lie outside of them. If one lacks experience, acquaintance with one's object, then accumulating it is a pre-scientific endeavour. Experiments also serve another purpose. Through them, the object about which science ponders is freed from interfering influences of the circumstances, so that one is able to draw the correct conclusions from the determinations of the object, and not something else.
In his "Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography":
Early during this period I developed further my ideas about the demarcation between scientific theories (like Einstein’s) and pseudoscientific theories (like Marx’s, Freud’s, and Adler’s). It became clear to me that what made a theory, or a statement, scientific was its power to rule out, or exclude, the occurrence of some logically possible events.
Whoever argues like this does not want to know anything about science as an activity aiming at objectivity; the cognition of determinate objects. To demarcate science from pseudoscience, he does not invoke the criticism of errors, but the violation of a yardstick which he has found neither in Einstein nor in Marx. Which "logic" should permit "possible events" which are determined to be impossible according to the respective theory?
Popper here simply has come up with a criterion according to which he himself wants to distinguish science from pseudoscience. So he does not care about knowledge of the objects which Einstein or Marx have dealt with, but about the adherence to certain formal rules, which justifies the predication "scientific" according to Popper. I base the judgement of calling psychoanalysis a load of nonsense on having examined it and having found mistakes - not on criticising it for not sticking to a formal procedure I have conjured up myself. Popper's criterion is as simple as it is paradoxical: science is when "logically" justified doubts about its validity - which for him is the same as the chance to discover deviant "events" - cannot be dispelled. Thus, not only Marx's explanation of profit is expelled from the realm of science, but also the entirety of physics - while on the other hand, theories that are known to be deficient get a pass.
Placing every thought under an abstract suspicion of error is an untenable matter - it means that you no longer want to distinguish between correct and wrong, but that you accept everything with the provision that it could still be wrong after all. There is a whole field which gets by on the absurd endeavour to attempt to employ thinking in order to put a principled doubt into its results - it's called the philosophy of science, and it asks nonsensical questions such as "is science possible?". You can only prove determinate mistakes, and you can only know that you erred after the fact. If you know about a problem of your theory, you're already beyond it and are sticking to it merely because you're content with this deficiency.
The dogma of falsifiability sometimes produces strange effects: Here, for example, someone imagines the equalisation of profit rates to be "empirically falsified" due to the prevalence of monopolies. This is akin to someone imagining gravity to be absent because not all things are lying on the ground.
Of course the reason as to why Popper's idiocies are so widespread in bourgeois society is already explained by what I quoted in Marx regarding the history of political economy earlier in this thread - he is merely expressing how bourgeois social science already behaves.
Also I had some other question. you said in you response to this post that
It's not about putting an idea of how society ought to be into practice.
Isn't that the whole point of the communist movement?
No. Communism is not the consummation of morality. What you're describing is utopianism.
To create a world which is free of exploitation and where humans can be naturally free?
The judgement that in communism there is no exploitation is not an ideal towards which communists strive, but the result of the investigation of bourgeois society and its roots.
I'm a little confused by what you meant.
I understand Marx wanted to explain and critic how society functioned but he also wanted to change it for the better, right? Or hoped someone in the future would.
Marx didn't simply start out from the sentiment that he disliked how society functioned, to then construct a theory of how it might be changed. More, saying "someone" here indicates that you adhere to the misconception that the proletariat's role would an arbitrary choice on the part of Marx, rather than - again - a result. The proletariat cannot be substituted for, as if it were the tire on a car.
Also, another problem is that I don't really understand how communist logistics would work. in u/dr_marx's post, he quotes Vol 1 of Capital where Marx describes Robinson Crusoe. The society Marx envision's sounds a lot like pre-agricultural society where a community would just produce the things they need to live and share them based on who needs what and spend the rest of their time on hobbies. Except for Marx, this society wouldn't necessarily be primitive, and could rely on technology.
But what I don't get is how exactly would this scale to a society of, say, the United State's size. It's simple enough when you are just talking about food, shelter, basic tools and you population may be a few hundred to a thousand people max. But when you are dealing with 300M people, and tools that require resources from all around the world, and a lot of specialization, how does Marx or Marxists envision this be accomplished? Would their be some sort of work councils? Would there be labor vouchers? How do people know what the community needs?
The short answer to this is that you here again conceive communism not as the necessary ultimate aim of the labour movement, but as an ideal to be put into practice, which is why you wonder about the technological requirements for its actualisation. Essentially, this is the same error that /u/dr_marx pointed out in Cockshott - you're not conceiving the problem as a social one, as one of class. The soviets, councils, did not arise because communists invented them - they were a spontaneous product of the workers. Likewise, labour vouchers came up as an idea of the labour movement. All of these are practical problems that will confront the victorious proletariat, for which there are no a priori solutions to be imposed on it. Maybe this exchange helps you to understand it a bit better.
There is a whole field which gets by on the absurd endeavour to attempt to employ thinking in order to put a principled doubt into its results - it's called the philosophy of science, and it asks nonsensical questions such as "is science possible?". You can only prove determinate mistakes, and you can only know that you erred after the fact. If you know about a problem of your theory, you're already beyond it and are sticking to it merely because you're content with this deficiency.
Could you elaborate on your criticism of the philosophy of science? I’m not sure I understand as my understanding of it comes from a single American undergraduate PoS course. Do you find issue with current trends in the field’s methodology or are you more generally skeptical towards questioning the foundations of science?
It's not "my criticism"; Hegel famously criticises Kant for attempting to prove a necessary deficiency of thinking by means of thinking. Marx in the Theses on Feuerbach then resolves this into a social question:
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
[...]
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
I don't know about current trends in the field. I reproduced criticism of a certain abstract skepticism regarding thinking and its results. If you want to read more on the topic, I'd have a look at this text. Though the authors don't understand Hegel properly (for example, they don't distinguish between a method and treating a method as an instrument - but this is a minor thing compared to the overall incomprehension) - much less Marx (they don't understand the difference between non-critical and critical science) -, some of the critiques of ideology contained are good.
...wrong conclusions are drawn from the very same experience as right ones. So how are you then to distinguish between the two by "testing them against experience"? To assess these conclusions, it's necessary to examine them, not some experience imagined to lie outside of them.
What do you mean by "it's necessary to examine them"? I thought the way conclusions get examined is through experiment. If I make an observation, i can come up with a hypothesis that would aim to explain my observation. I would then do experiments to try to rule out my hypothesis. If my observations keep show my theory is correct and I can't prove my theory wrong, then it must be the correct one. But if my observations contradict my hypothesis, then it needs to be scrapped or revised. Why is this method wrong? What other ways are there of examining a theory?
Also, isn't the reason many social theories still have not been eliminated is precisely because they are hard to verify through empirical observations. For example, evolutionary psychology is often viewed as being pseudoscientific because some of the theories are untestable. You cant say for certain why a certain psychological trait would be useful to our ancestors because you cant really study them (since they are dead) and without looking at our close primate relatives and analyzing our DNA, any attempt to explain a psychological trait by its potential utility to our ancestors is essentially just speculation, and not real science.
The judgement that in communism there is no exploitation is not an ideal towards which communists strive, but the result of the investigation of bourgeois society and its roots.
So the idea behind communism is that if you overthrow the class dynamic (along with the market and all that stems from it), you will inevitably end up in a world with less exploitation? And that communists know this by studying class relations? So it's not so much about how the world should be but how it actually is in reality? Like telling someone "hey, if you give a car a lighter chassis, it will be faster". Its just a statement of an objective fact, not just a moral one.
The Soviets did not arise because Marxists invented them - they were a spontaneous product of the workers.
So if we open the eyes of the proletariat to the system which exploits them, and the decide to rise up, communism will be the eventual outcome of that struggle (the synthesis)?
What do you mean by "it's necessary to examine them"? I thought the way conclusions get examined is through experiment. If I make an observation, i can come up with a hypothesis that would aim to explain my observation. I would then do experiments to try to rule out my hypothesis. If my observations keep show my theory is correct and I can't prove my theory wrong, then it must be the correct one. But if my observations contradict my hypothesis, then it needs to be scrapped or revised. Why is this method wrong? What other ways are there of examining a theory?
If you say you have a hypothesis, you are saying that on the basis of what you already know about your object, you come to the result that it could be constituted in this or that manner. You are saying you have a possible explanation - that is, you are saying that you have reasons for this assumption in what you already know, but these reasons are deficient, as in they still allow multiple explanations. This means that if you want certainty, you can never be content with a hypothesis.
Also, isn't the reason many social theories still have not been eliminated is precisely because they are hard to verify through empirical observations.
No. The reason lies not in the supposed difficulty of "verifying through empirical observations". Bourgeois science can be disproven quite easily by thinking it through. These deficient theories stick around because they correspond to the a priori interest of viewing a particular subject matter in this or that manner.
For example, evolutionary psychology is often viewed as being pseudoscientific because some of the theories are untestable. You cant say for certain why a certain psychological trait would be useful to our ancestors because you cant really study them (since they are dead) and without looking at our close primate relatives and analyzing our DNA, any attempt to explain a psychological trait by its potential utility to our ancestors is essentially just speculation, and not real science.
This is a weak argument against evolutionary psychology. Aside from not actually investigating its object (the mind; subjectivity), a feat that this theory inherited from psychology, the idiocy of sociobiology can be shown quite easily by looking at it on its own terms, instead of dismissing it for not meeting an arbitrarily conjured up instrumental touchstone for science which is external to the subject matter. This PDF shows the first beginnings of such a proper endeavour from page 109 onward.
So the idea behind communism is that if you overthrow the class dynamic (along with the market and all that stems from it), you will inevitably end up in a world with less exploitation?
When communists refer to exploitation, they are not using an arbitrary moral category. The concept describes an actual fact peculiar to bourgeois society.
And that communists know this by studying class relations? So it's not so much about how the world should be but how it actually is in reality? Like telling someone "hey, if you give a car a lighter chassis, it will be faster". Its just a statement of an objective fact, not just a moral one.
Yes. But this does not mean that communism is a product of reason, as in being "the most reasonable social order", to paraphrase Marx criticising this idea. It still corresponds to the needs of the proletariat, albeit other classes might join the communist party on the condition that they fully adopt the proletarian outlook.
So if we open the eyes of the proletariat to the system which exploits them, and the decide to rise up, communism will be the eventual outcome of that struggle (the synthesis)?
There is no need to educate the proletariat about the evils of the system which exploits it. Proletarians usually know pretty well that their lot is miserable. I thought I explained that communism is not about continuing the Enlightenment, or a question of will in one of the replies I linked to you. Of course, the communist party does educate people (and I am talking about actual education, and not spreading half-truths, like socialists do everywhere!) - but this has inherent limits and can in no way be its main activity. What it instead devotes its efforts to is giving voice to the already existing struggles of the proletariat, helping it overcome its momentary particular limitations by association, as well as putting forward its general interests. If the latter are recognised properly by the party, they will be self-evident and thus earn the trust of the most combative elements of the proletariat organically, without much convincing to do - the rest of the class will follow. The proletariat acts out of need, not will.
Regarding your parentheses, I assume they stem from some idea of what dialectics would be - something about thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Imposing some extrinsic form on any content is precisely the opposite of dialectics. In fact, if you're reasoning correctly, you are reasoning dialectically anyway. Likewise, if you are wrong, it's possible to point that out by showing the error, instead of reproaching someone for being "undialectical". No reason to bring up any "dialectical relation" - by which people usually mean some reciprocal relationship they don't want to investigate further - or reference this triadic structure. Hegel criticises this way of working with regard to Kant:
Now that the triplicity, adopted in the system of Kant – a method rediscovered, to begin with, by instinctive insight, but left lifeless and uncomprehended – has been raised to its significance as an absolute method, true form is thereby set up in its true content, and the conception of science has come to light. But the use this form has been put to in certain quarters has no right to the name of science. For we see it there reduced to a lifeless schema, to nothing better than a mere shadow, and scientific organization to a synoptic table. This formalism – about which we spoke before in general terms, and whose procedure we wish here to state more fully – thinks it has comprehended and expressed the nature and life of a given form when it proclaims a determination of the schema to be its predicate. The predicate may be subjectivity or objectivity, or again magnetism, electricity, and so on, contraction or expansion, East or West, and such like – a form of predication that can be multiplied indefinitely, because according to this way of working each determination, each mode, can be applied as a form or schematic element in the case of every other, and each will thankfully perform the same service for any other. With a circle of reciprocities of this sort it is impossible to make out what the real fact in question is, or what the one or the other is. We find there sometimes constituents of sense picked up from ordinary intuition, determinate elements which to be sure should mean something else than they say; at other times what is inherently significant, viz. pure determinations of thought – like subject, object, substance, cause, universality, etc. – these are applied just as uncritically and unreflectingly as in every-day life, are used much as people employ the terms strong and weak, expansion and contraction. As a result that type of metaphysics is as unscientific as those ideas of sense.
And Marx explicitly ridicules it like this in the Poverty of Philosophy:
If we had M. Proudhon's intrepidity in the matter of Hegelianism we should say: it is distinguished in itself from itself. What does this mean? Impersonal reason, having outside itself neither a base on which it can pose itself, nor an object to which it can oppose itself, nor a subject with which it can compose itself, is forced to turn head over heels, in posing itself, opposing itself and composing itself – position, opposition, composition. Or, to speak Greek – we have thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
In fact, if you're reasoning correctly, you are reasoning dialectically anyway.
That is to say all reasoning that does not make use of dialectics is incorrect?
What is it about dialectics that is necessary? Is it not simply argumentation between competing contradictory standpoints?
That is to say all reasoning that does not make use of dialectics is incorrect?
This is not what I said. The furthest reasoning can go is dialectics - without the person expressing it possessing knowledge of Hegel. Read Hegel's Logic and tell me how often you find him say "dialectics" or "dialectical". You don't "make use" of dialectics. It is supposed to come out of the content itself. Hegel criticises the idea of treating a method as an instrument in the introduction to the Phenomenology.
And when Marx talks about his "dialectical method", he refers to a mode of presentation and a criticism of dialectics. Dialectics are only useful to communists through Marx's critique anyway.
Here is Marx in a letter to Engels commenting on Lassalle attempting to "make use" of dialectics:
Heraclitus, the Dark Philosopher by Lassalle the Luminous One is, au fond a very silly concoction. Every time Heraclitus uses an image to demonstrate the unity of affirmation and negation — and this is often — in steps Lassalle and makes the most of the occasion by treating us to some passage from Hegel’s Logic which is hardly improved in the process; always at great length too, like a schoolboy who must show in his essay that he has thoroughly understood his ‘essence’ and ‘appearance’ as well as the ‘dialectical process’. Once he has got this into his speculative noodle, one may be sure that the schoolboy will nevertheless be able to carry out the process of ratiocination only in strict accord with the prescribed formula and the formes sacramentales [sacred forms]. Just so our Lassalle. The fellow seems to have tried to puzzle out Hegelian logic via Heraclitus, nor ever to have tired of beginning the process all over again. As for learning, there is a tremendous display of it. But, as any well-informed person will know, provided one has the time and the money and, like Mr Lassalle, can have Bonn University Library delivered ad libitum to one’s home, it is easy enough to assemble such an array of quotations. One can see what an amazing swell the fellow himself thinks he is in this philological finery, and how he moves with all the grace of a man wearing fashionable dress for the first time in his life. Since most philologists are not possessed of the speculative thinking dominant in Heraclitus, every Hegelian has the incontestable advantage of understanding what the philologist does not. (It would, by the by, be strange indeed if, by learning Greek, a fellow were to become a philosopher in Greek without being one in German.) Instead of simply taking this for granted, Mr Lassalle proceeds to lecture us in a quasi-Lessingian manner. In longwinded, lawyer’s style he vindicates the Hegelian interpretation as opposed to the erroneous exegeses of the philologists — erroneous for want of specialised knowledge. Thus we are accorded the twofold gratification, first, of having dialectical matters which we had all but forgotten expounded to us at considerable length and, secondly, of seeing this ‘speculative heritage’ vindicated (qua special province of Mr Lassalle’s philological-jurisprudential astuteness and erudition) vis-à-vis the unspeculative philologists. Despite the fellow’s claim, by the way, that hitherto Heraclitus has been a book with 7 seals, he has to all intents and purposes added nothing whatever that is new to what Hegel says in the History of Philosophy. All he does is to enlarge on points of detail which could, of course, have been accomplished quite adequately in two sheets of print. Still less does it occur to the laddie to come out with any critical reflections on dialectics as such. If all the fragments by Heraclitus were put together in print, they would hardly fill half a sheet. Only a chap who brings out his books at the expense of the frightful ‘specimen of humankind’ can presume to launch upon the world 2 volumes of 60 sheets on such a pretext.
Heraclitus, the Dark Philosopher, is quoted as saying in an attempt to elucidate the transformation of all things into their opposite: ‘Thus gold changeth into all things, and all things change into gold.’ Here, Lassalle says, gold means money (c'est juste) and money is value. Thus the Ideal, Universality, the One (value), and things, the Real, Particularity, the Many. He makes use of this surprising insight to give, in a lengthy note, an earnest of this discoveries in the science of political economy. Every other word a howler, but set forth with remarkable pretentiousness. It is plain to me from this one note that, in his second grand opus, the fellow intends to expound political economy in the manner of Hegel. He will discover to his cost that it is one thing for a critique to take a science to the point at which it admits of a dialectical presentation, and quite another to apply an abstract, ready-made system of logic to vague presentiments of just such a system.
In that pdf you linked, the author says
The attempt to explain human life in purely biological terms is founded on a view of the human species as a whole which arises from their inhuman way of life.
Are they saying that the existence of the view of biological determinism can be explained by how inhuman our society is?
Also you say
This means that if you want certainty, you can never be content with a hypothesis.
Is there anything wrong with not being content with a hypothesis? When we are talking about the physical world, we can't necessarily have a priori knowledge of it, so we have to rely on empiricism and the scientific method. Are you saying you disagree with the epistomology underlying science? Or are you saying that currently science hasnt done a good job of eliminating theories because the scientists have become content with the theories which they want to believe?
There is no need to educate the proletariat about the evils of the system which would exploit them.
If the latter are recognised properly by the party, they will be self-evident and thus earn the trust of the most combative elements of the proletariat organically, without much convincing to do
But how come there are people who are working class who, rather than moving to the left and embracing marx, move instead to the right? The fascists and white nationalists often rely on disenfranchised white male workers to fuel and propagate their ideology. A good example would be something like 1920s Germany or the Rust Belt.
Has the left just done a poor job of helping working class people at the moment and that's why they are turning to other ideologies for a sense of community and purpose?
In that pdf you linked, the author says
The attempt to explain human life in purely biological terms is founded on a view of the human species as a whole which arises from their inhuman way of life.
Are they saying that the existence of the view of biological determinism can be explained by how inhuman our society is?
To clarify something initially: Smith provides a reason as to why he can speak of "inhuman" earlier in the book - it's not just some moral category here. If you are interested in why he considers this judgement to be correct, you should read the rest of his book. Other than that, your rephrasing removes the mediating step contained in what you quote. Smith also does not speak of degrees of inhumanity, as you imply by saying "how inhuman" here. What he is saying is that the way bourgeois society immediately appears leads to a wrong concept of the human species, which then enables sociobiology. Marx, in the Holy Family:
Speaking exactly and in the prosaic sense, the members of civil society are not atoms. The specific property of the atom is that it has no properties and is therefore not connected with beings outside it by any relationship determined by its own natural necessity. The atom has no needs, it is self-sufficient., the world outside it is an absolute vacuum, i.e., is contentless, senseless, meaningless, just because the atom has all fullness in itself. The egoistic individual in civil society may in his non-sensuous imagination and lifeless abstraction inflate himself into an atom, i.e., into an unrelated, self-sufficient, wantless, absolutely full, blessed being. Unblessed sensuous reality does not bother about his imagination, each of his senses compels him to believe in the existence of the world and of individuals outside him, and even his profane stomach reminds him every day that the world outside him is not empty, but is what really fills. Every activity and property of his being, every one of his vital urges, becomes a need, a necessity, which his self-seeking transforms into seeking for other things and human beings outside him. But since the need of one individual has no self-evident meaning for another egoistic individual capable of satisfying that need, and therefore no direct connection with its satisfaction, each individual has to create this connection; it thus becomes the intermediary between the need of another and the objects of this need. Therefore, it is natural necessity, the essential human properties however estranged they may seem to be, and interest that hold the members of civil society together; civil, not political life is their real tie. It is therefore not the state that holds the atoms of civil society together, but the fact that they are atoms only in imagination in the heaven of their fancy, but in reality beings tremendously different from atoms, in other words, not divine egoists, but egoistic human beings. Only political superstition still imagines today that civil life must be held together by the state, whereas in reality, on the contrary, the state is held together by civil life.
To use an analogy from natural science: When we look at the sky, the Ptolemaic view of the sun revolving around the earth initially seems plausible because of how it presents itself to us. It took more scientific investigation to find out that instead earth is orbiting the sun. This comparison has its limits of course, since it excludes that for a long time the way people lived lended itself to the geocentric worldview, and that there were interests that promoted it.
Additionally, like it is currently all the rage to compare everything to computers, so it has been in the past with other inventions - there have been attempts to subsume every object under the idea of the organism, mechanism (especially during industrialisation) or other abstractions before. See Marx in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (the whole section which discusses Hegel's treatment of the state as an organism is relevant):
In truth, Hegel has done nothing but resolve the constitution of the state into the universal, abstract idea of the organism; but in appearance and in his own opinion he has developed the determinate reality out of the universal Idea. He has made the subject of the idea into a product and predicate of the Idea. He does not develop his thought out of his object, but his object in accordance with a ready-made thought which has its origin in the abstract sphere of logic. It is not a question of developing the determinate idea of the political constitution, but of giving the political constitution a relation to the abstract Idea, of classifying it as a member of its (the idea’s) life history. This is an obvious mystification.
[...]
The concrete content, the actual determination appears to be formal, and the wholly abstract formal determination appears to be the concrete content. What is essential to determinate political realities is not that they can be considered as such but rather that they can be considered, in their most abstract configuration, as logical-metaphysical determinations. Hegel’s true interest is not the philosophy of right but logic. The philosophical task is not the embodiment of thought in determinate political realities, but the evaporation of these realities in abstract thought. The philosophical moment is not the logic of fact but the fact of logic. Logic is not used to prove the nature of the state, but the state is used to prove the logic.
So in such a case science no longer proceeds from the determinations of its object, but instead attempts to use the object as an example for an already established concept external to it. Sociobiologists do the same when they want to subsume social relations under the idea of evolution - the reason as to why they desire to do this is obvious.
Also you say
This means that if you want certainty, you can never be content with a hypothesis.
Is there anything wrong with not being content with a hypothesis?
No. But if you declare all results of science to be hypothetical, like Popper does, you are denying that knowledge is even possible. You assert the contradiction of a necessarily preliminary knowledge - you claim that thought can never grasp the identity of its object on principle.
When we are talking about the physical world, we can't necessarily have a priori knowledge of it, so we have to rely on empiricism and the scientific method. Are you saying you disagree with the epistomology underlying science?
I mainly had the social sciences in mind - I only used analogies with natural science to get the point across. The natural sciences have problems too, but they are of a different nature. Additionally, no scientist needs to know about epistemology for going on about their business. They merely need to work on explaining their object, eliminating errors on the way. The idea of a supposed "royal road" that would make this endeavour fool-proof is a reflection after the fact that aims at the ability to demarcate science and non-science just by looking at its form, not its content.
Or are you saying that currently science hasnt done a good job of eliminating theories because the scientists have become content with the theories which they want to believe?
There necessarily is pluralism in the social sciences because of the class antagonism. This was explained in the quotes I provided by Marx further up.
But how come there are people who are working class who, rather than moving to the left and embracing marx, move instead to the right?
From the communist point of view, it is just as much of a problem if proletarians rally behind conservatives, centrists or leftists (all different shades of liberalism). Communism is not the end of this spectrum on one side. The proletariat can have the most diverse kinds of opinions in the absence of a party that provides a positive outlook for it.
The fascists and white nationalists often rely on disenfranchised white male workers to fuel and propagate their ideology. A good example would be something like 1920s Germany or the Rust Belt.
The social basis of historical fascism was not the proletariat. Fascism is the organisation of the petty bourgeoisie by big capital against the organised proletariat. This should already show that modern right-wing populists, or whatever term you want to use, are not fascists in the proper sense.
One reason as to why workers in the Rust Belt might follow Trump today is that there is no communist party in the US that has a positive answer to the migration question. Leftists, centrists and conservatives argue over what the bourgeois state is to do: open the borders or close them (of course the matter is not as simplistic as this, for example some conservatives also propose to industrialise other states in some sort of neo-colonialism to prevent the incentives for migration, but I don't want to get into such details here).
Aside from the conservative approach, the whole centrist-leftist swamp is divided: some want to open the borders. The leftist spin to this is to deny that this might lower wages, as well as to call on workers to associate with migrant proletarians. This ignores that migration can indeed impact wages, and that it is therefore weak to simply call on workers to put down their resentments against migrants, which flow from this very fact. On the other hand, the social democratic solution proposed by people like Angela Nagle is just as stupid - closing the borders for the good of the nation. She identifies her cause with that of Occupy Wall Street, which mobilised against finance capital, big capital and inequality: all typical concerns of the middle class threatened by proletarianisation. To her, the labour movement is merely a convenient means for her aim. All of these are ways of managing the movement of labour as mediated by private property in a different manner. The communist approach to migration is to counterpose this with the self-movement and self-regulation of labour, putting workers across countries into contact with each other, similar to how the IWMA did it.
Another reason for proletarians to follow conservatives over centrists and leftists is that these at least acknowledge politics for what it is: power and competing interests. Whereas to liberals, it is often reduced to a matter of proper management, knowledge. Just look at the never ending stream of reproaches the Democrats and the media have towards Trump for being dumb, not adhering to democratic PR bullshit, not following formal procedures, ignoring the advice of supposed technocrats, setting aside decency and manners, and so on - it's hilarious. Additionally, both parties have left the Rust Belt to rot previously, whereas Trump was the only one at least giving the semblance of taking the people there seriously. And Trump is not afraid of going against the entirety of the media and political dissent to go through with his policies - he does not seem to bend and compromise on every single occasion. American liberals are utterly detached from the proletariat - it might as well be a unicorn to them.
Deindustrialisation then exasperates all these phenomena, because it weakens the proletariat.
Has the left just done a poor job of helping working class people at the moment and that's why they are turning to other ideologies for a sense of community and purpose?
It is not about a sense of community and purpose, but about needs and interests. The notion of "helping working class people" - in the sense of improving their condition - is one which Marx ridicules in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, in the chapter on Socialist and Communist Literature.
This conversation has grown tiresome for me, as it has moved on quite far from what the initial question had been, and it has since taken on the form of an interview. If you are interested in communism, I propose you look at the literature linked in the sidebar here as well as the links which get posted here regularly and the corresponding comments. I won't be at your disposal any further.
The communist approach to migration is to counterpose this with the self-movement and self-regulation of labour, putting workers across countries into contact with each other, similar to how the IWMA did it.
Where can i read more about this?
Okay, thank you. This was helpful.
You're welcome.
Stop trying to steal my internet points.
How can your alt steal your internet points? :-)
You two of you are like a bad cop/good cop duo.
leftcom marxists
Who are they exactly?
What does it mean when marxists (particularly leftcoms) say Marx was opposed to "economics"?
You're probably confused because economics means the study of capitalism, or the theory or explanation of market relations, prices, etc. You won't need this in communism.
surely leftcoms
Who?
believe in some kind of economy (by which I mean a system of production and distribution of goods and services)?
Do you think that there are people out there who believe that? Probably there some who do believe that there must be no production at all, and some them might even call themselves "leftcoms". Unfortunately there is no law over who can and can't call themselves a marxist.
What are some leftcom ideas of how a society should be organized?
Capital Vol 1, chapter 1
Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with political economists,[30] let us take a look at him on his island. Moderate though he be, yet some few wants he has to satisfy, and must therefore do a little useful work of various sorts, such as making tools and furniture, taming goats, fishing and hunting. Of his prayers and the like we take no account, since they are a source of pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation. In spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of human labour. Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kinds of work. Whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another, depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch, ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations necessary for their production; and lastly, of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him. All the relations between Robinson and the objects that form this wealth of his own creation, are here so simple and clear as to be intelligible without exertion, even to Mr. Sedley Taylor. And yet those relations contain all that is essential to the determination of value.
Let us now transport ourselves from Robinson’s island bathed in light to the European middle ages shrouded in darkness. Here, instead of the independent man, we find everyone dependent, serfs and lords, vassals and suzerains, laymen and clergy. Personal dependence here characterises the social relations of production just as much as it does the other spheres of life organised on the basis of that production. But for the very reason that personal dependence forms the ground-work of society, there is no necessity for labour and its products to assume a fantastic form different from their reality. They take the shape, in the transactions of society, of services in kind and payments in kind. Here the particular and natural form of labour, and not, as in a society based on production of commodities, its general abstract form is the immediate social form of labour. Compulsory labour is just as properly measured by time, as commodity-producing labour; but every serf knows that what he expends in the service of his lord, is a definite quantity of his own personal labour power. The tithe to be rendered to the priest is more matter of fact than his blessing. No matter, then, what we may think of the parts played by the different classes of people themselves in this society, the social relations between individuals in the performance of their labour, appear at all events as their own mutual personal relations, and are not disguised under the shape of social relations between the products of labour.
For an example of labour in common or directly associated labour, we have no occasion to go back to that spontaneously developed form which we find on the threshold of the history of all civilised races.[31] We have one close at hand in the patriarchal industries of a peasant family, that produces corn, cattle, yarn, linen, and clothing for home use. These different articles are, as regards the family, so many products of its labour, but as between themselves, they are not commodities. The different kinds of labour, such as tillage, cattle tending, spinning, weaving and making clothes, which result in the various products, are in themselves, and such as they are, direct social functions, because functions of the family, which, just as much as a society based on the production of commodities, possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour. The distribution of the work within the family, and the regulation of the labour time of the several members, depend as well upon differences of age and sex as upon natural conditions varying with the seasons. The labour power of each individual, by its very nature, operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the whole labour power of the family, and therefore, the measure of the expenditure of individual labour power by its duration, appears here by its very nature as a social character of their labour.
Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.
There is nothing complicated about it, there is no hidden or grand knowledge required. It is a matter of practical common sense.
Paul Cockshott
Cockshott is a bourgeois nutcase who thinks that the failure of communism (as he thinks it actually existed in the Soviet Union) was due to lack of computational power in trying to assign prices. For him, communism is a technological feat, not one of class, placing him squarely into the camp of the utopians (even the title of his book Towards a *New** Socialism* should give that away).
Also it seems like every Marxist (more broadly speaking, not just leftcoms) have their own interpretation of how a society's system of production should be organized, sometimes being completely different from that of other Marxists.
The vast majority, more than 99.999% of people who call themselves communists or marxists, and especially leftcoms, are complete morons and have no idea, no desire and no compulsion to actually investigate the communist movement.
How can we create a "socialist movement" with so much division?
A revolution can't be conjured up out of wishful thinking. Only at certain times and in certain situations can there be the possibility of a communist revolution, and the success of that depends upon the existence of a resolute and well theoretically well armed communist party that is clear on its program.
Is this an impossible task?
I'm not a communist just for the fun of it.
This is a helpful answer. Thank you.
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“A Leninist before Lenin, bah!”
Thus a dismissive outburst from Gramsci has morphed, through decades of whispering Chinese down telephones, to "Bordiga called himself 'more Leninist than Lenin'" (and to even "more Stalinist than Stalin"!).
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Follow-up: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/23/caau-s23.html
Second follow-up: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/29/unif-s29.html
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Obviously this is from WSWS and should be read with scrutiny, but this part stood out to me.
This makes clear why it is not possible to reform the trade unions in the workers’ interests and why new, independent organs of struggle—action committees—must be built.
While there are, of course “things that stand higher than unity” and all that, this kind of separatism (particular the talk about “action committees”) reeks of ‘unions’ without any actual workers (like the present IWW) or whatever the hell the ICT is doing with its “groups of factory and territory”.
Still, I would be interested to hear from anyone with more familiarity with the present day labor movement in Germany. Is there a way to recover the German trade unions?
Obviously this is from WSWS and should be read with scrutiny
As you note, I obviously posted this article not because of political agreement with the conclusions of the SEP but because of the empirical account of conditions it gives. It's basically a more detailed version of what I wrote here. It should make clear that what I said about the social-democratic programme of Bernie Sanders is entirely accurate.
but this part stood out to me.
This makes clear why it is not possible to reform the trade unions in the workers’ interests and why new, independent organs of struggle—action committees—must be built.
There are more dodgy conclusions in there. For example:
The transformation of trade unions into a company police force is not the result of the—ever-abundant—corruption of individual functionaries.
It arises firstly from the trade union point of view, which accepts and supports capitalist private property and the bitter struggle for markets and profits. The more the world market is dominated by monopolies, the more bitter the struggle between them becomes, the closer the trade unions move together with “their” national corporations.
[...]
Secondly, the same applies to trade union officials: Being determines consciousness. They form a privileged social class.
Now, it is correct that the union leadership is acting in the interests of the bourgeoisie, but they are essentially attributing this to an alleged necessity of capital's development that could not be changed. It's a view that corresponds to political economy, not communism. Effectively, it is amounts to chiefly nailing down, eternalising, the present weakness of the labour movement within the realm of thought. A resurgent labour movement can tear out all these mental pushpins allegedly fixing it in place with ease. Curiously, the SEP does not speak at all about the political party and its capacity to help overcome the narrowness of the standpoint of the trade union.
While there are, of course “things that stand higher than unity” and all that, this kind of separatism (particular the talk about “action committees”) reeks of ‘unions’ without any actual workers (like the present IWW) or whatever the hell the ICT is doing with its “groups of factory and territory”.
The letter by Engels to Bebel that you reference deals with the question of unity within the party, not unity of the economic insitutitions of the proletariat.
It's worth noting that the conclusions of this present text are tied to German conditions - i.e. they argue for those action committees on the basis of what they find in German unions, rather than by means of an artificial general construction like "decadence", as the ICC or ICT do. I am also not sure how those action committees would be similar to the IWW, as the SEP here is urging workers to form these committees where struggles are already happening. It is also not said that a formally independent institution like them cannot act in unison with the existing unions when appropriate.
Whether the SEP's recommendation is appropriate to the conditions is of course another matter.
Still, I would be interested to hear from anyone with more familiarity with the present day labor movement in Germany. Is there a way to recover the German trade unions?
That is asking the wrong question. It is shoehorning the proletariat into a solution you have envisioned for it, rather than proceeding from the present premises. The question is what obstacles the labour movement currently faces in its struggles and how they are to be overcome. It cannot be determined in advance whether the German labour movement will express itself through reinvigorating the existing trade unions or through sidelining them.
As long as it expresses itself at least in part through trade unions, communists need to take account of that and accordingly help fight against the obstacles within the trade unions themselves. At the same time, struggles taking place outside the trade unions - and against them when they act in the interest of the bourgeoisie - must be also be furthered, so the general association of the proletariat develops. If the labour movement were to move towards recapturing the trade unions, the process would in any case be a very protracted one, given the degree to which they are integrated into the state. Most national trade unions are members of the ILO. It is hard to imagine a worse situation than the United Nations as an arch-bourgeois institution standing at the helm of trade unions.
On another note, this prompted me to do a little reading about the ILO. I was aware of them, but I had assumed they were just a typical group of bureaucrats who met in Switzerland to collect six figure salaries and lounge in comfy chairs. Just a cursory glance over their Wikipedia page though and it turns out it’s even worse than I thought:
Within the UN system the organization has a unique tripartite structure: all standards, policies, and programmes require discussion and approval from the representatives of governments, employers, and workers.
The ILO organises once a year the International Labour Conference in Geneva to set the broad policies of the ILO, including conventions and recommendations. [...] Each member state is represented by a delegation: two government delegates, an employer delegate, a worker delegate and their respective advisers.
So not only are employers and the state represented, they outvote the worker delegates (who already come from the highest layers of union bureaucracy) by three to one! It’s stunning how social-corporatism has not only survived but thrived after the defeat of the fascist powers.
Still, like basically all parts of the U.N., it’s unclear what the ILO actually does. Their own website does little to explain what role the ILO plays in the labor movement or anything else. How capable is the ILO at directing the trade unions of member states?
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It is insane how relevant this is even decades later.
By making credit more available to proletarians, who are thereby enabled to buy luxury items ‘on tick’, proletarians are turned, in an economic sense, into more perfect “paupers”, without savings to fall back on: proletarian balance sheets are now no longer just about possessing nothing, but about mortgaging a mass of future labour in order to get back to owing nothing: actually a kind of partial slavery. At the social level all this consumption corresponds to networks of influence, often of a corrupting and degenerate nature, which serve the interests of the ruling class, inculcating the habitual tendencies and ideologies that most suit it. The monstrous publicity and advertising machine constrains the proletariat to use its surplus earnings to buy articles of consumption which encapsulate false and often dangerous illusions. On top of capital’s despotism in the factories, the personal liberty of prosperous America adds a further despotism and dictatorship over the exploited class by means of standardised ‘packaged’ consumption; it is a dictatorship which operates by creating absurd needs in order to keep worker’s busy in their free time and to keep the wheels of commerce turning.
The same effect is achieved by awarding a tiny share of factory dividends to supplement annual salaries. The relevant statistics indicate that even in the best case scenarios the additional earnings add up to no more than 5%, which is very quickly recuperated from the naïve “shareholder” who has been duped into working even harder.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings/index.html
Nearly six in 10 Americans don't have enough savings to cover a $500 or $1,000 unplanned expense, according to a new report from Bankrate.
Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account to cover a surprise bill of this magnitude. A little more than 20% said they would put it on a credit card, the report said, while 20% would cut their spending and 11% would turn to friends and family for financial assistance.
"This is a persistent American problem of how you should handle your finances and spending," said Jill Cornfield, retirement analyst for Bankrate.
But at least the number has improved. Last year, only 37% of Americans reported having enough savings to cover an expense of $500 or more.
"This is a persistent American problem of how you should handle your finances and spending," said Jill Cornfield, retirement analyst for Bankrate.
Haha, of course it would be presented as a personal problem, as a wrong manner of dealing with money. The proles simply don't know how to handle cash, even the meagre crumbs they get cannot be entrusted to them! In the worst cases, they even accept this judgement and kill themselves instead of channeling their hatred and bitterness into the only real means to fight these class enemies, that is, association with other proletarians for the purpose of getting what they require to meet their needs.
This problem of US American proletarians having trouble to create savings is something that /u/dr_marx and I also tried to stress in the first stickied thread. It is also mentioned in the 1956 text "Dialogue with the Dead":
Soon one will arrive at America's masterpiece: consumer credit. The worker - even if he has the illusion of being a participant in the working capital through his shares - is no longer the owner but the debtor of his few possessions, and even if he owns his home, he owes its value. So he practically has the same fate as the slave who, after being fed, was a debtor of the net value of his own person.
This American credit system, which ties workers to their workplaces through debt, has been called industrial feudalism. A further step towards "growing immiseration", i.e. loss of any economic "reserve". The classical proletariat had a reserve of zero; the modern proletariat has a negative reserve: it must first pay a considerable sum to be able to depart naked. With what should one pay, if not like Shylock, with a piece of one's own flesh?
I think more people would have understood what you meant by that if you quoted this text along with it
We were as straightforward as it gets in that thread. If people don't understand what is explained there, they can't be helped. It should be obvious to everyone what it means when it is stated that not the cost of healthcare is a problem, but the lack of means to procure it.
Quoting the ICP wouldn't make our points any more correct.
From what I've read it seems like it is saying that capitalism is in an period of decline. Is that right or is there more to it? What are the implications of the theory and why do so many on the communist left seem to dismiss it?
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There's a new translation on this topic on the front page just now. There are multiple variants of decadence theory, the ICT and ICC both have their own, each equally stupid. Here, let's look at what decadence is in the ICC's own words, for example:
For the proletarian revolution to go beyond being a mere hope or historical potentiality or perspective and become a concrete possibility, it had to become an objective necessity for the development of humanity. This has in fact been the historic situation since the First World War: this war marked the end of the ascendant phase of the capitalist mode of production, a phase which began in the sixteenth century and which reached its zenith at the end of the nineteenth century. The new phase which followed was that of the decadence of capitalism.
So before 1914, communism apparently was either "a mere hope", respectively a "historical potentiality or perspective", and only afterwards did it become "a concrete possibility" - what the difference between these is, I do not presume to answer. Isn't "hope" the expression of someone powerless, meaning that communism would then not even have been a "potentiality"? How is "historical potentiality" distinguished from "objective necessity for the development of humanity"? Where is this necessity, if not solely in the minds of the ICC? What is an "abstract possibility", if a "concrete possibility" exists? Clearly someone should have told Marx and Engels about these categories back when they were involved in the IWMA.
More, capitalism has apparently been "decadent" for over a century!
As in all previous societies, the first phase of capitalism expressed the historically necessary character of its productive relations, that is to say their indispensable role in the expansion of society’s productive forces. The second phase, on the other hand, expressed the increasing transformation of these relations into a fetter on the development of the productive forces.
How quickly communists turn into apologists for capital! Everything relevant about this has been mentioned before in the two texts that have been linked on this subreddit commenting on decadence, so it suffices to say that the ICC does not seem to have the slightest idea of what is even meant by "productive forces".
the existence of an ever-increasing market is one of the essential conditions for the development of capitalism. In particular, the realisation of the surplus value which comes from the exploitation of the working class is indispensable for the accumulation of capital which is the essential motor-force of the system. Contrary to what the idolaters of capital claim, capitalist production does not create automatically and at will the markets necessary for its growth. Capitalism developed in a non-capitalist world, and it was in this world that it found the outlets for its development. But by generalising its relations of production across the whole planet and by unifying the world market, capitalism reached a point where the outlets which allowed it to grow so powerfully in the nineteenth century became saturated.
This idea about a lack of markets is based on Rosa Luxemburg's theory of accumulation. Why she was wrong has been explained by communists past in detail.
The under-utilisation of capital’s productive apparatus has become permanent and capital has become incapable of extending its social domination, if only to keep pace with population growth.
This is so vague that it's almost impossible to guess what they even intend to say. In which ways is "capital's productive apparatus" "under-utilised"? What is capital's "social domination"? Is this supposed to refer to real subsumption? Something else? In what ways has it become incapable of extending this? What does this have to do with population growth? Is population growth supposed to lie outside of capital?
a cycle characterised by immense armaments production which has increasingly become the only sphere where capitalism applies scientific methods
Where is the proof for this? Does capital not apply scientific methods in the production of smartphones and electric cars?
More, capitalism has apparently been "decadent" for over a century!
These guys don't seem much different than the Christian end of times doomsayers, or the alt-right crying about the "destruction" of western civilization.
Clearly someone should have told Marx and Engels about these categories back when they were involved in the IWMA.
In an earlier comment, you mentioned the IWMA's action on immigration, where can I read Marx's involvement in the international and how they dealt with the issues?
In an earlier comment, you mentioned the IWMA's action on immigration, where can I read Marx's involvement in the international and how they dealt with the issues?
For a first quick overview of the history of the IWMA, Wilhelm Eichhoff's pamphlet is a good starting point. Beyond all the documents you will find on MIA and in the MECW, I found the book "Workers Unite! The International 150 Years Later" by Marcello Musto to be useful, since it contains lots of material - I'm sure you will know where to find it.
thanks doc
You're welcome.
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A more direct retranslation of Marx’s famous “Theses on Feuerbach” from 1845. We used the original manuscript published by the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe and paid special attention to use conventional translations for terminology borrowed from Hegel (e.g. actuality for Wirklichkeit, intuition for Anschauung). All italicisation is Marx’s.
It's not that different from the others.
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you guys are doing gods work
The International Communist Party’s and Amadeo Bordiga’s 1959 Commentary on Marx’s 1844 Paris Manuscripts. While the incorporation of their implications proved a challenge with which vulgar Marxism would grapple for decades to come, Il Programma Comunista finds ‘great proof’ of the principle of invariance in them.
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It’s pretty interesting what’s going on in Australia with some of the right wing unions and stuff, but our COVID containment and social distance enforcement, especially in government businesses like the postal service.
I’m sure there are issues where workers are being screwed over but I wouldn’t trust the WSWS as a reliable source and the SEP are known for anti union agitation especially public sector unions.
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This really destroys Gramsci. Not that this was really needed, but some people just can't accept that Gramsci was an insignificant figure who had more in common with bourgeois ideologues than with Marxism.
It's kind of funny reading about Labriola, Croce, Mondolfo and Gentile and seeing how there are still people, over a hundred years later, who still walk in their footsteps.
In 1905 Giuseppe Rensi celebrates the idealist critique of historical materialism:
“It does indeed break the iron link which, according to the materialist view, tied morality and politics to the economic ground. Thus, on the one hand, it restores the autonomy of the human spirit in relation to the economic structure and breaks its dependence (…). On the other hand, and as a consequence, it gives back autonomy and effectiveness to political action, because if it is no longer true that the products of our spirit in this field are a necessary and quasi mechanical consequence of the economic order, then the political sphere will no longer be a mere moved but not moving dependency of the economic sphere, but will be able to have a thorough influence on it”
It's uncanny.
I hope we will get a second part of this as well. This is very detailed, especially with the historical background it gives.
We're still waiting for parts 2 of things so I wouldn't hold your breath.
The first of two parts of Christian Riechers’ dissertation about Antonio Gramsci. It was published as “Antonio Gramsci: Marxismus in Italien” in German, as well as “Gramsci e le Ideologie del suo Tempo” in Italian.
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I like this article a lot.
For all of them, the holy ideal of the anti-colonialist revolt is the “liberation” of the subject peoples.
A sentence that could be enframed and hung up above Stalinist cretins of all shades.
The state baptised by Pandit Nehru, like the one sanctified by “comrade” Mao Zedong, is based on the same principle on which the immense power of the Western imperialist states accumulated over the decades: wage labour, the irreplaceable source of capitalist profit. Why be scandalised, then, if we say that the Afro-Asian revolutions are, from the point of view of the mode of production, the dialectical continuation of colonialism?
Obviously because there is a vested interest in portraying them as something they were not.
Since we are not obliged to incense the Nehrus and Mao Zedongs, we can safely say that the Afro-Asian revolutions, far from opening the way to socialism, have marked important milestones in the spread of capitalism in the world.
One might wonder how adherents of stupid Luxemburgian notions of decadence would think of this. If capitalism has been "decadent" since the advent of the First World War, then what is the cause of these anti-colonial revolutions?
Pre-capitalist relations of production will progressively withdraw, the capitalist mode of production will consequently spread. Will we come to see an all-capitalist world?
We see it, and it is not pretty. Yet, leftists will still go to great pains to justify throwing themselves behind the cause of the nation.
The imperialists of the second method no longer need to send expeditionary forces to the transmarine territories and maintain an expensive bureaucracy of occupation. They can control at a distance the productive mechanism of the “underdeveloped regions” of the globe through the game of loans and subsidies which, in legal fiction, were stipulated between “sovereign states”. On the contrary, they are able to build, anticipating their capitals, large industrial companies which they will let (in appearance) be administered by the natives elevated to the rank of “free citizens” of sovereign republics, but which, through the international banking mechanisms, they will pilot as they wish, without moving from their offices and without the fleet having to rush in. Who does not know that the industrialisation plans of China, India and the other Afro-Asian states are being implemented thanks to the intervention of foreign capital (read: United States, Germany, Russia)?
According to conventional wisdom of your average leftist, this situation is no different from historical colonialism.
Thermonuclear colonialism, the colonialism that the United States is introducing in the world, is pure capitalist colonialism. It exploits “free” workers enthralled by the megalomaniac plans of industrialisation of governments which, under the pretext of building “something other than capitalism”, function, and will function even more in the future, as vehicles of the imperialist expansionism of the dollar.
"Something other than capitalism" - is this the precursor to "non-mode of production" or "transitional society" gibberish?
Now that you have given it your blessings the morons online will now take ritualistic notice of it
There probably isn't so much reason to worry about this. I think the self-identified leftcommunist milieu on Reddit has basically disintegrated.
It would be good if this were the case, but I'm afraid it's not true. Aside from such abominations as /r/marxism_101 and its affiliate subreddits being kept open for god knows what reasons, the same people have just dispersed. Some might also have retracted to even more degenerate mediums, that better allow them to indulge in their pathetic behaviour, such as Twitter, but they still linger on.
There are still heaps of morons that attempt to copy what is being laid out in this subreddit every now and then, while they in reality bungle it everytime. Of course that's what's bound to happen if they lack the knowledge that lies behind it. Most people parading communism on the internet just do not have a genuine interest in it. They are relying on Chinese whispers in order to dunk on other people who do the same, and that's the extent to which they care. As far as the sentiment underlying their talk is concerned, they are not different from the people they want to criticise. Cue endless arguments over what communism is. They merely memorise to say or not to say certain things, like disciples or adepts, but they do not desire to bring themselves into a position in which they are able to critically assess matters themselves. When told: "You are not a communist, you merely search for an identity", they do not wonder what this means or entails, but merely tell others the same while continuing to behave in the exact same manner as before. They'd rather stay powerless cockroaches who want to be told what to think and what to do. Almost no one reads anything by Marx, and this is painfully obvious to everyone that does - the occasional pleasant surprise which asks a good question excluded.
In the German Ideology, Marx writes this about communism:
The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the individual capacities corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves.
And in the introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, he says:
Likewise, every estate lacks that breadth of soul which identifies itself with the people's soul, even if only momentarily, that ingenuity which inspires material power to political violence, that revolutionary boldness which hurls the defiant slogan at the enemy: I am nothing, and I need to be everything. The mainstay of German morality and honesty, not only of individuals but also of classes, is rather formed by that modest egoism which asserts its limitedness and lets it be asserted against itself.
Whereas today, you have people who call themselves communists that revel in their state of ineptitude and even attempt to glorify it. Their misery does not bring them to the conclusion that they need to attack its causes, both individual and social, but that society should officially recognise and honour it - this is what communism to them is. They do not lack some inherent, divinely gifted talent. They simply do not have any wish to change themselves, to develop their capacities, to acquire new skills. In fact, they seem to have no real interests at all. Rather, they want the world to accommodate for them. But there's no merit to being a loser. When this is laid out to them, they do not consider this a judgement against what they are currently engaging in, but a judgement against their person - against what they are in their very essence. To them, their person has no other content than the political opinions they have arbitrarily decided to take on as a moral framework, and the accompanying activity. So rather than seeing this criticism as an impetus to change themselves, they just become even more miserable. It's a stupid state of affairs.
Mind you that all this applies to adults. As for all the children browsing the internet, it would be better for them if they went offline and searched for an actual hobby.
You know that they're some petty bourgeois idiot when they "get into" communism from some fiction, like a meme, a video game, book, etc. This is really just the development of some hobby, not some real necessity.
In a class society, whether of the slave or capitalist type, the spread of the mode of production outside the borders of the state can only take place in the form of violent conquest. All non-Marxist critics of colonialism started from this fact: the use of violence and the subjection of conquered peoples to formulate their curses.
Uh oh. ICP: cancelled. Again.
The affirmation that colonialism, notwithstanding the bloodshed and the drastic forms of racial subjugation, has played a positive role, favouring the diffusion of the dominant mode of production, will sound like blasphemy to the adepts of the anti-colonialist religion, the fashionable political religion. If we then add, drawing a logical consequence, that colonial warfare is the only means available to the class state for the geographical spread of the predominant economy, it will only result in an avalanche of accusations, including that of thinking the same way as angry bourgeois racists.
lol
and will continue to be so until the proletarian revolution returns to roar in the heart of Western capitalism
They're saying this because in 1957 the labor movement was most advanced in the West, right? Is that still true today?
Not really if you see how majority of proletarians now reside in the global south. Not only that, China which is a non-western country is now world's great power. The prerequisites for transition to communism is also here all around the globe as the last vestiges of archaic relations are gone. With last of peasantry becoming proletarians, it is now possible world wide. If you look at the map during 1950s and map today, you will realize independent nation states had replaced colonial territories of the past, signifying how feudal and asiatic means of production are now gone and "national liberation" has been finished. Greatest cities with millions of proletarians are now located in Africa and India like Lagos and Calcutta. Conditions when this article was written is no longer here. When this article was written, supermajority of Chinese and Indians were peasants living off the land just like the Russian Empire. Nowdays, China and India are centers of world manufacturing.
This doesn't mean that communist revolutions could not necessarily happen in countries where feudal relations are still dominant, as it occurred in Russia. Lenin recognized that socialism was impossible in a country where peasants were the majority, but he knew unlike the Mensheviks that proletariat could still hold political power and hold on. Mao did not, which is why this article is criticizing Mao's claims about construction of "communism" in his country.
They're saying this because in 1957 the labor movement was most advanced in the West, right?
Not necessarily. It is as west had fully gone capitalist, not because it was had the most militant labor movement at that time. This is also somewhat incorrect as Russia and Eastern Bloc also joined the rank of capitalist nations except in few retarded forms such as soviet cooperative farms. In essence, they are saying this to say elimination of capitalism, wage labor, and transition to non-mercantile forms are only possible once capitalism has been established first like in the west.
Without capitalism, no proletariat. Without(majority of the population being) proletariat, labor movement also remains stifled. When majority of population remains as peasants with their interests against the abolition of property, labor movement's ultimate aim of abolishing private property does not match the majority of the population. Proletariat, the propertyless class dependent on wage-labor naturally tends towards abolition of property as it has no property. Peasants, who rely on their own parcel of land for living instead of pure wage labor does not tend toward abolition of private property. Labor movement of proletarians tends eventually towards communism because of this reason, but peasants do not tend towards communism by nature. This is why " The democratic and national revolutions of Nehru, Mao Zedong, Sukarno and colleagues do not, from the point of view of the mode of production and social organization, reach goals different from those that came before, under the cover of different ideologies ,the colonialist leaders à la Cecil Rhodes." in attempt to establish mercantile relations and enforce wage labor, establishing capitalism. Feudal relations and asiatic relations has to first become capitalist relations for abolition of capitalism, while only fully capitalist countries with proletarians could only immediately go to abolition of capitalism and everything that comes with it. This is why this paper called for revolution in the west as essential.
This does not mean that communists could not seize power in feudal countries like Russia, as proletariat could still hold power and attempt to spread revolution to more developed countries. But in our times, it is somewhat irrelevant as last of feudal vestiges had been wiped out.
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Does anyone have a link to "The Plot Against The International" mentioned in the text? I cant seem to find it.
Referring to this from chapter 13:
Even the opponents of Marx condemned the intrigues of Bakunin, and voted for his exclusion. Whoever wants to learn more of this affair may read “The Plot Against the International,” translated from the French by Kokosky (Braunschweig, 1874). New edition, “Vorwaerts” Library, Berlin.
The original title of that text is "L'Alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'Association internationale des travailleurs", in case you want to read it in French. The translators of Lessner's memoirs for some reason chose to translate the alternative title Kokosky used for the German rendition into English, which is "Ein Komplott gegen die Internationale Arbeiterassoziation".
The actual English title follows the French original, and hence is "The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association". MIA does not host it, but you can read it directly in the PDF of MECW Volume 23, page 454 onwards here instead.
Nice, thank you
You're welcome.
Reading this should make it obvious to everyone what an insult it is to people like Lessner when contemporary retards call themselves communists.
The struggles of teenage Americans as they work their way towards a college degree are way more arduous than what Lessner had to go through, what are you talking about?
Do you know how hard my dad had to work to pay my way through a law degree in San Fransisco?
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Lenin said to the youth that it was necessary "to take the whole sum of human knowledge and to take it in such a way that Communism will not be something learned by heart but something which you have thought out yourselves, something which forms the inevitable conclusion from the point of view of modern education." (Volume XXV.) "If a Communist were to boast of Communism on the basis of ready-made conclusions, without doing serious, big and difficult work, without thoroughly understanding the facts towards which he must take a critical attitude, such a Communist would be a very poor one." (Volume XXV.)
Lenin very frequently deliberately sharpened a question. He considered that the tone was not the important thing. You may express yourself coarsely and bitingly. What is important is that you speak to the point. In the preface to the correspondence of F. A. Sorge, he gives a quotation from Mehring from his Correspondence with Sorge : " Mehring is right in saying that Marx and Engels gave little thought to a ' high tone.' They did not stop long to think before dealing a blow, but they did not whine about every blow they received." (Volume XI.) Incisiveness of form and style were natural to Lenin. He learned it from Marx. He says "Marx relates how he and Engels fought constantly against the miserable conducting of this "Social-Democrat" and often fought sharply (wobei oft scharf hergeht) (Volume XI.). Lenin did not fear sharpness, but he demanded that objections should be to the point. Lenin had one favourite word which he frequently used: " quibbling." If a polemic began which was not to the point, if people began to pick at trifles or juggle with facts, he used to say: "that is mere quibbling." Lenin expressed himself with still greater force against polemics which had not the aim of bringing clearness into the question but of paying off small factional grudges. This was the favourite method of the Mensheviks. Concealing themselves behind quotations from Marx and Engels, taken out of their context, out of the circumstances in which they were written, they served factional aims entirely. In the preface to the correspondence of F. A. Sorge, Lenin wrote: " To imagine that the advice of Marx and Engels to the Anglo-American workers' movement can be simply and directly adapted to Russian conditions means to utilise Marxism, not to elucidate his method, not to study the concrete historic peculiarities of the workers' movement in definite countries, but for petty factional grudges of the intelligentsia." (Volume XI.)
It's funny to see that others emphasise the most stupid parts of this.
I don't think that they understand that the whole article is a dig at Stalin.
I suddenly really understand why Kautsky, even while Lenin was still basically a pupil of his, rubbed him the wrong way.
even while Lenin was still basically a pupil of his
I've never seen any evidence of this
I assume they are arriving at this conclusion from the title of Dauvé's work.
There is also Lars Lih and neo-Kautskyists who push a similar narrative.
Why is that even a thing?
It comes from the CPGB-PCC and Mike Macnair. Ticktin - the guy who promotes this "non-mode of production" nonsense - also is affiliated with them.
Because Lars Lih had access to the Soviet archives and historical interpretation changes with new discoveries. Wierd, I know, it's almost like history isn't inert.
Haha, the nerve to present this as a progress! All the sources in the world don't matter if the result is preestablished for ideological purposes.
The real question is are you a purposeful clown or an accidental one. But hey get your history from a fucking musicologist. I am glad the Trots got their answer to Furr.
What are the “Volumes” that this text cites?
Edit: Never-mind, I found it.
“The publication of Lenin's complete collected works makes this work easier.”
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The writing style in this is terrible. I'm not sure what the point of translating it was; the actual content seems fairly mundane.
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Bukharin and Zinoviev come across as complete imbeciles.
Bukharin at a speech in the comintern
Now regarding Comrade Bordiga. He opened by saying that he accepted the spirit of the united front tactic. That was said in a noble, idealistic, and spiritual manner. But Comrade Bordiga, your spirit lacks substance. (Laughter) We need a spirit that is not so ephemeral but rather something more tangible. The main error of Comrade Bordiga is that he rejects the living dialectic in an attempt to grasp the unknown using fixed categories. First we want to take account of every eventuality, he says, and then we will work out various protective measures to ensure that we commit no sins. (Laughter) But life is complicated and nothing can be determined in advance. So Comrade Bordiga stands around in his big galoshes (Laughter), as we used to say in Russia – that is, in total perplexity.
Comrade Bordiga also speaks of flexibility and eclecticism. He uses these words as synonyms. What does that tell us? Comrade Bordiga regards what the Russian party considers its greatest acquisition as nothing but lack of principle and petty-bourgeois cynicism. That of course is a major error. You can’t make it through life’s hardships with such an approach. Then, continuing his remarks against the united front tactic, Comrade Bordiga says the party must come first, and only then the action of the party. That is exactly the error of which I just spoke.
Comrade Bordiga also uses his spiritual capacities to explain international discipline in a peculiar fashion. He tell us: I am a centralist. Indeed, I am against a federated central body formed of representatives of parties. I am for an absolutely centralised Executive. Then we come to his ‘but’: We are not soldiers, and the International is not a barracks, and military regulations cannot be applied mechanically to the International. What he is demanding in reality is greater autonomy of the national parties. Comrade Bordiga has spoken much about dialectical contradictions, but what he is presenting here is not contradiction but sheer nonsense. It is decked out in a little cloak of much finer texture. International discipline cannot be interpreted in this fashion – as meaning that the International has full power but we are autonomous and will do whatever we like.
I have a few more things to say. Look at the situation in Italy. Everything cries out for a unification of proletarian forces. In Italy the most important challenge is that of organisational unity with the Socialist Party. And Comrade Bordiga comes here and says not a word about this important challenge. His entire speech is an attempt, in the manner of Bergson, to establish an abstract philosophy of action, that represents no action whatsoever. But not a word about the concrete problems. Here we see once again the result of this insubstantial spirit that is not in fact a sound tool of proletarian struggle. These are relics of an entirely dogmatic and sectarian point of view. The Italian party, which has accomplished much, has also committed errors with regard to the agrarian question, the Arditi del Popolo [People’s Commandos], etc.[5] All the errors the Italian party has committed are results of and are logical expressions of the errors found in the speech of Comrade Bordiga.
They had absolutely no idea what was going on. Either that or they didn't care (and anyone who uses "dialectical" like this is a sure fire moron). To quote Lenin:
I have had too little opportunity to acquaint myself with “Left-wing” communism in Italy.
Lenin seemed to have been getting all of his information from Gramsci's rag the Ordine Nuovo about Italy so it's no wonder that the picture was muddled.
Zinoviev and Bukharin must have been annoyed that Bordiga and his base were so secure, which probably explains why they offered him the vice presidency of the comintern, as a way to get him out of Italy and to weaken the party. It says a lot that it took the full brunt of the Fascist state to destroy the party enough to allow other imbeciles like Gramsci to be inserted into the leadership.
It says a lot that it took the full brunt of the Fascist state to destroy the party enough to allow other imbeciles like Gramsci to be inserted into the leadership.
It's funny to find a reference to a "philosophy of action" amidst Bukharin's retarded ramblings here, when it's Gramsci who did actually reduce Marxism to just that.
Gramsci is honestly the worst of the bunch. I wonder if anyone has actually read him or if they're just merely extrapolating. Although, I should never under estimate the depths of bourgeois cretinism that people seem to take a fondness in reveling in.
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It might as well have been written yesterday.
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Why this piece? I think this sums up quite well the mistakes of a desire to "do something" at any cost, even in objectively shitty eras of counter-revolution (such as our's, though I do hope the Iranian proletariat is beginning to feel its own strength). Bordiga also wrote on this theme, but it's important to find the notion at one of its sources.
AFTER THE FAILURE of every revolution or counter revolution, a feverish activity develops among the fugitives, who have escaped to foreign countries. The parties of different shades form groups, accuse each other of having driven the cart into the mud, charge one another with treason and every conceivable sin.
At the same time they remain in close touch with the home country, organise, conspire, print leaflets and newspapers, swear that the trouble will start afresh within twenty-four hours, that victory is certain, and distribute the various government offices beforehand on the strength of this anticipation.
Of course, disappointment follows disappointment, and since this is not attributed to the inevitable historical conditions, which they refuse to understand, but rather to accidental mistakes of individuals, the mutual accusations multiply, and the whole business winds up with a grand row. This is the history of all groups of fugitives from the royalist emigrants of 1792 until the present day. Those fugitives, who have any sense and understanding, retire from the fruitless squabble as soon as they can do so with propriety and devote themselves to better things.
Against feverish and pointless activity, Engels suggests a pulling-back, so as to assess the situation and devote ourselves (this "ourselves" might be a bit presumptuous, I'll admit) to theoretical clarification. Included is a critique of Blanquism, which shouldn't be relevant to our era, but one finds shades of it in every "revolutionary party" of three members--the Red Guards in Austin come immediately to mind, but one need not single them out--who aspire to be "persons of action" (Engels being considerably less woke than our advanced era in his gendering of the Blanquists). There's a tidbit on the peculiar atheism of the fugitive groups that makes me laugh, so I'll share it:
Fortunately it requires no great heroism to be an atheist nowadays. Atheism is practically accepted by the European working men's parties, although in certain countries it may at times be of the same caliber as that of a certain Bakounist, who declared that it was contrary to all socialism to believe in God, but that it was different with the virgin Mary, in whom every good socialist ought to believe.
I hate to simply spend this silly little commentary of mine reciting quotes from the piece as though they were the hadiths of a prophet, but I must conclude with these paragraphs, which seem to me a rebuke to the project (in the most limited, absurd sense) of the leftist edgelord:
In this line, so far as big words are concerned, we know that the Bakounists have reached the limit; but the Blanquists feel that it is their duty to excel them in this. And how do they do this? It is well known that the entire socialist proletariat, from Lisbon to New York and Budapest to Belgrade has assumed the responsibility for the actions of the Paris Commune without hesitation. But that is not enough for the Blanquists. "As for us, we claim our part of the responsibility for the executions of the enemies of the people" (by the Commune), whose names are then enumerated; "we claim our part of the responsibility for those fires, which destroyed the instruments of royal or bourgeois oppression or protected our fighters."
In every revolution some follies are inevitably committed, just as they are at any other time, and when quiet is finally restored, and calm reasoning comes, people necessarily conclude: We have done many things which had better been left undone, and we have neglected many things which we should have done, and for this reason things went wrong.
But what a lack of judgment it requires to declare the Commune sacred, to proclaim it infallible, to claim that every burnt house, every executed hostage, received their just dues to the dot over the i! Is not that equivalent to saying that during that week in May the people shot just as many opponents as was necessary, and no more, and burnt just those buildings which had to be burnt, and no more? Does not that repeat the saying about the first French Revolution: Every beheaded victim received justice, first those beheaded by order of Robespierre and then Robespierre himself! To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite goodnatured.
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Interesting that the unions called the strike considering the large extent of tripartite social-corporatist policies and their integration into the state. Anyone know any informative resources on Norwegian labor unions and/or the state of its labor movement in general?
I'm not sure what is surprising or interesting about this. Do you think that social corporatism means that unions do not call for strikes at all?
I'm not saying that strikes aren't called at all, but does it not make it significantly harder to do so because of the privileges granted to the elected union officials?
It doesn't have much to do with the "privileges granted to the elected union officials". More often than not, it's the leadership of the unions itself that calls for these strikes, which makes the question of how hard it is to organise a strike kind of moot - it isn't always the case that the initiative proceeds "from below". And even when there's significant rank-and-file activity, a social corporatist trade union can still ostensibly support it and redirect it to harmless ends. All of this is very obvious if you ever had any contact with unions.
Here, there's a similar example from Germany, the conditions of which have been covered in this subreddit at length.
I had the impression that social corporatist unions in Europe tried to avoid strikes as much as possible, but clearly I'm mistaken about this. Thanks!
They take away the independence of the labour movement. This can take on many forms, and does not at all preclude the possibility of encouraging strikes. Of course, the general tendency will be to smooth out labour relations, but this happens precisely through allowing pressing needs and anger to be addressed in a controlled manner every now and then. Also, I'm not sure why you focus so much on strikes at all.
Also, I'm not sure why you focus so much on strikes at all
My understanding was that social-corporatist unions would try to avoid strikes because they directly disrupt profit-making as well as being a visible manifestation of passion and initiative that might encourage other workers to organize as well. In the US unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO try to discourage strikes as much as possible, to the point that the recent wave of organizing has occurred through the formation of new unions/online, outside of the traditional unions, but as you pointed out the methods for controlling labor in Europe are more nuanced.
It's a matter of conditions, simply. That's why you look at empirical realities instead of trying to confirm your preconceived ideas stemming from different circumstances.
Also, what I meant about your focus on strikes is that they are not the only possible means to achieve certain demands.
I mean if anything this shows that regardless of the capitalists desire for class collaboration this does not preclude the working class from having independent practical initiative. Two classes that have different needs or interests will always be at odds.
It obviously doesn't if we're talking about it.
A handful of strikes in one sector doesn't provide enough information to conclude how difficult or easy it is to organize strikes in general, that's why I asked for more information on the Norwegian labor movement as I'm not an expert by any means and I wanted to learn more.
Do you live inside an abstraction? I don't understand how you can be asking such questions and still mindlessly ask "for more information".
I don't live in Norway so I don't know about the labor movement there beyond the fact that the Tripartite system is in place. I wanted to learn more so I asked and a user replied with a website keeping track of current labor organizing. Not sure what the problem is; if you want me to delete my comment then I'll do so.
Not sure what the problem is; if you want me to delete my comment then I'll do so.
Obviously their problem is that you're approaching this as if you were a student who was assigned some homework to fill out. People have been asking what it means when /u/dr_marx and I mention people treating issues in a scholastic manner - well, they have a prime example in what you are doing in this thread here. You sound like someone trying to make sense of reality by means of a school textbook. Kautsky is the historical example of this sort of behaviour. Not only was he mocked properly for it by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, but we also know what it meant for his practical activity.
Your conduct here reminds me a bit of the person that recently created a thread here to ask about how unions function. When we pointed out the absurdity of their questions, they went on to ask what would be wrong of them wanting "to help push towards a world without exploitation". I'm not sure if people realise how revealing such statements are. The problem of course is that pointing it out merely leads to them wording themselves differently, while the underlying sentiment remains the same. In the same manner, you deleting your comment is pointless.
Obviously their problem is that you're approaching this as if you were a student who was assigned some homework to fill out.
I see, just asking for more information in the abstract doesn't help anything beyond satiating my curiosity, though with my lack of knowledge in this matter I'm not sure where to start even though of course the general problem is: what needs to be done to move past the current state of the labor movement.
I guess I just haven't learned to ask the right questions yet, and this reflects my lack of experience.
If someone gave you a giant dataset listing all strikes in Norway, what would that tell you? If it had only one strike listed, even if it had 0, would that tell you that strikes were difficult to manifest or not?
No, you're right that statistics without context would not be enough to make any sort of conclusion.
https://frifagbevegelse.no/ there's this one, google translate should work
Thank you!
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The accompanying article "Race and Class" that was posted here before more closely relates to the situation.http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/cosi/cosiiceboe.html
The Anti-Nazi League, which has recently resurfaced in England, is one amongst many organisations that has taken up the cause of anti-fascism; the very banner under which millions of workers were butchered in the Second World War, and as is so often the case, this organisation is supported by numerous leftist groups that claim to represent the working class's best interests. Despite superficial appearances, this organisation, and anti-fascism in general, is a veritable minefield for the unwary; the worker doesn't just fritter away potentially classist energy, but is led to support an organisation which directly bolsters capitalism!
Many of the protesters in the US are more concerned with anti-racism than anti-fascism, but the result is still the same. One simply has to look at the demands of Black Lives Matter to see that they are only concerned with making a "fairer" capitalism rather than organizing the workers against capitalism.
If workers join such anti-fascist organisations with the aim of «duffing over» fascists, we certainly don't wish to stand accused of stifling a healthy anger against the preposterous viciousness of unadulterated fascist ideology. We wish only to point out that the iron fist of fascism is concealed within the soft glove of democracy all the while - which is why the latter is almost as painful: the daily insecurity of working in capitalist society (whose job will be the next to go?) the evictions, homelessness, over-crowding, the necessity to have to exercise one's «right» to have do endless overtime to pay the bills, what a horrible Hobson's choice it is. We emphasise: we are anti-fascist as well but we are also against the capitalist fetish of democracy.
In Britain, fascism is generally equated with racism. Racism is easier to grasp than the alleged fundamental differences between allegedly different systems after all, and this is why the pundits of anti-fascism, who are very thin on theory, dwell on the subject so much. Rather they prefer to depend on whipping up emotions to almost evangelical frenzy - about race. Apart from this favourite cause of anti-racism, all the anti-fascists have to offer is a string of vague and contradictory platitudes: fascists go in for torture in rather a big way; they are totalitarian - Hitler was voted in; and they bash people up and torture them.
But bourgeois anti-racism is concerned only with race in the abstract: race is divorced from economy, and capitalism in particular.
Even though the majority of the protesters are not anti-fascists, the predominant opinion seems to be that the murder of Floyd was some kind of deviation from the norm (or, rather, what should be the norm), something that should not happen in a democracy. The reality of the matter is that violence and force is part of the normal functioning of democracy. The substitution of race for class has allowed the black petty-bourgeoisie to push its own demands as the demands of the demands of the entire black population, including the black proletariat.
the demands of Black Lives Matter
People probably don't know or have forgotten that this is an actual organization, with leaders, finances, political endorsements. The founders all got rich out of it and most of them endorsed Clinton.
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You should look up Deray, he started out as a blm figurehead and then got rich off the back of it. He's been shilling for privatised schools since ferguson died down
Many of the protesters in the US are more concerned with anti-racism than anti-fascism, but the result is still the same. One simply has to look at the demands of Black Lives Matter to see that they are only concerned with making a "fairer" capitalism rather than organizing the workers against capitalism.
I don't think one could, at this point, expect anything better from "Black Lives Matter," whatever we consider that to be. The BLM organization itself has been a Clintonite front for years now. As a symbol or phrase, it's entirely adaptable by the ruling class. Megacorporations and individual billionaires and millionaires have been enthusiastically repeating it over the last couple days. It's really ideology at its purest.
The substitution of race for class has allowed the black petty-bourgeoisie to push its own demands as the demands of the demands of the entire black population, including the black proletariat.
Certainly, but let's not lose sight of how much the petty bourgeoisie as a whole has attached itself to this.
BLM reminds me somewhat of Pride in the way it has been enthusiastically embraced by corporations for PR purposes. Hell, even reddit is sporting a token black logo lmao
This article is also good on the migrant/refugee situation in the US and Europe:
Connected with small-scale illegal immigration are mass, and attempted mass, migrations. The Albanians arriving by shiploads in the Italian ports; the Vietnamese boat people in Hong-Kong; the Somalian and Ethiopian refugees pressing on the borders of their neighbouring countries. In these cases refugee or internment camps are set up, or measures are taken to ship refugees back to their countries of origin - after, perhaps, allowing a few of the professional classes to stay. These can easily become Auschwitz like encampments in terms of their function of keeping the poor and starving in one place.
For some reason, the horrors of the World War Two concentration camps, still the subject of endless morbid documentaries, are seen as something that is far more «evil» than people dying in their millions of starvation in the «refugee camps» - places where people are concentrated in one place and just left to die. These have become just one more ghastly spectacle for the «news industry» to capitalise on: naked skeletons, the very picture of human misery are presented to us over and over again on the T.V. and papers. People at there most vulnerable appear wedged between items about beached dolphins and EEC summits as just another sensational «scoop». Rarely is there any explanation that goes beyond the superficial, and we are constantly told that periodic mass starvations are «natural disasters», beyond human control; or if wars have contributed to them, these, we are also told, are «natural disasters» which «serve to keep the population down».
[...] A few «radical» interpretations also see the light of day. These tend always to be pitched as a critique of the «fairness» of the current trading arrangements between the poorer, raw material producing, countries and the richer nations. After having highlighted the fact that these poorer countries have to pay back the huge interest rates on the loans foisted on them when the OPEC money came in; after having pointed out how these poorer countries are constantly forced to accept minuscule prices for their products; after having highlighted the one-sided arrangements which the giant victualling firms force on the nations where they set up their operations, the radicals can is only dream of a «fair» capitalism; the very system that innately unfair by its legal endorsement of «the right» to extract surplus value from the labourer and convert it into privately owned capital. Charity is the only solution that capitalism will permit; as the real and permanent solution, international working-class solidarity, would, and will, threaten their very existence.
Commentators decry the migrant detention centers and call them concentration camps, but the argument ends there. It is like pointing out the similarity to the Nazis is enough of a moral condemnation, and they have done their radical duty. It would be too much to analyze the economic driver of disposing of large groups of people.
There is a relationship in so much that inequality between people is the result of an economic inequality and not because of any legal, paralegal or innate feeling of person. Legal and political equality is a sham under class society. I don't think that things would change much for the black community even if the police force were somehow reformed, because the real problems stem from that community having higher rates of unemployment and poverty.
Capital likes to have a reserve labor force, to help drive down wages as a whole and this has been the case for some time. Anyone who doesn't talk about this are really only providing empty platitudes because equality in law doesn't mean anything under capital.
The judicial system will always be biased against people who have less money, if just because it's often the case that pleading guilty is less expensive and time consuming than fighting your case.
Capital likes to have a reserve labor force, to help drive down wages as a whole and this has been the case for some time. Anyone who doesn't talk about this are really only providing empty platitudes because equality in law doesn't mean anything under capital.
Regrettably, the only place in current political discourse where these themes are in any way touched upon are far right ravings about the "great replcement" and the like.
There's a programmatic document for Salvini's leadership bid of the Lega that literally contains the expression "industrial reserve army".
Well Lega does have its base in the industrial north
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“...Today, the union is facing the most serious rebellion in its ranks since Jerry Tucker and New Directions: Unite All Workers for Democracy, or UAWD, a new rank-and-file movement founded in response to the concessions and the scandals rocking UAW leadership.
The UAWD comes out of the rebel energy generated by the record-setting fall 2019 strike. In perhaps a tactical mistake for maintaining its own power, the union’s leadership called a strike at GM in mid-September in the midst of contract negotiations. Rank-and-file critics believe that union leaders feared another member revolt over the remaining tiers, as well as the rising number of temporary workers and the corruption charges, so UAW officials called a strike as a way to redirect member anger and reestablish credibility. 46,000 UAW members successfully shut down production at General Motors, still the country’s largest automaker, for six weeks—despite the lack of any clear public contract demands, an organized contract campaign, or significant strike preparation by UAW leadership. It was the longest national autoworker strike in almost 50 years.
...Like many of the teachers who jumpstarted strikes in red states in 2018 and 2019, the UAWD was created by activists, mostly from the Big Three, who found each other online and began organizing during the GM strike.
“Through Facebook groups, we found people who were interested in reforming the union, ending corruption and organizing the membership,” says Travis Watkins, 47, a bargaining chair for Local 167 in Wyoming, Mich. UAWD organizers chat daily over Facebook messenger, organize regular conference calls, and are planning their first national meeting, where they will meet in person for the first time, at the 2020 Labor Notes Conference in April.
The group’s first organizing goal is to break the hold of the Administration Caucus by changing to a one-member, one-vote system to elect top officers. To alter the electoral system, locals representing 79,000 members must pass a resolution to hold a special convention where such a change could be enacted. As of this writing, 20 locals representing more than 45,000 members have done so.
“The membership is the highest authority in the union, and we’re organizing so we can start acting like it,” says Chris Budnick, 34, an activist at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant and a founding member of UAWD.
In the longer term, UAWD hopes to pivot the union away from the failed ideology of a labor-management partnership and back to the UAW’s militant roots.
“Forty years of joint programs has led to the loss of a million union jobs, so what do we do?” asks Budnick. “We have to learn how to stop the damn lines again.”“
ICP Climate change protests leaflet. Print and circulate:
Engish: http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/TheCPart/PDF/Climate_change.pdf
French: http://www.international-communist-party.org/Francais/Actualit/2019/Environnementale.pdf
Portuguese: http://www.international-communist-party.org/Portugue/Realidade/2019/Mudanca_climatica.pdf
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This particular text does not outright state this, but seeing as it is implict in many of the discussions surrounding the topic, it should be mentioned that thinking that it is absolutely inconceivable that capital can avoid human extinction through environmental destruction is shortsighted. It is like saying that capital cannot provide healthcare. Ultimately, following that premise leads to declaring the efforts of all sorts of non-proletarian groups as mediately revolutionary. Sure enough, capital disturbs the metabolism between man and nature, but the bourgeoisie will generally strive towards ruining the environment in a sustainable (this is where the frenzy for that word comes from!) manner for itself. Whether or not its calculation will work out in the end is of course not certain - the possibility of complete extinction is contained, but so is its opposite. Fractions of the bourgeoisie will go to lengths to show that pollution control is profitable, and some demand a war-like mobilisation to combat environmental destruction. The majority is preparing to deal with the misery that is to come.
Generally though, I do not understand the point of pamphlets like these. I suppose they are meant to be distributed at demonstrations against environmental destruction like the one that happened yesterday - the question is: to what end? It is of course indisputable that the communist party needs to go towards all classes to clear up confusion, but it still seems to me that such leaflets indulge in the illusion that the protests over environmental destruction have a content that is not petty bourgeois. It is hardly conceivable that the proletariat will go to war over abstract issues which do not concern its immediate problems. More, texts like these seem to count on using the angst of the petty bourgeois to scare them into communism. Environmental destruction itself overall is a secondary issue - texts like "Murder of the Dead" or "The Human Species and the Earth's Crust" were not written for ecological reasons.
And when we look at the actual content, we find nothing but boilerplate assertions - this article could have been written by anyone, for any party. It reads like something Trotskyists would put out. All these platitudes suggest that the authors themselves haven't thought about the topic in any more depth either. We find vague appeals to class struggle, but no perspectives for any actually existing fights. There's a certain irony in expending the environment to create a pointless piece of agitation on environmentalism too - at least write a proper, detailed paper instead of a leaflet that will land in the nearest trashcan.
And when we look at the actual content, we find nothing but boilerplate assertions - this article could have been written by anyone, for any party. It reads like something Trotskyists would put out.
I think it's entirely credible to say that climate change could only be dealt with through class struggle, and that communism is the only means to deal with it. At any rate, rather than being merely a "secondary issue", I'd say there is a proletarian position on climate change, one that would see past the bourgeois need to reduce the effects of environmental destruction as a means to allow the continual accumulation of capital. The whole phenomenon of climate change seems to fit very neatly into what is required for the continual reproduction of capital, and I'm not sure there is any real bourgeois desire to stop it besides curbing excesses. Capital pollutes the Earth, and while this continues the need to "save the planet" is used as a slogan to attack the living conditions of the proletariat. It's very convienent.
There's another aspect of climate change too, which is that it would contribute to the destruction of fixed capital and the regulation of surplus populations as well as or better than any "world war" could. Rather than the sudden extinction of all of humanity, we're likely to see increased natural disasters and large segments of the Earth rendered less habitable and fertile while northern parts become more habitable. We're likely to see mass deaths and physical destruction in much of the less developed world, but nothing that should disrupt capital internationally. There's a quote from "Murder of the Dead" that seems notable:
But a pool of hydrological and seismological organisations cannot be formed, at least not until the great science of the bourgeois period is really able to provoke series of floods and earthquakes, like aerial bombardments.
This is almost no longer true, in that climate change allows capital to speed up the destructive capabilities of natural phenomenon. From either direction capital should see opportunity in climate change, either as a means to attack the living conditions of the proletariat under the guise of ecology or as a means to overcome the limitations of an overabundance of fixed capital or surplus population. Obviously protests like the "climate protest" are petty-bourgeois or interclassist, and seem conducive to being coopted by nation states for geopolitical reasons (it's easy to imagine some kind of western bloc against China justified through the threat of climate change, for example), but surely a communist perspective on climate change is a needed thing and could be important for some future proletarian movement? Surely it goes beyond just being a neutral or "secondary" issue when from either direction the bourgeois attitude to climate change takes the form of an attack on the proletariat?
I think it's entirely credible to say that climate change could only be dealt with through class struggle, and that communism is the only means to deal with it.
It depends on what is meant by that. Evidently one person in this thread already thinks that capital cannot avoid the extinction of humanity. It is this idea which I attacked. I agree that only communism can do away with environmental destruction in general.
the bourgeois need to reduce the effects of environmental destruction as a means to allow the continual accumulation of capital. The whole phenomenon of climate change seems to fit very neatly into what is required for the continual reproduction of capital, and I'm not sure there is any real bourgeois desire to stop it besides curbing excesses.
Environmental destruction has aspects beneficial and detrimental to capital, and the bourgeois will gladly take the first, and curb the second. This is what they have always done - the difference lies merely in the magnitude.
There's another aspect of climate change too, which is that it would contribute to the destruction of fixed capital and the regulation of surplus populations as well as or better than any "world war" could.
You mean constant capital, not fixed capital.
This is almost no longer true, in that climate change allows capital to speed up the destructive capabilities of natural phenomenon.
Isn't "climate change" exactly the "speeding up of the destructive capabilites of natural phenomena"? Do you think this is something the bourgeois do consciously?
Obviously protests like the "climate protest" are [...] interclassist
I am a bit weary of seeing criticism of any protests from this angle. I've read that word to the point of exhaustion at the end of articles of the "Il Comunista" ICP, where it is used as a catch-all term to describe the Yellow Vests, the protests in Hong Kong and Sudan, as well as other disparate phenomena. It is not sufficient to merely point that out, since every actual revolution always involves multiple classes - the point is that the proletariat must be the driving force, with others aligning themselves with it. Marx:
No class of civil society can play this role without arousing a moment of enthusiasm in itself and in the masses, a moment in which it fraternizes and merges with society in general, becomes confused with it and is perceived and acknowledged as its general representative, a moment in which its claims and rights are truly the claims and rights of society itself, a moment in which it is truly the social head and the social heart. Only in the name of the general rights of society can a particular class vindicate for itself general domination. For the storming of this emancipatory position, and hence for the political exploitation of all sections of society in the interests of its own section, revolutionary energy and spiritual self-feeling alone are not sufficient.
It is not a wrong criticism as such, but it also is not very helpful in terms of understanding, assessing or overcoming a situation. This does not apply to the climate protests, as they seem to be mostly astroturfed anyway.
protests [...] seem conducive to being coopted by nation states for geopolitical reasons (it's easy to imagine some kind of western bloc against China justified through the threat of climate change, for example)
It is very dubious that environmentalism would suffice as an ideology to get people in line for a major war. Additionally, if environmental destruction would already "contribute to the destruction of fixed capital and the regulation of surplus populations as well as or better than any 'world war' could", then what would be the reason for a war with China? It makes even less sense when taking into account China's large industry producing the technologies required for renewable energy (cf. Trump's comments about "climate change" being a Chinese hoax).
but surely a communist perspective on climate change is a needed thing and could be important for some future proletarian movement? Surely it goes beyond just being a neutral or "secondary" issue when from either direction the bourgeois attitude to climate change takes the form of an attack on the proletariat?
What would the communist perspective on it be, other than showing how capital necessarily ruins the environment, exposing the various bourgeois answers for what they are, as well as concretely showing how the proletariat fighting is able to address pollution? Environmental destruction does not bring about any unforeseen change in how the communist movement works. Rather, what is important is clarity on the essential issues that will be exasperated: How does the labour movement deal with migration, for example? This is a matter on which there is almost universal confusion. Environmental destruction is an abstraction if it is not connected to the actual capitalist society that we live in, and the effects it is going to have within it.
By abstract ideas do you mean it's removed from reality in the sense that it removes class from people and views the issue as one of the mass? Or in the sense that it's not being faced in the present?
You won't get proletarians to associate around CO2 targets - and if it were possible, it would not be desirable either.
Because it would mean proletarians fighting for a sustainable state of the production and thereby distribution process, foregoing a seizure of the MoP and destruction of capitalist relations of production? Hasn't that already happened?
Because it would mean proletarians fighting for a sustainable state of the production and thereby distribution process, foregoing a seizure of the MoP and destruction of capitalist relations of production?
"Sustainable" cannot mean anything else than "sustainable for capital" - you would be saying that capital cannot achieve this without the conscious aid of the proletariat; you would be asking workers to not fight for communism, but to carry out the work of capital. I'm not sure what this has to do with the distribution process, or what precisely you have in mind.
Suppose you actually could get the proletariat to fight for the reduction of CO2 emissions necessary for the achievement of the 1.5 degree goal, and it succeeded: What would the outcome be? Capital would still exist, and so would environmental destruction - you'd just have limited a particular form of it. The proletariat still would be shackled to capital, and would have to endure all that is inflicted on it.
The reason why communist struggles can do away with environmental destruction is because they counterpose the movement of labour as mediated by private property, the estranged metabolism between man and nature, with the self-regulation and self-movement of labour. They therefore are also an immediate remedy, long before one gets to the proletarian dictatorship. The demand for a reduction of CO2 emissions does not help in that regard: it is rather an attempt of pressuring the bourgeoisie into adopting a particular capitalist solution to the problem. For example, what could happen would be that it would trigger "the lights to go out" in the West, where it is difficult to increase exploitation, and make industry move to countries with lax environmental regulations - thereby undermining the very aim.
You're confusing an existential crisis with class issues: If an asteroid were on a collision course with earth, would you be asking for a proletarian response to it, respectively a communist position on it too? The situation is similar to Stalinists during the Cold War having the proletariat line up behind the various "peace movements" in order to avoid the supposedly inevitable complete nuclear extinction which the petty bourgeoisie feared:
“Worry” is nothing but the mood of oppression and anxiety which in the middle class is the necessary companion of labour, of beggarly activity for securing scanty earnings. “Worry” flourishes in its purest form among the German good burghers, where it is chronic and “always identical with itself”, miserable and contemptible, whereas the poverty of the proletarian assumes an acute, sharp form, drives him into a life-and-death struggle, makes him a revolutionary, and therefore engenders not “worry”, but passion.
Likewise, those that worked themselves off to become the abstract opposite of Stalinism:
I was one of the founders of Socialisme ou Barbarie, but the atmosphere soon became impossible. Castoriadis exerted hegemony over the journal (he wrote the main articles) and his central idea in the mid 1950s was that a third world war was inevitable. This was very hard for people in the group to stand: to continue our lives, while thinking there would be an atomic explosion in a few yearsʼ time. It was an apocalyptic vision.
We know the outcome - both in terms of this prediction (which is of course not to say that nuclear extinction is not possible!), and the consequences for the labour movement.
The proletariat does not fight war with appeals to peace, but with communism.
The proletariat does not fight fascism with appeals to democracy, but with communism.
And finally: The proletariat does not fight environmental destruction with appeals to sustainability, but with communism.
Hasn't that already happened?
If you read that article, you'll see that the workers in these cases fought against immediate problems like smog, not something as abstract as CO2 targets.
When I said "you won't get proletarians to associate around CO2 targets" I meant that it is not a slogan that is capable of uniting the class around its independent objectives. There might be individual confused unions who would take up this flag, but it would just mean that they'd isolate themselves from the class in a narrow-minded particularity - it is always possible that less militant elements of the proletariat become enthralled by bourgeois ideologists. As an example: There are many unions which are in an uneasy state where they understand themselves in a manner resembling an organisation stuck halfway between union and party, hence limiting their own capacity because they're fracturing the proletariat in its economic fight along ideological lines. But communists ought to focus on the interests of the entire class. Slogans like these often lead to wrong conclusions: when they don't catch on as envisioned, the people championing them don't ask themselves whether they themselves are perhaps disconnected with reality, and whether their slogans lack common sense, but instead they get mad at the proletariat which does not act like they had planned, complete with the corresponding "explanations" as to what would have stifled "class consciousness" - which has no other content than the workers complying with whatever they them to do - this time by necessity.
As I mentioned, the consequences of environmental destruction manifest themselves in different ways for labour within capitalist society. When the proletariat fights, it will be against the conditions the bourgeoisie will at that point impose on the labour force at its disposal - which are the same as ever, merely exasperated. What the labour movement needs is clarity on how those issues essential to bourgeois society need to be tackled. Think of the reaction of the militant proletariat to the First World War, as an analogy for this. When the proletariat attacks private property head on, it mediately also attacks the environmental destruction caused by it. The danger lies in reversing this relationship, and thinking that fighting for CO2 targets would mediately constitute an attack on private property. Again an analogy: fighting capital mediately also fights fascism, but fighting for democracy does not mediately constitute an attack on capital, nor does it succeed in doing away with fascism.
When the proletariat fights for higher wages for example, it fights for its own immediate interests. As communists, we know that the wage form is by necessity always exploitative, i.e. that there is no "perfect wage", and that gains on that field will in the long-run be offset by capital through various means. This is why Marx in the Manifesto says that the real victories lie not in the concessions regarding the level of wages made by capital, but in the increasing association of the proletariat, which is overcoming the limits that capital imposes on it, and hence is able to become a class for itself, and develop the generality necessary to do away with private property. Even though the limits set to the proletariat hold it back, it is their active overcoming as a class which makes proletarians fit for rule: If the bourgeoisie brings about wage gains in an industry through yellow trade unions collaborating with corporations, the effect is not further association of the proletariat, but its demobilisation. The labour movement itself is what mediates communism, which is why it cannot be substituted for.
I already pointed out that "sustainable" always requires a further specification: sustainable for what? If you mean "sustainable for the continued survival of the species as such", then you're saying that capital cannot achieve this without the conscious aid of the proletariat; you're asking workers to not fight for communism, but to carry out the work of capital. I'm not sure what this has to do with the distribution process, or what precisely you have in mind.
I was using that sense of sustainable yes, but I wasn't saying capital needs the aid of the proletariat and that the proletariat should heed it's call lmao. I gave an example of unions already doing this. As for the distribution mention, I was just making note of it due to it's part in CO2 emission.
Suppose you actually could get the proletariat to fight for the reduction of CO2 emissions necessary for the achievement of the 1.5 degree goal, and it succeeded: What would the outcome be? Capital would still exist, and so would environmental destruction - you'd just have limited a particular form of it. The proletariat still would be shackled to capital, and would have to endure all the wounds inflicted on it.
Pretty sure I already made that clear by the way I worded that.
When I said "you won't get proletarians to associate around CO2 targets" I meant that it is not a slogan that is capable of uniting the class around its independent objectives. There might be individual confused unions who would take up this flag, but it would just mean that they'd isolate themselves from the class in a narrow-minded particularity - it is always possible that less militant elements of the proletariat become enthralled by bourgeois ideologists
Alright yeah that was the confusion and why I asked in my first question. Everything else in your comments I was in agreements towards as they're in line with the matter of things.
I was using that sense of sustainable yes, but I wasn't saying capital needs the aid of the proletariat and that the proletariat should heed it's call lmao. I gave an example of unions already doing this.
I thought I explained that what the unions did in the case you linked is not comparable to fighting for "sustainability" or CO2 targets.
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The UAW bucked the major car makers in arguing for tighter limits on motor vehicle air pollution and built alliances with environmental groups.
Does motor vehicle air pollution have nothing to do with CO2? The article is short yes, but it's not just the 1st example.
As you say, the article is a bit too short to judge this. I'm assuming that "vehicle air pollution" would be less about CO2 than about NOx - so smog - but I might be mistaken. In any case, the salient aspect is what I already said of course: individual unions might be confused.
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Your reply is the exact thing I've been meaning to address in my comment.
I think it is nearly inconceivable that capital can solve climate change in the time frame that it would be necessary for it to do so, and I think comparing it to healthcare is absurd.
That's because you apparently cannot conceive of the bourgeois state changing its conduct in regard to how it deals with the issue. Additionally, your idea and the ideas of the bourgeois as to what constitutes "solving" are probably very different. The problem is solved for capital if it can commence with accumulation - whether this involves transforming economies to a more command-like structure, imperialist endeavours to industrialise and govern other countries, wars, shooting down refugees at borders and putting them into camps to suffer and die in, mass death through heat, starvation or lack of medical aid, or even solar radiation management pushing the problem into the future - with unknown consequences - does not matter much to capital. It is always ready to perform another Holocaust.
It is not absurd at all to compare this to the claim that capital cannot provide healthcare. There is no necessity here that would preclude capital changing forms to adjust to the new situation. Environmental destruction is a necessity put into action by capital, just as poverty is. There is no necessity in this destruction leading to complete extinction.
Because emissions typically take over a decade after release before their impact on warming is felt, it will be more profitable in the short-term to ignore climate change.
If the bourgeois ignored environmental destruction, we would not hear about it on a daily basis.
By the time addressing climate change is more profitable in the short-term than not doing so, it will already be too late, and humanity will be on an irreversible path to extinction.
This is an extremely crass understanding of how capital works. It is a wrong abstraction, as empty as the go to liberal argument of "infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is impossible". You simply haven't demonstrated anything by asserting this.
The potentially catastrophic effects of climate change have been known for decades now, and what has capital done so far to mitigate it? Virtually nothing, it has only made the problem worse. Why should we assume that pattern will change before the groundwork for extinction has been locked in?
They have been known for over a century. Capital already works to address those effects which are harmful to it.
It's not like capital isn't already digging its own grave in other ways, anyway.
How would capital be digging its own grave?
Ultimately, following that premise leads to declaring the efforts of all sorts of non-proletarian groups as mediately revolutionary.
Whether or not this premise will lead to that has no bearing on whether or not the premise is true. [...] If the answer is inconvenient for the proletarian movement in one way or another has no bearing on its truth.
I dispute that the premise is true. I'm saying that people want it to be true because they aim at the consequences: throwing the proletariat out of the window. The slogan "socialism or barbarism" has always been a rallying cry of the petty bourgeois.
The question of whether capital can solve climate change is a purely scientific question.
So, then how have you "scientifically" investigated it?
but the bourgeoisie will generally strive towards ruining the environment in a sustainable (this is where the frenzy for that word comes from!) manner for itself
Where is the evidence for this?
The evidence is in all capital has ever done to reduce pollution, and all that it is currently doing to deal with environmental destruction. What do you think the purpose of such institutions as the IPCC is? Again, the key here is sustainability for capital, not sustainability of what you consider a dignified human existence, which capital already denies to millions of people in the world anyway.
Its current actions are not sustainable
And this would be because...?
The frenzy for that word comes from the fact that it is good marketing to slap on products for extra sales and good PR (and additionally keeps ignorant buyers complacent in the assumption that the problem is being addressed), not because those marketing sustainability are actually concerned about sustainability.
I wasn't talking about product labels, but the prevalence of that word within the discussion surrounding the entire flock of climate activists.
Whether or not its calculation will work out in the end is not certain.
I question whether any calculation is being made at all. Observationally, it seems that short-term profits are simply being followed regardless of the consequences.
"I question whether", "observationally it seems" - is this again an example of the much vaunted science that you earlier invoked? Bar some particular idiots, the bourgeoisie is very much aware of the effects of environmental destruction, and it includes them within its deliberations. There are long documents by government agencies that discuss dealing with collapsing states, widespread social unrest, a food crisis, dwindling water resources, mass migration and more.
What do you make of the lengths to which fractions of the bourgeoisie will go to show that pollution control is profitable, or those that demand a war-like mobilisation to combat climate change?
Wishful thinking among some of the more rational actors, that will at best delay the inevitable.
Where is the proof of the inevitability you talk about so much? Why would capital be unable to avoid complete extinction by necessity?
Or it comes from fractions who can benefit/profit from pursuing such directions in the short-term.
Obviously it is in the interest of these fractions to put forward these measures - this is trivial.
It is hardly conceivable that the proletariat will go to war over abstract issues which do not concern its immediate problems.
For those already impacted by famines, storms, and forest fires directly linked to climate change, this issue is very immediate and not at all abstract. This will only become more true in the very near future as more catastrophes are caused by climate change.
In such cases, proletarians are more likely to migrate, which brings us back to bourgeois issues: the management of misery.
Environmental destruction itself overall is a secondary issue
The victory of the proletariat means nothing if the planet it inherits only remains habitable for 15 years due to the lingering effects of carbon emitted by the bourgeoisie.
And here you're finally open about your motivation! What consequences should we draw from this assertion? It either means that capital indeed can avoid complete human extinction, but only if the proletariat is on boat, which is why you're demanding it to postpone its fights for the sake of the survival of all classes, or it means that capital cannot avoid extinction, but communism cannot either - which if it were your opinion would mean that having this discussion with me would be futile to begin with.
It seems also that the logic of the person you’re replying to also can be used to give credence to the belief of tankie idiots who think China is a dotp because the CCP takes climate change seriously.
I was wondering recently about the exact causes of the holocaust and other genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns but i have to admit that while i was convinced by the general argument of the Auschwitz or the Great Alibi regarding the Holocaust as destruction of surplus population and a solution to labour costs i also found superficially plausible the argument advanced by most bourgeois historians that the genocides might have been apparently detrimental for the Axis's war effort.
I am also not that bright with an extremely notionistic and limited understanding of Marxism so that is most likely why these arguments have sounded persuasive to me to an extent. Also i still have not really managed to fully get rid of bourgeois humanitarianism/moralism as a remaining influence so that also may be an important reason.
So what i wanted to ask is: Does Axelrod's text entirely discount the role played by ideology like it is sometimes alleged by critics even within leftcommunists or the internationalist camp more broadly ( like the Icc or councilists) or is that a complete misreading of the text? And against these arguments supported by most bourgeois historians (the apparently "antieconomical" character of the Holocaust and other genocides perpetrated during ww2) what is the correct retort? That german capitalism actually benefited from this wholesale slaughter because it could not have exploited an higher number of labourers in the work camps and that the economic benefits of the genocides such as property confiscation and no longer having to feed "useless" people (i am talking about the cases in which the "ablebodied" victims were not worked to near-death and exploited beyond "normal" wage labour exploitation first) outweighed the apparent waste of using the infrastructure for non-military purposes? Does anyone know if all or most of the "ablebodied" jews and other "degenerate" groups which were gassed went through the work camps before being exhausted by the working conditions and sent to the extermination camps to be gassed or were a good chunk of the "ablebodied" jews and others such as the roma killed in the extermination camps without being worked to near-death before?
Because it seems to me that this "antieconomical" argument supported by most bourgeois historians also rests on the assumption that most of the "ablebodied jews" and the other victims of the Holocaust which were gassed in the extermination camps were not first physically destroyed by forced labour first and that hence the genocides were a total waste for german capitalism for consuming infrastructures which should have been used for the war effort . I have also found out that actually some german historians whooly unaffiliated with any sort of internationalism or any sort of marxist inspiration like Aly and Heim actually support or at least supported the thesis that the genocides were at least partly reacting to an overpopulation problem in the context Germany found itself in during the war. Obviously neither of them was charged with historical revisionism or negationism as they firmly placed themselves in the democratic antifascist camp though there were of course some scandalized comments by fellow academic historians along the lines that their work portrayed genocide as a slightly deviant path to capitalist development or that their work allegedly relativized the horrors of the holocaust.
Another question is whether most cases of genocide were determined by the same conditions pointed out in the Auschwitz or the great alibi text or whether in less industrialized cases of genocide-as well as in cases of particularly violent ethnic cleansing campaigns- like the Armenian genocide and the Rwandan genocide the superstructure played a bigger role than it did in the Holocaust.
Another thing that struck me in a text published by the internationalist communist tendency and in Programma (?)'s reply to the "negationist" campaign promoted by leftist media as well as other media of a democratic orientation is that it to me it sounded like that the scientific validity of genocide as a concept was being questioned. Have i read this point well? Is it because integral parts of the definition like the "as such" requirement are regarded as questionable?. Here are the texts which i was talking about http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2015-08-06/1915-to-2015-a-century-of-genocide at the beginning and http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/prolac/muua/muuainucaf.html#u12 at the end.
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I was wondering recently about the exact causes of the holocaust and other genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns but i have to admit that while i was convinced by the general argument of the Auschwitz or the Great Alibi regarding the Holocaust as destruction of surplus population and a solution to labour costs i also found superficially plausible the argument advanced by most bourgeois historians that the genocides might have been apparently detrimental for the Axis's war effort.
That doesn't contradict the text at all. According to the text the aim of war is destruction.
So what i wanted to ask is: Does Axelrod's text entirely discount the role played by ideology like it is sometimes alleged by critics even within leftcommunists or the internationalist camp more broadly ( like the Icc or councilists) or is that a complete misreading of the text?
Of course it doesn't discount ideology, it merely explains it.
And against these arguments supported by most bourgeois historians (the apparently "antieconomical" character of the Holocaust and other genocides perpetrated during ww2) what is the correct retort?
A lot of the recent literature has talked about the economic dimension of it, it isn't as controversial as one might expect.
That german capitalism actually benefited from this wholesale slaughter because it could not have exploited an higher number of labourers in the work camps and that the economic benefits of the genocides such as property confiscation and no longer having to feed "useless" people (i am talking about the cases in which the "ablebodied" victims were not worked to near-death and exploited beyond "normal" wage labour exploitation first) outweighed the apparent waste of using the infrastructure for non-military purposes?
The 'logic' of German capitalism was geared towards destruction rather than outright production at this stage. The text makes the point that "Anti-semitism had proved its worth; it need only continue." There wasn't going to be a point where the Nazis would decide, or circumstances would dictate, that they have killed enough Jews and capitalism is saved, just as one can never print enough money to fix the economy.
Does anyone know if all or most of the "ablebodied" jews and other "degenerate" groups which were gassed went through the work camps before being exhausted by the working conditions and sent to the extermination camps to be gassed or were a good chunk of the "ablebodied" jews and others such as the roma killed in the extermination camps without being worked to near-death before?
Yeah a lot were just killed, to my knowledge as the war went on it became more and more about liquidation plain and simple, they were doing this anyway outside the camps by simply shooting people into mass graves. You can read 'bourgeois historians' books on this for what they think the numbers are who were just liquidated rather than being exploited through forced labour in the camps first. I think that the commonly-held view is that shooting people into mass graves is demoralising so they chose other measures (i.e. gas chambers), and the camps of exploitation became death camps outright (of course people were dying there before this anyway). I'm not an expert on it, my point is that these questions are dealt with by historians and the text you bring up is a short contribution that doesn't have the space to fill out the gaps in the history but serves to give a critical Marxist understanding on the Holocaust in order to make points not directly about the determinate historical details of it, it is just an outline.
Because it seems to me that this "antieconomical" argument supported by most bourgeois historians also rests on the assumption that most of the "ablebodied jews" and the other victims of the Holocaust which were gassed in the extermination camps were not first physically destroyed by forced labour first and that hence the genocides were a total waste for german capitalism for consuming infrastructures which should have been used for the war effort .
The Nazis made a lot of decisions that ruined their chances of winning the war. They chose to build outrageous high powered weapons with scary names instead of looking at the field and being prudent in deciding what you need, Hitler can have the best tank out there but it might cost more to build than allied tanks, and the allies can then field a lot more tanks, the Nazi tank may be the most destructive, but it might have greater defensive weaknesses, or be less good at navigating the terrain. Other times the Nazis might have had more numbers and thought that was enough. Letting the British get away at Dunkirk in order to have a grand air victory later on (failed of course and 'led' to them turning to Operation Barbarossa). The Nazis didn't collaborate with the other Axis powers like the Allies did with each other. And so on. The text's argument that the principal aim of war is destruction seems to apply especially well to the Nazis, it seems they were working to a different logic. Which is of course explained in the text by the unique circumstances of capitalism in Germany - unique in the sense that the conditions of capitalism in Germany were more extreme, not that it was an aberration that can't happen elsewhere.
I have also found out that actually some german historians whooly unaffiliated with any sort of internationalism or any sort of marxist inspiration like Aly and Heim actually support or at least supported the thesis that the genocides were at least partly reacting to an overpopulation problem in the context Germany found itself in during the war.
Yep.
Obviously neither of them was charged with historical revisionism or negationism as they firmly placed themselves in the democratic antifascist camp though there were of course some scandalized comments by fellow academic historians along the lines that their work portrayed genocide as a slightly deviant path to capitalist development or that their work allegedly relativized the horrors of the holocaust.
Aly is published by Verso Books ('Hitler’s Beneficiaries') a left wing publisher that publishes Marxists. But Aly himself isn't a Marxist or even necessarily left-wing, to my understanding, his view seems to be that 'socialism' is the economic cause, 'redistribution' of resources taken from Jews etc. Nevertheless it should provide helpful information and a closer narrative/understanding to Axelrad's text, which one would need to make the case of this text using more historical details etc.
Another question is whether most cases of genocide were determined by the same conditions pointed out in the Auschwitz or the great alibi text or whether in less industrialized cases of genocide-as well as in cases of particularly violent ethnic cleansing campaigns- like the Armenian genocide and the Rwandan genocide the superstructure played a bigger role than it did in the Holocaust.
Well the text doesn't talk in terms of base/superstructure (which I think is what you are referring to.) Isn't the point of the base/superstructure metaphor that looking at the base is the important thing that can tell you what is going on in the superstructure? You can look at the conditions of these other genocides with an objective, material conception or you can give a history with a subjective character. The point is not whether the objective or the subjective 'played a bigger role'. Axelrad gives an outline that can help you when looking into these other genocides.
I don't know what you're saying at the end of your post.
Take a look at this if you haven't already: https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/martin-axelrad-auschwitz-or-the-great-alibi-what-we-deny-and-what-we-affirm/
That doesn't contradict the text at all. According to the text the aim of war is destruction.
That is true, what always makes me trip up about this is that i was thinking about how did these economists and demographers (as well as the nazis) mentioned by Aly and others realize exactly that genocide was a necessity. The how and not the why the structure determinates the superstructure has always been a bit difficult for me. It is like these academic historians critical of Aly do take in consideration that capitalism's rationality is in itself irrational .
The 'logic' of German capitalism was geared towards destruction rather than outright production at this stage. The text makes the point that "Anti-semitism had proved its worth; it need only continue." There wasn't going to be a point where the Nazis would decide, or circumstances would dictate, that they have killed enough Jews and capitalism is saved, just as one can never print enough money to fix the economy.
But how and in which conditions did the switch to total extermination happen? The rate of profit was too low for the state directed "command" economy to pay the rising interests on the debts and manage to turn out enough profits to keep production going forward and hence the exploitation of the jews and other discriminated groups for production had to stop and that this made outright genocide without previous forced labour the only viable option? I seem to remember the the Usa started to crack down on the banks who funded nazi Germany and the Axis after the Usa joined the Allies and there was of course an increasing lack of food commodities and other commodies such raw and semifinished materials after the Red Army started its advance and the other Allies cut off supplies by dominating communication routes since 1942-43. Also many workers were conscripted and so there could have a been a relative lack of available (on the market) food stuffs from the beginning of the war without Germany's early military successes . I read that until 1944 rationing was only partly established in Germany and so this delayed rationing and increased pace of the genocides might have also been an attempt from the Nazi bourgeoise to buy off the "german" working class and to prevent any unrest against the imperialist war and capitalism and to rally them to the national cause while sacrificing the jews and other "indesiderables" .
The Nazis made a lot of decisions that ruined their chances of winning the war. They chose to build outrageous high powered weapons with scary names instead of looking at the field and being prudent in deciding what you need, Hitler can have the best tank out there but it might cost more to build than allied tanks, and the allies can then field a lot more tanks, the Nazi tank may be the most destructive, but it might have greater defensive weaknesses, or be less good at navigating the terrain. Other times the Nazis might have had more numbers and thought that was enough. Letting the British get away at Dunkirk in order to have a grand air victory later on (failed of course and 'led' to them turning to Operation Barbarossa). The Nazis didn't collaborate with the other Axis powers like the Allies did. And so on. The text's argument that the principal aim of war is destruction seems to apply especially well to the Nazis, it seems they were working to a different logic. Which is of course explained in the text by the unique circumstances of capitalism in Germany - unique in the sense that the conditions of capitalism in Germany were more extreme, not that it was an aberration that can't happen elsewhere.
Thank you a lot for your very detailed answers. I did not know about that. Why did Nazi germany do that? did they overspend on tanks to subside private capital and to keep the working class quiet? Which role did the policy of autarchy for security reasons play in these other weaknesses of the german military? I suppose the distance between Nazi Germany and Japan and Italy's pretentions to lead a parallel war as well as fascist Italy's armed forces being relatively poorly equipped did not make any sort of coordination easy.
Aly is published by Verso Books ('Hitler’s Beneficiaries') a left wing publisher that publishes Marxists. But Aly himself isn't a Marxist or even necessarily left-wing, to my understanding, his view seems to be that 'socialism' is the economic cause, 'redistribution' of resources taken from Jews etc. Nevertheless it should provide helpful information and a closer narrative/understanding to Axelrad's text, which one would need to make the case of this text using more historical details etc.
From what i gather Aly is an "antigerman" social-liberal (center-left or centre who was a student activist during the protests of 1968) who supports austerity because that somehow according to him might prevent the rise of political movements similar to Nazis by breaking up the national community the Nazis were trying to create. Well we know that austerity was imposed on all the working class and the petty bourgeoise of Germany and that clearly did not prevent the rise of Nazism but on the contrary increased its appeal. Not to mention that the "redistribution" does not explain why the Jews and the other expropriated people had to be worked to death before being killed or had to be massacred outright. Are Aly's books published in italian and\or in english?
Well the text doesn't talk in terms of base/superstructure (which I think is what you are referring to.) Isn't the point of the base/superstructure metaphor that looking at the base is the important thing that can tell you what is going on in the superstructure? You can look at the conditions of these other genocides with an objective, material conception or you can give a history with a subjective character. The point is not whether the objective or the subjective 'played a bigger role'. Axelrad gives an outline that can help you when looking into these other genocides.
Yes, i was referring to the base\superstructure relationship. Sometimes my writing style is a bit confusing. I was saying that indeed it is the base which determinates the superstructure but i was wondering to which extent or whether the superstructure has a limited degree of autonomy from the needs of the structure in non-revolutionary periods because in cases like the dictatorship of the proletariat the structure is still capitalistic while the superstructure does not preserve capitalism . DrRedTerror wrote that ideology can become an end in itself somewhat
I don't know what you're saying at the end of your post.
All of which demonstrates that what is one state’s massacre is another state’s genocide, or rather, that terms like massacre, genocide, ethnic cleansing are part of imperialist competition rather than linguistically precisehttp://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2015-08-06/1915-to-2015-a-century-of-genocide. To me this sounds like the scientific validity of the term genocide in itself is regarded as dubious by the editors and i was wondering why.
Pressac établit ainsi qu'il n'y a pas trace d'une volonté exterminatrice qui aurait caractérisé le régime nazi depuis ses origines (ou même avant, depuis la fondation du parti nazi), puisque les «chambres à gaz homicides» lorsqu'elles existent (leur date de mise en fonction est échelonnée selon les camps) ont été le résultat d'une modification d'installations antérieures, prévues pour un autre usage (désinfection). Il révise aussi à la baisse les estimations du nombre réel de victimes dans les camps de concentration et il avance que«le coefficient multiplicateur émotionnel [des estimations antérieures par rapport à la réalité] varie de 2 à 7 et est en moyenne de 4 à 5».Résumant les conclusions de ces travaux il écrit«Quant au massacre des, Juifs, plusieurs notions fondamentales doivent être entièrement reprises. Les chiffres avancés sont à revoir de fond en comble. Le terme de «génocide» ne convient plus (...).Il faut abandonner le concept d'une extermination systématique programmée dès l'origine. Il y eut plutôt une radicalisation progressive, imposée par la guerre qui elle-même exacerbait l'antisémitisme violent de Hitler et de son entourage direct. Des mesures de plus en plus coercitives, de plus en plus drastiques, furent élaborées et appliquées pour aboutir en avril 1942 au «massacre de masse»» (22).
http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/prolac/muua/muuainucaf.html#u12. Here a former negationist who has become convinced of the existence of the gas chambers after researching them is being quoted seemingly favourably as saying that the categorization of a genocide like the Holocaust which is regarded as the most blatant genocide in history is itself questionable because there was no extensive premeditation. According to international law however the absence of extensive premeditation is actually irrilevant for picking a genocide apart from other atrocities . This seems like an indirect (by the way of the quotation of a former negationist who was nevertheless interviewed by one of the authors of the democratic "negationist" campaign against the communist left in the 90s which highlights the double standards of these historians) criticism of the requirements the international bourgeoise uses to classify its crimes. Is this part of a more general criticism against academia and bourgeois science? However to quote a former negationist of right-wing leanings who also revises downward the Holocaust's death toll to make a point on the the validity of genocide as a concept without criticising him was not a good move in the face of the "negationist" campaign.
Your historical questions would be better addressed to a historian, I'm no expert and I would like to know the answer to some of your questions myself. There is nothing wrong with reading 'bourgeois historians' to get information and understand the different views of the history, it should help you get to the bottom of it, which will include applying your own Marxist conception to the material. I appreciate the questions though.
From what i gather Aly is an "antigerman" social-liberal (center-left or centre who was a student activist during the protests of 1968) who supports austerity because that somehow according to him might prevent the rise of political movements similar to Nazis by breaking up the national community the Nazis were trying to create.
There also might be economic reasons for Aly taking this view, free market groups like to fund works such as his. Adam Tooze opposes Aly on these questions, he's some kind of a leftist, kind of a 'neo-marxist' even, it might we worthwhile looking into his work. 'The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy' is one of his books 'Statistics and the German State, 1900–1945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge' is another. Here is one of his accounts of the debate: https://adamtooze.com/2017/01/25/what-held-nazi-germany-together-the-aly-tooze-debate-revisited/ it contains links to other posts about it, there are, if I recall correctly, more on his site too if you want to browse around it.
Well we know that austerity was imposed on all the working class and the petty bourgeoise of Germany and that clearly did not prevent the rise of Nazism but on the contrary increased its appeal.
Indeed, Aly is wrong, but nevertheless helpful.
Not to mention that the "redistribution" does not explain why the Jews and the other expropriated people had to be worked to death before being killed or had to be massacred outright. Are Aly's books published in italian and\or in english?
They are published in English, I don't know about Italian, you would have to look that up.
Yes, i was referring to the base\superstructure relationship. Sometimes my writing style is a bit confusing. I was saying that indeed it is the base which determinates the superstructure but i was wondering to which extent or whether the superstructure has a limited degree of autonomy from the needs of the structure in non-revolutionary periods because cases like the dictatorship of the proletariat the structure is still capitalistic while the superstructure is not.
I wrote a comment on the base/superstructure metaphor here: https://www.reddit.com/r/marxism_101/comments/61kffl/proof_of_base_determining_superstructure/ maybe it will be helpful to you. I think it is unhelpful to take the metaphor as a simple, hardline rule, the same with the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' Marx sometimes referred to it as 'rule of the proletariat' (as Draper points out here: https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/hal-draper/article2.htm) It would be a bit weird if the ruling culture (or however we want to put it) had no relation at all to economic relations. I wouldn't say that the structure is necessarily 'capitalistic' during a rule of the proletariat, sure there will be things going on that happen under 'capitalism', but isn't the point that a proletariat dominant over society is already a change in social/economic relations to some extent?
All of which demonstrates that what is one state’s massacre is another state’s genocide, or rather, that terms like massacre, genocide, ethnic cleansing are part of imperialist competition rather than linguistically precise http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2015-08-06/1915-to-2015-a-century-of-genocide . To me this sounds like the scientific validity of the term genocide in itself is regarded as dubious by the editors and i was wondering why.
I think they just mean it in the sense that 'democracy' is used by the bourgeois, it is meant to signify 'this country is one in which everyone is free and they have a say in how the polis is governed'. When really we know that that is not true, it signifies a polis formed by a different expression of 'capitalism' to the 'undemocratic' states. So it is a kind of linguistic manuevering to frame geopolitical morality to their advantage.
Here a former negationist who has become convinced of the existence of the gas chambers after researching them is being quoted favourably as saying that the categorization of a genocide like the Holocaust which is regarded as the most blatant genocide in history is itself questionable because there was no premeditation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism There are functionalist and intentionalist schools of thought about the Holocaust, neither side necessarily denies that their view means that it shouldn't be classified as a genocide. I think it is pretty clear that there was premeditation in different forms at different times, that isn't the point of Axelrad though, Axelrad gives us the ability to explain the premeditation.
According to international law however the absence of premeditation is actually irrilevant. This seems like an indirect (by the way of the quotation of a former negationist who was nevertheless interviewed by one of the authors of the democratic "negationist" campaign against the communist left in the 90s) criticism of the requirements the bourgeoise uses to classify massacres.
Allow me to quote from Goebbels' diary from 27 March 1942:
The Jews are now being pushed out of the General Government, beginning near Lublin, to the East. A pretty barbaric procedure is being applied here, and it is not to be described in any more detail, and not much is left of the Jews themselves. In general one may conclude that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna [Globocnik], who is carrying out this action, is doing it pretty prudently and with a procedure that doesn't work too conspicuously. The Jews are being punished barbarically, to be sure, but they have fully deserved it. The prophesy that the Führer issued to them on the way, for the eventuality that they started a new world war, is beginning to realise itself in the most terrible manner. One must not allow any sentimentalities to rule in these matters. If we did not defend ourselves against them, the Jews would annihilate us. It is a struggle for life and death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime could muster the strength for a general solution of the question. Here too, the Führer is the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution, which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears to be unavoidable. Thank God, during the war we now have a whole series of possibilities which were barred to us in peacetime. We must exploit them. The ghettos which are becoming available in the General Government are now being filled with the Jews who are being pushed out of the Reich, and after a certain time the process is then to renew itself here. Jewry has nothing to laugh about...
So he uses the word 'liquidated' ('liquidiert'), whether you use this word or genocide or massacre, it doesn't change the details of what happened. I would be suspicious of people trying to play word games, focus on the material details and you can't be pulled into such confusing debates.
Hopefully I settled some of your concerns.
Your historical questions would be better addressed to a historian, I'm no expert and I would like to know the answer to some of your questions myself. There is nothing wrong with reading 'bourgeois historians' to get information and understand the different views of the history, it should help you get to the bottom of it, which will include applying your own Marxist conception to the material. I appreciate the questions though.
You are right. I hope that i manage to be more attentive while reading because i am having some trouble to read long books and i think reading should be the first step. I bothered you because you started talking about historical questions more in detail, sorry. Not to mention i got banned from askhistorians for being an idiot (violating rules against soapboxing) and by reacting badly at the allegation i was minimizing the crimes of nazism (because i was talking about the Allies endorsing ethnic cleansing at the end of ww2 and after that and asking about the boundary between ethnic cleansing and genocide in a polemical way in this case and similar cases ) i kept violating the rules until i got banned. So that bad experience clearly shows i should do more reading.
I wrote a comment on the base/superstructure metaphor here: https://www.reddit.com/r/marxism_101/comments/61kffl/proof_of_base_determining_superstructure/ maybe it will be helpful to you. I think it is unhelpful to take the metaphor as a simple, hardline rule, the same with the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' Marx sometimes referred to it as 'rule of the proletariat' (as Draper points out here: https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/hal-draper/article2.htm) It would be a bit weird if the ruling culture (or however we want to put it) had no relation at all to economic relations. I wouldn't say that the structure is necessarily 'capitalistic' during a rule of the proletariat, sure there will be things going on that happen under 'capitalism', but isn't the point that a proletariat dominant over society is already a change in social/economic relations to some extent?
Thank you, i will look into this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism There are functionalist and intentionalist schools of thought about the Holocaust, neither side necessarily denies that their view means that it shouldn't be classified as a genocide. I think it is pretty clear that there was premeditation in different forms at different times, that isn't the point of Axelrad though, Axelrad gives us the ability to explain the premeditation.
I was aware of the functionalist vs intentionalist debate
Indeed i did not like that Programma(?) quoted an extract of an interview in which a former denialist seems to be espousing a functionalist view of the Holocaust but then says it was not genocide and pushes the numbers downwards. I mean, i get criticizing the interviewer for his\her hypocrisy for attacking the communist left while interviewing a former denialist who does Holocaust revisionism but to use that quote to doubt the validity of genocide itself as a concept was a bad move imo. I understand criticising the validity of bourgeois science conceptually but i am not sure that it should be completely disregarded in everything and especially not in the context of answering to the Holocaust denial campaign launched against the communist left. I agree of course with disregarding it entirely in the case of economics as it is incompatible with the critique of political economy but it is not the same case. They should have at least made very clear that it is the concept of genocide in general they had misgivings about and not what happened. I am not a "bordigaist" but they are fellow left-communists and that was dangerous. See how a libcom user exploited that quotation at the end of this thread https://libcom.org/forums/theory/bordigism-anti-fascism-01032012 to say that the communist left supports holocaust denial or revisionism.
Allow me to quote from Goebbels' diary from 27 March 1942:
The Jews are now being pushed out of the General Government, beginning near Lublin, to the East. A pretty barbaric procedure is being applied here, and it is not to be described in any more detail, and not much is left of the Jews themselves. In general one may conclude that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna [Globocnik], who is carrying out this action, is doing it pretty prudently and with a procedure that doesn't work too conspicuously. The Jews are being punished barbarically, to be sure, but they have fully deserved it. The prophesy that the Führer issued to them on the way, for the eventuality that they started a new world war, is beginning to realise itself in the most terrible manner. One must not allow any sentimentalities to rule in these matters. If we did not defend ourselves against them, the Jews would annihilate us. It is a struggle for life and death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime could muster the strength for a general solution of the question. Here too, the Führer is the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution, which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears to be unavoidable. Thank God, during the war we now have a whole series of possibilities which were barred to us in peacetime. We must exploit them. The ghettos which are becoming available in the General Government are now being filled with the Jews who are being pushed out of the Reich, and after a certain time the process is then to renew itself here. Jewry has nothing to laugh about...
So he uses the word 'liquidated' ('liquidiert'), whether you use this word or genocide or massacre, it doesn't change the details of what happened. I would be suspicious of people trying to play word games, focus on the material details and you can't be pulled into such confusing debates.
Hopefully I settled some of your concerns.
Thank you for the quotation it was pretty frightening , i never questioned anything regarding the Holocaust, i was myself criticizing the use of unclear words that could lend themselves to the charge of Holocaust revisionism or denialism because i saw myself the effect being unclear on these matters has on you. I revised what i wrote before reading your answer to be more clear and say that there was not extensive premeditation ever since the Nazis came to power but that extensive premeditation dating back years before the genocidal attack is not a requirement for labelling an atrocity as a genocide anyway. If you can read french a bit the Holocaust revisionist\former denialist distorces the arguments of the the functionalists to argue that they somehow say it was not a genocide. So like you said the functionalists say that there was extensive radicalization and that this explains genocide but Prossac employs the same argument to say that there was no genocide.
See again what i wrote here. I clearly dismissed Prossac's argument.
According to international law however the absence of extensive premeditation is actually irrilevant for picking a genocide apart from other atrocities .
I also expressed my doubts about quoting Prossac at the end of my previous post
However to quote a former negationist of right-wing leanings who also revises downward the Holocaust's death toll to make a point on the the validity of genocide as a concept without criticising him was not a good move in the face of the "negationist" campaign.
Negationist was me mixing up the italian word negazionismo with english ending of the word denialist. This is what happens when you are an italian citizen living in Italy and you write often in english.
I mean genocide has many conditions which can make it difficult to establish whether a genocide happened in the sense that an atrocity did fit the requirements ( i myself have yet to read a text which i hope will clarify to me the boundary in the pratical sense between ethnic cleansing which is also genocide and ethnic cleansing which is a war crime and\or a crime against humanity and not also a genocide) but if one thing is clear is that genocide is what international law courts define as it while interpreting international law and that to dismiss it as a concept entirely is counterproductive. The criticism of a concept like genocide is something which is imo better left to bourgeois academics specializing in epistemology and philosophy of science rather than being briefly talked about by leftcommunists in a defense against false allegations of Holocaust denialism/ revisionism .
Does Axelrod's text entirely discount the role played by ideology like it is sometimes alleged by critics even within leftcommunists or the internationalist camp more broadly ( like the Icc or councilists) or is that a complete misreading of the text?
The text specifically mentions different forms of antisemitism, and mentions how antisemitism at a certain point had "shown what it could do", which indicates that at this point it had become somewhat of an end in itself.
And against these arguments supported by most bourgeois historians (the apparently "antieconomical" character of the Holocaust and other genocides perpetrated during ww2) what is the correct retort?
Why are you so concerned with being "correct", or debating bourgeois historians about this issue?
That german capitalism actually benefited from this wholesale slaughter because it could not have exploited an higher number of labourers in the work camps and that the economic benefits of the genocides such as property confiscation and no longer having to feed "useless" people (i am talking about the cases in which the "ablebodied" victims were not worked to near-death and exploited beyond "normal" wage labour exploitation first) outweighed the apparent waste of using the infrastructure for non-military purposes?
The article labours the point that the Holocaust was not merely the product of German capital, but of capital in general, as the example of Joel Brand should make clear. To try and draw up precise economic reasons for each and every murder is besides the point.
Thank you a lot for your answer, will reply later because i have to turn off my phone to charge .
![[the next Engels quote from the Anti-Duhring part 1]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/677242573680672808/743492006050922536/unknown.png){kind=link}
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The text specifically mentions different forms of antisemitism, and mentions how antisemitism at a certain point had "shown what it could do", which indicates that at this point it had become somewhat of an end in itself.
So antisemitism as a state policy was necessary for german and european capitalism but it was by no means controllable and took on a force of its own even becoming decoupled from apparent war necessities ?. This is a demonstration of how human beings make history without being aware of the root causes of their actions?
Why are you so concerned with being "correct", or debating bourgeois historians about this issue?
I do not have a desire to debate for the sake of it, it is that when i get interested into something i feel like i need to understand the "truth" about what happened and how. I am also immature for my age with identity problems like a teenager so i felt troubled by the plausibility of what the academic historians were saying .
The article labours the point that the Holocaust was not merely the product of German capital, but of capital in general, as the example of Joel Brand should make clear. To try and draw up precise economic reasons for each and every murder is besides the point.
You are right but from the article i had the impression that Nazi Germany was an imperialism which was subjected to a particular strain and that this was one of the reasons which led the genocides to become more "industrialized" rather than exterminating the jews and russian civilians with the Eisanztzgruppen . I took it as meaning that the genocides would have been more "artisanal" otherwise.
So antisemitism as a state policy was necessary for german and european capitalism
I wouldn't speak of necessity. Axelrad's text explains how antisemitism lended itself to the problems that capital faced, but that doesn't mean that it is imposed upon people like a force of nature.
and took on a force of its own
In the further clarification of the text that /u/pzaaa linked, the ICP explicitly mentions this, saying that antisemitism, like any ideology, has a "logic" of its own.
even becoming decoupled from apparent war necessities ?
As /u/pzaaa already pointed out, the text claims that the primary objective of the war was not victory, but destruction.
This is a demonstration of how human beings make history without being aware of the root causes of their actions?
You could put it like that. Again, /u/pzaaa linked a post of themselves in which they address some common misconceptions about the metaphor of "base and superstructure". It is not like human beings being "determined" by capital cancels out their self-consciousness and subjectivity.
it is that when i get interested into something i feel like i need to understand the "truth" about what happened and how.
It's good that you're curious, I wasn't intending to criticise that.
i felt troubled by the plausibility of what the academic historians were saying.
Why would that plausibiltiy make you feel troubled?
You are right but from the article i had the impression that Nazi Germany was an imperialism which was subjected to a particular strain and that this was one of the reasons which led the genocides to become more "industrialized" rather than exterminating the jews and russian civilians with the Eisanztzgruppen . I took it as meaning that the genocides would have been more "artisanal" otherwise.
I think this was adressed by /u/pzaaa as well.
I wouldn't speak of necessity. Axelrad's text explains how antisemitism lended itself to the problems that capital faced, but that doesn't mean that it is imposed upon people like a force of nature.
I should have phrased it better, yeah. So capital destruction\devalorization was the necessity and antisemitism and other forms of racism were among the main ideological instruments which paved the way for the genocides by choosing the target groups? I know that is not imposed upon people like a force of nature as that would mean that human agency is non-existent and that is obviously not true but sometimes the general dynamics of how the specific aspects of the superstructure correspond to the structure escape me.
In the further clarification of the text that /u/pzaaa linked, the ICP explicitly mentions this, saying that antisemitism, like any ideology, has a "logic" of its own.
Thank you, I read the text of the ICP again and i found that passage. I think that explains also the criticism Marx and Engels often directed at the excesses of the Jacobin and Montagnard Terror during the French Revolution which they described as arising at least partly out of an attempt of the revolutionary government (the Committee of public safety and the Committee of general security) to create a "real" democracy through the physical destruction of the "conspirators" in the face of the opposition rooted in class struggle that the revolution met . In this sense the excesses of the Terror can be also seen also as ideological and part of a blind struggle like /u/pzaaa wrote .
As /u/pzaaa already pointed out, the text claims that the primary objective of the war was not victory, but destruction.
That is true, this is why i said those necessities were apparent. The post /u/pzaaa posted shows how however this is is usually difficult to grasp as the superstructure corresponds to the structure (and vice-versa because one can not exist without the other) and as the structure in class society now is characterized by the capitalistic division of labour the social consciousness it gives rise to alienates and splits knowledge in bourgeois society unilaterally and this is why most academics can not conceive how the primary objective of the war was destruction since according to formal logic the main goal of any war should be to win it and hence they separate the racist and antisemitic consciousness best represented by the Nazis from the goal of the war? Have i understood it more or less?
You could put it like that. Again, /u/pzaaa linked a post of themselves in which they address some common misconceptions about the metaphor of "base and superstructure". It is not like human beings are "determined" by capital in the same way that gravity acts upon them.
The quotation from Hegel in the text /u/pzaaa linked on the relationship between form\content seen as two faces of the same "coin" was again very helpful. Now i have to read the text /u/pzaaa posted on the rule of the proletariat.
It's good that you're curious, I wasn't intending to criticise that.
Trying to read between the lines it seems that you meant to criticize my fascination with bourgeois academia? It is partly because i am still in higher education and my petty bourgeois family has always worshipped it and then partly because my first approach to leftcommunism in a very loose sense was Lotta comunista whose understanding of marxism is a mixture of Second International positivism, anarco-syndacalism and a plagiarization of the realist schoool of international relations. Nevertheless after\when\if i finish my masters' degree i plan to look for a job in the civil service\public sector.
Why would that plausibiltiy make you feel troubled?
It is due to identity problems and hence doubting my political allegiance and loyalty. I think to go further would be going into psychopathology and i feel like this would not be the right subreddit to talk about that.
I think this was adressed by /u/pzaaa as well.
/u/pzaaa said that when speaking about how german imperialism was an extreme case and the shooting murders demoralized the troops?
Thank you.
So capital destruction\devalorization was the necessity
If I remember correctly, the text argues in terms of capital concentration. Devalorisation might be what is underlying the argument about destruction being the purpose of war as well, but it's not the focus of the article.
this is why most academics can not conceive how the primary objective of the war was destruction since according to formal logic the main goal of any war should be to win it and hence they separate the racist and antisemitic consciousness best represented by the Nazis from the goal of the war?
I don't think historians have formal logic in mind when they go about their business, but history. They might sometimes make similar mistakes as formal logic, but that's a different matter. The division of labour, especially that between mental and manual labour makes it more difficult for them to understand communism, but their own investigations are mostly tainted by their own ideological outlooks springing up from bourgeois society everywhere. There is also the problem that people tend to read history backwards: they start from the premise that the purpose of war is this or that, and then assess all actions in the war according to this maxime, disregarding the consciousness of people involved and their inevitable (mis-)judgements. The Nazis themselves most likely believed that their aim is to win the war, but that doesn't make them machines that can perfectly calculate the outcome of each of their decisions.
Trying to read between the lines it seems that you meant to criticize my fascination with bourgeois academia?
Of course communism encompasses a critique of the social sciences as a whole, but mostly I was trying to criticise taking them as a target audience for communism. It's not like you depend on their recognition.
/u/pzaaa said that when speaking about how german imperialism was an extreme case and the shooting murders demoralized the troops?
Yes.
If I remember correctly, the text argues in terms of capital concentration. Devalorisation might be what is underlying the argument about destruction being the purpose of war as well, but it's not the focus of the article.
From what i remember the text speaks about capital concentration being a response to the falling rate of profit and devalorization through distruction is capitalism's solution to the crisis. I have always understood it as two facets of the same process with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall incentivizing capital concentration to make up with quantity for the falling profitability which in turn tends to lower the rate of profit again and thus worsening overpopulation and making destruction of capital and surplus population the only road that capitalism can take to kickstart accumulation again. Rereading the text i would say it speaks of both though the one side of it which is capital concentration is highlighted as the immediate cause for the form antisemitism took in Nazi Germany. But i would not detach one part of it from the other as it seems to me that devalorisation is what is underlying the argument like you said . Capital concentration explains why the jews and other protected groups were targeted and destruction explains the purpose of war which also took place through genocide or extermination (for example the disabled are not a protected group according to the genocide convention but for all the intents and purposes their fate amounted to a genocide).
then assess all actions in the war according to this maxime, disregarding the consciousness of people involved and their inevitable (mis-)judgements. The Nazis themselves most likely believed that their aim is to win the war, but that doesn't make them machines that can perfectly calculate the outcome of each of their decisions.
So you are saying that we should not explain all actions during ww2 as being the direct result of capitalism's need to destroy capital either as that would be like comparing capitalism to gravity and human beings to robots and so we should take into account the motivations of the warring parties and their miscalculations?
Of course communism encompasses a critique of the social sciences as a whole, but mostly I was trying to criticise taking them as a target audience for communism. It's not like you depend on their recognition.
What you are saying is true but i do not think that i take social sciences as a target audience for communism. That behaviour you are talking (seeking approval, protection and reassurance) is more a personality issue than anything. I thank you for the advice but that is a very difficult problem to address .
From what i remember the text speaks about capital concentration being a response to the falling rate of profit
I don't think it does. This is where the text references the tendency of the rate of profit to fall:
Capitalist production is in fact forced to grow because of the fall in the profit level
Which is of course a simplification: extended, or expanded reproduction is not immediately related to the falling rate of profit. Marx talks about it in Volume I and II of Capital, long before the rate of profit is dealt with properly. The fall in the rate of profit amplifies the need for growth.
The article goes on:
and crises are born of the need to ceaselessly expand production along with the impossibility of selling goods. War is the capitalist solution to the crisis. The massive destruction of installations, of the means of production and of goods allows production to start up again, and the massive destruction of men cures the periodic “over-population” which goes hand in hand with over-production.
This is also a simplification, and a very schematic one at that, but the purpose of the text is not to provide a detailed explanation of "crises" anyway. It doesn't hurt the overall argument.
Capital concentration is referenced only later in the text:
But that class [the petty bourgeoisie] is condemned by the irresistible advance of the concentration of capital.
And it was perhaps the petite and medium bourgeoisies who suffered the most, as in all crises that lead to the proletarianization of the middle classes and the increased concentration of capital through the elimination of a portion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Quantitatively because German capitalism, forced to reduce the petite bourgeoisie in order to concentrate European capital in its hands, extended the liquidation of the Jews to all of Central Europe.
Capital concentration and centralisation are introduced in Volume I of Capital too, so also before Marx talks about the falling rate of profit. They are particular forms of accumulation. As with extended reproduction, it is true that the tendential fall in the rate of profit accelerates both processes.
But i would not detach one part of it from the other as it seems to me that devalorisation is what is underlying the argument like you said. Capital concentration explains why the jews and other protected groups were targeted and destruction explains the purpose of war which also took place through genocide or extermination
I'd say this gets to the gist of it.
So you are saying that we should not explain all actions during ww2 as being the direct result of capitalism's need to destroy capital either as that would be like comparing capitalism to gravity and human beings to robots and so we should take into account the motivations of the warring parties and their miscalculations?
Yes.
Which is of course a simplification: extended, or expanded reproduction is not immediately related to the falling rate of profit. Marx talks about it in Volume I and II of Capital, long before the rate of profit is dealt with properly. The fall in the rate of profit amplifies the need for growth.
So expanded reproduction is related to the falling rate or profit only insofar growth in production is stimulated further by the falling rate of profit ?
But that class [the petty bourgeoisie] is condemned by the irresistible advance of the concentration of capital.
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And it was perhaps the petite and medium bourgeoisies who suffered the most, as in all crises that lead to the proletarianization of the middle classes and the increased concentration of capital through the elimination of a portion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
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Quantitatively because German capitalism, forced to reduce the petite bourgeoisie in order to concentrate European capital in its hands, extended the liquidation of the Jews to all of Central Europe
I have read that this point has been criticized because the jews or those of jewish ancentry (in the sense of having relatives who were practicing jews-we have a case of racialized religion here) were merely overrepresented among the petty and middle bourgeois and that a bigger chunk of them were proletarians but this criticism does not invalidate the argument as proletarians of jewish ancentry were a part of the "indesiderables"which were meant to be replaced by proletarians of german citizenship or german ethnicity or could not be exploited by "normal" capitalistic exploitation following capital concentration and centralization
Capital concentration and centralisation are introduced in Volume I of Capital too, so also before Marx talks about the falling rate of profit. They are particular forms of accumulation. As with extended reproduction, it is true that the tendential fall in the rate of profit accelerates both processes.
Yes you are right, they are associated with the tendential fall in the rate of profit but they are different concepts. I read those chapters concerning capital concentration and centralisation about an year or two years ago irrc.
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The young Chinese proletariat has a glorious tradition to rejoice with. It should resort back to the methods of struggle and organization, which were proper of its first working class generations. Albeit its inconsistency in numbers respect to the peasants mass, the Chinese proletariat put itself in the lead of the revolution in the 1920s.
The workers’ unions, which were nearly nonexistent in China before the 1920s, have been created in those years, leading either struggles and strikes which were authentic class wars, which left on the field a lot of worker’s blood, but also yet another historical confirmation that the proletariat can fight for power and win, exactly as it happened for the victorious Shanghai insurrection of ninety years ago.
Today in China capitalist development has decomposed the Chinese countryside, piled the proletarians in hundreds of gigantic industrial metropolis, giving life to hundreds of Shanghai-like cities. The "Chinese dream" of the "Resurrection of the Nation" just translates into the nightmare of the exploitation for the sake of the Capital and proletarians may safely assume that tomorrow the Nation will call them to shed sweat and blood.
The answer shall be like Shanghai in 1927: class war for the overthrowing of the capitalist regime and the overtake of the power. No illustrious name worth of commemoration have make it into History out of that revolution, let alone a "great leader" to idolize.
Anonymous proletarians fought, with their class organization and their Party having their backs. Let’s leave to the bourgeoisie, coward and powerless, the cult of their minions.
In order to win, the proletariat doesn’t have to wait the coming of any great leader of sort. As we have repeatedly stated, the revolution will rise its head once again, anonymous and dreadful.
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"people may do him the honor of abusing him; read him they do not" - review of "capital" quoted in Mary Gabriel's book "love & capital"
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Nice, so important now
Martin Axelrad’s reply at accusations levied against him and his party after the publication of “Auschwitz or the great alibi”.
Now that anti-fascism has became big again amongst the left this is particularly relevant.
It is to explain fascism (racist or not like its Italian prototype)
Does anyone think this is true?
When dealing with such a race as Slavic - inferior and barbarian - we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy.... We should not be afraid of new victims.... The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps.... I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians....
— Benito Mussolini, speech held in Pula, 20 September 1920
Ignorance is not a good way to start that off at all. Especially when it's ignorance of racism and you're trying to say you're not racist.
Edit: Downvoted by those denying Italian racism in the Fascist state.
Every state is racist which is the point of the whole paragraph. Italian fascism here is being compared to Nazi Germany where racism was state doctrine, which was not the case with Fascist Italy, or Italian fascism, until they became subservient partners to Nazi Germany. Mussolini too had contradictory views on race. Which is what you would have read if you continued to read further down that wikipedia page that you borrowed that quote from. You seem more interested in finding an excuse to dismiss the text so that you don't have to read it.
This is no different from the racialist rhetoric employed by other capitalist states at this time, especially the UK’s imperialist attitude towards Africa.
I don't mean "lesser of two evils" or whatever. I mean participation of unions or union members in voting for (as opposed to campaigning or joining with) political parties or candidates that seek to strengthen or ease restrictions on unions and union power. In situations where workers don't have their own candidates, or where their candidates cannot possibly win enough power electorally to change legislation in their favor. Often the sort of bourgeois candidates who promise to strengthen unions or halt pending legislative attacks on unions do so as part of a larger social democratic ploy. But how does one determine if the trade-off is worth it - fewer barriers to worker association at the expense of ceding some ground to social democracy? Is it always a question of particular circumstances, or are there general rules of thumb for what sort of sacrifices can or should be made in order to eliminate obstacles to unionization? Sorry if my question is all over the place.
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I mean participation of unions or union members in voting for (as opposed to campaigning or joining with) political parties or candidates that seek to strengthen or ease restrictions on unions and union power. [...] Often the sort of bourgeois candidates who promise to strengthen unions or halt pending legislative attacks on unions do so as part of a larger social democratic ploy. But how does one determine if the trade-off is worth it - fewer barriers to worker association at the expense of ceding some ground to social democracy? Is it always a question of particular circumstances, or are there general rules of thumb for what sort of sacrifices can or should be made in order to eliminate obstacles to unionization?
There is no situation in which this is "worth it".
First of all, "strong unions" are not in themselves a goal. They are not a criterion by which communists judge - I recently outlined why this is here.
More, in voting in favour of such parties, you're expressing that you're taking their promises at face value. But if the party in question is not communist in fact, i.e. represents interests of the bourgeoisie, then why would it not turn against the unions if they posed too much of a threat? Communists know that the bourgeoisie exercises its dictatorship through the democratic state, so why do you think it would act on behalf of interests foreign to itself? If unions call on workers to conditionally vote for bourgeois parties, they perpetuate the illusion that these parties have the interests of workers in mind.
If a bourgeois party would indeed go through with its proposals to ease restrictions on unions, then this would not be out of consideration for the proletariat either, since it would mean that the party in question thinks that in the given conditions, giving more freedom to the unions would be a way of letting the labour movement run out of steam, or of redirecting it to counterproductive petty bourgeois ends. It's a faction of the bourgeoisie assuming the role of the "good cop". In such a situation, this faction considers that attacking unions with full force (the "bad cop" variant) would not be the best way to deal with them, as that might radicalise workers.
Unions calling on workers to vote for bourgeois parties also contribute to workers thinking that politics is not their own, immediate affair, but rather one that exclusively takes place in parliament and that cannot but be delegated. Hence, if this is happening, it does so when the labour movement is weak. But then the problems are of much more immediate nature, and the labour movement won't be reinvigorated by calls to vote for bourgeois parties. And if the labour movement is in a strong position, and a communist party exists, there won't be the need for such a proposition.
In situations where workers don't have their own candidates, or where their candidates cannot possibly win enough power electorally to change legislation in their favor.
In the vast majority of countries, there is no point to a communist party running in elections. Not only is the system usually rigged against workers' parties, not only would the bourgeoisie throw all kinds of curveballs to it, not only would parliamentary work suck up the whole activity of the party, but also, more simply, are most workers already utterly disillusioned with the democratic state and its parliament. It is not for nothing that democrats everywhere complain about the low level of voter participation. Those would rather have the entire electorate giving its enthusiastic consent to the present state of affairs. Lenin in "Left-Wing Communism" gave the argument that parliamentarism is necessary for the communist party to convince workers of the uselessness of it. Today, a significant part of non-voters in the more developed countries are proletarians. What does that tell us?
In the vast majority of countries, there is no point to a communist party running in elections. Not only is the system usually rigged against workers' parties, not only would the bourgeoisie throw all kinds of curveballs to it, not only would parliamentary work suck up the whole activity of the party, but also, more simply, are most workers already utterly disillusioned with the democratic state and its parliament. It is not for nothing that democrats everywhere complain about the low level of voter participation. They'd rather have the entire electorate giving its enthusiastic consent to the present state of affairs.
I figured as much, was just wondering if there were any exceptions to this kind of "tactical voting" not leading to the worker's organizations becoming a "mere appendage of official bourgeois democracy", where they could extract concessions for the labor movement without giving up much in return. But I guess that fighting on the bourgeois terrain is always a mistake in the first place. Thanks.
But I guess that fighting on the bourgeois terrain is always a mistake in the first place.
It's a complete misnomer to call voting "fighting" in the first place.
The whole "good cop/bad cop" routine treatment of unions between the Dems and Reps is so blatantly obvious in the US.
One of the easiest, and most effective, ways to support the state is to vote for a liberal or social democratic party. It should be self-explanatory why no one should do it.
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Pretty uninteresting. I wonder where all of this malarkey about the supposed "ecological" ideas come from, because this text certainly isn't about it. Must be some pb students working in bourgeois ideology factories looking to find their own "discoveries" by ripping minutiae from their context.
I suppose it's somewhat relevant with regard to the pandemic and "social distancing", but it's also very basic.
Well the parts on work place safety and hygiene but we already made the equivalence. But that, as is witnessed, is already in vol 3 of capital
Seeing as this post is much less upvoted than the letter by Marx on the frontpage, I cannot but wonder whether these translations of the "Filo del Tempo" series by Libri would not spark a lot more engagement if they were attributed to the individual who wrote them down. Just goes on to show how little curious people are, because otherwise they would know about this.
I'm glad they don't
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I like this text more than the other one on decadence that was recently posted here, albeit the two are somewhat complementary, given the first text deals with historical details as well. The example of the pasta manufacturer in this article, when the topic is productive labour, is particularly good to drive home just how stupid the ICC is in this matter.
Only the critical elements, purified by independent theoretical work, succeed in freeing themselves from the spell of the “decadence” ideology, which although simple is so dangerous for the proletariat.
Decadence ideology at the present moment is certainly not "dangerous for the proletariat" - this might be the case if it were to emerge in the party, but that's not what is happening. Its proponents merely execute a sentence on themselves by buying into it, since it means they will never connect with the proletariat, hence carving out their miserable existence as a sect. The confusion sown exists solely among themselves.
A professor from Göttingen explained about 200 years ago that a book is like a mirror, and if a donkey looked into it, no scholar could look out. This is still the impression one gets today when the ICC reads Marx.
Well, hats off to that.
You're right about this being even simpler in presentation compared to the other one. The author clearly has dealt with brainrot morons before and has decided to write things out in such a simple way as to convince anyone with two brain cells. For example, the parts where he has to spell out in caps what the ICC are actually saying
FETTERING OF PRODUCTIVE FORCES = SLOWING DOWN OF THE GROWTH OF PRODUCTIVE FORCES
lol too many petit bourgeois idiots pretend to be marxists
for the ICC this hypothetical growth is limited to the cheap extrapolation of capitalist growth curves, which the ICC arbitrarily picks out and determines
I really have no idea why anyone actually believes in decadence theory. Do they actually base their whole theory around a downward trend on a graph? lol It's even more amusing that people will say they support this idea then they'll reference something the ICP, clearly not knowing that this theory of decadence runs completely counter to it.
Do they actually base their whole theory around a downward trend on a graph?
The ICT and its "affiliates" and sympathisers manage to mark arbitrary points on a line, to then extrapolate political positions from that in bombastic tautologies. The plot might just as well represent one's decreasing brain tissue with longer exposure to ICT/ICC ideology. Aside from the fact that it lies even far below the level of political economy, let alone communism, this treatment of the rate of profit reminds one of pseudo-science in line with astrology and homeopathy.
Stupidity has a multiplying effect in groups. You'd think that if this was somehow important that Marx or anyone else would have mentioned it. Well, I mean, the ICP has a long series of articles debunking this indirectly in reference to soviet economists.
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The rise of this individualist self-congratulating petty-bourgeois brand of communism is one of the most erosive forms of leftism. All pretense no substance; No desire to engage in anything real.
Other magazines have shown that people will subscribe to a publication like ours, even when they can read much it for free online, as long as they get something attractive and collectible in return and as long as they believe it a project worth supporting.
Gotta pull that green in some how.
We began this project with a wager: there is a hunger for a magazine that does what we are uniquely placed to do. Our initial social media and website rollout has confirmed this: within 48 hours of setting up our account we had 5000 followers. Though that’s a fraction of the attention we need to succeed, it confirms our intuition that there is a real excitement for this kind of project, and a real dissatisfaction with existing magazines.
Now that preamble is out of the way.
Initially, they write this
We are aiming for $20,000. That money will be used to help fund our first print runs, pay for our website, and compensate our writers and designers. We want to reach 500 subscribers right away and 1000 within our first year. Once we’ve reached 1000 subscribers, we will be more or less financially self-sufficient and can turn our attention to expansion.
and then
We are thrilled to have reached our all-or-nothing goal in 48 hours. It's going to take a lot more than $20,000 to publish Commune. Here are some targets to help take us there.
Glancing over the fact that they raised 20k in two days.
and it continues
By the time we’ve reached $27,500, we will have recouped our initial investment on design and development and have enough money in the bank to pay for the first couple of issues, more or less. Our promotional video was produced by an incredible team, including one of our favorite artists, Melanie Gilligan. The team is interested in making a few more short videos of Commune writers talking about their articles. If we reach $27,500, we can use some of the extra money to produce these videos.
$27,500 initial investment! What can this ever mean?
By the time we’ve raised $37,500, we won’t have to worry about printing costs for the first year. We can afford to splurge a little and reward all of our backers with a beautifully designed Commune poster. If we reach $37,500 we’ll make sure there’s a pullout poster in issue 1.
By the time we get to $50,000, we can consider taking advantage of the reduced unit costs that come with a larger print run. This is the point at which we will reward our backers by upgrading the design and printing of issue 1 to make it even more collectible. If we reach $50,000 we’ll add special cover treatments, and use different paper textures and colors for different parts of the magazine (black paper, orange paper, newsprint, etc.). Issue 1 will look even more amazing.
The plight of the petty bourgeois academic. Having to write out a business plan.
By the time we raise $65,000, we’ve not only covered our initial and annual costs but have a bit of a surplus and can start thinking about the future. In order to be sustainable in the long term, we need at least 1500 subscribers. That means we’ll need to keep subscribing people beyond the kickstarter. If we reach $65,000, we’ll promote the magazine by giving away 200 copies of the first issue for free. We want a world without money, after all, and know that many of our readers are poor and simply can’t afford a $40 subscription. This is good business practice, anyway, as some of these people will probably subscribe later on down the road.
They're also in cahoots with Endnotes and Chuang.
Endnotes also begging money to pay for design and layout. Yes, because that design and layout is so sophisticated that it requires to pay someone. Look at the donations lol.
This is good business practice, anyway, as some of these people will probably subscribe later on down the road.
Phew, we are lucky they have their business administration down!
I'm more interested in where they got the 27.5k to begin with and how they raised 20k in two days, and why these numbers don't match up. Who honestly puts that amount of money into this?
1,074 backers pledged $65,828 to help bring this project to life.
lol also some of the comments
Gotta hand it to the creators, though. Really know how to dupe the useful idiots out of their money.
and in the FAQ
What about international orders?
Our international readers (and writers) are incredibly important to us. Mailing our magazine from the US four times a year can get very expensive, as individual packages sent abroad can cost as much $15. Rates are highly variable, not only between countries but within countries as well. As such, we are offering a very expensive ($100) international subscription, set with the highest shipping rates in mind. For bulk overseas orders (5, 10, 15, 20) of individual issues, please contact us directly at administrationofthings [at] communemag.com. Mailing bulk can make things a good deal cheaper. In the near future, we hope to prove ourselves enough that we are carried by international distributors. Once that happens, international subscriptions will be substantially cheaper. In the meantime, we do make much of our writing available online for free for readers everywhere.
and
Do you offer digital subscriptions?
We may offer a digital subscription in the future, once we become financially stable. For now, we are focusing on raising money through print subscriptions, which will allow us to post most of what we publish online for free. Print subscribers will also have access to the content we do paywall.
we mean that we will publish articles as easy to read on a bus or while you are slacking off at your office job
By revolution, we mean a magazine of politics and culture
Our writers need to be paid, too, especially if we want to hear from people who do not lead breezy lives of leisure.
Okay then.
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I think that their tote bag probably reveals more about what they're about than anything.
What's your take on Endnotes and Chuang?
They put style over content and revel in the low state of the labor movement. The real problem with them, and especially this commune mag, is that they're not working towards anything apart from just putting out pointless journals. I'm pretty sure that they're only interested in communism in an abstract sense. We made a comment about Chuang here previously but to go through each and every item they publish would be a waste of time. In essence they're not much different from any other bourgeois or petty bourgeois journal, and in practice, they're not much more than posers.
They put style over content and revel in the low state of the labor movement. The real problem with them, and especially this commune mag, is that they're not working towards anything apart from just putting out pointless journals.
Well, they are magazines, not parties, so what's the issue with that?
No, you're right, let's keep communism on the same level as Vogue.
So they have a interest in design and communism. I really don't get your point. Why must their analysis be "better" than their design? The two seem unrelated to me.
Again, they are just a group of people who write, not the communist movement in person. They aren't keeping anyone back -- point out their bad arguments, praise their successful analysis (if you believe their is any). Seems better than playing a this game of ingroup-outgroup.
Edit: Sigh, banned without an explanation. Guess I shouldn't have placed too much hope in the sub since the Coup.
I'm sorry that you're too stupid to understand the problem that you seem to share with them. Is this perhaps a dialectical relationship? The fact that you're persisting in framing it in this way just confirms how dog shit they are and the effect they have among those who have dog shit for brains.
Which journals do you recommend reading? I personally think both chuang and endnotes have quality writing and analyses
I personally think both chuang and endnotes have quality writing and analyses
And I personally think that pickles with hummus makes a great combination.
Suggest some good journals or publish your own that are better in quality otherwise it's just useless whining. "communists are asking for donations gotchaaa"
communists are asking for donations gotchaaa
This isn't the problem. Mainly the problem is that they're petty bourgeois hipsters who are using morons like you to create a career for themselves off the backs of others while actively acting as a hindrance to the communist movement.
The second problem, like I said, is with idiots like you. We don't want to promote your individualistic attitude to communism, which mirrors these same publications, nor your childish behavior and laziness. It isn't like it is impossible to find out information about the communist left. You are in fact posting on a sub that routinely links things to read.
lol "inquisitivecommunist"
I personally think
Yet what follows still is an objective claim.
both chuang and endnotes have quality writing and analyses
And what would that greatness consist in?
No need to be so confrontational mate. I asked you to suggest what to read as there are not many leftcom journals around
No need to be so confrontational mate.
I wasn't being confrontational. I merely pointed out that prefacing your statement with the reservation that it would be your personal opinion does not save you from the objectivity of what follows. You might as well drop those three words. Also, I asked you to elaborate on what would be great about Endnotes or Chuang - that's not confrontational either.
I asked you to suggest what to read as there are not many leftcom journals around
There's not much point in telling people what they should think - which is why I wanted to get more into the subject matter. /u/dr_marx already pointed out that the journals in question, besides their deficient content, are not working towards anything - they are self-referential, or discussing among themselves. Do you see what then constitutes a proper publication?
Can't see any posts here by anybody posting good leftcom journals. Only a few whining about the same journals asking for donations and stuff.
Only a few whining about the same journals asking for donations and stuff.
Thought that I was being pretty clear when I wrote
The real problem with them, and especially this commune mag, is that they're not working towards anything apart from just putting out pointless journals. I'm pretty sure that they're only interested in communism in an abstract sense.
We don't want to encourage your bizarre fetish.
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I haven't made a critique.
From their about on their site
Commune is a popular magazine for a new era of revolution. The old political orientations are dead: the center cannot hold. While others offer social democratic fantasy from a past that cannot return, we bring you instead the future, a magazine of politics and culture that knows what so many already intuitively recognize: capitalism can’t be made more tolerable, couldn’t be saved even if we wanted to, and won’t be voted away. We take our inspiration from the movements of our time, publishing writing that reflects and clarifies the creative intelligence at work within them. The answers are in the streets.
lol what the fuck does this even mean? They're doing a bad job at not trying to sound like a fucking scam
Our print magazine is published four times per year. It can be found wherever enemies of the current order gather.
A yearly subscription if $40. That's $10 per issue. Are they even planning on making money from this?
lmao I see their attempt at yeats, yikes
A yearly subscription if $40. That's $10 per issue. Are they even planning on making money from this?
they could be seeking whales. in mobile gaming they rely on people who go all out on microtransactions. They have different levels of subscription ranging from 35-250. they probably won't be paying many writers at all and they've confirmed people have done things at a reduced cost "for the movement" or whatever.
It says a lot about a person if they're trying to use socialism as a means to a career.
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In Benedetto Croce, the International Communist Party found the conformist development of the bourgeoisie vis-à-vis its initial revolutionary role expressed in its essential form: The unity of the sciences is dissolved, dialectics are understood as a mental game, history is reduced to an accumulation of facts and events, and the individual is raised to the driving force of history. The ICP on the contrary argues that the dialectic has its place in those representations that reflect human thinking on the processes of nature, and that this kind of imprinting, thinking, representing, describing, or ‘telling’ must be treated like any other group of relationships between material processes.
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Y they all got anarchist signs? Don’t that mean they want to kill and destroy or something
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Interesting passages:
Marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. The very events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men’ s minds the insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing the way for a more complete insight into the true conditions for working-class emancipation. And Marx was right.
...
Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement.
I should explain what Engels is saying here. Before Marx and Engels came along there was a split between socialist theory and the working class movement. The point of the Communist Manifesto was to bring them together. There would no longer be utopian socialists on the one hand and communists (people in the real working class movement) on the other, therefore both terms could be used interchangeably.
I read through all the prefaces, but hadn't noticed this. It's interesting to note that there is still a very real-world difference in how people treat "socialism" and "communism" to be different things.
If the Communist Manifesto's goal was to untie these two words in meaning, and thus unite the middle-class and working-class, I guess I would have to say it failed to do that.
I find that in common language "socialism" has become much more accepted, but "communism" still carries a bad connotation. But part of the reason socialism as a word is more acceptable today, is because of its adoption in bourgeois politics to basically mean the same thing as "social democracy" (reformism, welfare state, utopian futurology, etc).
In that sense, "socialism" is still middle-class, utopian, and bourgeois -- Just in different ways than it was in the 1800s.
If the Communist Manifesto's goal was to untie these two words in meaning, and thus unite the middle-class and working-class, I guess I would have to say it failed to do that.
I said it was to bring socialist theory and the working class movement together, meaning taking the theory away from the middle class and giving it real grounding. If you want to know more about this I recommend the Cambridge Companion to the Communist Manifesto, the first two chapters specifically.
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If we are asking the workers to desert the anti-fascist movements it isn’t because we deny the necessity of responding to the cowardly violence of fascism, but because we believe that the latter’s real power resides not in its thuggish ‘squads’ but in the real and continuous protection which democracy and the alliance of all the bourgeois fractions are prepared to give it. The proletariat doesn’t have the option of “choosing” between democracy and fascism because they are the same thing: fascism is the unscrupulous and extra-legal armed wing of democracy, and democracy is the “velvet glove” of fascism.
...The proletariat in this society has one choice before it: either submission, or engaging in the struggle for its own class objectives, separate from and opposed to each and every bourgeois and petty-bourgeois faction.
Going to preface this by saying I'm not a leftcom . . .
So the reasons here as I understand them are: 1) antifascism is pointless because the only way to permanently stop fascism is by stopping capitalism. 2) Anti-fascists probably couldn't stop fascism anyway because politics follow the inexorable tide of economics.
Most anti-fascists are probably aware of reason 1, but we can't just do nothing.
As for reason 2, maybe this article is more relevant in certain countries, but in America in particular the democratic government has proven itself very capable of massive racist violence. I don't see possibility of the American government becoming fascist, I do see the democratic government being influenced by fascists.
But maybe there's something I'm not getting.
As you yourself say, the democratic bourgeoisie is capable of the same villainy as the fascist bourgeoisie. For communists, then, the point is to oppose capitalist parties no matter the form they take. I don't know how this amounts to "doing nothing."
What do most anti-fascists propose? Going out into the streets and beating up fascists arm-in-arm with democratic capitalists? This is worse than "doing nothing." It is taking sides in an inter-factional struggle of the bourgeoisie.
Typically, anti-fascism means pro-capitalist democracy. See the various "Popular Fronts" ... each of which invariably ends up destroying any power the working class might've had.
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Pretty sure they raised the retirement age too, probably as revenge for this victory. ‘Socialist Republic’ indeed.
"The reforms are not expected to open up much space, if any at all, to allow these organisations to operate freely, as the government sees them as “political” organisations with concerns beyond bread and butter issues of wages and conditions at the enterprise level."
The article also mentioned that the WROs have no rules about organizing across enterprise boundaries.
Hopefully these help give more collective bargaining power to workers in Vietnam, although I don't see what would stop the state unions from trying to co-opt the program.
how is this sub so dead while a literal popular uprising is happening. tff
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Imagine thinking posting r/leftcommunism is the only thing communists do.
The immediate significance of the riots taking place in the US for communism is being overstated. What kind of content would you expect to be posted here about them? As far as I can tell, the rioters do not even make any kind of demands.
Two of the ICPs have put out short articles on the matter, which - admittedly - are extremely boilerplate:
I've seen these demands floating around. I assume they come from the Democratic party up the chain somewhere.
Of course besides being extremely vague, they seem to simply call for more red-tape and bureaucracy as a solution to so called "police brutality", which makes sense given that these demands are coming from student groups led by celebrities and such, and not out of the labor movement. If only the police would carry out the will of the bourgeoisie in a more robotic and emotionless manner, then everything would be perfect.
I've seen these demands floating around. I assume they come from the Democratic party up the chain somewhere.
Here the person who created this graphic speaks about it. What they mention there, "Campaign Zero", is a plan proposed by Black Lives Matter, of which the necessary was already said in the thread about the "Great Alibi" on the frontpage of this subreddit. So you're probably right about where they come from.
Random graphics floating around the internet are not to be taken seriously, just as little as those of opportunistic organisations now trying to speak for the needs of people involved.
so called "police brutality"
Are you suggesting that the police is not acting in a brutal manner? Or are you suggesting that the condemnation of brutality would not be sufficient, as it would merely aim at excess, rather than the root of the problem?
If only the police would carry out the will of the bourgeoisie in a more robotic and emotionless manner, then everything would be perfect.
Isn't the police precisely acting in such an inhuman manner currently when it is violent? Doesn't executing the "will of the bourgeoisie" always entail violence, irrespective of the degree to which emotion is involved?
Are you suggesting that the police is not acting in a brutal manner? Or are you suggesting that the condemnation of brutality would not be sufficient, as it would merely aim at excess, rather than the institution itself?
The latter. "Police brutality" is often talked about as if the function of the police can be anything but the carrying out of brutality.
Isn't the police precisely acting in such an inhuman manner currently when it is violent? Doesn't executing the "will of the bourgeoisie" always entail violence, irrespective of the degree to which emotion is involved?
Right. That statement was ironic, since people seem to be wrapped up in all these distractions, as "spokespeople" came out of the woodwork and wasted no time in calling attention away from the issue of class and instead going on and on about racism, police training, oversight, etc. But I think everything worth mentioning abou that has already been mentioned.
The latter. "Police brutality" is often talked about as if the function of the police can be anything but the carrying out of brutality.
Well, one thing is for sure, while racism and brutality of the police abound, you usually don't see cops driving into people with their cars in other parts of the developed world. Neither is it typical that poor people, and particularly black ones, have to fear to be killed immediately upon coming into contact with the police. While the behaviour of the US police is of course not out of order for bourgeois society in general, it certainly has some national particularities to it due to the underlying conditions. On the other hand, the fact that kettling has in the recent days been described as a "controversial new tactic" of the police by US news outlets, when it regularly occurs even at soccer games in most of Europe, shows that there isn't a lot of experience with mass protests in the US today.
That statement was ironic
I understood that it was ironic. What I wanted to express is that the demands on the image you shared don't amount to asking for the police to act "more robotic and emotionless". I agree with your wider point, and that they merely call for an administrative measure to solve the matter, which isn't going to work.
What popular uprising? The one that has been obsessively co-opted by the ruling class? The one that hordes of middle class parasites immediately latched onto as a way to project their liberal anarchism?
In any case, anyone was welcome to start a thread here on the subject. I can't speak for the other participants but I personally haven't come across any literature worth posting about the subject here, and wouldn't normally start a thread myself purely for discussion. All I can say is to be wary of seeing any incident of discontent as some revolutionary uprising. This has happened before and will happen again, and will continue to be fruitless until it can connect with the working class and forward a political alternative to the ruling establishment.
My impression is that a lot of millenials in the US, particularly the more sheltered middle class ones, for the first time experience practical initiative with this. Hence they get caught up in the moment, as well as in all sorts of illusions. It is only now that they get a glimpse of what all the big words they thoughtlessly use practically entail.
Most of the people who get giddy at the prospect of rebellion whenever these types of events happen are bored suburban teenagers or college students who never see any kind of excitement or action. They imagine a riot would lead to a cool Mad Max style world where they'd ride around in jeeps and have adventures. Or they just take the Fully Automated Space Communism meme very seriously.
In reality, if civil society breaks down, your average geeky redditor can expect most his time to be spent foraging for tasteless berries and trying to find someplace to sleep where the wolves won't get him at night. Or they'll just get shot by police forces in the event of an actual revolution.
In reality, if civil society breaks down, your average geeky redditor can expect most his time to be spent foraging for tasteless berries and trying to find someplace to sleep where the wolves won't get him at night.
Most of them can't even handle me calling them stupid.
This has happened before and will happen again, and will continue to be fruitless until it can connect with the working class and forward a political alternative to the ruling establishment.
Is this so hard for people to understand and take in? There's a collective amnesia of past events similar to this which have happened time and time again with no real change. You would think at a certain point there would be some self-reflection...
As DrRedTerror alluded to it's likely a lot of these people are zoomers who don't remember Occupy, and likely weren't even paying attention to things that happened as recently as the Yellow Vests in France. On the other hand there are some very sad leftists who should remember these events, but have become Bakuninists overnight simply because there are protests in the news.
I would somewhat disagree when it comes the the age thing. Sure I think there's some representation in these protests by younger people who don't remember or aren't that aware of previous rounds of protests. But there's a lot who surely do remember or were even directly involved in other protests in recent years.
I'm more tempted to chalk it up to just the sheer weakness of the working class as it stands now. Where movements like can easily be co-opted by other classes, be they lumpenproles or the bourgeoisie, so as to rid them of the political power to advance their interests.
For a start, I'd even question the class character of the initial outburst in the first place. These protests started on racial lines, albeit with the potential to move into the class terrain, and primarily stayed there. But as you would expect from a weak working class, it was never really able to move beyond this, with some excetions which have been mentioned in other comments on this post.
I'm more tempted to chalk it up to just the sheer weakness of the working class as it stands now. Where movements like can easily be co-opted by other classes, be they lumpenproles or the bourgeoisie, so as to rid them of the political power to advance their interests.
How are the "lumpenproles" coopting anything? The bourgeoisie is able to co-opt movements through the petty-bourgeois activist Left and because the “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas".
Are you unfamiliar to how times of unrest, they usually seize upon these moments to loot and destroy property?
And I hope you don't feel that by me saying that I'm passing judgment on them and unable to understand the social/economic climate that puts them into that position in the first place. But it still needs to be said that they also engage in acts to meet their immediate needs which are in direct conflict with the interests of the proletariat.
An assembly of workers taking control of a supermarket and distributing goods is not the same thing as looting and burning. Which do you think has working class interests in mind?
Why can proles not loot and burn? It has definitely happened before also why does this activity suddenly make one a lumpenprole? That is stupid as much as it is naive. In what interest would lumpenproles have to influence anything? Sure they are around taking advantage but that is what they do anyways they are hardly the instigators. From my experience it is a mix of proles and bored petit bourgeois kids.
As Drosophilae has stated this is really just collective amnesia for a lack of a better word as well as it being zoomers first chance to go all "smashy-smashy" and are now making a mountain of a molehill. I had a modicum of hope until the typical petit bourgeois actors show up demanding peace, class collaboration, and for proles to take their anger elsewhere because it does not befit the bourgeois decorum of protesting.
Why can proles not loot and burn? It has definitely happened before also why does this activity suddenly make one a lumpenprole? That is stupid as much as it is naive.
It sounds like ICC dogma.
As Drosophilae has stated this is really just collective amnesia for a lack of a better word as well as it being zoomers first chance to go all "smashy-smashy" and are now making a mountain of a molehill.
It's like people do not even remember Ferguson.
It's like people do not even remember Ferguson.
It may be worth mentioning that Ferguson had different context which might explain the reasoning behind the more widespread discontent now. You know, covid lock down and rising unemployment. Compounding this is that liberals now have Trump in the office to complain about.
They really don't seem to remember Ferguson which is bizarre but par for the course in the current collective memory of America. I find it even stranger that people are basically posting here for you and dr_marx to tell them what to think about the situation. You would think with how many times it was harped on it would make a dent in their thick skulls. Leftists demanding a new epistle from Mount Sinai so they know what to think because they can't be arsed to read or think for themselves.
It's a sad state of affairs. The more you tell people this, the more they demand the latest verdict they can repeat. Sycophants are annoying.
Why can proles not loot and burn? It has definitely happened before also why does this activity suddenly make one a lumpenprole? That is stupid as much as it is naive. In what interest would lumpenproles have to influence anything? Sure they are around taking advantage but that is what they do anyways they are hardly the instigators. From my experience it is a mix of proles and bored petit bourgeois kids.
My intention is not to imply that there are people who are looting, and therefore they must be lumpenproles. I suppose reading back to my comment it does come across that way, so that's my bad.
Moreso it's regardless of whoever is participating or instigating (which in my experience is largely lumpenproles instigating and then joined by proles, but of course if we're relying on personal experiences these may greatly differ) in the looting and destruction, the acts themselves are not in the interests of the proleteriat and speaks to the impotency of the current moment for the working class to direct their energies to more meaningful political ends. And so the same thing happens again and again with minimal change.
I had a modicum of hope until the typical petit bourgeois actors show up demanding peace, class collaboration, and for proles to take their anger elsewhere because it does not befit the bourgeois decorum of protesting.
Yeah this is to be expected, happens like clockwork. There's also those among them who revel in the death and destruction like sadists, knowing full well they would echo the sentiment to call in the military to put them down if this happened anywhere near where they lived!
You seem to be employing the word "lumpenprole" to mean unemployed black people.
Are you inferring the class of the people participating simply from the activities they engage in? It is not as easy as saying that people looting are therefore members of the lumpenproletariat, or that they are under its influence.
But there's a lot who surely do remember or were even directly involved in other protests in recent years.
I'm more tempted to chalk it up to just the sheer weakness of the working class as it stands now.
How do both of these sentiments fit?
racial lines
How can you on the one hand point out that racial lines are not class lines then ask for us to move onto the "terrain" of class?
So as long as this issue was framed from the perspective of racism
Entering into the realm of narratives, I see.
footsoldiers being lumpenproles
A vaguely defined thing can't possibly lead to a concrete explanation.
How can you on the one hand point out that racial lines are not class lines then ask for us to move onto the "terrain" of class?
I don't understand what you mean here, are you saying that something intially triggered on racial lines cannot move towards working class lines? That the trigger itself was not on racial lines? Or something else?
You argued that these protests have their origins in racial lines. Fine, but then you then started talking about shifting these protests onto class terrain. Slightly over emphasizing your own role here, aren't you?
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No American under the age of 40 has seen an uprising this big in their lifetime
LOL
What is the significance of labor action in supporting the protests such as transport union locals refusing to transport police and prisoners? Of course the protests have the involvement of multiple classes but this has motivated some combativeness in these unions though they are not yet posing class demands, and these locals have not coordinated their action with each other. There must be some way to connect these protests to labor struggles and move it onto a class terrain through this or am I off the mark here? How would a proper communist party handle such a situation? I would be grateful if there are any texts on the matter dealing with previous similar situations.
I saw a story about bus drivers refusing to transport police, but is there any evidence that that was more than a one-off incident? In either case, we can expect that workers will be involved in protests like this, even when they are clearly being directed by liberals. The involvement of workers is fairly meaningless when workers have no political representation. How are workers supposed to ensure that class demands are put forth in these protests? There's no coordinated opposition to the Democrats that could possibly put such items on any agenda. At this point I don't think there's a way to connect the Floyd protests with class struggle. The initial outbreak in Minneapolis was a genuine working class response to police brutality and likely other issues, but that energy was quickly co-opted by middle class liberals in other cities and, now, the ruling class itself. What started as a proletarian response to state terror and brutality has now been subsumed into something much narrower by the petty bourgeoisie and the ruling class.
As for what to read, anything relating to the history of the workers movement should make it clear that these protests are largely meaningless. Compare where we are now to where the German working class was by 1918, or even the Russian working class by 1905. America's working class has always been weak politically, but now it seems weaker than ever. There is no opposition to the Democrats. Even the DSA, which might be vaguely associated with social democracy, refuses to break with the party of Andrew Jackson and Jefferson Davis. That's a sad state of affairs.
I saw a story about bus drivers refusing to transport police, but is there any evidence that that was more than a one-off incident?
It happened in both Minneapolis and New York, ATU Local 1005, and TWU Local 100 respectively.
There is no opposition to the Democrats. Even the DSA, which might be vaguely associated with social democracy, refuses to break with the party of Andrew Jackson and Jefferson Davis. That's a sad state of affairs.
The age old problem of the lack of a properly organized communist party. :/
What is the significance of labor action in supporting the protests such as transport union locals refusing to transport police and prisoners?
I had not heard about this before, so I did a quick Google search and found an article from three days ago mentioning this. Apparently it was a case of individual bus drivers refusing transport, and the union leadership then backing them in this. It also says that the same union already did similar stuff at the Occupy Wall Street protests 2011. Generally speaking, such incidents are not of large significance. In May '68, the students, for their lack of power, looked towards the workers to get their concerns addressed. Were their demands a communist concern when the unions then joined in?
Of course the protests have the involvement of multiple classes
This need not be a problem in itself, as long as the proletariat is the driving force.
Generally speaking, such incidents are not of large significance. In May '68, the students, for their lack of power, looked towards the workers to get their concerns addressed. Were their demands a communist concern when the unions then joined in?
Yeah, you're right I was not aware of the extent to which the Democrats and petty-bourgeois left had already co-opted what seemed to me demonstrations that arose from the increasingly angry black proletariat but yeah now looking at the demands being posed by the more prominent "voices" such as those in BLM show that its been subsumed.
This need not be a problem in itself, as long as the proletariat is the driving force.
True, and as long as there's no party that's not possible so the moment for the proletariat to take the initiative in these protests has already passed then.
Which insurrection? Like the ones that happened throughout 2019 and Americans remained silent? Not every protest is about the working class even if their are workers involved in said protest.
I wonder that myself. I wish this sub was far more active
Have you read the "about section" in the sidebar?
All I see are the moderators. I have to admit, I am fairly new to reddit, so I could be looking in the wrong place
Thank you
You're welcome.
This is a too simplistic way of judging the matter. What have you proven by this?
It has been pointed out enough on the internet already that such statements by corporations are not worth the disk space they are saved on. An opinion - no matter if genuinely held or not, whether of an individual or an organisation - is absolutely worthless for practical matters, it does not constitute support. Looking at events in this way gets you into the murky terrain of culture, of reducing the change of actual conditions to correct stances being held by either the right people and institutions, or the majority, and the accompanying castigations for moral deficiencies in this department.
If anything, this is one example of what /u/Drosophilae called cooptation. To subsume the discontent under the banner of "Black Lives Matter" by bourgeois institutions is trying to limit the scope of what is at stake. Albeit the death of George Floyd being the impulse that gave rise to the unrest, it is obvious that many people rioting now do it for more reasons than rampant racism and police brutality. But spinning a different narrative helps sweep that aspect under the table. The real cooptation happens on the ground though, and not through such vows.
> If anything, this is one example of what /u/Drosophilae called cooptation. To subsume the discontent under the banner of "Black Lives Matter" by bourgeois institutions is trying to limit the scope of what is at stake. Albeit the death of George Floyd being the impulse that gave rise to the unrest, it is obvious that many people rioting now do it for more reasons than rampant racism and police brutality. But spinning a different narrative helps sweep that aspect under the table.
Of course, that's very clear to see. It was an example of the cooptation. It would be pretty pointless to type out a paraphrased version of /u/Drosophilae 's comment.
It was an example of the cooptation.
In that case I misunderstood your point. I did not read your post as making a point about cooptation.
Why would any corporation not come out in support of black customers lives at a opportunity time like this?
This is not directed at you, but more of a general statement - it seems a lot of people don’t realize that corporate support and coopting of black rights movements goes back generations. The civil rights movement received wide, enthusiastic support from the white bourgeoisie outside of the south. Segregation was seen as a barrier to free trade, it kept black workers from becoming an adequate reserve army of labor due to them being precluded from certain jobs and having limited freedom of movement, and it prevented low-wage black workers from being used as strikebreaking forces.
Black “leadership” consisting largely of clergy, professionals, low level government officials, community organizers, etc. were able to legitimize their status as leaders of a homogenized, declassed “black population” by winning certain favors from the white establishment and by the positions they already occupied in their communities.
Later, the Black Power movement arose, largely as a reaction to the civil rights movement, but with its utopian notions of black nationalism and self-sufficiency, the movement was never able to connect with any significant portion of the black population, thus leaving the civil rights leaders as the sole legitimate voice of the movement, and allowing them to guide a subdued black proletariat to their aim of carving out a place in American capitalism for a black petty bourgeoisie.
Many parallels are evident with today’s Black Lives Matter movement, which sees overwhelming corporate support and has been used by middle class black activists and other petty bourgeois elements to divert legitimate working class energy to goals like supporting black owned businesses, limiting the brutality with which the working class can legally be suppressed, and subscribing to the podcast, buying the book, or coming to the next speaking engagement of XY and Z BLM leaders.
my point was that If these riots and the unrest had the significance people seem to think it has, amazon and the rest of the bourgeois would be standing behind trump calling for the rule of law and order.
but yeah I agree with everything you've said here
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The analytical part of this is just trite immediatism that is ignorant of the relation between labour and communism. It reads like a text by a philosopher, not a communist. Completely in line with the joke that the Situationists were, Debord here attributes a higher meaning to looting that is just not there. It does not have a connection to labour, production; as an activity, it does not contribute to positively overcome bourgeois social relations. Theft is already contained within the logic of capital as a possibility.
If you want to read more on the 1965 riots in Los Angeles, there is also this piece by the ICP. It is attributed to Bordiga here, but as far as I am aware the person who actually wrote it down was Bruno Maffi.
leftcoms have to complain about how cooperatives and unions are bad
You should be careful not to take random individuals calling themselves "leftcoms" at face value for representing communist positions. Communists do not argue for any particular form of proletarian association - they proceed from what the labour movement itself engenders, and work towards overcoming its inherent limitations. This means it is impossible for them to reject unions or cooperatives created by proletarians wholesale. No communist worth their salt judges matters in such abstract terms as "good" or "bad" (precisely: in relation to what?!). Proletarians - particularly in the past - being engaged in a cooperative movement, and leftists arguing for the state to create an economy comprised of cooperatives are two essentially different subjects.
There have been plenty of threads in this subreddit arguing extensively for unionisation and association of proletarians.
Would be great to see leftcoms actually lend a hand then instead of always complaining and nitpicking.
Lend a hand in what exactly? The three ICPs are involved in all sorts of work, including in unions.
Not from what I've seen. They spend their time trying to criticize other leftists for not being left enough more than they do advocating for these things. Every time I have tried coming to an agreement with a leftcom they throw a fit about wages then demand labor vouchers. Then complain about how other revolutions wasnt revolutionary enough because muh Bordiga.
You are still talking about self-described "leftcoms". Who cares about what random people believe and whether you "come to an agreement" with them? It doesn't matter. I was talking about actual parties.
I'm talking about actual people I try to organize with here. Every leftcom I met so far is more concerned with keeping their theory perfect than actually putting theory into practice. Where are any statements or plans in relation to these protests as of now?
I'm talking about actual people I try to organize with here.
It would be interesting to hear what the content of this "organisation" would be.
Every leftcom I met so far is more concerned with keeping their theory perfect than actually putting theory into practice.
If a random guy on the street introduces himself to you as Donald Trump, do you then also take him at face value and accept his opinions to be representative of the federal government of the US?
Where are any statements or plans in relation to these protests as of now?
I linked two elsewhere in this thread.
Look I get that I hurt your leftcom feelings. I'm just saying from my experiences and what I see even after is that you seem more concerned with just reading and quoting theory or belittling other leftists than actually contributing anything. This is me saying I dislike you as people not saying the ideology itself is invalid.
Look I get that I hurt your leftcom feelings.
I tried to come to a productive conclusion here. It is you that is clearly not interested in such a thing.
I'm just saying from my experiences and what I see even after
You still haven't explained what these experiences actually consist in. Would you be so kind to do so?
is that you seem more concerned with just reading and quoting theory or belittling other leftists than actually contributing anything. This is me saying I dislike you as people not saying the ideology itself is invalid.
"I dislike you as people"! Is it a typical thing for you to employ this kind of tribal identity thinking? You sound as if you were ranting about "those pesky Mexican immigrants". Why don't you engage with what I am saying, instead of ranting about this abstract "leftcom" figure you have composed for yourself?
Do you have to type like you got a spoon up your bottom? I already told you these kind of people will demand things like the immediate abolition of wages and markets. While I agree with that it's not like you should just go up to working class people or libs and just tell them you wanna replace their wages with labor vouchers and expect them to live in something like a gift economy. The idea of spontaneous international revolution is also extremely utopian and just assumes that all these revolutions can succeed or seek the exact same thing. You try to accuse me of tribal identity thinking but I already said leftcommunism is not invalid in fact I agree with leftcoms and a huge amount of other leftists too as long as these communities know to leave each other alone they should be free to do their own thing. I don't see what you want me to engage with there's literally nothing to engage with you're just annoyed that I said something rude.
I have a feeling your "organizing" consists entirely of being in discord servers.
I already told you these kind of people will demand things like the immediate abolition of wages and markets. [...] The idea of spontaneous international revolution is also extremely utopian and just assumes that all these revolutions can succeed or seek the exact same thing.
I can assure you that this is not a position of any of the ICPs.
While I agree with that it's not like you should just go up to working class people or libs and just tell them you wanna replace their wages with labor vouchers and expect them to live in something like a gift economy.
So is arguing about what to tell the "working class people or libs" that it is that you "want to do" (presumably when you are in power) what you mean when you were earlier talking about "organising"? Again, I can assure you that no communist party holds any position like this.
You try to accuse me of tribal identity thinking but I already said leftcommunism is not invalid in fact I agree with leftcoms and a huge amount of other leftists too as long as these communities know to leave each other alone they should be free to do their own thing.
What you are saying amounts to saying "leave my intellectual private property"! This notion of "to each their own" is pretty much the definition of tribal identity thinking. It is not a coincidence that the phrase was put above the entrance gate of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I will refrain from making some snarky comparisons with the way people justified segregation.
Alright it's obvious youre gonna completely misinterpret me and be petty about this. If you wanted to refrain from being snarky you wouldnt have to smugly announce you are refraining from being snarky. I'm gonna do something more productive with my time. You're looking for an argument where this is none. I already said this is more personal than ideological.
Alright it's obvious youre gonna completely misinterpret me and be petty about this.
I think that you're the one with the problem.
I'm gonna do something more productive with my time.
You should try being a creationist. You've got their grasp on logic just about right.
Alright it's obvious youre gonna completely misinterpret me and be petty about this.
I haven't misinterpreted you anywhere, and you keep dodging my questions.
If you wanted to refrain from being snarky you wouldnt have to smugly announce you are refraining from being snarky.
It's a bit too late for you to attempt to take the high road here.
I'm gonna do something more productive with my time.
Good, keep arguing with leftists about what best to tell "working class people or libs" you're planning for them.
You're looking for an argument where this is none.
???
I already said this is more personal than ideological.
Who is being petty now?
Where was the misinterpretation?
Do you have to type like you got a spoon up your bottom?
You're sounding like you got a spoon lodged in your brain.
I already told you these kind of people will demand things like the immediate abolition of wages and markets.
Who are you talking about?
While I agree with that it's not like you should just go up to working class people or libs and just tell them you wanna replace their wages with labor vouchers and expect them to live in something like a gift economy.
What do labor vouchers have to do with anything?
The idea of spontaneous international revolution is also extremely utopian and just assumes that all these revolutions can succeed or seek the exact same thing.
What has this to do with anything?
You try to accuse me of tribal identity thinking but I already said leftcommunism is not invalid in fact I agree with leftcoms and a huge amount of other leftists too as long as these communities know to leave each other alone they should be free to do their own thing.
They're right, they shouldn't be accusing you of thinking at all.
I don't see what you want me to engage with there's literally nothing to engage with you're just annoyed that I said something rude.
Are you drunk? You could at least answer a few of the questions already posed to you instead of ranting like a lunatic.
This is me saying I dislike you as people
lol is this supposed to be ironic?
I try to organize with
What does that mean?
Every leftcom I met so far is more concerned with keeping their theory perfect than actually putting theory into practice.
Who are they and what party do they belong to?
Where are any statements or plans in relation to these protests as of now?
Why should there be?
1 reply:
Either one wants to descend to the structure, and one is revolutionary, one poses the problem of breaking with force the superstructures that chain it – or one is reformist and operates within the framework of the traditional superstructures (morality, law, legality, action of the constituted administrative and state order and of the parties in power) and then the underlying and real structure is not reached and the terms imposed on the forces of production remain unchanged.
Either one acts “in the system” (the duce rightly said in the face of the problems of the modern capitalist world: crisis “in the regime” or “of the regime”?) and then one preserves the structure, and makes reforms that prolong its life with adaptations, or one acts “against the system” and with the forces that want to break the ancient structure by striking against the brakes and the strains that tighten and choke them; and then one makes revolutionary struggle, first of all against the present political state and its order.
A phrase therefore more beastly than that of the “structural reform”, which unites Christian-socialists and national-communists, cannot be coined.
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I think that you're taking the wrong message from the text.
I knew the DSA were a joke but I hadn't seen the clapping video yet so I didn't know the context when I posted that.
Would have posted the quote about supporting a hanged man with a rope. Its definitely a good thing the DSA are a laughing stock it shows how utterly pathetic and self serving these student leftist types are.
What's your point?
What do you think the point is?
I think the point is...misplaced and relies on an ahistorical reading of Infantile Disorder. :)
Then you obviously missed the point.
Lol. No, I didn't.
It is quite obvious you did, but please continue.
Way to weasel around the issue. You still didn't explain what you think OP's point is.
Do you actually want me to respond or do you just think you're right and don't care? I'm curious.
lol respond because we're curious
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Have you even read the text? It starts off with explaining that the all of the actions mentioned were only possible by essential condition of the existence of a resolute communist party. Talking abstractly about the DSA like this is pointless and is what every petite bourgeois activist does.
Absolutely fucking wrong.
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It isn't a trade union so no. DSA has no mass of workers this should be obvious with its own petit bourgeois nature and membership.
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There is absolutely nothing proletarian about the DSA it is largely made up of students and currently disenfranchised Grad Student graduates hence it being aped by Jacobin. That you think it is proletarian is fucking hilarious though and that you find it comparable to trade unions is insulting.
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You do realize the DSA supports, funds, and organizes many unions.
Then work in the unions to kick the DSA out.
Also, I am only comparing it to trade unions in the sense that they consist of working-class members (albiet generally better off and uncharacteristically active), with general working class interests. They do not collective bargian, but they do aid others in doing so.
Lots of groups have working class members. This doesn't mean that they are organs of class struggle. Everything you said here could be applied to the KKK.
But don't cynically disparage and boycott the only considerable leftist orginization in america because it isn't left enough.
There isn't a degree of being left to the extent that you're left enough.
The DSA is not a trade union. It is not a party. It is an activist group of petite bourgeois degenerates.
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Oh you know what, this explains it. You're some verbose dumbass with insane egotistical pretenses.
I would be a tenured philosophy professor at a prestigious university, and be loved by radicals and grudgingly respected by the powers that be. My lectures would be articulate oratories, which students brought their friends to listen to. There would be no trace of a stutter, no getting lost while trying to articulate an idea, no going back to add in essential facts when telling a story. My voice would boom, it would sing. Even my hobbies would be professional level - I’d be a well regarded artist and writer, good both for abstract and nonobjective works as well as realism, good both for nonfiction and literary fiction. The fiction I’d write would have a cynical, depressing character to it. Additionally, I’d be known for entertaining at parties with a great wit and legendary sense of humor. And invitations would always flow, for a variety of circles. I would be surrounded by artists and intellectuals, and we would have deep and intelligent conversations. Politically, I’d be involved. I’d make speeches which people would hang onto, which would move crowds. To people in my life I would be compassionate and empathetic. They would trust me with their deepest secrets. But they would also understand that I’m a little eccentric, unconventional - but not weird, not awkward. Mostly it would just mean avoiding certain formalities - no thank you notes for gifts on holidays, no expectation of them.
Holy fuck.
Goddamn that is fucking insane on so many levels.
I do not see that 'wishes' are good for anything except the glossing over one's own powerlessness.
Marx to Jenny, 29 April 1881.
The point of "Left-Wing" Communism is that you should be willing to be ruthless and a little opportunistic, and use institutions and parties you have contempt for, to take power.
Sure, that's why the pamphlet rails against opportunism for pages.
If you ditch the goal conceived and the class that is to achieve this goal, then of course you convert Lenin's polemic into a general admonishment to not turn your back on the Democratic Party.
Do you think this is what OP wants to say?
But the situation is different here. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party that has long represented the "wail of the dying middle class," as Eugene Debs once put it. They are not Mensheviks or Social Democrats.
Haha, who does social democracy represent in your opinion?
Moreover, Bernie Sanders is not a Menshevik or Social Democrat. He is a capitalist reformist statist politician, seeking a rejuvenated welfare state in a New Deal sense. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a Menshevik or Social Democrat: she has used her position in Congress to push for a "Green New Deal," not the socialization of the means of production.
Who talked about Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez?
If Lenin and his Bolsheviks existed in America today, he might have them cooperate with the DSA
LOL
Communists did not make the New Deal — for that you can thank Democrats and capitalists making a brief "radical moment" to preserve the future of capitalism
What aspect of the New Deal was "radical"?
Also, what's up with the random boldfacing and italicisation?
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If OP is saying something other than what I'm responding to, that only means they have a delusional attitude about the DSA.
Or it only means that you have delusions about the point they are trying to make.
Your tone doesn't make you seem knowledgeable. It makes you seem willfully ignorant.
I don't care about appearing knowledgable.
FDR called the New Deal a "radical moment" and contemporaries regarded it as "radical." Additionally, the Stalinists sought a temporary alliance with the New Deal Democrats as part of their Popular Front strategy.
Interesting, I didn't know communists judge according to what liberals consider radical.
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I'm genuinely baffled by this. What is there that requires explaining? Is it because you can't hold your concentration long enough keep in mind the arguments made at the start because the pamphlet is too long at almost 100 pages? Or did you just not read it at all to begin with? Do you think we're arguing to support the DSA? lol
What the fuck are you blathering about?
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I reiterate my point: what the fuck are you blathering about?
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You must be because you're downvoting every comment here lol Have you even read that pamphlet or was the wikipedia article and tweets made by trots enough for you?
lmao what
Have you read the text?
Do you think someone with a user name like that has read anything?
Fair enough.
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Why is this even called the "left communism" sub at this point? Why won't the mods be honest about their sect theology?
What are you even talking about?
He wants to see people if they have minimum reading comprehension skills in this sub. Sadly the responses to this post demonstrates how many retards there are in this subreddit.
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As it is with all these works, it's often helpful to think "big capital" whereever monopolies are mentioned.
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A read well brushed aside by all the morons who wish to establish that Kautsky was somehow an idiot when Marx and Engels dealt with him, then suddenly became a fountain of pure communism afterwards, only to then regress into imbecility again with the advent of the First World War.
It's probably brushed aside because it doesn't fit within the confines of a comradely tone.
It's funny how people complain about sectarianism as soon as you take off the gloves, yet will claim Marx and Lenin for themselves.
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In fairness, this is probably preferable to what would've happened if they'd tried to write an analysis themselves
The report on fascism is useful in itself, but it bears absolutely no relation to present events. It's like saying: "we're closely monitoring the situation in Belarus. On this occasion, we are reproducing the critique of the Gotha programme." What the fuck does that have to do with anything?!
I couldn’t even stomach reading that whole thing, but it’s reminiscent of that fiasco over the great alibi article where leftists were fighting tooth and claw to get bourgeois democracy off the hook for its role in the Holocaust. It seems like this author has an agenda and is doing a similar thing, though this time there isn’t any real fascism, so it must be invented. Though I could just be overthinking it and this is really just some high school Trotskyist who didn’t put half a thought into what he typed, and is just mimicking the typical leftist style.
Our party has followed the recent events in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon with great political and personal interest. In Kenosha, the police maimed Jacob Blake with seven shots to the back, and a teenage reactionary murdered two protestors and wounded another. In Portland, a protestor shot a fascist dead, and after a manhunt the shooter was killed by police. In response, we republish here an excerpt from The Communist Party of Italy’s Report on Fascism, presented to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922. The report demonstrates that fascism, far from rejecting capitalist democracy, is in fact a desperate attempt to preserve that system in spite of its economic and political contradictions.
Are they letting teenage autists write for them now?
The last issue of that "paper" was just as bad, if not worse. The first "article" reads like an embarrassing document of internal self-clarification. They didn't even care to format it properly. It contains such highlights:
A revolutionary’s consideration needs to be the powers the bourgeoise [sic!] is directing for its class dictatorship. The protest movement on the Portland streets sees Trump, the police and the Republican party as a hegemony arrayed against them.
Further left, social democrats, Senator Bernie Sanders, the DSA’s so called “Squad” of congress members – identified primarily with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – in Washington, DC, Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant and activists in their midst. All making amends with the various repressive forces of capital class rule – notably Sawant’s aid in passing police budgets used against later protestors.
-Increasing organization - instead of an ad‑hoc group, people with similar interests are starting to organize and form identifiable blocs with specific tactics – the well known Wall of Moms who lead; the Wall of Dads who use lawn equipment to return tear gas; a Health Care Workers Bloc as well as a Trade Unions Bloc, Brewery Workers Bloc as well as Unemployed Workers Bloc.
- The workers blocs are not yet free of employers but are increasingly led by workers.
- As protests and Trump’s federalized opposition spread different tactics are spreading as well.
- Promote Covic [sic!] Strikes and encourage protests on a class terrain
- Encourage the new Worker’s Bloc phenomenon with class unions as the desired outcome
- Break with the bourgeoisie – Working class needs to lead.
On second thought, "embarrassing" is putting it mildly. And there's another article in there which just consists of single sentences spaced out into seperate paragraphs.
The whole reaction they had towards Trump and these protests is cringe, at best, down right fucked up at worst. They still sometimes continue with the whole IWW shit as well.
The fact that they even have an "anglo section" is retarded. Imagine organizing along linguistic lines.
The whole reaction they had towards Trump and these protests is cringe, at best, down right fucked up at worst.
I can't believe they'd invoke the left's report on fascism over them. They're not even caring to explain how they think the text relates to events. All of their papers are really half-assed, with not the slightest bit of effort put into them. Quantity over quality!
They still sometimes continue with the whole IWW shit as well.
Combine that with notions such as "encouraging protests on a class terrain", and you get a funny picture. What are they thinking? That they are the element needed to make the protests about something they think they are not about? I don't even know where that notion of "terrain" originates, either. Is it ICC lingo?
The fact that they even have an "anglo section" is retarded. Imagine organizing along linguistic lines.
I suppose form corresponds to content.
I can't believe they'd invoke the left's report on fascism over them. They're not even caring to explain how they think the text relates to events.
Does this imply that they think these events were some sort of revolutionary upsurge?
That they are the element needed to make the protests about something they think they are not about?
Dude, they just have to "encourage" protests to "move on to a class terrain". They just have to turn up at protests and hand out pamphlets about fascism, Marxism be damned.
I don't even know where that notion of "terrain" originates, either. Is it ICC lingo?
IIRC a similar term was used in that bernie cucks/M4A post from here. Unlikely as it might be, it's funny to imagine that even the ICP has fallen to ripping from this subreddit.
If this is so then they must have traveled back in time, because they were already using a variation of that term in 1950 ("il piano della classe" in "War and revolution") and then a whole bunch of times starting in the 60s ("le terrain de classe" in: "Le mouvement social en Chine", "Bilan d'une révolution", etc.)
Ah, my dreams are dashed against the rocks.
Then again, this section does write like they're half-remembering something else told them was right, so they're probably drawing on something and mucking it up royally, be it older party texts or more modern sources.
Why do you come to this subreddit? You're extremely up your ass.
Then again, this section does write like they're half-remembering something else told them was right
That's precisely what you do with what you read on this subreddit.
Why do you come to this subreddit?
Mostly it’s been to verify what people in my sort of position can/should do since it’s a pretty important thing not to get wrong- which ofc is relatively very little while a communist party doesn’t exist in my country, but I’ve whittled down the list to just a few things that mean getting the sort of experience that my position tends to lack.
You’re extremely up your ass
I don’t think of myself and my limited knowledge as highly as this would suggest, sorry. Got carried away with having fun with the basics, I guess.
So you're saying that we shouldn't join the ICP?
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"Centenary of the Proletarian Revolution in Hungary" was pretty interesting
As a consequence of the “moderate” application of the dictatorship that the social democrats imposed, zealous elements of the bourgeoisie and especially of the petty bout-geoisie penetrated the soviet institutions. The social democrats found the new economic arrangements too radical as well, and sabotaged them whenever they could; this was made that much easier thanks to the mass of ex-state employees and bourgeois parasites left in the administrative apparatus for “humanitarian reasons”. To provide the capital with food and provisions was becoming increasingly difficult. The superstitions of democratic ideo-logy would prevent any decisive measures being taken against the recalcitrant peasantry.The social democrats of right and centre plotted from within the Soviet Republic to weaken and overthrow it. They called secret meetings and shuttled back and forth to Vienna to strike deals with the Austrian social democrat authorities and diplomats of the Entente states.
New translations from the archives were all very interesting like Part 1 of Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today. I can't really quote the entire text as all of them were very interesting. It talks about differences between 1914 with 1939 to constant contrast between Lenin(and Marx)'s formulations and the Stalinist's position.
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Rather unfortunate that it's in this coattail riding stamp collecting club's news letter.
At least it does not seem to shill for the IWW this time.
In the part that talks about ecologism , Are they arguing for degrowth? Would this fall inline with putting an end to "the anarchy in production?
They argue for communism, albeit very clumsily. That text does not do the topic justice.
Does anyone here know of any good texts to help me understand it? I just have this norwegian book https://www.haugenbok.no/Generell-litteratur/Debatt-samfunn/Sosialdemokrati-i-en-skjebnetid/I9788282260725
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I don't read Norwegian. Could you tell us briefly what that book is about?
Havent read it but he travels to a 7 countries in western europe and interviews "central" people there. It's mix of essays and interviews trying to figure out why social democracic parties are losing support. I phrased myself really poorly in the post, I dont have a copy of it yet but i only know of this book when it comes to this topic sadly.
https://frifagbevegelse.no/nyheter/sosialdemokratiets-fall-er-en-like-viktig-side-ved-den-politiske-utviklingen-i-europa-som-hoyrepopulismens-framvekst-6.158.626155.42ac4912c0 this article goes over it, I think google translate should do an ok job translating it to english .
Have you read the 18th Brumaire for example, so that you have an initial idea of the origins of social democracy? To understand the decline of something, it's necessary to first have a concept of what it even is.
No you are right, I need to do that.
Thank you for posting. This topic has been on my mind the past couple of days.
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Here are a few criticisms of the ICP. These aren’t meant to be exhaustive as they are just my rough thoughts.
As I've looked back on old articles from the ICP, I've noticed that there was a general trend towards formalism within their analyses. Complex theoretical and practical problems were answered with ready made solutions and formulas. One of the most pertinent examples of this is their view on unions. Whilst the ICP does have a more nuanced view of unions than other left communist organisations, they have embraced a kind of formalism in regards to the class union, which is akin to the kind of formalism embraced by councilists with regards to workers' councils. If you take a look at their recent articles you'll notice that almost every article ends with an empty platitude about rebuilding the "class union". It's very similar to the wholesale rejection of unions by the likes of the ICT and the ICC. These kinds of generalisations mask the complex nature of unions and their relation to the proletariat. To apply these kind of ready made solutions is an easy way out.
Individual militants and the proletarian class are unable to develop consciousness, as only the party possesses consciousness. This leads to the view that the party is an omniscient entity that stands above the proletariat and the militants who make up the party. It’s an example of their extreme anti-individualism which is also present in their descriptions of communist society.
The party can also “see into the future” and is the prefiguration of the future communist society. To me this is just mysticism and is alien to Marx.
You are also unable to criticise other people’s work because they were expected to produce their best result. This is probably the strangest thing about the party and I never understood it.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.
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Formalism?
In this context it means the fetishisation of organisational forms. If I've used the wrong word then feel free to correct me.
More insidiously, it's the absence of critical thinking and replacing that with stock phrase mongering so that what is being produced fits a form over content. You can see this with their recent english publications.
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As vague and non-committal as ever, I see.
there can be good positions articulated poorly. ending every article with a formula is poor writing.
That isn't what is happening. It's poor writing, true, but it's soaked in tepid formalism because it appears that the people writing the articles, and putting them out there, have no idea what they are talking about. What is being revealed is the massive gulf between the various sections, especially the anglo speaking ones, with you acting the part of the gimpy leg.
your consciousness assessment is incorrect.
lol incorrect in what way? What exactly is it that you have a problem with? Your defense of the ICP isn't very strong.
You can criticize articles, etc. You don't criticize comrades but encourage them to do better.
That sounds like the most incredible nonsense. If this is true, then it obviously isn't working.
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No problem. Thanks for engaging with them.
there can be good positions articulated poorly. ending every article with a formula is poor writing.
This is definitely true but it doesn't address entirely what I said above.
your consciousness assessment is incorrect.
I can provide examples if you want. How is my assessment incorrect?
You can criticize articles, etc. You don't criticize comrades but encourage them to do better.
This is simply not true.
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Due to the disastrous situation of the workers’ movement after World War II, there were numerous attempts by left-wing anti-Stalinist groups to give it a new theoretical/practical orientation with a revolutionary line. Since the development of capitalism caused “new problems, unforeseen and unpredictable factors, previously undreamt-of tasks” for these groups, they felt obliged to update Marxism. The International Communist Party saw in these “improvers”, for whom “Socialisme ou Barbarie” is exemplary and whose members came from the ranks of the Italian left, on the other hand, the most dangerous enemies for the theory of communism, because through this very approach they negate the historical invariance and totality of Marxism. Therefore, in the ICP’s writings there are references to “SoB” again and again; just to mention a few: “The Doctrine of the Devil in the Flesh” and “Forward, Barbarians!”.
“The Batrachomyomachia”, “The Quacking about Practice” and “Dance of the Puppets: From Consciousness to Culture” should be read as one text.
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In order to not fill up the subreddit with loads of smaller articles from before the Second World War that we are in the process of translating, we have decided to set up a new category on our website in which they will all be collected. For updates, check it regularly, or check our Twitter feed.
I'm reading over a supposed list of what is going to be in this Brill book on Bordiga. I'm against the whole concept and the choice of texts is really bizarre. A lot of the things on it are now available in English and it really seems to me to be an attempt at sanitizing him, in the same way that Lenin comments about Marx. People have raised Bordiga's writings up on a pedestal even though a lot of it is actual garbage. At least libri puts things out as party texts, presenting them as such, with much better contributions than a lot of rather uninteresting stuff in the thread of time.
People have raised Bordiga's writings up on a pedestal even though a lot of it is actual garbage.
It's hilarious when people praise Bordiga's writing style. Most of the time, except on occasions such as his interventions at the ECCI, he writes in a turgid and needlessly flowery manner. It's not even literary, it's just not good. And that's not just due to translation issues. It's like calling Lenin's writing "clear". It really is not. And the same people then turn around and complain about Marx's alleged incomprehensibility...
I wonder if this is just a consequence of people becoming accustomed to reading abstract, meaningless and indeterminate texts in academia, or if there's another reason for it.
There are a lot better party texts. Much of the time Bordiga is just stating facts, things which anyone with any knowledge of history would know already (he had the disadvantage of reporting it at the time), all of the relations during the war, the position of the the Abstentionist fraction and the second international, etc. All of this should be obvious to any real communist already familiar with the subject.
There is really only about 2 or 3 three things that he wrote is really any worth reading, and even then, some of them have become overshadowed with the march of time and better information, or they're only still relevant because of a lack of interest, and those texts aren't even included in this list.
A lot of them on this apparent list are "Party" texts, which makes this whole attribution to Bordiga all the more confusing, especially in regard to the actual nature of the work of the party. It just reeks of bourgeois bullshit.
look at the pinned post on r/UltraLeft. idiots can't help but systematise people as individual "thinkers", and this outlook is happily re-inforced and re-produced by academia
the irony in this statement of the review of the book:
His ambition to uphold “Marx’s original doctrine” was the organising principle of his writings.
which would render this book superfluous (never mind the fact that most of the party writings are already available online). but of course later on they state:
whereas the 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party was premised on a dual revolution, which included democratic “tasks”, as well as measures to erode private capital, Bordiga proposed an immediate programme relevant to his own present: or rather to a great crisis he predicted “by 1975”
because they have to present some "innovation" which goes against the whole point of "his" writings, which is stated earlier
look at the pinned post on r/UltraLeft.
lol I have no idea why that's pinned there.
There is a lot wrong with that guy's blog post on the weekly worker (of all places), but they're pretty open about what they're about when they refer to the Bordiga as a goldmine. They have no interest in communism what so ever, they're more interested in turning Bordiga into a person that they can research and further their academic careers, a treasure trove to be pillaged. This guy writes for Jacobin too I'm sure. Really should tell you a lot.
lol that cuck /u/ghostof_IamBeepBeep2 has unpinned the thread from their sub after the posts
but of course later on they state:
whereas the 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party was premised on a dual revolution, which included democratic “tasks”, as well as measures to erode private capital, Bordiga proposed an immediate programme relevant to his own present: or rather to a great crisis he predicted “by 1975”
because they have to present some "innovation" which goes against the whole point of "his" writings, which is stated earlier
This is probably the least objectionable sentence I found upon reading that review. After all, later conditions indeed did not correspond to those in 1848 Germany. This has nothing to do with "innovation". Of course it's still stupid that he speaks of Bordiga rather than the party, and "his own present" rather than that of the proletariat.
Over the past few days, I have been reading more on the current state of the labor movement as regards unions and on the role of unions as a whole, and while it has clarified some things, it has also opened up a whole bunch of other questions. I'm sure with the proper time spent researching I could find some of my answers, but there's a lot of information out there to process, and not all of it is accurate or helpful. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that I am not in a union and so cannot see for myself how they operate. I intend to attempt to fix this when I get my next job, but I am currently unemployed. So can I ask you guys a few questions regarding unions and the labor movement?
Firstly, how do we increase the size of the unions? Obviously the workers organizing themselves is the best way for this to happen, but what can we do to help encourage workers to organize? Do unions typically have outreach programs for non-union shops? If so, how effective are they? Also, in areas where union membership is low, it would not be uncommon for a boss to simply close a whole shop that is attempting to unionize. How can we combat that, and how can we help assuage fears of this happening from would-be members? Would it be more effective to relocate to an area of stronger unionization to operate and organize in more effective unions, or is focusing on the more backwards areas a worthwhile goal?
How do we increase worker militancy? Is increased militancy a goal we should even be pursuing at the moment, or should we focus on building the organization of workers in unions regardless of how militant and effective they are? Unions are necessarily limited in how militant they can be in order to keep from being stomped out by the law. Is this a consideration communists should have when advocating worker militancy, as in, should we hold back from encouraging militant action in unions in which it would ultimately bring harsh legislation down on them? Or is it the duty of communists to push for militancy above mere organization? Is it our desire to push for a more militant whole even at the cost of an individual union? Which leads me into my next question:
What is the role of the strike in the modern labor movement? Does it occupy a less important position currently due to the subdued nature of the class struggle, or should we as communists be pushing for more and longer strikes, even if they are doomed to fail? The editors of https://organizing.work have published several articles on the dying role of strikes. Is this a stance communists agree with? They also push for a plan of "direct action", as per the IWW's strategy. Is direct action a viable way of building stronger unions? If there are more important methods of building organization and militancy, what are the ones we should be focusing on to be most effective? How can we best work to improve the effectiveness of the trade unions and push them to be more militant with the lack of a viable communist party to do so?
I appreciate any responses you guys will have. I'm sure there's more questions I didn't think of or new ones that will come up in the process of answering these. I'm based in the south-eastern US if that makes any difference to what my immediate line of action should be.
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This is made all the more difficult by the fact that I am not in a union and so cannot see for myself how they operate.
This is the essential problem underlying all your questions here. They are abstract, because they do not arise from any concrete practical problem you're dealing with. The majority of them would resolve themselves if you became an active union member.
Firstly, how do we increase the size of the unions?
Communists don't simply strive to gear the activity of proletarian institutions towards attaining some arbitrary level of a metric like member count, effectiveness and so on. All of this is formalism. The criterion by which communists judge is the proletariat to be able to successfully fight for its needs and class interest independently, through its own class organs - remember the first 9 lines of the section on "Proletarians and Communists" in the Manifesto. The answer would thus always need to be: it depends on the conditions. Let's take your example of membership count: in itself, this is of no value. Scandinavian unions have a high rate of membership due to social-corporatist legislation. This obviously does not translate into a strong independent labour movement there.
Obviously the workers organizing themselves is the best way for this to happen, but what can we do to help encourage workers to organize?
Putting forward clear perspectives for immediate practical problems of labour struggles, for example. I just tried to explain this a bit here.
Then you asked a whole host of questions that simply can't be answered without referring to conditions at hand.
How do we increase worker militancy? Is increased militancy a goal we should even be pursuing at the moment, or should we focus on building the organization of workers in unions regardless of how militant and effective they are? [...] Or is it the duty of communists to push for militancy above mere organization?
It should be clear by now that "militancy" in itself is a meaningless measure. The needs and general interests of the proletariat are what is important. Besides, why are you're opening up a dichotomy between "militancy" and "organisation". I'm not sure I understand what you mean by either of these concepts here. Can you have only one of the two?
Unions are necessarily limited in how militant they can be in order to keep from being stomped out by the law. Is this a consideration communists should have when advocating worker militancy, as in, should we hold back from encouraging militant action in unions in which it would ultimately bring harsh legislation down on them?
It is precisely the strength and militancy of unions that in certain conditions prevents them from being "stomped out" and that makes the whole bourgeois circus dance according to their tune. For the unions to cowardly limit themselves to the confines of law on principle, irrespective of conditions, would mean to practically justify these anti-union laws. Your "necessary limit" is very much determined by circumstances.
Unions and the proletariat organised in them are not an army to be commanded. The moment at which proletarians take up action depends mostly on their needs. If they take consideration of the dangers presented by a potential bourgeois offensive against their institutions, they will need to evaluate the balance of forces, and thus the risk, to determine whether one or the other is more advantageous at a given moment. There are means by which a bourgeois offensive can be met other than preemptive obedience as well, which will become more practicable and obvious with further development of the labour movement. As with everything else: there is no universally applicable recipe for this.
Also, militancy is hard to "advocate for", or to "encourage" - for the most part it flows from need and the degree of development of the labour movement itself. It certainly isn't a function of propaganda.
Is it our desire to push for a more militant whole even at the cost of an individual union?
Can you give me an example of what you mean by this?
What is the role of the strike in the modern labor movement? Does it occupy a less important position currently due to the subdued nature of the class struggle, or should we as communists be pushing for more and longer strikes, even if they are doomed to fail?
It should be clear by now that communists always look at the needs and interests of the proletariat to answer such a question. Thus: it depends.
The editors of https://organizing.work have published several articles on the dying role of strikes. Is this a stance communists agree with?
I haven't read those articles and hence cannot say whether or not their argument is accurate.
They also push for a plan of "direct action", as per the IWW's strategy. Is direct action a viable way of building stronger unions?
What do they mean by direct action here?
If there are more important methods of building organization and militancy, what are the ones we should be focusing on to be most effective?
You don't approach a problem with a method before you have examined it. The method corresponds to conditions, it flows from the content itself. It isn't an a priori, universally valid recipe.
How can we best work to improve the effectiveness of the trade unions and push them to be more militant with the lack of a viable communist party to do so?
Be the change you want to see in the world.
This is the essential problem underlying all your questions here. They are abstract, because they do not arise from any concrete practical problem you're dealing with. The majority of them would resolve themselves if you became an active union member.
I completely understand and agree, 100%. I am aware that as soon as I enter actual union activity, many of these questions will go away. However, like I said, I'm searching for a new job right now. I'm just trying to prepare myself to successfully get into it, to unionize my future workplace. I figure I have to know something about them to be able to talk to people about them, right? To that end, I would love a resource with info on the specific operations of a union; most of the articles I see are not very helpful in that regard.
Communists don't simply strive to gear the activity of proletarian institutions towards attaining some arbitrary level of a metric like member count, effectiveness and so on. All of this is formalism. The criterion by which communists judge is the proletariat to be able to successfully fight for its needs and class interest independently - remember the first 9 lines of the section on "Proletarians and Communists" in the Manifesto.
Putting forward clear perspectives for immediate practical problems of labour struggles, for example. I just tried to explain this a bit here.
Thank you for setting me straight. I think I see how I was going about this whole thing the wrong way. You're absolutely right, I was asking too abstract of questions because I don't have any idea what unions actually look like or what it looks like to resolve issues through them. The part at the end of your linked comment about stating what is really helped, but I'm only beginning to get a vague picture of it. We should be looking at the problems of the proletarians in the organizations and trying to meet their needs, right? Get to know the problems of a workplace, point out what they are, point out how they don't get fixed and the ways we can fix them. What I'm missing is just experience in the fight, knowledge of the real issues and tactics. Is there any way I can get some knowledge or better yet experience while I'm trying to find new employment? I've tried looking up volunteering in unions, but they don't seem to do that sort of thing. I would really consider working for a union provided the possibility, but from what I've read, it seems like you need a BS in communications or experience to get in. Is there anything I can do to get hands-on experience right now?
I completely understand and agree, 100%. I am aware that as soon as I enter actual union activity, many of these questions will go away. However, like I said, I'm searching for a new job right now. I'm just trying to prepare myself to successfully get into it, to unionize my future workplace. I figure I have to know something about them to be able to talk to people about them, right? To that end, I would love a resource with info on the specific operations of a union; most of the articles I see are not very helpful in that regard.
Are you really expecting to single-handedly turn a union into a red union?
Thank you for setting me straight. I think I see how I was going about this whole thing the wrong way. You're absolutely right, I was asking too abstract of questions because I don't have any idea what unions actually look like or what it looks like to resolve issues through them. The part at the end of your linked comment about stating what is really helped, but I'm only beginning to get a vague picture of it. We should be looking at the problems of the proletarians in the organizations and trying to meet their needs, right? Get to know the problems of a workplace, point out what they are, point out how they don't get fixed and the ways we can fix them. What I'm missing is just experience in the fight, knowledge of the real issues and tactics. Is there any way I can get some knowledge or better yet experience while I'm trying to find new employment? I've tried looking up volunteering in unions, but they don't seem to do that sort of thing. I would really consider working for a union provided the possibility, but from what I've read, it seems like you need a BS in communications or experience to get in. Is there anything I can do to get hands-on experience right now?
What are you even talking about? It is just a union. There is no mysterious rites or revealed knowledge going on, not every union is the same. You'll probably have little participation in it.
And who is the "we" here? lol this sort of thing is verging on larping.
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Just join a union and stop bothering us with such asinine questions
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Finally had the time to read this.
It's pathetic that people like Mike Harman - or on that occasion, Andy Blunden and Mitchell Abidor from the Marxists Internet Archive - use their "power" to slander the Great Alibi just because it doesn't fit their agenda. It's very easy to produce two half-assed paragraphs to taint a text, while it's much more tedious to write a proper refutation of these (the PDF of this runs to 11 pages!). On the bright side though, it's neat to have this statistical data ready-at-hand, and it's nice to see that proper polemics are not dead. If Harman is not too embarrassed to write a reply to this, he'd be well advised to read the other replies to critics of the Great Alibi that Libri have translated beforehand as well.
The letter on Kautsky which I linked here a few hours ago fits strangely well with how this article talks about Harman:
His youthful inclination towards hasty judgment has been still more intensified by the wretched method of teaching history in the universities--especially the Austrian ones. The students there are systematically taught to do historical work with materials which they know to be inadequate but which they are supposed to treat as adequate, that is, to write things which they themselves must know to be false but which they are supposed to consider correct. That has naturally made Kautsky thoroughly cocky. Then the literary life--writing for pay and writing a lot. So that he has absolutely no idea of what really scientific work means.
Also, given your interest in the topic, I'm sure you will want to read this as well /u/crescitaveloce.
It's pathetic that people like Mike Harman - or on that occasion, Andy Blunden and Mitchell Abidor from the Marxists Internet Archive - use their "power" to slander the Great Alibi just because it doesn't fit their agenda.
It’s interesting that it’s always the Great Alibi that warrants this special treatment. They feel compelled to add their critical commentary to it, yet they’ll leave Stalinist texts virtually untouched. It seems that the Great Alibi is simply too dangerous to be allowed to speak for itself.
Yeah, it basically proves the point of the text - all these "prefaces" are exactly what the Great Alibi is getting at. Given how now MIA and Libcom both added such "commentary", you cannot but wonder if the text is hosted anywhere where it is allowed to simply speak for itself, except on party sites. The Wikipedia page on the article is also full of this nonsense.
Thank you, i am reading it. It seems to me that many anarchist communists are just concerned with outdoing the left on this matter and are outraged by a materialist interpretation of the Holocaust rather than discussing it on its merits.
Honestly I skip forewords for pretty much anything I read because it either attempts to color my perceptions of what I am about to read, or attempts to reinforce a position held by the person writing the foreword whether it agrees with the author or not. This really goes for any work.
That said I find it fascinating that MIA does this with this work but doesn't bother with a plethora of shit written by Mao, Stalin, or any other tinpot dictator who waved a red flag being hosted on the site.
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I am really enjoying Prelude to Revolution it is an excellent read so far. Looking forward to reading this one as well.
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So far, I've translated four articles of this particular group, including this one. The others being their critique of marginalism, of critical theory, as well as a short article on the 150th anniversary of Capital and its bourgeois reviewers.
I think this is a good point to provide some information on their background. Founded in 1974 as "Marxistische Gruppe" (which, to little surprise, translates to "Marxist Group" in English), this organization in particular focused on students and universities, before disbanding in 1991 after increased activities of the German secret services leading to dismissals of members from public services and companies. It afterwards was resurrected as a publishing house called "GegenStandpunkt" (Opposing Standpoint), with an accompanying journal of the same title.
This should already point to some flaws regarding the group's general outlook: Their main strength - to provide critiques of ideology - is as well their biggest weakness. Naturally, for a circle of academics, they are reconstructing the journey of a bourgeois intellectual to Marxism. Rather than being founded in scientific communism, many of their works seem to result from reading Marx through a one-sided appropriation of Hegel. This means that they will always end up with unbridgable gaps in their outlook, some of which can be marvelled at in their incomprehension of central points of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Their rejection of Marx's and Engels' developments in The German Ideology as merely axiomatic is due to a - for the most part - identification of bourgeois or vulgar materialism with the "new materialism" as expounded by Marx in his Theses on Feuerbach. The relevance of the soil philosophy has toiled on is lost to them. The group is therefore unable to correctly criticize what of many central tenets of Stalinism is wrong exactly. Instead, the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater, and we end up with a position that is in many ways similar to that of the Young Hegelians.
They attribute the capitalist nature of the Soviet Union to an unwillingness of its leaders to abolish commodity production - as if it would be merely a matter of administrative means and will.
They also don't understand that private property cannot be abolished without abolishing the division of labour - the group doesn't understand Marx's explanation that one expresses with regard to the activity what the other expresses in relation to the resulting product. The overcoming of private property through the association of the proletariat is substituted by the state being made the demiurge of history. Hence communism becomes something to be constructed by benevolent cadres.
This fits with the fundamental misunderstanding of categories such as "productive forces", which they identify with productivity organized by Capital, and which hence lend an unwarranted endorsement to Stalinism. Another example of this is their treatment of use-value, which they take to be a transhistorical category, instead of being bound up within the exchange moment.
The fact that this group in the end has no politics, merely appeals to individuals to "think correctly" is then clear. To the bourgeois mind, the current state of underdeveloped class struggle is taken as an absolute, and its meaning is not grasped. GegenStandpunkt therefore confronts existing struggles in a "doctrinaire manner", critcizing the wage workers for reproducing their condition by affiriming unions, instead of pointing to the ways in which immediate struggles can be overcome to shape the proletariat into a class and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I have got a new vision on that was capitalism is and how I'm involved with my thinking because of Gegenstandpunkt. It was quite refreshing to listen to the lectures about the crisis in Argentina and getting short critique on the expression freedom, which motivated me to read more about the subject. Deconstructing the mindsets isn't wrong, because it gives a practical perspective once it is done and it opens new horizons for politics. There are reasons for issues and not declaring all our own problems as problems of morality is opening the minds.
Anyway I don' agree with you on the statement on Stalin. The lecture of Konrad Hecker 70 Jahre Oktoberrevolution was IMHO one of the best critiques on the USSR because it lets the listener get an idea about the problems of the workers movement.
I have got a new vision on that was capitalism is [...] because of Gegenstandpunkt.
Reading Marx suffices for understanding capital. The misunderstandings regarding its nature don't stem from people reading Marx and arriving at wrong conclusions. They stem from not reading Marx at all, and shoehorning the little one has read into dogma.
and how I'm involved with my thinking because of Gegenstandpunkt. [...] Deconstructing the mindsets isn't wrong, because it gives a practical perspective once it is done and it opens new horizons for politics. There are reasons for issues and not declaring all our own problems as problems of morality is opening the minds.
This is why I said that their critiques of ideology can be good - especially with how much moralistic guilt tripping and virtue signalling is around. Characteristically, however, the shortcomings of GegenStandpunkt are typical for the petty bourgeois, meaning they result precisely from its position in production. Changing one's general outlook is a problem facing people already miseducated in bourgeois ideology, i.e. predominantly students, academics and the like. But it is not the duty of communists to try to appeal to society at large; to indulge in a debate club to have the ruling class accept communism. If the class struggle assumes a level where the petty bourgeois see clearly the proletariat's role, they can join the workers' party on the condition that they adopt a fully proletarian outlook. But GegenStandpunkt and similar groups are doing the opposite. It's simply ridiculous to have a group call itself communist while only attempting to knock wrong ideas out of the heads of the aspiring petty bourgeoisie instead of starting out from the existing class struggle and working towards its centralisation up to the seizure of political power.
Anyway I don' agree with you on the statement on Stalin.
I wasn't talking about Stalin, I was talking about Stalinism; what is commonly called "Marxism-Leninism". The outlook of GegenStandpunkt shares more aspects with it than they realize - decidedly anti-Marxist ones. And I'm not even talking about the usual bourgeois lie implicitly repeated by them that identifies the political positions of Lenin with the later developments of the USSR.
The lecture of Konrad Hecker 70 Jahre Oktoberrevolution was IMHO one of the best critiques on the USSR
I'm not going to listen to this, as all critiques of the eastern bloc I've read by them are terrible.
because it lets the listener get an idea about the problems of the workers movement.
What would those be?
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The International Communist Party's account and analysis of the struggles of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces in Germany in the first post war period, published in eight separate parts in 1972.
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Through recourse to Engels’ classical text “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State”, the International Communist Party in this article demonstrates why communism goes beyond civilization by the very means of a new barbarism.
I've been reading Socialism, Utopian and Scientific recently, and Engels makes some very interesting comments about the progression of capitalism. Specifically, he makes a big point about how capitalism is not necessarily about individual ownership:
But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.
Engels also predicts that a logical part of capitalist development involves the formation of trusts, cooperatives, and state property, which demonstrate that the bourgeoisie is unnecessary.
[Robert Owen] introduced as transition measures to the complete communistic organization of society, on the one hand, cooperative societies for retail trade and production. These have since that time, at least, given practical proof that the merchant and the manufacturer are socially quite unnecessary.
D. Partial recognition of the social character of the productive forces forced upon the capitalists themselves. Taking over of the great institutions for production and communication, first by joint-stock companies, later in by trusts, then by the State. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees.
It's been discussed to death on this sub and others that many leftists come from petit-bourgeois backgrounds, generally from the professions and the student movements. Usually, their political goals revolve around nationalization of industries and turning private enterprises into cooperatives.
So to my questions:
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I've been reading Socialism, Utopian and Scientific recently, and Engels makes some very interesting comments about the progression of capitalism. Specifically, he makes a big point about how capitalism is not necessarily about individual ownership
Engels also predicts that a logical part of capitalist development involves the formation of trusts, cooperatives, and state property, which demonstrate that the bourgeoisie is unnecessary.
These are very mundane points that Marx explains at length in Capital. I'm guessing that given you're reading "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", you haven't read much else. In that case, I'd recommend you to continue reading, which would clear up the misconceptions you have entangled yourself in here.
Is the current bourgeois utopian student movement a fulfillment of Engels' prediction that the individual capitalists will be ousted in favor of salaried middle-class employees, with the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production essentially unchanged?
What "student movement" are you seeing? There is a bunch of confused petty bourgeois individuals posting online, creating blogs and videos. Marx and Engels already had to deal with these kinds of morons, and they will continue to exist as long as bourgeois society does. They are not a recent phenomenon. Additionally, as they are middle class, they are not fit to wield power and will never have any tangible effect, which is why they turn to the proletariat to get their demands fulfilled to begin with.
None of this has anything to do with what Engels says in the quotes you produced. You yourself note that Engels speaks of a tendency intrinsic to the logic of capital itself. It is thus brought forth simply by the bourgeoisie following its interests, without any necessary intervention of petty bourgeois elements. Marx's and Engels' "prediction" in this regard has long been fulfilled, and is still continuously being fulfilled on a daily basis. I'm not sure how this would be hard to see.
Can this movement to "collectivize" capital be seen as historically progressive, in the same sense that the abolition of slavery or the move from handicrafts to manufacture was progressive?
What sense does it make to ask whether a certain fact "can be seen" in this or that manner? After all, a "yes" would mean that you could also see it differently. And the next question then is: "historically progressive" - towards what exactly? You're not relating your questions to anything tangible, you're being indeterminate. And what movement are you talking about here? Still your dreamed up "student movement", or the movement of capital?
As the next logical step of capitalist development that will lay the groundwork of socialist revolution? Obviously cooperatives and state ownership are thoroughly capitalist, but Engels does say that "State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."
So is this all that this is about? You are checking if some higher meaning "can be" imparted to the demands of the petty bourgeoisie for the creation of cooperatives by the state and nationalisations? Well, the answer is no: their demands have nothing to do with a "next logical step of capitalist development that will lay the groundwork of socialist revolution". There is no groundwork to be laid anymore, other than the independent association of labour against capital.
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Very good book if you want historical context to the stalinist counterrevolution and everything. It also reinforces positions of the communist left on the russian fiasco during this period. It is interesting how many of passages here say some of the same things Bordiga and ICP wrote about the early soviet republic, and its defeat.
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The evidence of contemporary events has shown everyone how the exit from the war situation has meant at the same time, in the whole area, the salvation of democracy and the death of the workers’ revolution. And that saved democracy, without any surprise to the Marxists, resembles, like two drops of water, the defeated fascisms. Therefore it is right to say that a greater evil could not be envisaged; that the lesser evil would be the defeat of the powerful English and American centres of world imperialism.
Uh oh, ICP cancelled.
I can practically already read the morons raving on about the Arditi del Popolo and how the ICP would have harboured fascist sympathies. Perhaps a bit whining about the Great Alibi too? Interesting, how to these people everything is fascism, but then, simultaneously, nothing is!
What I find hypocritical is that when ever confronted with numbers "killed by communism", they will in turn retort with numbers killed by US imperialism, completely unaware of what it is that they're saying. Or even the crimes that the US state has committed against people lol calling it fascism.
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I can't say that I like Chiaradia's approach, or his writing style, but there is a certain usefulness in the historical details this contains.
Careful with all of this Chiaradia posting. People might end up pushing this completely uncritically. We all know how most people appear to lack any ability to think for themselves.
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This is a polemic against the "Marxist economists" Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy and their book "Monopoly Capitalism". The most interesting aspects of the text are obviously not the ones dealing with these two guys, but those under the heading "Marxist Scientific Method", and its subheadings "Competitive Capitalism and Monopoly Capitalism" as well as "Theory and Model".
Besides fundamentally not understanding the topic of Capital, many people have viewed it as an idealisation and as attempting to build a model (economists nowadays even read Ricardo as doing this!) - this article shows why this is a wrong notion. It also dispels the equally wrong idea that there would be a "monopoly capitalism", which would constitute a "stage" of fundamentally different laws compared to "competitive capitalism" - whereas Marx explained the movement between competition and monopoly.
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More. And ideally people should read "Race and Class" on top of the Great Alibi. Some notable excerpts from the article, as encouragement to read it in entirety:
In Britain, fascism is generally equated with racism. Racism is easier to grasp than the alleged fundamental differences between allegedly different systems after all, and this is why the pundits of anti-fascism, who are very thin on theory, dwell on the subject so much. Rather they prefer to depend on whipping up emotions to almost evangelical frenzy - about race. Apart from this favourite cause of anti-racism, all the anti-fascists have to offer is a string of vague and contradictory platitudes: fascists go in for torture in rather a big way; they are totalitarian - Hitler was voted in; and they bash people up and torture them.
But bourgeois anti-racism is concerned only with race in the abstract: race is divorced from economy, and capitalism in particular. But with the concentration camps, they really think they think to have found their trump card, their «Big Alibi».
When the subject of concentration camps arises, one is generally perceived as odd if one wants to understand the phenomenon, as a hysterical response is seen as the only correct one. It is from remaining rigorously within the realm of explanation that the Auschwitz article derives its impact. It tries to understand the concentration camps not as a gratuitous act, but as a phenomenon that arose as a direct result of the blood-curdling imperatives of the capitalist system. And the key to understanding it is over-production of people: the pressure of the «surplus» population in a capitalist economic crisis.
The article in question refers to Engel's «Umrisse» of 1844, and we quote here other citations from the same source. In this work, Engels made a point of criticising Malthuses «population theory» which he interprets as saying
«when there are too many people, they have to be disposed of in one way or another: either they must be killed by violence or they must starve».
And precisely such a course was followed by the Nazis in «the final solution»; a solution after all others had been barred by the very system they represented. Engel's draws our attention to the writings of «Marcus», who had recommended the establishment of state institutions for the painless killing of the children of the poor:
«whereby each working-class family would be allowed to have two and a half children, any excess being painlessly killed. Charity would be a crime, since it supports the augmentation of the surplus population. Indeed it will be very advantageous to declare poverty a crime and to turn poorhouses into prison as has already happened in England as result of the new «liberal» Poor Law».
In fact, «Marcus's» plan appears to have been adopted - in an unofficial kind of way - in Brazil (and this is only the most notorious case). Here the annual total of murdered «street-children» is between 4.000 and 5.000; an elegant testimony to Brazilian democracy. The same thing happens, by way of official death-squads, in Columbia, where the hordes of children living in the sewers are «thinned out» by paid, «only doing their job», executioners.
«Over-population» is a perplexing problem for the capitalist classes as they know that the labourer is the very fount of surplus-value: the more workers a capitalist firm employs, the more profit will be generated. The catch - the periodic crises of over-production: too much is produced, the warehouses are full to the brim, and the workers are thrown out of their jobs to take up their positions in the recruiting offices of the industrial reserve army - the dole offices. But happens when a country is unable to support a vast army of unemployed? In a regime permitting only capitalist solutions, starvation is the tragic answer, and Auschwitz was simply a case of organising the death of the starving in a very methodical way; it was the solution arrived at after the concentration in ghettos caused «law and order» and «logistical» problems.
But there is another solution, for some, migration; the very solution denied to the poorer Jews wishing to escape the Nazi holocaust: In the newly developing countries where industrialisation is expanding, there is a parallel rise in the populations; whilst in the old heartlands of capitalism there is a corresponding decrease. Much juggling hence arises with the surplus populations which are shifted from country to country forming a mobile reserve army to stop up population shortfalls: Turks in Germany; Palestinians in Kuwait; Jamaicans in England; Tamils in Saudi Arabia; Algerians in France, to name but a few. Such migrations can in fact be a very effective way for particular capitalist Governments to cut costs: the migrant labourer is reared and educated in the country of his birth, often the poorest, whilst the best years of his life are expended in the country that hires his labour. Many obstacles are put in the way if he, or she, wishes to obtain full citizen status in the country where his, or her, labour power is sold; not least those which pertain to acquiring similar status for his family.
But the worker can also seek work in the twilight world of the «illegal immigrant» and try and avoid the lengthy, soul-destroying and often hopeless attempts at obtaining citizenship in the «host country». Border patrols can be such as to permit a trickle of illegal emigrants to evade detection. This happens at the borders between Hong-Kong and China, and in France to cite just a couple of examples. In France, in fact, according to figures published by the French Immigration Office in 1963/4, illegal immigration represented 75% of the total of all immigrants entering France each year - with an irregular solution clearly being connived at by the authorities. Such measures result in a super-exploited section of the proletariat that lives out an illegal existence receiving minuscule wages and under constant threat of being shopped to the authorities, (the domestic servants kept as virtual slaves in the houses of the wealthy in Britain is a well-known example); this category of workers avoid claiming housing or welfare help, avoids application forms which ask for searching details and will hardly ever become unionised.
Connected with small-scale illegal immigration are mass, and attempted mass, migrations. The Albanians arriving by shiploads in the Italian ports; the Vietnamese boat people in Hong-Kong; the Somalian and Ethiopian refugees pressing on the borders of their neighbouring countries. In these cases refugee or internment camps are set up, or measures are taken to ship refugees back to their countries of origin - after, perhaps, allowing a few of the professional classes to stay. These can easily become Auschwitz like encampments in terms of their function of keeping the poor and starving in one place.
For some reason, the horrors of the World War Two concentration camps, still the subject of endless morbid documentaries, are seen as something that is far more «evil» than people dying in their millions of starvation in the «refugee camps» - places where people are concentrated in one place and just left to die. These have become just one more ghastly spectacle for the «news industry» to capitalise on: naked skeletons, the very picture of human misery are presented to us over and over again on the T.V. and papers. People at there most vulnerable appear wedged between items about beached dolphins and EEC summits as just another sensational «scoop». Rarely is there any explanation that goes beyond the superficial, and we are constantly told that periodic mass starvations are «natural disasters», beyond human control; or if wars have contributed to them, these, we are also told, are «natural disasters» which «serve to keep the population down».
This really inspired me to read more on the topic, thank you. It's obvious, but when the subject hits closer to home one truly becomes impassioned. Turning that into action and connecting the dots is far easier than when starting with a lazy and cynical attitude.
This really helped me understand the economic function of genocide.
This is great, thanks.
You're welcome - I'm glad someone found it interesting.
still kind of blown away at how relevant “Race and Class” is
Any good critiques of Gramsci, especially from contemporaries/former comrades around the PCdI? To be honest, I have not read Gramsci, but I find his focus on soviets, amiability toward the counterrevolution in Russia, and popularity among academics to be suspicious. I’d be interested to see some discussion/critique of his thought
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his focus on soviets
Gramsci didn't really focus on Soviets, as in the political organs that arose in Russia. He talked a lot about factory councils, and saw them as giving a "proletarian character" to capitalist production. At various points, he claimed that communism is merely a problem of outproducing capitalism, thinking the latter would be parasitic (in fact, it's not very difficult to argue that for Gramsci, communism is not much more than capitalism without capitalists). This also led him to celebrate Taylorism.
Any good critiques of Gramsci, especially from contemporaries/former comrades around the PCdI?
Libri Incogniti translated Programme Communiste's critique of Gramsci, but for some reason it seems like they only did part one of three. If you understand French, you can find the remaining text here.
The most thorough dismantling of Gramsci that I know of is the dissertation of Christian Riechers (author also of an obituary for Bordiga, and a critique of Camatte - there's probably more stuff by him), who was the person that first translated his Gramsci's prison notebooks into German language. He seems to have been somewhat of a fellow traveller of the ICP, and talked to Bordiga in person. Unfortunately, as far as I know, that work is only in Italian and German. The book is called "Gramsci e le ideologie del suo tempo" in the former, and "Antonio Gramsci - Marxismus in Italien" in the latter. Both versions seem to be somewhat hard to find.
Ultimately it's pretty hard to see how anyone could ever take Gramsci seriously as a communist. His writings suggest that his thought is more of an amalgamation of the works of Benedetto Croce (a liberal Hegelian influencial in Italy at the time) and Giovanni Gentile. If it wouldn't be lame to fall into easy psychological explanations, you could even claim that you can easily find "an inferiority complex born out of an impotent lack of understanding" to be the driving force behind a lot of his ideas. He espoused an extreme subjectivism to the point of claiming that the properties of steam that allow it to animate machines only manifested once human science found out about them, or thinking that objectivity is purely a question of how many people feel something to be true through something you'd call "lived experience" today. Even though he does not name him, he's in this respect very close to Bogdanov's Proletkult and "Empirio-Monism", which is rightly criticised by Lenin in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" (whatever the problems of that work are otherwise) like this:
Bogdanov thinks that to speak of the social organisation of experience is “cognitive socialism” (Bk. III, p. xxxiv). This is insane twaddle. If socialism is thus regarded, the Jesuits are ardent adherents of “cognitive socialism,” for the basis of their epistemology is divinity as “socially-organised experience.” And there can be no doubt that Catholicism is a socially-organised experience; only, it reflects not objective truth (which Bogdanov denies, but which science reflects), but the exploitation of the ignorance of the masses by definite social classes.
Gramsci somehow manages to pick up the most irrelevant sections of Marx's works and read the exact opposite of what Marx says into them. He also never spoke of communism, but instead of the "philosophy of praxis" and claimed that Marx and Engels would have been inconsistent in a lot of things, and that their "metaphysical materialism" would need to be exchanged for proper idealism of the Croce brand. He also defended Mussolini who argued for stopping the policy of neutrality and joining the First World War on the side of the Entente. His entire ideological constructions revolve around nationality, and claim that Italy would still be feudalistic in the Mezzogiorno, therefore being in need of a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Often he seems to be more sympathetic towards the bourgeoisie as he is to the proletariat. He thought that the latter would be in need of "organic intellectuals" which would through material processes (here falling into an absurdly vulgar materialism, while beforehand criticising the allegedly "metaphysical" materialism of Marx!) spring up to educate the workers. Workers took offence at him writing that they need to develop their culture, and he was only the Italian communist party's choice for their Turin deputy list when all other candidates were in fascist prisons. And even then, despite being first in the list, two other communists got voted in over him, because of his unpopularity among workers (not that these democratic contests would be very important). He also espoused the idiotic bloc forming with the bourgeoisie against fascism called the popular front as early as 1924. He thought that the labour movement and the proletariat would be entirely passive, essentially being a function of the nation state's actions.
And so on, and so on. This is just a very brief summary of only some of what is wrong with him. He's absolute garbage, and the only reason he is still brought up every now and then is that he provides justification for whatever academics think they are doing by putting out more pointless lucubrations. If there was ever someone for whom the term "cultural Marxism" would be fitting, it is Gramsci.
As a leftcom in the damenist tradition i ran into some texts from the Cwo and many more texts from other left communist groupings talking about how we are in the age of the real domination of capital and what that means. Some left communist groups purport to show a link between the real domination of capital and the unions and other civil society organizations becoming counter-revolutionary and getting assimilated into the capitalist state. As i understand it the real domination of capital is tied to imperialism and to the concept of relative surplus value by which machinery (fixed capital) reduces the time the average worker needs to work to reproduce himself\herself thus increasing the rate of exploitation and hence the plusvalue extracted per worker even without lenghtening the workday. As it was explained to me this process leads to layoffs of workers and it actually operates in the production process alongside the lenghtening of the workday for the workers who are not laid off and alongside an increase of the pace of the work (absolute surplus value) which act as tendencies counterbalancing the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The problem is that i do not understand how all this relates to the unions becoming counter-revolutionary and to the law of value extending itself to civil society. How does exactly the law of value take over civil society during imperialism and why is the autonomy of civil society so restricted in this period? Is it because the bureaucracy has strenghtened itself? As the Battaglia Comunista comrades put it the unions became counter-revolutionary during the age of imperialism as their role is to bargain the price of labour power and hence they have to act within the limits set by the law of the capitalist state and by the economic laws to enjoy the confidence the capitalist class has in them as negotiators of the sale of labour power and they (the comrades) added that as national capital during imperialism resorts to private or state capitalist planning to preserve profit margins the bargaining margins have reduced dramatically and hence the unions have to adhere to these limits if they want to be viable organizations. Is this explanation compatible with the theory of unions becoming counter-revolutionary due to the real domination of capital encompassing civil society or does it reek of the base-superstructure dichotomy some left communist groupings shun? And for which reason do some left communist groups think poorly of the base-superstructure concept? Sorry if the question sounds stupid but i have an undiagnosed nonverbal learning disability and a tested nonverbal iq which is in the low average/dull normal range so i am nowhere near as smart as most of you are even though i perform well academically as my verbal iq is estimated to be at least average and i have the uncanny ability to parrot back and to write academic jargon with a semblance of coherency that makes me sound far smarter than i am actually . The bottom line is that i am used to talk about and write about themes i have only a limited understanding of but if i do not really understand the argument then i have no chance to improve myself as a leftcom militant to not mention i would easily lose any debate against a tankie or a liberal.
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I've never heard of this real domination of capital and it sounds pretty incoherent from your description (if you're talking about the differences between formal and real subsumption of capital then that's got barely anything to do with this). What you're trying to describe is decadence theory, and decadence theory is a completely dogmatic way to look at the real world. The CWO are particularly incoherent on this. As much as they would like people to forget, they congealed out of the ultraleft left overs as "defenders" of the german-dutch communists, so their own ideas of why they don't support trade unions are even less clear when they then joined up with the ICT and went through a period of wavering back and forth. What you are describing about unions has been always been a factor in unions and it is just something that you have to deal with. The CWO and the dangling turds that are its satellites and affiliates have constructed this dogma which prevents them from meeting the class where it is, which is unfortunately for them found within trade unions.
As to the base-superstructure, do you mean materialism? If it is then I think that the reason why they reject materialism is obvious.
I found a mention on the real domination of capital here http://www.leftcom.org/en/adverts/2018-09-29/manchester-meeting-trade-wars-to-military-wars. Most of the mentions i have found on the argument come from this group http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_42_how-capitalism-changed.html . There are other mentions on libcom. What i was talking about was indeed the real subsumption of capital but internationalist perspectives seem to conflate or at least to link the two concepts. I did not see how the real subsumption of capital led to the real domination of capital. So the Cwo used to be council-communists or synthesists? Are you saying that the Cwo and Battaglia Comunista (and the other affiliates of the ICT) are idealists who embrace a teleology and not materialists? At least Battaglia Comunista have been always critical of the way the decadence concept has been employed by the ICC charging the latter with idealism especially when it comes to the ICC's idea of ruling out the party from the soviet government during the transition period out of a fear of substitutionism. Going by the experience i gained from translating a few texts of the Cwo into italian the Cwo seem more enthusiastic about revolutionary spontaneity than Battaglia Comunista. The Battaglia comunista comrades regard mainstream trade unionism as lost to the class struggle and rank and file unionism as insufficient. Why did the mainstream unions fall into the state orbit though? Did the burgeoining state bureucracy and the birth of the welfare state help it? Yes for the base-superstructure dichotomy i meant materialism, i thought it was odd for international perspectives to call themselves communist and to condemn the base-superstructure theory so i wanted to ask why they had a different spin on the base-superstructure concept. I was confused as to why they thought poorly of it. Are you a "bordigaist" so to speak? Battaglia comunista don't refuse to engage with rank and file trade unions militants but it does not think that it is possible to build a permanent mass organization which can defend working conditions and it is critical of the way even rank and file unionism divides the working class.
I'm not an expert on the CWO origins but they were sufficiently vague enough to start with for there to be splits when they moved towards the Damenites, away from a more German-Dutch position. But they've never adequately addressed this and are left with one huge mess.
The ICC's theory on decadence isn't any better. Both are little more than gibberish attempts at grafting a new theory onto Marxism where it doesn't need it because of their own inane origins. The fact that there appears to be several pretend sects/blogs acting like they're CWO affiliates sprouting up should be evidence of the reason why it originally came to those positions.
If you can read Italian then why not just read the texts of the ICP at www.sinistra.net?
There are other mentions on libcom. What i was talking about was indeed the real subsumption of capital but internationalist perspectives seem to conflate or at least to link the two concepts. I did not see how the real subsumption of capital led to the real domination of capital.
They are one and the same. Marx talks about "subsumption" ("Subsumtion" in German), sometimes also rendered "subjection" in English, and I presume that "domination" is another translation.
It would have been nice if you could have put some paragraphs in your post, that would've made it easier to read.
As a leftcom in the damenist tradition i ran into some texts from the Cwo and many more texts from other left communist groupings talking about how we are in the age of the real domination of capital and what that means. Some left communist groups purport to show a link between the real domination of capital and the unions and other civil society organizations becoming counter-revolutionary and getting assimilated into the capitalist state.
Formal and real subsumption are processes described by Marx in Capital briefly in the chapter on absolute and relative surplus value, and more extensively in the unpublished so-called "sixth chapter" called the Results of the Direct Production Process. They have been going on and continue to do so since capital's inception, and it would be foolish to employ them for an attempt at a periodisation.
during imperialism
Imperialism is not a special phase - it is inherent to bourgeois society.
Is it because the bureaucracy has strenghtened itself?
How would "the bureaucracy" have an agency allowing it to "strengthen itself"? Explanations blaming bureaucracy are really not explanations at all.
As the Battaglia Comunista comrades put it the unions became counter-revolutionary during the age of imperialism as their role is to bargain the price of labour power and hence they have to act within the limits set by the law of the capitalist state and by the economic laws to enjoy the confidence the capitalist class has in them as negotiators of the sale of labour power and they (the comrades) added that as national capital during imperialism resorts to private or state capitalist planning to preserve profit margins the bargaining margins have reduced dramatically and hence the unions have to adhere to these limits if they want to be viable organizations.
If this is truly the outlook of Battaglia, then it is a very crass one, having more similarity with the way the bourgeois make the world comprehensible to themselves than Marxism. In the way you presented their position, they start out from a role they ascribe to the union in bourgeois society, "viability", rather than determining its moment and significance in the overall course of the labour movement. They thus proceed like sociologists who from the outset express a vested interest in the (bourgeois) community-creating features of social institutions: The union is treated metaphysically and static, judged from the perspective of capital and the necessities of accumulation, rather than from the "standpoint of social humanity". Recently, a text got posted here that criticises this way of working in Camatte's notion of classes, and compares it to Kautsky's ultra-imperialism - you can find it here.
Communism is not a matter of this or that organisational form, and communists don't decide on the forms in which the labour movement expresses itself in, nor do they have or search for secret recipes for the perfect form - they know the ultimate aim of the movement, and hence are able to point out the limitations of each form, and therefore what must be done to overcome them. If the class is to be found in unions, then this is a fact that communists got to work with, rather than complain about.
Decadence - and all theories of the like - is a wrong abstraction that doesn't proceed from communism to arrive at class politics, but from justifying the present state of the labour movement and giving it an optimist twist: Here, look, the labour movement is not that weak, it's merely the union that has now become counterrevolutionary! It was inevitable! It attempts a sweeping generalisation of the union form in order to avoid the work of first examining the conditions in each individual one, and then moving on to the arduous task of overcoming these respective limitations. There is no definite reason why it should in principle be impossible for the labour movement to reconquer certain unions - provided that is the way in which it would express itself -, or why all unions should now no longer be relevant for communism.
And for which reason do some left communist groups think poorly of the base-superstructure concept?
I can't say who you have in mind particularly, but Stalinists, in their usual incoherence, sometimes try to shoehorn "base and superstructure" into all of their "arguments", to vouch for bourgeois outlooks in the vein of vulgar materialism similar to the one on unions that Battaglia apparently holds. I can see groups calling them out on that.
Sorry if the question sounds stupid but i have an undiagnosed nonverbal learning disability and a tested nonverbal iq which is in the low average/dull normal range so i am nowhere near as smart as most of you are even though i perform well academically as my verbal iq is estimated to be at least average
There's no need to tell that to anyone. You shouldn't worry so much what intelligence tests apparently say about you. If there's any significance to this, it is merely an obstacle for you to overcome, but not an insurmountable barrier.
i have the uncanny ability to parrot back and to write academic jargon with a semblance of coherency that makes me sound far smarter than i am actually.
Congratulations on your honesty, but you're certainly not alone in that - almost all academics do the same, and so do many people on Reddit.
The bottom line is that i am used to talk about and write about themes i have only a limited understanding of but if i do not really understand the argument then i have no chance to improve myself as a leftcom militant
Understanding the argument is what's important, you're right - it's good that you desire to actually grasp the "what" which lies behind a term, rather than just throwing it around intuitively.
not mention i would easily lose any debate against a tankie or a liberal.
It is not important how well you'd do in a debate - that shouldn't be your aim from the outset. Debates of this kind usually try to get at some universal goal that everyone, independent of class, should be convinced towards. Class politics on the other hand consist in asserting clear, exclusionary interests that are at the beginning particular ones and whose universality only develops. Communism is not about a contest of opinions. If you actually have a passion for communism, and it is not just an attempt to appropriate the world for you, without moving outward to change it, then the point about understanding it is to bring you to a position to evaluate and put forward proper class politics yourself, to advance the labour movement.
So you are saying that the theory according to which the unions can not be recuperated to the class struggle commits what you think is the fallacy of saying the labour movement can only express itself politically through revolution or stay dormant with few and far in between struggles to improve working conditions? I think the argument advanced by Battaglia Comunista and the Cwo is that strike committees are more effective means to fight for better working conditions than even the rank and file trade unions .
As for the bureaucracy part that point was admittedly poorly worded, i meant that as the contradictions of capitalism got more acute the capitalist state strenghtened itself and started thanks to increased taxation on the wealth produced to have the financial means to be able to "buy" at least some trade unions so to speak.
Sorry for the wall of text, i have the nasty habit of doing away with paragraphs.
As of the role of the trade unions i represented what i remember to be the stance of Battaglia Comunista, not the Cwo though they both belong the ICT. I might be misremembering their view as i have had narrow interests that caused me to have less Interest in communist politics and i have mostly busied myself with english to italian translations.
There is an inconsistency in the view i have stated as this characteristic of the trade unions is not really a new development and hence the justification for just engaging with trade unions militants and not directly working within unions would have to be some form of a decadency theory.
Still if the argoment is to go where the class is would not this support the entryst attempts of the trotskyst? Especially when most trade unions have ties with reformist parties? What is the difference?
As for imperialism did not Lenin write that capitalism had entered in its imperialist stage as of the first world War? If imperialism is a tendency immanent in capitalism then it still manifested itself globally as in showed its effects from the end of the XiX century onward.Or am i missing something?
So you are saying that the theory according to which the unions can not be recuperated to the class struggle commits what you think is the fallacy of saying the labour movement can only express itself politically through revolution or stay dormant with few and far in between struggles to improve working conditions?
Yes, it is immediatism.
I think the argument advanced by Battaglia Comunista and the Cwo is that strike committees are more effective means to fight for better working conditions than even the rank and file trade unions.
It's not a question of finding the most "effective" form for "fighting for better working conditions" and moulding the proletarian movement to fit it, but identifying where the class finds itself currently, and showing how it can move beyond the aspect of the universal problem that currently presents itself to it. As Marx and Engels tell us in the Manifesto, the true victories of the struggles of the proletariat lie not in its immediate successes, but in its ever increasing association.
As for the bureaucracy part that point was admittedly poorly worded, i meant that as the contradictions of capitalism got more acute the capitalist state strenghtened itself and started thanks to increased taxation on the wealth produced to have the financial means to be able to "buy" at least some trade unions so to speak.
Now you just put the state in the place of bureaucracy and are faced with the question as to how the state could "strengthen itself".
There is an inconsistency in the view i have stated as this characteristic of the trade unions is not really a new development and hence the justification for just engaging with trade unions militants and not directly working within unions would have to be some form of a decadency theory.
Yes.
Still if the argoment is to go where the class is would not this support the entryst attempts of the trotskyst? Especially when most trade unions have ties with reformist parties? What is the difference?
I don't see how it would support that. Could you explain your reasoning? What do "reformist parties" (are there even such today?) even have to do with the position of the class? It sounds like by that you're going to the opposite pole and just uncritically accept all trade unions, without regard for their particularities.
As for imperialism did not Lenin write that capitalism had entered in its imperialist stage as of the first world War?
Yes, but just because Lenin wrote that doesn't mean that it has to be true. Lenin's political conclusions of his grasp on imperialism, i.e. revolutionary defeatism, should be uncontroversial, but that doesn't mean that the general argument about a "stage" is correct (the same goes for stageist concepts such as "state capitalism", "finance capitalism" or "monopoly capitalism"). It's worth noting that Lenin himself considered his presentation in "Imperialism" incomplete, and urged for a more thorough investigation of the phenomenon.
If imperialism is a tendency immanent in capitalism then it still manifested itself globally as in showed its effects from the end of the XiX century onward.
Would you say that imperialism did not exist beforehand?
Yes, it is immediatism.
I would say that these immediatist positions are actually held by the ICC and not by Battaglia or by the Cwo, we have never thought that revolution would arise out directly from an outbreak of a wave of economic struggles through subterraneous maturation of consciousness or similar platitudes. On the contrary the position you embrace presumes workers can be on the offensive permanently to win concessions from the bourgeoise when the crisis in the accumulation process decreases the working class's bargaining power, it is an excessively linear view of the class struggle in its economic form.
I will answer the other points later.
I would say that these immediatist positions are actually held by the ICC and not by Battaglia or by the Cwo, we have never thought that revolution would arise out directly from an outbreak of a wave of economic struggles through subterraneous maturation of consciousness or similar platitudes.
It's not important who holds this position, the point was about why it is wrong.
On the contrary the position you embrace presumes workers can be on the offensive permanently to win concessions from the bourgeoise when the crisis in the accumulation process decreases the working class's bargaining power, it is an excessively linear view of the class struggle in its economic form.
Such a crude view isn't something I put forward here, that's something you just planted on me.
I will answer the other points later.
I am really not interested in a debate of the asinine positions of the ICT by proxy of you telling me what your "comrades" say. You initially asked a question, and I provided an answer. I consider that to be sufficient.
I am really not interested in a debate of the asinine positions of the ICT by proxy of you telling me what your "comrades" say. You initially asked a question, and I provided an answer. I consider that to be sufficient.
Ok that's fine. Meanwhile i will do research on the matter to improve my understanding of the union question.
sei italiano?
Si, sono italiana. Sono una ragazza che è al secondo anno della magistrale di scienze politiche (relazioni internazionali ) e sono da poco diventata militante di Battaglia dopo esserne stata simpatizzante. Sei italiano/a anche tu? Sapresti dirmi per favore come posso fare a citare un testo spezzettandolo in parti come ha fatto redoctor?
Sapresti dirmi per favore come posso fare a citare un testo spezzettandolo in parti come ha fatto Dr redterror?
Se vuoi fare una citazione, metti un > all'inizio di ogni paragrafo che vuoi citare.
come questo
Perché ti sei unito a Battaglia? Sono molto diversi dal CWO. I Battaglia sono settari molto dogmatici. Rivendicano ogni sorta di cose sull'ICP da cui si sono divisi, ma sono colpevoli di tutto ciò che accusano gli altri.
Perché ti sei unito a Battaglia? Sono molto diversi dal CWO. I Battaglia sono settari molto dogmatici. Rivendicano ogni sorta di cose sull'ICP da cui si sono divisi, ma sono colpevoli di tutto ciò che accusano gli altri.
Mi sono unita a Battaglia poichè era il partito che più mi persuadeva della giustezza delle sue posizioni. Inoltre essendo italiana e vivendo in Italia non sarei potuta essere politicamente attiva collaborando con altri compagni se avessi aderito alla Cwo. Si, la Cwo e Battaglia sono due organizzazioni diverse ma appartengono comunque alla stessa tendenza quindi non si tratta affatto di contrasti irriducibili.
In che senso Battaglia sarebbe colpevole di tutto ciò di cui accusiamo gli altri? Ad esempio?
I see i have received a lot of answers since my last reply. Thanks for your participation and suggestions. I have retreated so to speak to hear some explanations from the Battaglia Comunista comrades on the trade unions, the role of the state in the current period, how the real subsumption of capital relates (if there is any relation) to trade unionism and on how our conception of the class struggle differs from the immediatist views held by the ICC. So i have not come over to the opposing position, i am trying to clear up my doubts with the help of my fellow party members.I Will come back next day (it is night here in Italy) when i have a clearer view of what is Battaglia Comunista's position and on how to reply.
A last precisation. I mistakenly took the Cwo's reference to the real domination of capital over the labour process and the fact Battaglia comunista and the Cwo (and the whole ICT)'s views on the trade unions question somewhat resemble Internationalist perspectives' as evidence we partly shared Internationalist perspectives' analysis which uses the real domination of capital as an historical periodization. However we do not do these kinds of historical periodizations which employ a marxian concept to mark a watershed moment in the history of the workers movement. I inadvertently misled you somewhat on the Cwo and Battaglia's position.
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They're just translating old texts from the ICP
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The late 1960s and early 1970s represented a period of great debate in the communist left in the face of contemporary class struggles. On one side you have the invariant Marxism of the traditional communists, on the other you had attempts at the rehabilitation of the council communist current. This texts represents an attempt at a critique by proxy of Mattick of the then contemporary debates that still has relevance today.
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The author of the following text, Christian Riechers (1936-1993), was a German academic that politicized himself during the SPD’s official jettisoning of socialism with the Godesberg programme. Learning about Marxism through the council communist theoretician Willy Huhn (1909-1970), he moved to Italy in 1963, living there for the next eight years. During this time, he released the first commented selection of the works of Antonio Gramsci in German language, while at the same time destroying the institutionalized myth of Gramsci’s supposedly inventive Marxism. Riechers not only criticizes Gramsci for his fetish of factory councils, but also for the celebration of Taylorist productivism and the search for emancipatory perspectives of the proletariat within the ideologies of the enemy – he characterizes him as a closeted idealist. The objective of this critique however is not merely to expose another neo-Jacobin, but rather to trace back the history of the counterrevolution and the corresponding role of the Comintern within the bourgeois reception of Marx exemplified in Gramsci. In Italy, Riechers also came into contact with Amadeo Bordiga, whose incorruptible attitude impressed him. Blind trust for the spontaneity of the masses, the omniscience of professional revolutionaries or the party bureaucracy, Riechers finds rebutted in Bordiga’s organic centralism, stating the unity of programme, party and the conscious parts of the proletariat. Despite never becoming a member of any party, Riechers remains indebted to this conception proven by the continuous thread leading from the Communist League to the founding of the Comintern.
This is Riechers’ Obituary for Bordiga, written shortly after the latter’s death in 1970 and released in written form in the 2009 German collection of Riechers’ work called “The Defeat within Defeat. Texts on the Labour Movement, Class Struggle and Fascism”.
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Experience has shown – and this annihilates the possibility of any distinction between fascism and capitalism, that capitalism’s conversion to fascism does not depend on the will of certain groups within the bourgeois class, but on the necessities of a whole historical period, and the specificities of states which are less able to resist the crisis and the death-agony of the bourgeois regime.
I can't remember the quote but basically something like "as long as capitalism exists, fascism will always be a risk", maybe zygmunt bauman?
I have noticed that on r/debatecommunism, the people who respond to questions are usually Leninists, and this can create the impression that Leninism is the only school of communism, to an outsider. I think more of us should answer questions there, to show potential communists the many faces of Marxist thought.
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Most of us are banned
Oh, that's unfortunate. If the moderators dissaprove of left communists, we can at least provide more general Marxist answers, rather than go straight to Leninism, which many people on that sub seem to.
we can at least provide more general Marxist answers, rather than go straight to Leninism
That's actually why i was banned, for opposing left-nationalism
The mods on r/marxism aren't even Leninists they are national Bolsheviks
Nah, nazbols are too rare. And they have different opinions.
Ok i exaggerated they are just tankies
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I used to be the mod of that sub under managerDAC. Good luck dealing with that fucking idiot
I think that's because most of us are banned. The mods probably want to create that impression. Edit: "All ideologies are welcome" lol apparently not. Also fuck ideology.
not ideological enough to be welcomed
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/r/DebateUltraLeft to make it a bit larger for those not necessarily tied to traditional left communism (situationists, communization, etc...) ?
Or in association with /r/communists we can have /r/debatecommunists, opening it perhaps to some anarchists?
If the idea is approved by enough leftcoms, should we make the place a place for debate between leftcoms and leftists as you suggested or between leftcoms only? Both? A subreddit for each? There's a lot of possibilities but there are few of us.
From what I've seen debate subs turn to trash at some point (if they weren't from the start) so I'm not sure how good of an idea that is.
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debatemarxism would work
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debate_marxism then?
I feel like that would make leftists defensive and defeat the purpose.
what would?
Well, many leftists consider themselves to be marxists, and calling the sub "debatemarxism" seems like it would turn them away. If this idea is supposed to be some kind of olive branch to the Internet Leftists, then I reckon that would be a bad first step
sorry, i'm confused. you're saying calling the sub "debate marxism" would turn away many marxists?
I was saying that it would turn away people who think they are.
Now I understand that by "debate Marxism," you don't mean, "we're the actual marxists, come debate with us" so much as "we both call ourselves marxists, let's figure out why we disagree."
ah, i didn't have that in mind, no.
but i guess i could see that, given that "debate communism" bans many communists.
I could've sworn I was banned from r/debatecommunism, but I think it's r/communism101 that I'm banned from. Regardless, that sub is a goldmine for r/shitleftistssay.
That seems to be a common experience here.
So I understand that revolution can't be forced through spreading of ideas and will only happen once materil conditions get bad enough, but what wold it take for class consciousness to actully start spreading? People in the Third World are living in horrible conditions, some of them are sleeping in literal coffins and yet there doesn't seem to be (As far as I know, though I may be mistaken) any form of organization whatsoever. And we know that conditions in the West will most likely never get to that point. So if the people of Hong Kong can just sit there and take, how can we hope for a Revolution?
Sorry if I said anything that comes across as ignorant, I'm not very knowledgeable to be honest.
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We don't know for certain. It could be 10 years. Could be more. Could be never. Communism isn't a holy prophecy guaranteed to be fulfilled, nothing is certain. However, I think a revolution is likely, things are getting worse and we're all getting fed up. A crisis is bound to happen and a chance of wide-scale revolt is likely. When deprived of things, humans don't just sit by, we revolt hard. When, though? I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you.
The real question is whether this revolution will succeed in going global. Right now the world affairs are total chaos, naturally. That is left for the future to tell. The two choices presented are socialism or barbarism. That's the reality. It's an ugly one.
Based off my limited knowledge I'd just a repeat of the new deal after the great depression is more likely than a revolution. I would think states have a better understanding of how to deal with crisis now then they did in the 30s
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But policies have been enough to subdue workers movement, like how the worker's movement diminished after the New Deal reforms
You're assuming that a return to Keynesian capitalism is possible at the moment. Here's Michael Rectenwald on how the current condition of capitalism and not some politician- or politically induced neoliberalism is the foundation of our problems.
A qoute:
The problem with this story is that while grossly exaggerating the impact of policies and trade agreements, it excludes a key underlying and primary causative factor of the current instability and malaise. This key factor is necessary not only for diagnosing but also for addressing the conditions that we face today. Keynesian reformers and social democrats, including Bernie Sanders, are either utterly unaware of, attempt to blithely ignore, or otherwise contest this factor. But its existence and effects are undeniable and its implications are enormous. That is, excluded from the standard leftist narrative of neoliberalism is the following: the underlying, decrepit state of capitalism over the past forty-plus years, and the unlikely prospects for a return to robust economic growth in the foreseeable future.
Few thinkers, even among Marxists, seem willing to tell the working class this fundamental fact, and it surely is not going to be acknowledged by major political office holders or campaigners, whose careers depend upon the belief that their particular nostrums or plans will remedy the crisis. Yet neither Trump with his protectionism nor Sanders with his social infrastructure can restore the economy (in the US or beyond) to postwar levels of growth, the kind of growth upon which their promises depend. Likewise, their policies and plans would not ameliorate the conditions of the vast majority. As long as the economic system is capitalism, profit will be the driving factor, and the predicament of capitalism has precisely to do with a loss of confidence in the profitability of investment.
And a graph
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will only happen once material conditions get bad enough
Things have been infinitely worse in different periods of time, and in different places. During the Great Potato Famine in Ireland in the mid 19th century there notably didn't was a revolution, in contrast to the relatively better off Germany, France etc. during the revolutions of 1848, even though the Irish people were literally dying by the millions due to hunger and poverty. The Great Depression of the 1930's, another example, did see an increased intensity of the struggle for communism, but nowhere in the world did this result in a communist revolution (not counting Spain and China, whose revolutions (if you could call them such) were part of a development which started long before the Depression). One of the worst countries to currently live in, the Democratic Republic of Congo, too doesn't contain a significant communist movement (as you already noted), even though "the material conditions" are worse over there than in most other places in the world. The significance of Marx, however, is that he didn't just think that only if some abstract "material condition" would be reached, the people automatically would revolt, since that simply isn't true. Whether or not people revolt doesn't just depend on "the material conditions" (or, the base), but also on the level of political organization of the proletarians (or, on superstructural activity), and their subsequent ability to successfully subvert the intensity of capitalist practice and ideology. This requires a sustained effort of all of those involved in the communist movement, and cannot be just expected to happen "just cause material conditions". The material conditions can only make a communist revolution a potential, but this potential must be "made material" by the proletarians themselves. This "making material" takes place in the realm of politics.
Well. This is depressing.
I've always kinda wondered if material conditions will ever get bad enough in the post-industrial countries for people to get out of their houses and revolt, especially in any sort of organized manner.
The poorest in America (using my country as an example) still have material comforts enough that they would be resistant to actually doing anything. The proletariat of today is probably more comfortable than the proletariat of 19th century France if you see what I'm getting at. A job at McDonalds is a lot less awful than a job in a coal mine or a sweatshop. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but this is all especially with how little class consciousness is currently around and how little people understand or take any brand of socialism seriously (let alone, get out in the streets and fight for it).
Things are changing, but there's a lot that would have to happen to make a revolution happen in the US. Granted, he are the most hyper-capitalist country to ever exist, so maybe things are different elsewhere. Ive basically admitted to myself that the alternative to LSC will come from outside the US and most likely outside the Euro-cultures (I'm looking at you Rojava).
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With a lot of "atheists", you you can see the veneration of science with an almost religious attitude. Seeing it as a savior of mankind "We can colonize Mars!" or "Everyone can be inside computers!". Do you think that this is a way to distract them from actual capitalist reality without providing real solutions to social problems?
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Well said. I am of exactly the same opinion that 'transhumanism' is reactionary at its core under capitalism. Whenever I've had it described to me it's always felt like a thinly veiled eugenics program. Differentiated and commodified access to extended lifespan, artificially heightened resistance to disease, etc.
I kinda just think of the Deus Ex videogame and I'm like "I don't wanna live that".
artificially heightened resistance to disease
And why would this be a bad thing? lol Also, things like 3 parent babies or curing diseases has nothing to do with eugenics...
It's not in principle but the fact that it would be a commodity is bad. Bourgeoisie being able to live longer just because they possess the means to would mean the the bourgeoisie becoming even more vampiric than they already are; sustaining their life from the labor of proles. I mean its already here in some sense.
David Rockefeller had 6 heart transplants. One just a few months before he died.
Transhumanism is reactionary how?
For a second there I thought you were thinking of Futurism and I was all like "it's dead bro". Though there are similarities.
yeah same
Futurism (Italian: Futurismo) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth, and violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane, and the industrial city. Although it was largely an Italian phenomenon, there were parallel movements in Russia, England, Belgium and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, urban design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture, and even Futurist meals. Its key figures were the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Bruno Munari, Benedetta Cappa and Luigi Russolo, the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Severyanin, David Burliuk, Aleksei Kruchenykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Belgian Jules Schmalzigaug and the Portuguese Almada Negreiros.
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Futurism? I think you mean scientism. Scientism can definitely be seen as a modern opium of the masses since science itself can be subject to being "poisoned" by the ruling ideas of the time. e.g. Eugenics and race realism being prevalent during the 20th century.
Yeah, that may have been what I meant.
It's another form of pure sniff ideology for sure. You should check out the documentary miniseries All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, its mostly about this topic (futurist ideology vs capitalist reality of technological advancement). It ain't Marxist but it's still interesting and edited together really well
What are you opinions on Lenin and the Bolsheviks?
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Just wanted to pop in to say, I'm really enjoying the discussion here. I'm trying to work through literally the most basic stuff on communism and other far-left ideologies and seeing this kind of debate on the finer points is really helpful in forming my own opinion. I'm even glad the stuff that is so blatantly wrong to you all is here. It's good to see the responses to it, how the reasoning works, and even though it can get heated I think overall it's helpful.
The Bolsheviks were central to the development towards the revolution and the revolution itself. For anyone to disagree with that and then to say that the failure of the revolution rests on their shoulders needs to get their head examined. It feels like people think that the Bolsheviks consisted nothing more than Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Bukharin and Zinoviev where as in reality it was a party at times numbering in the hundreds of thousands and the millions.
There was no hope of socialism in one country with Russia and that's why the communist left placed so much effort on the international front. It was only with the internal defeat of the proletarian class against the peasantry in the 30s that resulted in a defeat of this international outlook of Russia.
Yeah, the betrayal by German socialism was a huge blow, too.
The meddling of the comintern didn't help either.
I don't agree with the notion that the Russian Revolution was a political coup, which is what I think the councilists lent towards during the period before the Second World War. I think that position ignores the role of the proletariat in seizing power as well as the role of the Bolsheviks in reinvigorating the Soviets, which up to then had been empty shells.
While I can't speak for councilists - partially because I'm not one but primarily because I haven't read a lot of councilist literature, with a few notable exceptions - Pannekoek viewed the Russian Revolution as a bourgeois revolution. In other words, "a substitution of a new dominant category for an old one" (Party and Working Class). I'm not sure I necessarily agree with this classification but the main point is that the revolution exchanged one form of dictatorship with a party dictatorship, instead of a proletarian dictatorship. However, I'm sure some councilists did view it as a coup. The major issue of theirs was the fetishization of one organizational form (workers' councils) over another (parties) and many accordingly took a one-sided and not very nuanced view of past revolutionary movements.
Lenin and Bolsheviks were instrumental to the success of the revolution.
This is true.
Where is the success of October/November? Or are you talking about February? My understanding is that Before October the soviets had autonomy and after they became subordinated to the bolshevik party apparatus. Which is tantamount to destroying socialism. just imo obvi
Where is the success of October/November?
Why are you posting on a Marxist board? The success is that it happened.
My understanding is that Before October the soviets had autonomy and after they became subordinated to the bolshevik party apparatus.
Then clearly the Bolsheviks are to blame. This is just an excuse, a retreat to a Great Man theory of history.
Which is tantamount to destroying socialism.
That's a vague sentence. Intentionally vague, maybe?
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I would say, in marxist terms, the February/March revolution represents the actual development of the class struggle in the favour of the proletariat, as in that it was a genuine victory for the Russian Proletariat [among other classes which also benefited]. The October/November "revolution" [if you like] represented a defeat in terms of class struggle and victory for the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.
You're totally nuts. The October revolution "represented" a defeat of the working class? I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your post because these two sentences show us that you know absolutely nothing about the topic and are just repeating tired old bourgeois and opportunist propaganda.
I’ll just recommended this video im sure you must of seen it, but hey its worth remembering.
I repeat my point, why are you trying to present your answer as being something a member of the communist left would give? You're even linking to Chomsky (and no thanks, if I wanted to bore myself to death then there's plenty of other options).
So do you, and you all, as left communists consider yourselves leninist? in the sense that you agree, by and large, with the policies undertaken after the october/novemeber "revolution"?
No. organic_party is a Bordigist. They consider themselves Leninists. Other leftcomms don't consider themselves Leninists.
Yes of course.
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I was with you up until this. One of the more egregious aspects of Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the fact that they turned Marx on his head. What the Bolsheviks did, and what the Soviet Union eventually came to be, was ridiculed by Marx when Nechayev suggested doing something similar to what the Bolsheviks would have ended up doing.
Could you elaborate on this? I've heard people say that Lenin broke with Marx but they never gave an example.
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Yeah, I think sometimes people fail to analyse the concrete realities of the situation at the time.
Your post is nonsense. You start from false premises and then attempt from there to form a strawman argument.
For one the large peasantry in Russia made it really difficult to find a class unity
You can't form class unity with peasants and the proletariat. The communist revolution is not the peasant revolution, and Lenin knew this.
"But we say that our goal is equality, and by that we mean the abolition of classes. Then the class distinction between workers and peasants should be abolished. That is exactly our object. A society in which the class distinction between workers and peasants still exists is neither a communist society nor a socialist society. True, if the word socialism is interpreted in a certain sense, it might be called a socialist society, but that would be mere sophistry, an argument about words. Socialism is the first stage of communism; but it is not worth while arguing about words. One thing is clear, and that is, that as long as the class distinction between workers and peasants exists, it is no use talking about equality, unless we want to bring grist to the mill of the bourgeoisie. The peasantry constitute a class of the patriarchal era, a class which has been reared by decades and centuries of slavery; and throughout all these decades the peasants existed as small proprietors, first, under the heel of other classes, and later, formally free and equal, but as property-owners and the owners of food products.
This brings us to the question which most of all rouses the ire of our enemies, which most of all creates doubt in the minds of inexperienced and thoughtless people, and which separates us most of all from those would-be democrats and socialists who are offended because we do not recognise them as such, but call them supporters of the capitalists, perhaps due to their ignorance, but supporters of the capitalists all the same.
Their social conditions, production, living and economic conditions make the peasant half worker and half huckster.
This is a fact. And you cannot get away from this fact until you have abolished money, until you have abolished exchange. And for this years and years of the stable rule by the proletariat is needed; for only the proletariat is capable of vanquishing the bourgeoisie. We are told: “You are violators of equality, you have violated eguality not only with the exploiters—’with this I am inclined to agree’, some Socialist-Revolutionary or Menshevik who does not know what he is talking about may say—but you have violated equality between the workers and the peasants, you have violated the equality of ’labour democracy’, you are criminals!” In answer to this we say: “Yes, we have violated equality between the workers and peasants, and we assert that you who stand for this equality are supporters of Kolchak.” Recently I read a splendid article by Comrade Germanov, in Pravda, in which he deals with the theses drawn up by Citizen Sher, one of the most “socialistic” of the Menshevik Social-Democrats. These theses were submitted to one of our co-operative organisations, and they are of such a nature that they deserve to be engraved on a tablet and hung up in every volost executive committee with an inscription underneath stating: 'This is Kolchak’s man.'"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/may/06.htm
Lenin and the Bolsheviks increasingly pushed for centralization, which IMO can be seen in two ways: 1 pure opportunism on the part of Lenin, who, before October, seemed to hold more "libertarian" positions on the problem of the workers councils or 2 a genuine material need to increase productive forces through a short burst of centralized authority given the fragmented nature of the Russian population.
Your opinion doesn't mean anything without any established facts from which to work from. You are just conjecturing at this point.
then another important factor for the Russian situation was the failure of revolutions in the large developed capitalist countries overseas (in Italy, Germany, Hungary, etc.), which Lenin had been very optimistic about (even to a fault, considering that Lenin seemed to think a revolution in the backwards Russia would miraculously inspire revolutions overseas).
This was not a fault, this was the only way in which a revolution in a country like Russia was to survive. And it did inspire revolutions around the globe. You are talking out of your ass.
The civil war would also greatly diminish the size of the proletariat and put the Russian situation in danger once again, all of which contributed to the emergence of the great state capitalist enterprise with all its barbarity under Stalin.
Through which mechanism? How did it come to that? By centralization alone? That's anarchist nonsense.
Ideologically I think the ideas of Kautsky and even Engels distorted the Bolshevik understanding of Marx and stripped it of any of its "humanistic" content (which Dunayevskaya later tried to revive), which kind of resulted in the whole "scientific socialism" nonsense where the Bolsheviks and orthodox Marxists saw Marxism as an empirical positive science that had to be "built" rather than for the negative critical science that it is.
Nonsense, Lenin was one of the people who cast off the bourgeois and semi-bourgeois Marxism of opportunists like Kautsky. You are inadvertently following in the Kautskyite lie of a continuation between Engels and Kautsky, and the idea that Engels some how "distorted" Marx.
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Maybe you should work on writing in clearer style.
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If we're going to be having a discussion about Lenin and the Bolsheviks then it might be helpful if people actually read up on the topic and not rely on what they've been told on internet forums and gossip shops.
a continuation between Engels and Kautsky, and the idea that Engels some how "distorted" Marx.
accurate
This notion that Engels lead to Kautsky is something that Kautsky himself formulated. I've never seen anyone argue in any convincing manner that Engels "distorted" Marx. I'm fairly certain that Marx would have had something to say about it if he did.
For Marx, it was all supposed to be contained within the working class itself
What does that say about people like Marx, Engels, Bakunin and such?
They turned it into a dictatorship of the party, rather than a dictatorship of the working class. To my mind, this is one of the bigger missteps and from which other mistakes followed. If the communist movement is, as Marx put it, the real movement and does not attempt to bend reality to its will, then the Soviets were just the biggest sect of utopians to have existed in the socialist movement.
This is a version of the great man theory.
What does that say about people like Marx, Engels, Bakunin and such?
Bakunin? Well, dude wanted to form a secret vanguard of his own, so there's that. As far as Marx and Engels are concerned, their goal was never to lead the workers movement.
This is a version of the great man theory.
Except, it's not.
As far as Marx and Engels are concerned, their goal was never to lead the workers movement.
Except maybe in reality where they were deeply involved in the running of the international, even calling for it's dissolution. Or what about Bordiga or Pannekoek? Neither of them were proletarians. Bordiga was the son of nobility.
Except, it's not.
Except that it is. You're placing the defeat of the world communist movement on a handful of people.
The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions.
The vanguard is the biggest thing. Marx made references to the "most advanced" parts of the working class as leading the revolution. This is still a distinct difference from Lenin and the "professional revolutionary," and a socialist party leading the revolution. For Marx, it was all supposed to be contained within the working class itself; Lenin's conception of the vanguard and party politics had the veneer of worker influence but all he did was take state machinery and repurpose it, slapped a new label on it and purged most worker influence from the government.
I think he got the idea that the proletariat couldn't make revolution on their own and had to be "injected" with class consciousness from Kautsky.
He did. Which, fuck Kautsky for that, as well.
Everyone says that but then everyone forgets that in the last instance, Lenin was correct in his formulation; at that time, the working class was only possible of achieving a "trade union consciousness".
There where reasons the soviets where lacking in power, because the Bolsheviks took it from them by placing their own people in positions of power inside the soviets, as well as exiling prominent non-bolsheviki, eviscerating social revolutionary, menshevik and anarchist soviet members, running smear campaigns. Seriously all kinds of horrible shit they did to people they didn't like. All with the approval of the central committee aka Lenin. just sayin.. imo obvi
The vanguard is the biggest thing. Marx made references in the Manifesto to the "most advanced" parts of the working class as leading the revolution. This is still a distinct difference from Lenin and the "professional revolutionary," and a socialist party leading the revolution. For Marx, it was all supposed to be contained within the working class itself; Lenin's conception of the vanguard and party politics had the veneer of worker influence but all he did was take state machinery and repurpose it, slapped a new label on it and purged most worker influence from the government, ultimately.
That's plainly not true and is just a bourgeois and opportunist distortion of Lenin. Lenin agrees with Marx on the point of the vanguard and the state machinery were not "repurposed"; that's a preposterous assertion. The tsarists state was totally dismantled and even the constituent assembly was wiped out by the Bolsheviks to the applause of the councils of workers, soldiers and sailors.
"Bolshevism defamed by the anarchists"http://www.international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/CL05.htm#Bolshevism%20defamed%20by%20the%20Anarchists
The success of the proletarian revolution rests upon it's totalitarian nature and it's party.
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I was looking for left communist perspectives.
Archival sources/places to find key texts:
Marxist Internet Archive, communist left archive - https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/index.htm
Quaderni Internazionalisti archives - http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/historical_en/0_historical_archives.htm
John Gray - http://www.reocities.com/~johngray/index.html#toc
Sinistra (online archives of the communist left) - http://sinistra.net/
Archives Autonomies (mostly French, but very extensive) - http://archivesautonomies.org/
Anton Pannekoek Archives - http://www.aaap.be/Pages/Frontpage.html
Collectif Smolny (French only, complete collection of 'Bilan') - http://www.collectif-smolny.org/article.php3?id_article=49
redtexts - http://www.redtexts.org/
libcom, left communism - https://libcom.org/tags/left-communism
libcom, council communism - https://libcom.org/tags/council-communism
Situationists - http://www.bopsecrets.org/, https://libcom.org/tags/situationist-international, https://libcom.org/tags/situationist, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/index.html
Autonomism (and it's predecessors) - https://libcom.org/tags/operaismo, https://libcom.org/tags/autonomism
libcom, communisation - https://libcom.org/tags/communisation
Histories: - 'Left Wing Communism: an infantile disorder?' website (Philippe Bourrinet) - http://www.left-dis.nl/
Communist Left:
1] The main group (International Communist Party), until 1982, when it disintegrates. Its splits:
1964: Rivoluzione Comunista - http://digilander.libero.it/rivoluzionecom/
1966: Jacques Camatte (1968: publication of 'Invariance' begins - complete collection here: http://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?rubrique509)
1972: Parti de Classe (group who broke from 'Invariance')
1974: ICP (Il Partido Comunista) - http://www.international-communist-party.org/
1975: Groupe Communiste Mondial (World Communist Group) formed from 'Parti de Classe', with a new magazine 'The Programme of the Communist Society'. In 1987, the GCM splits, the first GCM dissolves in 1992. In 1989, the other GCM (based in Marseille) publishes 'The Programme of the Communist Revolution' - http://groupe-communiste-mondial.org/en/index_eng.html
1976: 'Communisme or Civilisation' breaks with GCM. From 1989, CoC works with 'Revue Internationale du Mouvement Communiste' (International Journal of the Communist Movement), a joint publication of the communist movement to pool abilities/resources along with such groups as 'Kamunist Kranti'. In December 1998, the 'Revue' is supended, and the majority of CoC form 'Robin Goodfellow' - https://www.robingoodfellow.info/
1981 (renamed in 2000): Quaderni Internazionalisti/'n+1' - http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/0_english.htm, https://www.facebook.com/quinterna/
1984(?): ICP (Il Programma Comunista) - http://partitocomunistainternazionale.org/index.php/en, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1018014948272911/
ICP (Il Comunista) - http://pcint.org/
ICP (Il Bolletino) - http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/bollet/bolletino.html
ICP (Sul Filo Rosso del Tempo) - https://web.archive.org/…/www.sinistracomunistainternazion…/
2] The main group since 1982 (International Communist Current), and its splits:
Break-aways:
1979: Internationalist Communist Group (GCI-ICG) (HQ in Belgium) - http://www.gci-icg.org/english/index_english.html, https://libcom.org/tags/icg, http://reocities.com/communisme_gci/
1985: Internationalist Perspective (Montreal) - http://www.internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-index.html
after 1996: Cercle de Paris - http://cercledeparis.free.fr/
expelled in 2003: Internal Fraction of the ICC (IFICC, Paris), renamed as 'Fraction of the International Communist Left' (http://fractioncommuniste.org/) and subsequently merged with Internationalist Communists—Klasbatalo (formerly the Internationalist Communists Montreal, https://internationalistcommunistsmontreal.blogspot.co.uk/) to form the 'International Group of the Communist Left' (IGCL, http://www.igcl.org/-Revolution-or-War-) in October 2013 - https://www.facebook.com/fractioncommuniste/
2015: Pale Blue Jadal (Turkey) - http://palebluejadal.tumblr.com/
3] The second largest group since 1982 (Internationalist Communist Tendency), and its splits:
2009: Internationalist Communist Tendency (founded as IBRP in 1983, name-change to ICT 2009) - http://www.leftcom.org/en, https://www.facebook.com/Communist-Workers-Organisation-53…/ (FB page of the British section, the Communist Workers' Organsation)
2009: Istituto Onorato Damen - http://www.istitutoonoratodamen.it/, https://www.facebook.com/Istituto-Onorato-Damen-1190612084…/
Ultra-Left Groups/Journals:
founded 2009, first published Nov. 2011: SIC (International - founded by Théorie Communiste, Endnotes, Blaumachen, riff-raff; TC left the project in August 2013) - http://sicjournal.org/en/
2001: riff-raff (Sweden, started in 2001 as the theoretical organ of the former organisation 'Folkmakt', changed their perspective around issue 3-4, away from councilism, closer to 'Kämpa tillsammans!', a range of interesting texts) - https://www.riff-raff.se/en/textindex.php
founded 2005, first published October 2008: Endnotes (UK/US, in particular, check-out issues 1 and 2) https://endnotes.org.uk/issues
1977: Théorie Communiste (pioneers of communisation; first published in 1977, before that, members of TC were formerly associated with councilist groups, including, among others, the journals 'Cahiers du Communisme de Conseils', based in Marseilles, and 'Intervention Communiste) - https://sites.google.com/site/theoriecommuniste/, English stuff: https://libcom.org/library/theorie-communiste
2006(?): Blaumachen (Greece, defunct, best known for 'era of riots' texts) - http://www.blaumachen.gr/category/in-english/, https://libcom.org/tags/blaumachen
Troploin (Gilles Dauvé, ultra-left veteran - associated with 'Pouvoir Ouvrier' (1965-1967), 'La Viellie Taupe' (1965-73), 'Le Mouvement Communiste' (1972-74), 'La Guerre Sociale' (1977-80), 'La Banquise' (1983-86)) - https://www.troploin.fr/
April 1990: TPTG (Τα παιδιά της γαλαρίας/Ta paidia tis galarias) (Greece) - http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/?page_id=105, https://libcom.org/tags/tptg
1992: Aufheben (UK) - https://libcom.org/aufheben, https://www.facebook.com/Aufheben-360437035201/
1988: Mouvement Communiste (Belgium, France) - https://mouvement-communiste.com/
Hic Salta (Bruno Astarian) - https://www.hicsalta-communisation.com/
first published Jun 1st 2007: Kosmoprolet (Germany, journal of 'Friends of the Classless Society', well-known for their '28 theses') - http://www.kosmoprolet.org/, https://www.facebook.com/Kosmoprolet-1483193545334431/
2016: Chuang (focus on China) - http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/, https://www.facebook.com/ChuangCN/
1984: Wildcat (Germany) - http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/eindex.htm
first published in 2012: 'From 2008-2012' (Greece) - https://2008-2012.net/
2011(?): Assembly for the Circulation of Struggles (SKYA) (Greece) - https://skya.espiv.net/category/international/
first published January 2012: Il Lato Cattivo (Italy, texts in Italian) - https://illatocattivo.blogspot.co.uk/, https://www.facebook.com/illatocattivo/
Přátelé Komunizace (Czech Republic, in Czech) - https://pratelekomunizace.wordpress.com/, https://www.facebook.com/PrateleKomunizace/
Communist League of Tampa (USA) - https://communistleaguetampa.org/, https://www.facebook.com/communistleaguetampa/
Antithesi (Greece, Greek only) - http://antithesi.gr/
More: - Communisation FB page - https://www.facebook.com/communisation/
Communist Research Cluster - https://communistresearchcluster.wordpress.com/, https://www.facebook.com/communistresearchcluster/
Controverses - https://leftcommunism.org/?lang=en
The Free Communist (UK) - http://www.freecommunism.org/
Ritual Magazine (UK/US?) - http://ritualmag.com/, https://www.facebook.com/ritualmagazine/
Internationalist Voice - http://internationalist.ueuo.com/en/english.htm
Kämpa tillsammans! (Sweden) - https://kampatillsammans.wordpress.com/category/english/
Editions Senonevero (French publisher) - http://senonevero.communisation.net/
Douter de tout… (France, French only) - https://ddt21.noblogs.org/
Des Nouvelles Du Front (France, French only) - http://dndf.org/
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Thanks for this - the mods should sidebar it
This list isn't too bad imo:
https://edensauvage.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/reading-list-for-aspiring-ultra-lefts/
Prole.info fit in somewhere in there?
Also, CLT? Not sure if they mesh well with ultra-left currents.
As a member of CLT, no our writings really don't, but myself and a lot of our members are Bordigists, it's just that the most vocal members, and ones who write and publish the most, are pretty much second international flavor Kautskyites.
Its cool to see our name mentioned, but the orgs politics are not in line with left communism.
Communist League of Tampa
Heh
Mods: Add to sidebar.
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This is amazing. Thanks for the post.
Thank you so much for this, I'll have a read.
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I can't stand the 'not communist therefore not important' rhetoric that other leftcoms sometimes display regarding BLM. We can argue about whether or not, or in what capacity, it's related to the class struggle, but it's still worth supporting regardless imo.
'not communist therefore not important
This is my problem too. Most leftcoms I've met both online and in real life always seem very cynical when it comes to most forms of activism. Sure, BLM is not inherently anti-capitalist but I think the overall message is important.
My opinion is the same as that developed by the Sojourner Truth Organization, including Noel Ignatin and Theodore W. Allen:
in modern industrial societies, bourgeois rule depends on the development of a variety of "systems" that channel the outbreaks of the exploited class and allow their absorption by capital; that the specifically American framework for this process is the white-skin privilege system — the conferring of a favored status on the white sector of the proletariat; and that the trade unions cannot be understood apart from this framework.
(http://www.sojournertruth.net/preface.html)
Breaking this system of white-skin privilege necessarily means breaking with the black bourgeoisie, who have historically shown to be unable to fight it, repeatedly selling out to their white class allies for personal profit and political power.
BLM is a cross-class movement. It was initiated by the collective rioting of black proletarians, but then co-opted by (petty) bourgeois careerists. So a conflict, to at least some extent, will develop within it along class lines. Communists should support the proletarian element within it to smash white-supremacy and build workers' unity across colour lines.
Hmm, interesting but harsh answer that I feel not a lot of people will like. This is why I'm so conflicted about BLM; I support the idea behind it but the movement itself is pretty much liberalism. Based on the stuff I read on their official website, they just want reparations -which is not wrong btw- and some type of reforms and obviously have a friendlier relationship with the police but they don't want to get rid of the very system that oppresses them which is capitalism. It kinda also reminds me of liberal feminists that desire to get rid of the patriarchy by simply being able to be in positions of power just like men and well, effectively become bourgeoisie. e.g. Hillary Clinton, Beyonce, etc.
Yeah but those ideas came out of the self-appointed, university-educated petty-bourgeois leadership.
As a communist, rather than thinking "I support the idea behind it but the movement itself is pretty much liberalism", you should think "I support the black proletarian rebellions against capitalism,1 but I oppose the (petty) bourgeois 'leaders', and the false solutions they offer".
1. Because although racist police violence was the spark, the flame it ignited was about unemployment, squalid living conditions, general poverty and lack of meaning or control over people's own lives. Things self-proclaimed communists should be able to easily explain to these black workers in revolt, rather than crossing their arms and smugly thinking "they don't know who Pannekoek is, therefore it doesn't concern me".
I disagree with you saying reparations are a good thing.
The majority of the money or other such ways that the black community would be receiving these reparations is with money,now obviously we know who is going to have to pay that money and it sure as shit isn't going to be the government leaving a huge cash hole in their budget, it will be the white,and potentially Hispanic, working and middle class.Not only does taking from one disadvantaged group and giving it to the other hurt those poorer whites who now seemingly owe a 'white tax' but this imposed 'white tax' is going to do absolute wonders for race relations I'm sure(just look at Germany and how Germans felt about the reparations they had to pay after the Treaty of Versailles).
We also have to look at who is black enough to receive these benifits. Is a first generation African immigrant who immigrates after BLM demands are in place eligible?is a rich black person who grew up with rich parents eligible? what about mixed race people? do they get a half rate for half whiteness?
It just comes off as white guilt too much.There is obviously systemic institutionalised racism in the USA from law enforcement to education to god knows what else but white people,well the majority, didn't ask for this,the majority doesn't want black kids to grow up in poor inner city neighbourhoods.It wasn't the majority who enslaved and brought over to the Americas the black people,we dont hold post WW2 Germany to pay the Jewish community of the millions of peoples live who they ruined directly.
Now this is obviously a critique of it from within a capitalist liberal democracy and obviously the answer is "well,we just establish socialism" but that isn't going to happen anytime soon
A lot of people are criticizing BLM and activism in general for not accomplishing much of anything. Personally I feel like this comes from a very limited perspective. Activism doesn't have to be directly responsible for some grand social change to matter. A huge part of activism - I'd argue the majority in fact - is simply getting a message heard by the public and swaying opinion.
For example, think about the history of the LGBT movement and LGBT rights. Do you honestly think same sex marriage would be legal today if not for activism? Just a few years ago the vast majority of the US was opposed to same sex marriage, or didn't even believe homosexuality was a real thing. And now look at how that has changed. The point of the activism was to educate people and change their minds on the issue of LGBT rights, and that's exactly what it accomplished.
The same can be said with BLM. How many people are just now recognizing the systemic racism in not only the police force, but in society as a whole?
Yes, they are mostly comprised of left-liberals, but it's easier to bring a liberal to socialism than a conservative. And that's where explicitly anti-capitalist activism comes in. Whether you like it or not, communism is not going to happen when the majority of people have no idea what it is, much less whether or not they support it. We are at a point at which the best course of action is activism, not waiting for the proverbial revolution to miraculously appear.
Is frontism necessarily bad? I guess if you include the fact that many supporters of BLM are liberals then yes maybe but oh well. BLM is absolutely something to be supported.
Is frontism necessarily bad?
But left communism does not support activism or frontism since they just ruffle a few feathers and don't cause any real change. What change did the Black Panthers or Occupy Wall Street achieve in America? Frontism is not bad, just a waste of time.
True but at the same time, wouldn't BLM just fade away like most movements like Occupy and #FreePalestine? Not to mention that a lot of their activists are literally bourgeoisie who were born in upper class families.
Anything that triggers racists is fine by me.
That's a pretty dumb reason to support BLM. So you support Anti-Fa which never achieve anything just because they piss off racists? What about Rojava? They are no different to say SlutWalk which attempts to get rid of slut shaming but not really dismantle the patriarchy. Insurrections and frontism always end up achieving nothing and fading away. Not to mention that BLM, like most other movements, become pawns of the bourgeoisie. According to their website, want they want is basically reformism within capitalism. That's just trying to make capitalism less awful and doesn't really change anything.
I would say coming out and fighting fascists when they try to organize is pretty important. Why that and Rojava are the same is something as SlutWalk in your eyes (which was a reaction to the police blaming women for being harassed and raped) I can't say for sure. What I can say is a communism that can't engage with the problems of everyday life under capitalism is a communism which can't do a damn thing.
In the United States, race and class have always been intertwined. So to claim that BLM is the problem for "focusing on race" completely ignores how class society operates here. Trying to pretend to be colorblind and complaining about identity politics doesn't do a damn thing to keep myself, friends, and family from being shot by cops.
triggers
So you're an edgy teenager that just wants to make people mad and that's it? So much for the revolution.
Why are you being so aggressive?
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The person posts on SRS, a slacktivist pro Hillary shithole. I used to post their like a year ago.
It sucks that SRS is full of liberals. There is the odd anticapitalist, but they are never high up in the comment section. Outside class politics, I have nothing aganst the general opinions there, and the subreddit does cheer me up sometimes (one would think it just perpetuates anger, but nah). I guess it serves its purpose, but that purpose is very minor.
This article is pretty great, I think it's been posted in this sub before:
It's not communism so i don't support it as a communists doesn't mean it's wrong or bad
edit: This doesn't mean you can't support it on an individual level
This is why we can't have nice things.
Why because we don't pander? What's next let's support anti-fa. BLM is a good movement and I hope they succeed in there goals but that doesn't mean I or we should automatically support it.
It's not communism so I don't support it as a communists
What you wrote makes it sounds like you don't support anything that isn't explicitly communist.
Nobody is saying you have to automatically support it, but you're going nowhere fast if you refuse to support anyone who doesn't perfectly line up with your ideology.
What does "supporting" BLM even look like to you? Giving them internet high fives or saying nice things about them? Infantile said he wishes them well and hopes they succeed in their goals, do you think we should go marching with them? To do what exactly?
I was speaking to their seeming refusal to support anything that's not out and out communism. It's imo a stupid position to take.
Here /r/fullstalinism or /r/Trotskyism is this way seems your confused
I don't get the point of this comment, and your refusal to use punctuation isn't helping.
I mean... generally, I'd say it's met pretty much met the same fate as other amorphous, highly decentralized movements (Occupy being the most obvious other example).
The issue with such things is that while they may bring fed up people together and induce amusing pearl-clutching among racists and reactionaries, they lack coherent politics or formal structure and thus tend to come to be dominated by rent-seekers who want votes and by cultists with nothing better to do.
Back when BLM was first a thing, I couldn't tell you how many marches I went to that were basically the same depressing cycle of marching in a circle surrounded by cops, interrupted only by flaccid die-ins and speakouts and the like. Add in arguing with the local RCP goons and various other insufferable wannabes, and you can imagine that it got old pretty fast.
It is definitely a common front. However I think they are doing great work and are somewhat bringing back the Black Power movement.
It's identity politics at its worst. At best it's a passing fad that gets some good change from the wrong angle at worst it's a lengthy distraction from real class issues.
Go back to TumblrInAction. "Real class issues" lol
Seriously though. We can argue all day about the problems with BLM, but people should keep dismissive bullshit to themselves. Clearly there are real issues at stake (even proletarian ones!).
I don't really see how finding TIA amusing is relevant here? I was asked what I thought about the BLM I gave a perfectly valid Marxist argument and instead of addressing it you try and dismiss my character.
I understand your feelings, but I have to probe the "identity politics at its worst" part. Really? This is the worst kind of identity politics? I'm not sure about that.
To be fair that may be hyperbole. Their actions aren't identity politics at their worst, their logic and reasoning are.
What has blm acheieved?
Ineffective doesn't mean it's the worst.
I mostly don't like identity politics, but I don't think BLM is an example of identity politics at its worst. Racist ideas are a form of identity politics, so you could say stuff like BLM is a struggle against the kind of sorting based off identity that identity politics entails. Not to say there isn't counterproductive identity politics within the movement, but I don't think it's really a major problem for them.
No it definitely is. They have taken a big problem (police/state violence against civilians) and decided to focus on only a small part of that issue because they identify with that group.
I meant their motivations were identity politics at their worst not their actions. I'm not saying they are Nazi's or radical nationalists. But they are pretty entrenched in identity, and pointlessly turned a class issue into a race issue.
I've never seen one of those fabled, condescending, smug, cracker-ass leftcoms that tankies always go on about, until now.
It's a race issue even when you control for class.
I love how this always plays out
1) gets asked question 2) give answer inline with over a century of marxist thought 3) gets called names (often racial slurs/gendered insults) 4) claims to refute point but doesnt really.
If you control for class and interactions with police African Americans get shot by cops at almost exactly the same rate of non African Americans. Due to their mostly being in the lowest class they get involved in situations with cops far more than the general population, which explains the higher instances of shootings to a T. The Guardian has quite a good tracker of US police shootings its worth a look.
Now is this to say that American cops arent way to trigger happy? No of course not they have some serious violence issues. It also isnt to say there arent racist cops, every group on earth has its racists, but its class not race that motivates the majority of US shootings.
1.I've heard people say leftcoms are opposed to dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While I doubt this is completely true, is their any truth to this?
2.Are left coms opposed to activism and organizing? For example things like BLM occupy, is the leftcom position to get active in such movements or no?
3.Could someone ELI5 your opposition to anti-fascism?
4.I often hear leftcoms saying that a certain communist (Trotskyists, ML's etc.) isn't a communist. Do you mean what they advocate for would never actually achieve communism or they just aren't at all communists? If it's the latter this seems a little unfair, I know a couple trots for example who I'd say genuinely believe in communism and have done activism for years. Are they just not communists?
5.Why are councilists opposed to a party, is it a vanguard party they're a opposed to or just any political organization? Doesn't Marx call for a party?
6.What's the best thing to first read on leftcommunism?
Thanks in advance or any answers.
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I've heard people say leftcoms are opposed to dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While I doubt this is completely true, is their any truth to this?
These things are pretty much just made up and have zero relation to Marx. They're just gibberish fronts used to get around the fact that the regimes that promoted them, or the loyal oppositions to the then current governments of those regimes, presided over capitalist economies. I don't think that any of the people who use these phrases would know what dialectical actually means.
Are left coms opposed to activism and organizing? For example things like BLM occupy, is the leftcom position to get active in such movements or no?
I don't think that anyone would be opposed to participating in such things, but most groups only do activism.
Could someone ELI5 your opposition to anti-fascism?
Anti-fascism usually means a support for one set of the bourgeoisie over another and/or supporting the bourgeois state against "fascists" which historically has never worked. It meant the subversion of the communist movement to the protecting the bourgeois order.
I often hear leftcoms saying that a certain communist (Trotskyists, ML's etc.) isn't a communist. Do you mean what they advocate for would never actually achieve communism or they just aren't at all communists? If it's the latter this seems a little unfair, I know a couple trots for example who I'd say genuinely believe in communism and have done activism for years. Are they just not communists?
People can believe what they want, that doesn't make them correct in their thinking.
Why are councilists opposed to a party, is it a vanguard party they're a opposed to or just any political organization? Doesn't Marx call for a party?
I don't know exactly why, but in regards to Marx; Marx didn't use the word party to refer to the narrowly defined political party we do now.
What's the best thing to first read on leftcommunism?
I can't really think of one thing at the moment. I really should update the reading the list.
Anti-fascism usually means a support for one set of the bourgeoisie over another and/or supporting the bourgeois state against "fascists" which historically has never worked. It meant the subversion of the communist movement to the protecting the bourgeois order.
This is ahistorical; look to Italy's anti-fascist movement and people like the Arditi del Popolo. In the modern day, I'd venture to say that Antifa tends to be mostly anarchists and Marxists, not liberals.
Just because it's composed of "marxists" and "anarchists" doesn't mean it's a communist movement, quite the contrary, actually.
Are you doubting the Arditi del Popolo was a reflection of radical leftism in Italy?
Or talking about modern Antifa?
Both.
How?
They both weren't communists movements.
historical Materialism has zero relation to Marx? Really? Or did I misunderstood you there?
These things are pretty much just made up and have zero relation to Marx... I don't think that any of the people who use these phrases would know what dialectical actually means.
Do leftcoms still use "the dialectical method" or some similar theory? Where would be a good place to learn about left communism and dialectics?
I'm not the greatest fan of Bordiga, but this article he wrote on that issue is quite good.
I've got a secret for you, not even Marx used "the dialectical method".
What exactly do you mean by that?
Certainly Marx used a dialectical method, which was materialist, as he writes in the postface to the second edition of Capital (1873):
My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.
Okay so what I've come to understand left communists aren't authoritarian like Leninist and are more wanting of a democratic workers council's ??? But I thought that's what Luxemburgism which I've come to understand socialism can only be by the workers and must remain democratic
Left communists don't deny that it is the class that makes the revolution, but democracy isn't how you're going to come about doing this and it's only ever going to be a minority of the class that are going to actually be communists at any given time under capitalism.
Then what is your solution?
Be the Bordiga vanguard.
Solution to what?
1.I've heard people say leftcoms are opposed to dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While I doubt this is completely true, is their any truth to this?
I don't know that "leftcoms" generally oppose historical materialism. That's the basis for Marx's study of history. It has its problems and isn't without error -- as any anthropologist or historian will probably tell you -- but the general ideas aren't anything to throw out. They have merit.
Dialetical materialism, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. Engels started to develop it, but then the Leninists ran wild with it and started making claims that really weren't attached to any sort of reality. Dialectical materialism is the idea that all things in nature move in a dialectical manner; which is completely absurd. It's a philosophical attempt to explain natural phenomena, which fails in all sorts of ways.
2.Are left coms opposed to activism and organizing? For example things like BLM occupy, is the leftcom position to get active in such movements or no?
No. The problem is that an activist movement that hasn't developed theory is left spinning its wheels. This is one thing the Black Panthers were very insistent on; all of their members had to take political education to be members and had to assist in development of theory in aid of their organization. The BPP were (mostly) Maoists, but they are pretty inspirational for the way they operated. From my standpoint, at least.
3.Could someone ELI5 your opposition to anti-fascism?
Fascism is degraded capitalism; to oppose fascism correctly is to oppose capitalism. And if you oppose capitalism, then you oppose fascism by necessity. It's just redundant.
4.I often hear leftcoms saying that a certain communist (Trotskyists, ML's etc.) isn't a communist. Do you mean what they advocate for would never actually achieve communism or they just aren't at all communists? If it's the latter this seems a little unfair, I know a couple trots for example who I'd say genuinely believe in communism and have done activism for years. Are they just not communists?
I'm not interested in calling people "not communists" or "not Marxists." What I will say is that Leninists, and the tendencies that flow from Leninism, are utopian garbage and their only conclusions can be what we've seen from the Soviet Union already. Their theory also relies on misinterpretations of Marx in order to justify the complete failure of the USSR.
5.Why are councilists opposed to a party, is it a vanguard party they're a opposed to or just any political organization? Doesn't Marx call for a party?
We're opposed to the idea that parties will inculcate the workers with "consciousness" and lead the proletariat to victory in their opposition to capitalists. Ultimately, we're against idealism. A movement attached to a party will adopt the party's ideology, which causes all sorts of problems and no longer makes revolution the proletariat's historical mission, but the party's historical mission.
6.What's the best thing to first read on leftcommunism?
I mean... that wholly depends on which angle you want to learn from. "Left communism" isn't a tendency unto itself. Really, it's just a description of the groups within the communist movement that have opposed historical "communism."
Oh I know that left communists don't think that capitalists will just give up, but I know that left communists don't like in the USSR the party was separated from the rest of the workers
I don't have too much information and have a lot of questions myself but I've taken a few quizes and they say I'm a left communist but I haven't seen many things highlighting the differences between Democratic socialism, Luxemburgism, and left communism. But I would suggest reading Luxemburg's work sense all of them kindve base them selfs off them???
Luxemburg isn't a left communist. Left communism came about as a historical trend in opposition to the counter revolutionary nature of the Stalinist controlled Russian state and comintern. She lived before then and was a part of the left wing of social-democracy, which is happens to be where many of the original left communists (and also Lenin) came from.
Okay but don't all of them agree on that the workers should control what happens and remain democratic (I'm glad you are responding I'm trying to learn more)
Whom? The communist left or the communist left and Luxeburg? If it's the former then that's a complicated question. Left communism came in broadly speaking two types; the Italian type which is what some would call more Leninist and the Dutch-German which is sometimes called councilist. The latter might say something like this, but the Italians would argue against the idea of making democracy into a principle and some would even argue against it as a concept.
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What is not a sign of global capitalism's "deepening crisis" to determinists? Seems every event qualifies.
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Best holiday gift I've received this season.
e: I am irrationally delighted to see profanity in an journal entry. It makes it seem more human.
e2: Wanna do a History of Separation reading group, anyone?
You do the logistics for the reading group and I'm down to participate
Idk how much I could contribute, but I'd be down to participate in the reading group
Communisation sux, muh bordiga etc.
I will read this anyway
Better than muh councils or muh mass party tho
Care to expand?
I'm just pretending to be a generic orthodox left communist who poo-poos anything related to communisation. Nothing substantive.
I must have missed the first three editions of whatever this is, would anyone mind giving me a slightly less opaque version of that about page? I expect I'll read it later anyway, but whether that should to be now or in a few months is hard to say.
Endnotes is one of the main proponents of communization theory.
For repeated sectarianism. Right before a post about stalinism of all things!
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Tankies gonna tank I guess.
Could be because I also talk shit about trots.
I'm honestly surprised I've not be banned from /r/socialism for the stuff I've said about SAlt. A tankie with an Althusser flair tried to ban me for opposing national liberation though. Oddly the rest of the mods seemed to disagree with it so it was rescinded.
Because they think leftcom opposition to national liberation is that proletarians in colonies should do nothing and just wait for material conditions to magic their oppression away. Which is far from the truth.
I'm an anarchist and not too familiar with left communism. (Probably more so than the Tankies on the learning subs because I've at least read a couple leftcom books.) But why are leftcoms against national liberation? I've heard some explain that it weakens the international workers movement because it divides the proletariat. Is this correct and why does this weaken the workers' movement?
(I would ask this on a 101 sub, but y'know, tankies.)
Communists are for workers liberation (which means universal human emancipation), we don't want to emancipate the nation because we want to be emancipated from the nation.
Makes sense. Thanks!
we don't want to emancipate the nation because we want to be emancipated from the nation
Perfect way to explain the stance against national liberation.
There's a whole shibboleth about left unity.
Why not just give you like a left communist flair? I mean, it shouldn't be illegal to criticize an ideology on a learning sub.
Calling out counter-revolutionary ideologies Sectarianism is the worst crime of all.
What's even the point of /r/socialism_101 if it's the same as /r/communism101?
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Let's create a really sectarian sub, we can call it /r/marxism101, and ban everyone who answers with anything other than left communist stances, but not be open about it and confuse everyone! /s
I would say this isn't a bad idea, but this sub itself isn't particularly active enough that 101 questions need to be sent to a different sub.
It could be good fun to do it and then plaster it over /r/socialism, /r/communism and the other leftist subs though, if only for the reactions of tankies rather than any real opportunity to educate people.
Let's create a really sectarian sub
So sectarian it's private?
It's probably owned by tank lords and made private as to direct people to communism 101
/r/communism101 is strictly Marxist-Leninist
their loss, now no one will correct people when they say "socialism comes before communism, marx said so". but then again that is probally what they want and believe as well.
I like how tankies call out anyone for sectarianism if they even question Marxism-Leninism, while being as secterian and hostile towards non-MLs as possible.
As an anarchist, I'm surprised I haven't been banned from communism101 and socialism_101 yet.
By the way, is there a 101 sub for left communism? I'd like to know more, so I can at least know vaguely what all parties believe when having a conversation.
I've been banned from communism101, shitty sub.
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Didn't you say they banned you for "anarchist sympathies" or something like that because you simply said that it happened?
That's about right. It was a while ago so I don't remember the exact details but I'm pretty sure that's how it went down.
Basically, there was an anarchist asking about the large bureaucracy of the USSR (might've been something else but generally along those lines) and was saying that was essentially the worst part about it as a state. I replied by saying that there were worse things than that (this is where I mentioned Katyn), and that there are better principles to critique the USSR over, namely through a Marxist perspective.
That's what got me banned. I was literally tip-toeing around trying as hard as I could not to offend the mods and I still get banned.
I was literally tip-toeing around trying as hard as I could not to offend the mods and I still get banned.
I tried the same thing when I got banned. I even referenced and linked to an MLM source in my comment.
I'm not even a leftcom and I find this pretty annoying
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I know I've never posted or commented here, but as a long time lurker I'd love if this sub joined the growing number of subs fighting against racism.
OK so talked to other folks. Add us on to the petition
Hey I'm a mod here. Haven't been on reddit for a few days so this is the first I'm seeing of this. I'm on board and will talk to the other mods about it and will get back to you
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Oh shit I actually grew up in that area and worked at a store as a cashier and in the produce department there for about a year, it's incredibly difficult to find work in NL and many of the people there I worked with had been there for 10+ years without pay raise (In a place with an already high cost of living due to virtually everything having to be shipped into the province through a narrow port). I hadn't even heard of this strike until a friend who still lives there told me about it as coverage of it has been fairly limited in the news.A strike like this has been brewing for a while but was set off by the store deciding to not give the 2$ pay raise and overtime pay they promised across the country at the start of quarantine.The supposed ""Unions"" that exist to help the people working for Dominion or any of the loblaws stores are total shit (When I was being trained they even showed us a video that claimed that striking hurts people by not allowing the stores to open properly) and have been attempting to 'Negotiate' with the striking workers by telling them to essentially play Nice and let the stores open again. In response many of the Dominions (at least in St.John's) now have workers setting up in tents to completely block access to the stores while receiving supplies from supporters until they receive their Covid backpay and a permanent higher wage.The Government is itching to send the cops in to totally crush the strike but the people currently in charge are trying to get out right now anyways and don't want another scandal on their plate but luckily the workers have largely been resistant to any of the solutions proposed by the government and have been sticking it out even in the NL weather.
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Title basically sums up the question. Reading through Lenin's "To The Rural Poor", he has a breakdown of the different types of peasants between rural poor (proletarians and semi-proletarians), middle peasants, and rich peasants, and reports on the numbers and strength of each class. Is there any collection of reports or surveys that gives a similar account for present-day America on a whole without me having to go through raw census data?
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Lenin was writing at when capital hadn't completely torn up the old social relations, making the peasantry a still somewhat revolutionary class, especially in Russia at the time where the large scale peasant revolts helped toppled the state. It would be impossible to make such a comparison with the US where, if there were any, such pre-bourgeois social relations existed, they wouldn't form any decisive function in the future.
This is of course ignoring the fundamental problems with the whole splitting of the peasantry into three groups, and its often haphazard and vague implementation.
I'm more trying to get at a breakdown of the American proletariat and bourgeoisie into their most distinct subdivisions and the circumstances they find themselves in. I feel it would be useful to know the general numbers of these groups and their issues to help in recognizing where the struggle currently is and what is holding America back from forming a communist party.
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Engels really could pack a lot into a text.
But what a lack of judgment it requires to declare the Commune sacred, to proclaim it infallible, to claim that every burnt house, every executed hostage, received their just dues to the dot over the i! Is not that equivalent to saying that during that week in May the people shot just as many opponents as was necessary, and no more, and burnt just those buildings which had to be burnt, and no more? Does not that repeat the saying about the first French Revolution: Every beheaded victim received justice, first those beheaded by order of Robespierre and then Robespierre himself! To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite goodnatured.
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I think the March address is more well known. This one should also be read in entirety:
The instructions which this association sent to its agents — and which the Central Committee has in its possession — give just as little cause for confidence. The lack of a definite party standpoint and the attempt to bring all available opposition elements together in a sham association is only badly disguised by a mass of detailed questions concerning the industrial, agricultural, political and military situations in each locality. Numerically, too, the association was extremely weak; according to the complete list of members which we possess, the whole society in Switzerland consisted, at the height of its strength, of barely thirty members. It is significant that workers are hardly represented at all among the membership. From its very beginning, it was an army of officers and N.C.O.’s without any soldiers.
Another example:
The contacts which this coterie claims to have made with French and other non-German revolutionaries do not exist. Their whole activity is limited to a few petty intrigues among the German refugees here in London, which do not affect the League directly and which are harmless and easy to keep under surveillance. All these attempts have either the same purpose as the League, namely the revolutionary organization of the workers’ party, in which case they are undermining the centralization and strength of the party by fragmenting it and are therefore of a decidedly harmful, separatist character, or else they can only serve to misuse the workers’ party for purposes which are foreign or straightforwardly hostile to it. Under certain circumstances the workers’ party can profitably use other parties and groups for its own purposes, but it must not subordinate itself to any other party. Those people who were in government during the last movement, and used their position only to betray the movement and to crush the workers’ party were it tried to operate independently, must be kept at a distance at all costs.
So in Poland there has been a giant teachers' strike which paralyzed the entire education system and scared all bourgeois parties. And among like 10 internet marxists-communists that were left in Poland since 1989 a discussion happened. One question was about a relation between wage labourers and a working class. Are they the same? Typical textbook answer was that the working class - synonymous with proletariat - consist of all wage labourers without means of production who produce value for a capitalist. Engels:
"The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century." (The Principles of Communism)
Marx:
"Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus-value. The labourer produces, not for himself, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that he should simply produce. He must produce surplus-value. That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, and thus works for the self-expansion of capital." (Capital vol. 1)
OK. But other interlocutor pointed to the paragraph before:
"In considering the labour-process, we began (...) by treating it in the abstract, apart from its historical forms, as a process between man and Nature (...) So far as the labour-process is purely individual, one and the same labourer unites in himself all the functions, that later on become separated. When an individual appropriates natural objects for his livelihood, no one controls him but himself. Afterwards he is controlled by others (...) The product ceases to be the direct product of the individual, and becomes a social product, produced in common by a collective labourer, i.e., by a combination of workmen, each of whom takes only a part, greater or less, in the manipulation of the subject of their labour. As the co-operative character of the labour-process becomes more and more marked, so, as a necessary consequence, does our notion of productive labour, and of its agent the productive labourer, become extended. In order to labour productively, it is no longer necessary for you to do manual work yourself; enough, if you are an organ of the collective labourer, and perform one of its subordinate functions. The first definition given above of productive labour, a definition deduced from the very nature of the production of material objects, still remains correct for the collective labourer, considered as a whole. But it no longer holds good for each member taken individually."
Their argument in short (if I understand it correctly) is that the productive labour refers to labour that (re)produces material things (and ensures their realization, like transportation, packaging etc.); process between labourer and nature. And the unproductive labour refers to ideal or virtual economy, or services. In the unproductive sector we deal with the "production" of titles of ownerships to surplus value produced in real, material productive sector. Only the former creates actual wealth, while the latter is sustained by appropriated surplus value from productive labour. Linen, coat, wheat, wine, machines - you can't replace them with books, although for a capitalist there is no difference between surplus value from linen and from books. Thus Marx can say that teachers employed in factories of knowledge are productive labourers - from the overarching perspective of capital it is true:
"the production of surplus-value has at all times been made, by classical political economists, the distinguishing characteristic of the productive labourer. Hence their definition of a productive labourer changes with their comprehension of the nature of surplus-value. Thus the Physiocrats insist that only agricultural labour is productive, since that alone, they say, yields a surplus-value. And they say so because, with them, surplus-value has no existence except in the form of rent."
If that's the case, then the revolutionary class - working class - at least in Western world, is not a 99% majority, all wage labourers, but a lot less - only the productive, industrial (that is, producers of strictly material basis of society as opposed to creators of ideal commodities like newspaper articles or Facebook moderators) workers. And with the delocalization of industry from the capitalist center to peripheries Europe and USA seems to be dead end for communist revolution. On the other hand working class being a numerical minority does not necessarily results with powerlessness...
More generally my question is: is there any specific left communist position as to what a working class is? I recall an article where they said that proletariat is an amorphous mass until they'll be injected with a revolutionary program by the party. But should this program be aimed at Tiktok moderators or coal miners? Ballerinas or shipworkers? Or both?
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One question was about a relation between wage labourers and a working class. Are they the same?
No. The proletariat is not identical with people working for a wage. The proletariat is "the class which no longer counts as a class in society, is not recognised as a class" (The German Ideology); or since you already quote Engels' Principles of Communism: "the class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support." (Disregard that Engels here says "labour" instead of "labour power") In other words, it's simply a question of the relation to property and capital.
Between it and the bourgeoisie, one can find the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie, whose boundaries I thought /u/pzaaa described pretty well in this thread.
Their argument in short (if I understand it correctly) is that the productive labour refers to labour that (re)produces material things (and ensures their realization, like transportation, packaging etc.); process between labourer and nature. And the unproductive labour refers to ideal or virtual economy, or services. In the unproductive sector we deal with the "production" of titles of ownerships to surplus value produced in real, material productive sector. Only the former creates actual wealth, while the latter is sustained by appropriated surplus value from productive labour. Linen, coat, wheat, wine, machines - you can't replace them with books, although for a capitalist there is no difference between surplus value from linen and from books.
This is not what productive labour means. It's not a matter of whether or not one produces physical objects, it's a matter of the relation to capital:
It emerges from what has been said so far that to be productive labour is a quality of labour which in and for itself has absolutely nothing to do with the particular content of the labour, its particular usefulness or the specific use value in which it is expressed. Labour with the same content can therefore be both productive and unproductive.
Milton, for example, who did Paradise Lost, was an unproductive worker. In contrast to this, the writer who delivers hackwork for his publisher is a productive worker. Milton produced Paradise Lost in the way that a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of his own nature. Later on he sold the product for £5 and to that extent became a dealer in a commodity. But the Leipzig literary proletarian who produces books, e.g. compendia on political economy, at the instructions of his publisher is roughly speaking a productive worker, in so far as his production is subsumed under capital and only takes place for the purpose of the latter’s valorisation. A singer who sings like a bird is an unproductive worker. If she sells her singing for money, she is to that extent a wage labourer or a commodity dealer. But the same singer, when engaged by an entrepreneur who has her sing in order to make money, is a productive worker, for she directly produces capital. A schoolmaster who educates others is not a productive worker. But a schoolmaster who is engaged as a wage labourer in an institution along with others, in order through his labour to valorise the money of the entrepreneur of the knowledge-mongering institution, is a productive worker. Yet most of these kinds of work, from the formal point of view, are hardly subsumed formally under capital. They belong rather among the transitional forms.
[...]
The same kind of labour (e.g. gardening, tailoring, etc.) can be performed by the same working man in the service of an industrial capitalist, or of the immediate consumer. In both cases the worker is a wage labourer or a day labourer, but in the first case he is a productive worker, in the second an unproductive one, because in the first case he produces capital, in the second case he does not; because in the first case his labour forms a moment in capital’s process of self-valorisation, in the second case it does not.
[...]
The obsession with defining productive and unproductive labour in terms of its material content derives from 3 sources:
1) the fetishistic notion, peculiar to the capitalist mode of production and arising from its essence, that the formal economic determinations, such as that of being a commodity, or being productive labour, etc., are qualities belonging to the material repositories of these formal determinations or categories in and for themselves;
2) the idea that, considering the labour process as such, only such labour is productive as results in a product (a material product, since here it is only a question of material wealth);
I think if you want a proper grasp on this issue, it's best to read the entire section from the Results of the Immediate Production Process on it. You might also want to check out these chapters in the Theories of Surplus Value as well as in the Grundrisse - they are a lot more thorough than what you referenced from Capital Volume I.
If that's the case, then the revolutionary class - working class - at least in Western world, is not a 99% majority, all wage labourers, but a lot less - only the productive, industrial (that is, producers of strictly material basis of society as opposed to creators of ideal commodities like newspaper articles or Facebook moderators) workers.
You're throwing things together here because of your confusion regarding productive labour. Productive labour is not immediately relevant to understanding who the proletariat is.
No, not all wage labourers are proletarians. There are people working wage labour which are middle class. At the same time, while the proletariat is not merely industrial workers, the example of freelance journalism you list here is precisely one for the petty bourgeoisie, as /u/pzaaa elucidated in the thread I linked above. As you might have seen by now, there are no hard and fast rules, and in practice revolutions are not as neatly demarcated as you might imagine - they always encompass multiple classes, and those can join the proletarian cause as well - which on the other hand doesn't mean that the communist movement ought to cater to them, but that their defection is a necessary development once the class struggle assumes clearer outlines. I'd also add that revolutions are carried out by the advanced sections of the classes, that is, the party. It's silly to imagine that the whole class comes into play all at once.
And with the delocalization of industry from the capitalist center to peripheries Europe and USA seems to be dead end for communist revolution.
You ought to first of all remember that the task of the proletariat is an international one, so conceiving of it in isolation is a non-starter. Albeit it is of course clear what you probably intend to say. My reply would be that the destruction of the middle class we are witnessing right now in many Western countries is what will kickstart the motor of the communist movement there again, and that its most urgent task is then to link up internationally, so that the proletariat in countries like China can connect with workers in the West, thereby increasing the power of both.
More generally my question is: is there any specific left communist position as to what a working class is?
You don't simply define the working class according to whims, it is given by the structure of society. Hence there is no such thing as a "left communist position" on it, properly speaking.
I recall an article where they said that proletariat is an amorphous mass until they'll be injected with a revolutionary program by the party.
This refers to the shift in the development of the proletariat from when it starts to constitute itself as a political party - see for example here, from the Poverty of Philosophy:
Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class, so the Socialists and Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class. So long as the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class, and consequently so long as the struggle itself of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie has not yet assumed a political character, and the productive forces are not yet sufficiently developed in the bosom of the bourgeoisie itself to enable us to catch a glimpse of the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a new society, these theoreticians are merely utopians who, to meet the wants of the oppressed classes, improvise systems and go in search of a regenerating science. But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece. So long as they look for science and merely make systems, so long as they are at the beginning of the struggle, they see in poverty nothing but poverty, without seeing in it the revolutionary, subversive side, which will overthrow the old society. From this moment, science, which is a product of the historical movement, has associated itself consciously with it, has ceased to be doctrinaire and has become revolutionary.
Thank you for your answers. I will meditate on them and maybe address them later.
You're welcome.
Because of the time of the year we can't start unpacking this right now.
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A two-part defence of “Auschwitz or the Great Alibi” against critics, published over the course of three issues of “Le Prolétaire”.
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This was rather horrid and could have easily appeared in Jacobin. I do find it amusing they complain about comparing 1930s to 2018 then proceed to do so. Honestly Trump has no resemblance to Hitler and in many ways just continues the policies of previous administrations just like his predecessors while trolling on Twitter. Also this idea of history repeating itself needs to go away as that isn't what Marx was saying. This constant need to dig up the past to explain the present is just horrifyingly dullardly.
I am a member of the italian sister organization to the cwo ( battaglia comunista) and in fact i translated the second part of the article in italian . I am not exactly the sharpest fellow going by my nonverbal iq despite having a good academic record due to being good at verbal rote memorization. What is exactly wrong with the article? Is it because it depicts Trump as having broken with policies of previous administrations when it is not actually the case? Could you explain to me in simple terms where the article misses its mark? I did not see any explicit comparison between Hitler and Trump, if anything the comparison was made between current Russia and Nazi Germany as they both are\were revisionist states.
Why bring up IQ this is just random and unnecessary. The presentation of the idea of history repeating itself means someone read the first bit of the 18th Brumaire and just stopped after getting their soundbite. It does depict Trump breaking with previous policy but that doesn't pan out and in fact American Liberals have literally reversed positions they supported under Obama such as detention and deportation just because Trump has made such programs more public. Trump represents a segment of the bourgeoisie that are more token protectionist with their economics in order to appeal to their base of out of work individuals especially in the Rust Belt where jobs have not had an upswing during the so called economic recovery.
My biggest complaint is you cannot complain about making such comparisons as the 1930s Weimar Republic to the United States and proceed to do so it makes no sense and it undermines everything you are saying. Comparing Russia to Nazi Germany is just as nonsensical and again ignores what has been going on in the country with an increasing apathy of most Russians towards politics while the bourgeoisie and political parties have made right ward shifts ever since the Yeltsin administration.
In general the tone of the article among its logical inconsistencies is reminiscent of the kind of strange fear mongering I have seen coming out of Jacobin and liberal publications in which invoking the Third Reich is a simple way of obfuscating the reason behind right wing trends while pretending that instead of the problem being systemic it is the cause of so called fascists and nazis returning from the grave. While there has definitely been an emboldening of the far right with the Trump administration and even Putin they are definitely in no way shape or form reminiscent of the Nazis and it is pretty insulting to Holocaust survivors to trot it out to make some kind of political point.
The article while it does come across as fear mongering alludes at the lack of economic options and tendency of the rate of profit to fall being the root cause of populism and protectionism. I think the fear-mongering is meant to appeal to sympathizers and new militants to drive home the direness of the situation and to push them to engage in left-communist politics. At least with me these kinds of articles work well as due to the fact i do not excel in critical thinking skills i am not likely to be the first to pick up on the inconsistencies. The comparison between current Russia and Nazi Germany was limited to the realm of foreign policy as in they both are\were states unsatisfied with their current lot which want to reverse previous losses and it did not argue that Russian's internal politics resemble Nazi germany's in any way. Now that you elaborate on it I agree with the points of the article being clumsily made as the comparison between the Trump administration leaving the TPP and the Paris climate accords and Hitler taking Germany out of the League of Nations seems misplaced and it is also true that the Obama administration did not shy away from employing its armed forces via drones and providing aerial cover for proxy troops (to not talk about the Obama administration's hardline stance on deportations) . It is also true that the Trump administration demeaning the United Nations is just a typical reaction from a government finding out that the United Nations do not fully countenance its politics and going from this simple observation to the argument the Usa are planning on stopping to avail themselves of the services of the United Nations, the World Bank and the Imf and to go down a completely isolationist route amounts to a forced parallel. The Usa are not trying to denounce the istitutions they themselves have built. It seems like the article meant to do a rundown of the superficial resemblances between the 30s and today and then to explain the differences but then forgot this second step. As for the 18th Brumaire it has been a while since i read it so i can not comment on it.
Honestly the author of this text hasn't read the 18th Brumaire either. They literally either copied the phrase from somewhere else or never read the rest of the first page. The author literally did exactly what Marx was condemning in the Brumaire. It is honestly embarrassing. If you can't be arsed to read the first page of the text then don't quote it.
I honestly wish that when doing self-education sessions we (Battaglia Comunista) would focus more on the Capital and other key texts from Marx. We (Battaglia Comunista) are doing self-education sessions dealing with how to intervene politically but we (Battaglia Comunista) have to strike a balance between self-education sessions on politics and self-education sessions on the marxian criticism of political economy as otherwise we (i am always talking about Battaglia Comunista) would be bereft of the fundamentals. I have an asd diagnosis so i hope to change my current narrow interest in reading comments from the userbase of forums devoted to japanese battle shonen into a narrow interest more in tune with my political responsibilities.
Just find time to read and do it in small chunks if you need to. Honestly I have reread a lot of Marx's texts many times because sometimes I don't always grasp things as well as I like but I find I get more each time I retry later and it is helpful. It just so happens that I am actually rereading the 18th Brumaire and why this quote stuck out like a sore thumb to me. Honestly between work, family, union stuff, and all my bus rides I find it hard to focus sometimes. Don't let a disability define you though I mean I have dyscalculia so numbers and figures are a damn nightmare for me sometimes. Keep your chin up, enjoy life, and keep reading.
Which liberals reversed positions?
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This is the second in a five part exposition of the struggles in Italy in the period of 1921-1925, examining the role of fascism and social-democracy within the overall context of bourgeois counter-revolution.
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Sorry, but...who writes these things and who are they for? I can't imagine the ICP paper has a particularly broad circulation, so why the agitprop diction that feels eighty years out of date at least?
Sorry, but...who writes these things and who are they for?
The ICP section in Italy, that while small is active immensely in labor organizations, particularly the SI Cobas, and is working on rebuilding the international class-party throughout the world. These texts serve as reading material that members should read and discuss, as well as clarifying party positions on developments, serving as propaganda, and provides articles for attracting more members.
I can't imagine the ICP paper has a particularly broad circulation, so why the agitprop diction that feels eighty years out of date at least?
Along with what I said above, the party's role is to guide, defend, and organize the proletariat to carry out its class interests. Regardless of the broadness of circulation or lack thereof, one of the roles of the Communist within a party is to write and distribute propaganda. Even Marx and Engels considered themselves part of a party when it was just them and a few other comrades.
In no way is this out of date, the articles on the site routinely write about class struggles and anything that impacts the Proletariat. There were also "professional revolutionaries" in Russia, with Communists scattered across the large country organizing and cooperating with each other towards the formation of the party, and did propaganda work. Marx wrote regularly in the New York Tribune on the situation of the proletariat, particularly in the aftermath of the Opium Wars and the (temporary) destabilization of the Qing Dynasty. He showed the reason that the European powers held up the less-than-cooperative Qing court, as the Taiping rebellion could have kick started events back in Europe, which recently had the 1848-9 Revolutions, and the European powers needed markets to stabilize and be accessible. As always the interests are economic, the Christian Europeans did not intervene on behalf of the Christian Chinese, they intervened on behalf of the Confucianists. Same thing was echoed in the falling Ottoman Empire, protection of Christians was a guise for economic privileges, and was ignored when it became too expensive, which was written about by Bordiga during the 1912-13 Balkan Wars.
The task remains the same, the ICP posts articles in relation to the Proletariat and their interests such as: the Venezuelan crisis and the relation to the Chavismo ideology; Trump's election and the interests of pro-Trump and anti-Trump capital; the Grenfell fire and other abuses that the Proletariat suffer; the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; Brexit and the actions the Proletariat need to take; etc, etc, etc.
I don't dispute the value of a communist newsletter, and I also don't have problems with the idea of propaganda.
It's the use of multiple exclamation points, the capitalization of odd words, and the stilted diction that makes this feel outdated - the non-communist reader is going to look at this and go, "yup, those wacky communists, still at it," while the communist reader doesn't really get anything out of this beyond that which they might get from a more mainstream news source. These articles, as they are written, are really only helpful for someone who is trying to find out what the ICP position on these events are and, IMO, that might be better served with a declaration of principles or something.
I realize that whoever wrote this probably doesn't speak English as a first language, given that ICP is an Italian group, but some of the phrases chosen are just laughable - "ugly duck Trump"? Beyond calling to mind the Ugly Duckling, which turns out to be beautiful, spoiler alert, choices like this just make it hard to take seriously in places.
I like what they're trying to do, I really do, but, as propaganda, this really lacks something in the execution.
English isn't their first language, so it would probably work better in Italian. Who could forget Bordiga's zinger:
If now, after one has written one’s fingers to the bone, there is still someone who doesn’t understand that one can be exploited even more despite higher wages and better food, then he should go home! He has not understood the consequences of the increased productivity of labour power, consisting of sweat and blood of hard workers and ending up in the pockets of the bourgeois.
-Dialogue With Stalin
They don't really have the resources to make sure that their diction sounds amazing in English. The positions, actions, and analysis are correct, and that is what is core to the party.
It's the use of multiple exclamation points, the capitalization of odd words, and the stilted diction that makes this feel outdated - the non-communist reader is going to look at this and go, "yup, those wacky communists, still at it," while the communist reader doesn't really get anything out of this beyond that which they might get from a more mainstream news source. These articles, as they are written, are really only helpful for someone who is trying to find out what the ICP position on these events are and, IMO, that might be better served with a declaration of principles or something.
I prefer this over the incoherent trash that seems to be spewed unrelentingly, without care and seemingly at times without end, across hundreds of blogs.
You're not wrong. Under the stylistic criticisms, which perhaps I was too harsh on, since it really does sound a lot better in Italian (I speak a very small amount), I think all three of these articles are really quite interesting, and more importantly, basically right.
So because something is slightly better than garbage, it's good in your eyes?
ah, yes, thank you for the texts.
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Released in 2000 as "Een gesprek in Zuid-Wales" in "OnVoltooidVerleden", Cajo Brendel in this text recalls the situation of Welsh miners after the nationalisation of their industry by the Attlee administration in 1947.
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https://libcom.org/library/communist-left-germany-1918-1921
Has a pdf and epub for pc/ereader reading.
In this context I recommend the group of the magazine Gegenstandpunkt.
https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/
Many articles and books about the bourgeois state, the USSR, the left are a fundamental critique. It's the only group who was able to make a good critique in the bourgeois value of freedom.
They have lectures in all of Germany (until now) and some transcripts are on
http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com
German recordings of the lectures are on
It's referenced multiple times in this essay, and I'd like to read it in its entirety. Can't find a free PDF online so far. Would appreciate some help. Thank you!
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Oh no I don't wanna put you through that lol. Nah, I haven't found any. I could buy it, but I ain't got the money right now.
Just in case you still need this, I got a PDF copy, about 20MB.
I'd love one!
Not very familiar with this reddit system yet; how to send it to you? I can divide it in a few parts to make it easy to send in smaller sizes and then you can rejoin them back to one pdf file using Adobe Acrobat or a similar app.
I can DM you my email
Sure, we can try that.
Would it be possible for you to also send me the PDF? I would be most grateful.
I was reading the historical series by Rabinowitch on the Russian revolution, and it made me want to read more on noneuropean modes of social development of productive forces. Any good historical book will do, for any place really. Could even be the precolonial America's.
On top of that, any specifically on the Chinese revolution? Or on their inner left mouvements.
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For an overview of the history of capitalism in China I highly recommend reading the first issue of Chuang. They're a group of ultra leftists interested in the increasingly important role China plays in the the world economy. I hope you find these links helpful.
http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/sorghum-and-steel/
Historical
Adding onto the nice links above, here is ULTRA collective's critique of Bloom and Contend and Goldner's Notes: https://web.archive.org/web/20160328051825/http://www.ultra-com.org/project/confusing-history-with-spectacle/
Husunzi has also written rather extensively on this around the internet commiesphere. Here is an article written by Husunzi republished on Chuang's site titled A Commune in Sichuan? Reflections on Endicott’s “Red Earth” which is a review of Endicott's book: http://chuangcn.org/2015/07/a-commune-in-sichuan-reflections-on-endicotts-red-earth/ . With regard to a characterisation and contextualised assessment of China under Mao, see also Husunzi's Some Detailed Measurements on the Redness of the Earth republished on Red Spark (now defunct): https://web.archive.org/web/20130122171948/http://www.redsprk.org/post/33903618420/some-detailed-measurements-on-the-redness-of-the-earth . Husunzi also published an interesting thread Was China "state capitalist" during the Mao era? on libcom about this: https://libcom.org/forums/theory/was-china-state-capitalist-during-mao-era-12102009
A recommended book with regard to historiography of heterodox movements in the Cultural Revolution is Yiching Wu's Cultural Revolution at the Margins, which though not written from a communist perspective, is a very strong work on the Cultural Revolution (at least, as far as I have heard - I haven't had the opportunity to read it yet). Here is Christopher Connery's review of it in Viewpoint Magazine, titled The Margins and the Center: For a New History of the Cultural Revolution: https://www.viewpointmag.com/2014/09/28/the-margins-and-the-center-for-a-new-history-of-the-cultural-revolution/
Recently I've been trying to have a look at (proto-)ultraleft movements in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. There's been a little bit of work done on the better-known Shengwulian, but I would be interested to have a read about another contemporary influential group in Wuhan called the Beijueyang 北决扬 (also known as Juepai 决派, or the "Plough Society" 北斗星学社). Part 4 of Chuang's Sorghum and Steel titled Ruination deals rather extensively with heterodox workers' and students' movements in the Cultural Revolution (linked in /u/Exotic_Local 's post). Additionally, Shaoguang Wang's "New Trends of Thought" in the Cultural Revolution is pretty much a must-read overview of these "New Trends of Thought" 新时潮 ultraleftist movement within the Cultural Revolution: http://libcom.org/library/%E2%80%9Cnew-trends-thought%E2%80%9D-cultural-revolution . The famous text by Shengwulian is Whither China, which can be found here in its original Chinese form, and here in its English translation. Here is Yiching Wu again with an ethnographic analysis of Shengwulian, while not a communist source, again, providing good historical background to understanding them: https://www.academia.edu/7624411/The_Great_Retreat_and_Its_Discontents_Reexamining_the_Shengwulian_Episode_in_the_Cultural_Revolution . For Chinese-readers, you may also be interested in Yongyi Song's 宋永毅 's "Heterodoxy in the Great Cultural Revolution" 文化大革命中的异端思潮 wenhuadageming zhongde yiduansichao: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/articles/c036-199606002.pdf [Warning: pdf]
Good discourse on 1989 has been rather lacking (or at least, maybe I'm not looking in the right places). However, Nao recommended Burt Green's The meaning of Tiananmen which can be found here: http://libcom.org/library/meaning-tiananmen (I haven't read it yet). Chuang had a couple of shorter articles on 1989. Here, Chuang republishes Sikander's Twenty-Five Years since the Tiananmen Protests: Legacies of the Student-Worker Divide: http://chuangcn.org/2014/06/twenty-five-years-since-the-tiananmen-protests-legacies-of-the-student-worker-divide/ . Here, Chuang commemorates Chengdu's 1989 protests in Echoes of Chengdu’s Tian’anmen: http://chuangcn.org/2016/06/echoes-of-chengdus-tiananmen/
Today
With regard to current left (and ultraleft) movements within China, Chuang's blog is chock-filled with all the goods: http://chuangcn.org/blog/ . Recent blog articles are around the repression of feminists in China, which is a very serious contemporary issue. Two articles in the first issue of their journal also touch on modern struggles. No Way Forward No Way Back is an excellent piece regarding China in the era of riots, linking Chuang with a lot of other communisation-influenced ultraleft groups: http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/no-way-forward-no-way-back/ . Gleaning the Welfare Fields is both a historical and contemporary analysis of rural struggles in China since 1959: http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/gleaning-the-welfare-fields/ .
I haven't looked around for much either about the 2011 Wukan Uprising, but again, Chuang has an interview regarding the uprising here: http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/revisiting-the-wukan-uprising-of-2011/ .
Looking across to Hong Kong and the umbrella movement, here is the ULTRA collective writing about it in Black versus Yellow: http://www.ultra-com.org/project/black-versus-yellow/ . Nao also translated and republished Holok Chen's Hotpot, Gods, and "Leftist Pricks": Political Tensions in the Mong Kok Occupation here: https://libcom.org/blog/mk-hotpot-tensions
Although sometimes it veers to left liberalism or soft socdem, New Bloom Magazine based in Taiwan has good critiques of the contemporary "Chinese New Left" in Brian Hioe's bipartite series, with part one What is the Chinese New Left?: Between Leftism and Nationalism? here: http://newbloommag.net/2016/03/11/chinese-new-left-eng/ and The Chinese New Left: Anti-capitalist within China, Imperialist outside of China? here: http://newbloommag.net/2016/03/12/chinese-new-left-part-two-eng/ . Brian Hioe also rips into the hypocrisy of the pro-unification left in the Sinophone world in The Pro-Independence Left versus the Pro-Unification Left in the Sinophone World: http://newbloommag.net/2015/05/19/pro-independence-left-vs-pro-unification/ . A bit pro-national liberation, but at least it exposes the hypocrisies of the "pro-unification" """left""" in the Sinophone world.
Also, with regard to the discourse used by the contemporary Chinese left, Chuang had this interesting comment in the preface to their translation of “Study the crotch-kick & use it for self-defense against sexual harassment!”:
The article translated below is another example of this more critical and radical approach to feminism in China today. Not only does it call for direct action as a means toward broader social goals and provide specific suggestions for women’s self-defense (recommending Wing Chun as particularly appropriate for this purpose, for example). It also provides a window into the worldview of many young leftists, citing the young Mao Zedong alongside the present-day YPJ in Rojava. The article is also a good example of the ways that the contemporary Chinese left operates under the hegemony of a latent (albeit broadly defined) Maoism. Within this political climate, terms and anecdotes from the revolutionary era still act as a sort of lingua franca among activists across the political spectrum. In this instance, even the style of the original emulates many features of older socialist-era writings in ways that are difficult to translate. In future writings we hope to address the changing perspectives and concerns of left and right politics in China more systematically, but for now this and other translations published here and on Gongchao.org provide some sense of that universe.
[emphasis mine]
Here was a recent article regarding the discursive space of the Chinese internet left on Sixth Tone, Dylan Levi King's ‘White Left’: The Internet Insult the West Has Gotten Wrong: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1000477/white-left-the-internet-insult-the-west-has-gotten-wrong . This is also Dylan Levi King's translation of an ostensibly "classic" text of the Chinese internet left The Road to Spiritual Plague: The History of the Evolution of the White Left: https://medium.com/@dylanleviking/a-translation-and-a-few-brief-notes-on-the-anti-white-left-c75012fafbe0 . It's edgy as heck and rather inaccurate at times in its "history" of the "White Left", plus some slurs. At least, it is reflective of the current discursive space on the internet for the Chinese left.
I'd be looking forward to Chuang's promise of addressing "the changing perspectives and concerns of left and right politics in China" with eagerness.
[EDIT: ULTRA, not Chuang, was the author of "Confusing History With Spectacle"]
A People's History of the World is a good introduction, the issue is he doesn't have enough space in the book to go in-depth about non-Europeans.
Maoism fundamentally contradicts leftcommunism on just about every level, but I'm curious how leftcommunists respond to his arguments? Particular excerpts are below:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm
Causality:
Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes.
...
It is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another.
...
Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.
...
it is through internal causes that external causes become operative. In China in 1927, the defeat of the proletariat by the big bourgeoisie came about through the opportunism then to be found within the Chinese proletariat itself (inside the Chinese Communist Party). When we liquidated this opportunism, the Chinese revolution resumed its advance. Later, the Chinese revolution again suffered severe setbacks at the hands of the enemy, because adventurism had risen within our Party. When we liquidated this adventurism, our cause advanced once again. Thus it can be seen that to lead the revolution to victory, a political party must depend on the correctness of its own political line and the solidity of its own organization.
The principal contradiction:
There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions.
For instance, in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. The other contradictions, such as those between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the peasant petty bourgeoisie ant the bourgeoisie, between the proletariat and the peasant petty bourgeoisie, between the non-monopoly capitalists and the monopoly capitalists, between bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism, among the capitalist countries and between imperialism and the colonies, are all determined or influenced by this principal contradiction.
In a semi-colonial country such as China, the relationship between the principal contradiction and the non-principal contradictions presents a complicated picture.
When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position.
The principal aspect of the contradiction:
Some people think that this is not true of certain contradictions. For instance, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role. The creation and advocacy of revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role in those times of which Lenin said, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." [15] When a task, no matter which, has to be performed, but there is as yet no guiding line, method, plan or policy, the principal and decisive thing is to decide on a guiding line, method, plan or policy. When the superstructure (politics, culture, etc.) obstructs the development of the economic base, political and cultural changes become principal and decisive. Are we going against materialism when we say this? No. The reason is that while we recognize that in the general development of history the material determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness, we also--and indeed must--recognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base. This does not go against materialism; on the contrary, it avoids mechanical materialism and firmly upholds dialectical materialism.
3 replies:
Labelling things as 'contradictions', 'principal', 'fundamental', 'secondary' and so on is not insightful, it is vacuous, it is an abstraction from reality.
Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes.
What is the contradictoriness in a human eye that is the cause of its development?
It is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another.
Declaring that it is evident is a poor substitute for giving real evidence. If he were not to talk about abstract 'things' he might be able to prove that point, that is, he needs to talk about something in reality if he wants to prove what he says – to show what he says corresponds to reality. His essay on dialectics (or 'contradiction') presumably changed in quantity as he was writing it, the more he wrote the larger his essay was. So what is the 'external cause' that 'gave rise to' this 'mechanical motion'? Why can this 'external cause' not explain why the essay differs qualitatively in 'thousands of ways' (not millions?) from (presumably) other things, or why the essay doesn't change into something else? Why does Mao assume 'causes' should explain anything at all? Isn't 'giving rise to mechanical motion' a way of something changing into another thing qualitatively (from a stationary to a moving being)?
Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.
What does 'condition', 'basis' and 'become operative' mean in this context? Since 'internal causes' = 'basis', what is the 'internal cause' of a stone? Isn't Mao saying here that things are different, they are of a different nature like a stone and an egg, and some things like temperature can make some of these things change but not others? Is that profound? Isn't that like saying 'the water will make you wet but the fire will not'?
it is through internal causes that external causes become operative.
“It is through an egg that the temperature becomes operative."
In China in 1927, the defeat of the proletariat by the big bourgeoisie came about through the opportunism then to be found within the Chinese proletariat itself (inside the Chinese Communist Party). When we liquidated this opportunism, the Chinese revolution resumed its advance. Later, the Chinese revolution again suffered severe setbacks at the hands of the enemy, because adventurism had risen within our Party. When we liquidated this adventurism, our cause advanced once again. Thus it can be seen that to lead the revolution to victory, a political party must depend on the correctness of its own political line and the solidity of its own organization.
“We killed people that were wrong thus proving that we were right.”
There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions.
What are the 'many contradictions' in the 'process of development' of the human eye? Which is the necessary 'principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions'?
For instance, in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. The other contradictions, such as those between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the peasant petty bourgeoisie ant the bourgeoisie, between the proletariat and the peasant petty bourgeoisie, between the non-monopoly capitalists and the monopoly capitalists, between bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism, among the capitalist countries and between imperialism and the colonies, are all determined or influenced by this principal contradiction.
Is he going to explain why or just assert this? How is the 'contradiction' between the monopoly and non-monopoly capitalists 'determined and influenced' by the contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie? What is the substance of this label? Is the contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie the same as the contradictions in other 'things' like in an egg? How does the contradiction between the proletariat and the petty peasant bourgeoisie cause its development (or their development since he has moved on to contradictions in relationships between two things rather than just 'things')?
In a semi-colonial country such as China, the relationship between the principal contradiction and the non-principal contradictions presents a complicated picture.
In a fully or a not at all or a three quarters colonial country does the 'relationship between the principal contradiction and the non-principal contradictions' present a simple picture? Why?
When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position.
In other words we have to defenestrate class struggle and fight imperialism because of unexplained 'contradictions'.
Some people think that this is not true of certain contradictions. For instance, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist.
Liquidate the non-materialists!
But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role.
“In certain conditions I am not, according to my own assertion, a materialist.”
When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role.
Certain conditions = fucking always.
The creation and advocacy of revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role in those times of which Lenin said, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." [15]
Workers are just waiting for ideology to revolt, got it.
When a task, no matter which, has to be performed, but there is as yet no guiding line, method, plan or policy, the principal and decisive thing is to decide on a guiding line, method, plan or policy.
What is the guiding line, method, plan or policy that I need to undertake the arduous task of eating an apple? It's too decisive to go without these things!
When the superstructure (politics, culture, etc.) obstructs the development of the economic base, political and cultural changes become principal and decisive.
How could it obstruct if it were not already 'principal and decisive'?
Are we going against materialism when we say this? No. The reason is that while we recognize that in the general development of history the material determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness, we also--and indeed must--recognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base.
Why?
This does not go against materialism; on the contrary, it avoids mechanical materialism and firmly upholds dialectical materialism.
Oh okay, that's alright then. Is dialectical materialism 'decisive'? Is it 'principal'? What is the 'contradiction' in it? What is its 'external and internal cause'? What about its 'condition and basis'? What is the 'cause of its development'?
To sum up: These aren't arguments they are assertions, speculative constructions abstracted from all real determinate objects, mystical logico-metaphysical generalities that are supposed to apply to everything, and terribly simple abstractions at that! It's a bunch of unjustified nonsense used to justify his actions. See Marx's section in the Holy Family 'The Mystery of Speculative Construction' where he shows this kind of nonsense for what it is.
Generally I sympathize with your sentiments. However there are a few points I'm torn on:
You criticize Mao for attempting to apply dialetics to the natural world ("What is the contradictoriness in a human eye that is the cause of its development?"), but early Marxists like Engels did much of the same thing in works like Dialetics of Nature. I'm not well-read in that domain and not well-studied in science so I don't have a strong opinion one way or another. What's the leftcom perspective on that?
I agree that the essay is overly-abstract and it tends to start with abstractions rather than with concrete conditions, however one could argue that said abstractions are pre-supposed from earlier works which give them a material foundation. Mao certainly didn't pull concepts like "contradictions" out of thin air, those concepts were originally used by Marx and Engels.
As for the concept of principal and secondary contradictions, I agree that this is usually invoked to justify class collaborationism and vulgar anti-imperialism, and the entire concept isn't given a firm material footing in the article. However, is it really a vacuous concept? Certainly development tends to happen in an uneven manner, and the more prominent aspects of that development tend to hold sway over other aspects. In this respect it's not a leap to say that, for example, the contradiction of the forces of production vs the relations of production maintain the contradiction between town and country, the latter of which is subsidiary to the former.
"But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role." - I think it's undoubtably true that the economic base isn't the only determining factor in development, and that sometimes the superstructure can have a notable impact (now whether it can play a "principle and decisive" role, that I don't know):
"According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure — political forms of the class struggle and its results … constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas — also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree." - Engels.
Although I'd agree that ideologies don't make revolutions (much to the ire of most /r/socialism posters), it's true that the advanced proletariat must consolidate their organizations around a clear understanding of the current material situation in order to successfully lead the revolutionary movement forward. There was a reason that the Bolsheviks, despite their initially meager numbers, came to political power over the Mensheviks and SRs.
"When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role." - I'm confused about what's wrong with this statement. At some points in history, the relations of production are a boon to developing the forces of production (The Industrial Revolution) and at other points they're a hindrance (late stage capitalism).
1. On the contrary I pointed to how he talked about abstract rather than concrete things, and when a concrete example is used it shows that his speculation is meaningless, it doesn't refer to anything in reality. I assumed you would see the absurdity is saying something like 'the contradictoriness in a human eye' if that doesn't do it for you, here are some more 'things' that according to Mao have a contradictoriness that is the cause of their development: a brick, a lamppost, Jupiter (the planet), curtains, JavaScript, the Parthenon, a map of Alabama &c. How about non-natural things: ghosts, Jupiter (the god), Elysium, purgatory, the soul, the holy spirit, Ein Sof, the Nephilim &c. You can choose your own example of 'things' if none of these make the point clearly enough.
For Hegel dialectics is about the concept which is only active in history, nature only develops in circular cycles (similar to Aristotle), which doesn't amount to a 'dialectic' development, or really any development.
"The mutations which history presents have been long characterised in the general, as an advance to something better, more perfect. The changes that take place in Nature — how infinitely manifold soever they may be — exhibit only a perpetually self-repeating cycle; in Nature there happens “nothing new under the sun,” and the multiform play of its phenomena so far induces a feeling of ennui; only in those changes which take place in the region of Spirit does anything new arise. This peculiarity in the world of mind has indicated in the case of man an altogether different destiny from that of merely natural objects — in which we find always one and the same stable character, to which all change reverts; — namely, a real capacity for change, and that for the, better, — an impulse of perfectibility."
— Hegel's Philosophy of History (I'm not going to drown you in quotes but I thought you might like this one.)
Feuerbach shows that Hegel's philosophy is another form of theology and theology is anthropology because theological concepts express aspects of human nature estranged from itself, projected ultimately onto an object (God) and expanded into infinity. This is why it doesn't apply to external nature, because it is about humans. Some food for thought from Feuerbach's Principles of the Philosophy of the Future:
"The immediate unity of opposite determinations is possible and valid only in abstraction. In reality, contradictory statements are always linked by means of an intermediary concept. This intermediary concept is the object to which those statements refer; it is their subject.
"Nothing is therefore easier than to demonstrate the unity of opposite predicates; all one needs is to abstract from the object underlying the predicates or from the subject of these predicates. Once the object has thus vanished, the boundary between the opposites also vanishes; having no ground to stand on and nothing to hold on to, they immediately collapse and lose themselves in indistinction. If, for example, I regard being only as such, that is, if I abstract from every determination whatsoever, being will be the same for me as nothing. Determinateness is indeed the only difference or boundary between being and nothing. If I disregard that which is, what then is this mere "is" about? But what applies to this particular case of opposites and their identity applies to all other opposites in speculative philosophy."
Marx thinks that these concepts express human society in estrangement not an isolated human individual or human nature separate from human social relations in history. Yes humans are natural but we are the socially self-creating part of nature "Nature does not construct machines, locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules, etc. They are products of human industry; natural material, transformed into organs of man's will over nature, or of man's activity in nature. They are organs of the human mind which are created by the human hand, the objectified power of knowledge." - Marx, Grundrisse.
To take these theological concepts which express human society in estrangement and say "look, just like the Neoplatonists and the Hermetics said of God, nature itself (plant, animal life) develops as a contradiction of opposites (feel free to insert another mystical category here)" is to make the same mistake of projection onto some external being, but instead of them being part of the 'divine Idea' now they are part of the natural order. Marx prefers to trace these concepts to their root in the way we live - capitalist relations of production - in order to overcome this estrangement and get rid of these concepts in a real practical movement rather than in abstract theorising.
There is no leftcom perspective on 'dialectics of nature' because leftcoms focus on this whole getting rid of capitalism thing. Lukacs touched on it in his history and class consciousness, maybe it is worth you looking into. Maybe shake a tree and listen for the dialectics rattling around inside.
2. Cromwell: Your Majesty, it is my most solemn duty to place you under arrest.
Charles I: By whose command, sir?
Cromwell: By the command of Parliament, sir.
Charles I: I know of no authority in England above that of the king.
Cromwell: It is upon that issue that this war was fought.
Mao thinks he has inherited this vague concept of contradictions (which means he doesn't have to explain it, convenient!) but just as Marx ridiculed Proudhon for thinking he has inherited this concept of contradictions from Hegel (except he didn't read Hegel) the truth is the mysticism originates in his own mind, in his own position in society. Some Marx quotes on Proudhon:
“By taking the economic categories thus successively, one by one, and making one the antidote to the other, M. Proudhon manages to make with this mixture of contradictions and antidotes to contradictions, two volumes of contradictions, which he rightly entitles: Le Système des contradictions économiques.” - Marx, Poverty of Philosophy
“Since history and the fiction of M. Proudhon contradict each other at every step, the latter concludes that there is a contradiction. If there is a contradiction, it exists only between his fixed idea and real movement.” - Ibid.
“Like the historian Raumer, the petty bourgeois is made up of on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand. This is so in his economic interests and therefore in his politics, religious, scientific and artistic views. And likewise in his morals, IN EVERYTHING. He is a living contradiction. If, like Proudhon, he is in addition an ingenious man, he will soon learn to play with his own contradictions and develop them according to circumstances into striking, ostentatious, now scandalous now brilliant paradoxes. Charlatanism in science and accommodation in politics are inseparable from such a point of view.” Letter to Schweizer
“A petty bourgeois of this kind deifies contradiction, for contradiction is the very basis of his being. He is nothing but social contradiction in action. He must justify by means of theory what he is in practice.” Letter to Annenkov
3. It is vacuous if he doesn't specify what it is that is being developed – if he doesn't say what exactly he is talking about. By what criteria are we meant to judge what is secondary, principal, subsidiary, uneven, prominent, sway-holding etc.? I know Marx didn't write like this so it can't be coming from there.
4. Again, the development of what? I never said that the base is the only determining factor, my point was that Mao wants it both ways (see above quote re: on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand). I have discussed the base/superstructure metaphor here: https://www.reddit.com/r/marxism_101/comments/61kffl/proof_of_base_determining_superstructure/
5. I agree that a clear understanding is helpful, but Mao's mystifications seem to me to be the opposite of a clear understanding.
6. Principal and decisive to what? As opposed to what? When Mao talks about 'development' and its importance what exactly does he mean? Perhaps the reason he can't specify is because he's talking about the development of capitalism, but we will never know. Communism is about overcoming the antagonism between human productive powers (which become capital's productive powers) and the iron cage of capitalist productive relations, not of developing it.
As far as I can tell the phrase 'common plan' was used a lot by Marx and Engels, but 'central planning' or 'state planning' wasn't.
On top of this, I believe that from the abolition of private-property and communization of the means of production will arise a sort of organic plan where everyone produces for themselves and others and as the division of labour erases itself all modes of exchange will become unnecessary. This could be characterised as a form of a plan, as groups 'plan' among each other how they will produce certain things, and individuals 'plan' what they will produce and acquire for different people and purposes.
If Marx never wanted a state planning system, is this what was meant?
19 replies:
The question is wrong and based on bad propaganda. Citizens of a communistic society are an association based on free will, because they have common interests. From this base they discuss and execute production according to their needs. It's obvious there is not only one solution for the challenge.
What is difference to nowadays production:
Obviously not . Not any "planning" of any kind. Communism is based free associations between equals.
Surely such associations will coordinate and direct production? How is that different from planning.
A free association of equals would have to consciously regulate the division of labor, i.e. plan. There's no getting around this-- marx talked about this in his famous letter to kugelman.
Nope , in a communist society people would engage in in playful interactions and associate , voluntarily , as equals , All according is regulated by the ever changing rules and social norms , that the communities and social units , that they're embedded in , have come up with.
You know communism is about abolishing " labor" ( read some Paul Lafargue , some Kropotkin or some autonomist marxist stuff).
"Economic planning" , as understood by economists (not the general use of the word "plan") has nothing with what normal people , it's something that states , financial institution and other autocratic institution impose on people .
No planning no plans for anything welcome to rand000m society
upholds spork
uphold Marxism-sporkism
People plan (sometimes) , groups do NOT plan (the concept does not apply) , they coordinate and associate/disassociate.
"Communism is based free associations" is how Marx , Kropotkin and all communists saw it . "Planning" is tankie for economic dictatorships .
If you want to read a left wing critique : read Seeing like a state - James C. Scott .
Sorry my bad, I see what you mean, I've always used the term 'co-ordinate' as well
What marx wanted is irrelevant. I think first stepm is to get over the concrete, practical marx and embrace the critical one to not act like a religious order.
Planning can be many things. In the end, today it should imo refer to not leaving the whole world to market forces and putting the human to the front. People can interpret this differently, but centrally planned real socialism regimes are a thing of the past, a different time and a different economic order. It was useful for rapid industrialization and rising standards but that is it. I di believe that trade and some form of entrepreneurship is important. In that sense i want to see rojava succeed so that we can have something to work with.
I don't think it's a question of being for or against a method of planning, at least not until a time where the question is really relevant (during the dotp). I suspect that centralized organizations will exist, but to what extent and for how long I do not know. Without having an international revolution in history to analyse it's failings/successes any absolute statements about modes of organization should be taken with a grain of salt.
I mean I personally believe in a council-state, and in the transformation of 'taxes' to 'duties' in which, skills-based, 'duties' of producing x amount of y for the council/state in a month for example, while the rest of all resources and means of production are the people's to utilize and distribute organically. This would be subject to a central and democratically ratified plan, for a layer of 'common funds' for all, but in terms of planning the entire economy, even without communal stores and democratic committees, I don't think it would work/be desirable
These threads might also interest you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/communists/comments/5hqzym/planning_in_communism/
https://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/5k2eki/economic_planning/
lel thats my former account answering in both those threads
Ah, well - then, forget it.
also your answer here: https://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/5k8l52/questions_about_communism/dbms8w7/ has been bookmarked for about two weeks thanks man very helpful quotes
Thanks, I can return that compliment, I really appreciated your comments, especially in those planning threads.
Fascism is the great alibi for a Democratoids, left-of-capital and defenders of the current world-order. Never mind of course the horrors of this world and never mind the hypocrisy of its defenders. In this way the left-of-capital needs fascism to justify its own existence.
The horrors of the democratic world should be plain to see from the unnatural famines created by the needs of capital and its state managers to the millions dead in its wars. The fascism may have its millions but Capital (even “humane” capital) has its hundred millions. Even in its “human rights” (a bad a term as ever was invented but it will have to do) democratoid society shows its bankruptcy (the treatment of #nodapl protestors, Chelsea Manning etc)
Some may object to my taking exception with democracy, but the trump phenomenon is proof positive of the bankruptcy of the whole concept. Resting legitimacy on a statistical majority can only lead to positive outcomes as an accident of the process.
All of this to say the left of capital needs the specter of fascism to justify its own existence because if they do not have something worse to point to their own hypocrisy and shit tier politics come into question.
In the end democratic society is no alternative to fascism. The only alternative can be the return to an organic human community, otherwise known as communism
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Someone's been reading Bilan! hehe
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But there cannot be socialism in one country. What results when you try to have socialism in one country is state-capitalism, a state-run system that is still embedded in the global capitalist economy, and which is still locked into a competitive battle with capitals elsewhere in the world.
...
A state-run bank is still a bank. It still has to obtain funds before it can lend them out, and to do so, it must provide a decent return to those who supply it with funds. (This is true of a worker-run bank as well.) But this means that its investment decisions cannot be based on what would enhance workers’ well-being or on public policy objectives. If enhancement of workers’ well-being or fulfillment of public policy objectives would significantly reduce its profitability in relationship to the profitability of banks with which it competes—and it is hard to imagine circumstances in which this would not be the case—a bank that would dare to pursue these goals would find that lenders and investors would not supply it with the funds it needs in order to compete successfully, or even to remain solvent. In order to survive, a state-run (or worker-run) bank must pursue the goal of profit maximization, just like every other bank.
...
The belief that political changes and/or legal changes are the determining factors in social change also takes a number of other forms that are very popular today. It seems that most people want to see another world, but think it can come about, if at all, by voting it in, or by workers becoming their own bosses, or by paying everyone the same amount, or by means of whatever political, legal, and administrative measures they have been led to believe can accomplish the redistribution of power and wealth and really make their lives better. And, on the anticapitalist left, the typical view of how to transcend capitalism can be summarized as follows. First, you change people’s consciousness, or their consciousness changes through their participation in new forms of organization. The change in consciousness allows us to increase our side’s political power, to the point where we take control, either through elections or by seizing power. And once our side has political power, we can then change the nature of the economy and the state simply by deciding to put “people before profit” and implementing what we decide. We need the right political forms, forms of organization, to accomplish this—and there’s a whole lot of debate about what are the right forms of organization. But if we do have the right forms of organization, then overcoming capitalism is a simple matter. We decide, through these forms of organization, what should be produced and what shouldn’t, we decide how to distribute resources and goods fairly, we decide on other social priorities, and then we just put these decisions into effect.
.
...to really eliminate money, you have to eliminate exchange-value, which requires that you eliminate commodities, which requires that you eliminate commodity production, which requires that labor be directly social—in contrast to existing society, where private labor becomes social indirectly, through the exchange of its products. If labor were directly social, “exchange-value would not be turned into price; but neither would use-value be turned into exchange-value and the product into a commodity, and thus the very basis of bourgeois production would be abolished.” The problem was that abolition of the bourgeois mode of production isn’t what Gray had in mind. He had in mind a system in which “goods are … produced as commodities but not exchanged as commodities.” In other words, Gray’s proposal wouldn’t work because it tries to change the capitalist system by eliminating its effects, but not the causes of these effects.
Kliman touches a lot of bases here. Good read. Basic concepts and pretty digestible.
Saw this when it first came out on youtube, a must see for any falling into the ML state socialism trap.
If I wasn't banned, I would post this on r/socialism, because these concepts should really be known to them considering many of them are in those traps.
I've posted it a couple times there. I was involved with the MHI for a bit, and posted the video after digging through their YouTube channel. Got very little traction. Then I posted it right before Andrew's AMA on /r/soc. Still got no traction.
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Sorry for the vague question. But what comes from the detractors on the internet is, like you said, dreck, so I was looking for anything really that actually engages with left communism.
And thanks for the answer I'll check that stuff out with this in mind.
The best critiques of the communist left come from other left communists. Pannekoek critiquing Bordiga and vice-versa, and various communizers like Dauve, End Notes, etc.
Apart from that there's pretty much no coherent criticism of left communism from M-L or more utopian anarchist tendencies and what have you.
I figured ;)
Thanks
Capitalism still exists, There is work to be done.
really makes u think
Chris Wright has been somewhat critical of Left Communism(shown in some of his reviews "Why Leninism is not Red Fascism").
Anyone here think it's rubbish? I know Bordiga defended it so i wonder if some of the more Bordiga influenced leftcoms think it's alright.
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It's garbage and full of strawmen and misrepresentations of left communist arguments. One of Lenin's worst works, up there with "What Is To be Done?"
I didn't get around to reading What Is To Be Done during my ML phase. What is the main issue with it? Come to think of it, are there any works by Lenin that are looked upon favourably by left communists and other non-Leninist Marxists?
I got about halfway through infantile disorder before abandoning it, because the tone pissed me off and I didn't feel I was learning much of value with my time.
It's basically a handbook on revolutionary opportunism. I mean it was subtitled "Burning Questions of Our Movement", so it's kind of ridiculous to still "uphold" it. But I generally like a lot of Lenin's works.
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The whole thing was obscure until it was resurrected after his death. And what is to be done might sound more grand in English than Russian, where it's just the verb for to do.
Which of Lenin's works are worth checking out?
The State and Revolution, Karl Marx, The Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism, and Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Thank you!
The Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism
That's actually an almost word for word copy of a Kautsky article by the same name.
But the Kautsky one hasn't been translated to English right?
It might have been. I can only find the French version.
After a little looking, I can see that it's talked about in Dauve's The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin.
It's basically a handbook on revolutionary opportunism.
It's been a while since I read it, so I don't remember much. What about it seemed opportunist?
Also, not having read it myself, what strawmans and misrepresentations are made?
Lwc pretty much just reaffirms the idea of Lenin's commitment to the failed tactics of the second international. Wherever it was forced on to the parties of the comintern,in a process of bolshevisation, it led to failure. You should give Gorter's letter, this thing for more context, his other letter on the March action, and this Left- Wing Communism in Britain 1917-21 a read.
I don't know why Bordiga defended it. I get the impression that he thought it didn't apply to him, and that it was a guide to weed out later opportunists. I think that he wrote this but I haven't read it.
Our text demonstrates that the divergences, were of a merely tactical and contingent nature, and due to the peculiar historical experience as well as to the different look-out point which characterised the movement in Russia, if compared to the movement in Europe. It was up to the international party to decide, and history gave a clear and definitive answer to questions that it was legitimate to put at that time. But the text also demonstrates the accordance between us and the Bolsheviks, both in 1920 and in the years before, when we didn't know Lenin yet, on quite more fundamental issues: the assertion of the necessity of a violent revolution of the proletariat, led by the marxist party, disciplined and centralised; the assertion of the subsequent revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat; struggle with no compromises against the two «extremisms», anarchist and reformist: this was the trench in which we were side by side with the Bolsheviks, against all the real «extremists», actually carriers of rehashed petty-bourgeois ideologies, who proved to be the first obstacle to knock down before being able to attack the central power of capitalism. The cleaning up of the international party could not be thoroughly done, and the consequences are today under our very eyes.
Bordiga viewed "Infantile" as an expression of difference of strategies with Lenin not principles and that experience proved the Italian Left correct.
Yes, I can see that now after skimming this article.
So a while back, I think shortly after rooster got banned from /r/socialism_101, there was some joking going on that someone should make another 101 subreddit but for the leftcom perspective on things. (since socialism_101 = Trot and communism101 = tankie)
So I made /r/marxism_101 just to keep the name and forgot about it for a while, and only just remembered it and added pretty much everyone here + a few others as approved submitters. Now I'm just left wondering whether it would be worth the effort or not. Thoughts? Should we try, or is there just not enough interest?
e: just remembered, it's Christmas where I live tomorrow and I have work both days this weekend, so sorry if I don't reply for a while. Happy holidays comrades!
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I think /r/socialism_101mostly fits that bill but the Trot mods are occasionally opposed to left responses. I do however think that Stalinists, social democrats, and some Trots should not be given a platform to tell people what communism/socialism or Marxism is.
If we are going to take a stance against left-of-capital beliefs on the sub, it might help to just make a longform sticky explaining the position on their exclusion.
Although the other communist subs don't ban left communism/ultra-leftism, it's (ironically) shunned in an effort to be nonsectarian. They haven't had to explain themselves because it isn't official policy.
The anti sectarian stuff is aimed primarily at left coms because left coms follow the basic Marxist principle of "a ruthless critique of everything existing". If you're not allowed to rip the shit out of something then it's not Marxism.
Yes, great point, but I much prefer to preemptively shut them up about it.
You don't need to make a rule about it and subs that promote uncensored debate tend to be the least tank infested. Having a discussion area on it is going to be problematic cause you need to allow noobs to have their asses handed to them and tank lords to have their shit exposed as the edgy liberal teen opinions that they are just so that noobs know. Here on this sub we have a no platform policy for those we consider to promote counter revolutionary views but I allow discussion on the subject just cause it's useful to people.
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Check the mod list of that sub. It's the same crew that mods /r/communism and /r/communism101.
Didn't know it, I'll check it out.
Sounds good. Are you going to add more moderators?
Good idea actually, anybody want in on this? I'll also make a post on the subreddit
He's the one who got me into socialism, so I may be a bit biased in his favor. The whole Obama supporting thing is shit but I don't think it detracts from everything he wrote since the 60s. He seems to like left communists, let's see if they like him too!
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I like him, I think hes done great work. However there are points where I disagree with him for sure.
Chomsky is pretty much a huge liberal. For someone in his position he knows practically nothing about Marx or Marxism outside of what is considered to be "common knowledge".
I used to like him a lot back when I was a general anarchist type, and still have a bit of a soft spot for him, but he's pretty average all things considered.
He's a great linguist. As far as his politics go, they clearly leave something to be desired. The problem w Chomsky, and really all leftists is that they can not conceive of a different kind of world. Their political imagination only goes so far as managing this world
Not sure what you're talking about. Chomsky has espoused ideas of a socialist society that would be radically different from our own, in which production and distribution are decided democratically and undesirable labor is divided equally amongst society's members. However, he does focus on critiquing our current society rather than elaborating on a new one. He believes he doesn't need to elaborate in great detail on what future socialist societies will look like because he trusts that once real democracy is attained in a society, the people in that society will be able to figure out a system that works best for them. I think he focuses on critiquing our current society rather than theorizing a new one because he doesn't presume to know what's best for others and thinks that true democratic discourse will create a better system than he ever could on his own.
Like if that's wut u think then why are you even posting on this sub. Like I ain't mad bruh just confused. Do u even Marx?
I was in this sub cuz I was browsing leftist subs and I saw that leftcoms were talking about Chomsky and was curious about what leftcoms thought of him. Obviously I'm not personally a leftcom.
Oh well, fair play then I guess. Since ur here let me spit some knowledge at u tho. We are against democracy and self management which Chomsky is clearly massively in support of. We don't want to mange this world (workers control) we want to destroy it and build something better. We against democracy cuz it's cross class. We want free association but till we have that we need a class dictatorship
Real democracy IS class dictatorship. In an actual democracy, the working class easily seizes power because they vastly outnumber the capitalist class. Capitalist "democracy" is completely different because the capitalist class controls media to get the working class to vote against their interests and shapes democratic institutions in ways that massively favor themselves. It's a farce to compared real democracy, which involves media institutions being controlled by their workers, direct democracy whenever possible, and when representatives are necessary, they are recallable at any time and are elected by preferential ballots and other voting systems that do not favor a small number of parties or candidates. Marx was a proponent of this sort of democracy; one of the best examples of actual democracy is the Paris Commune, which Marx was obviously enamored with. Luxemburg was another proponent of this sort of democracy. "Dictatorship of the proletariat" was used by Marx to mean worker's control of the state via a vast democratic majority that would inevitably win the "battle of democracy". Calling it a "dictatorship" was probably a mistake, as it made it easy for Lenin to twist the idea of proletarian class "dictatorship" into a literal dictatorship with himself as dictator.
Let me be very clear: I am not saying that socialism should be achieved via reform within current capitalist "democratic" institutions. Like Marx, I do not entirely rule out the possibility of establishing socialism via reform, but I think it is incredibly unlikely, and violent revolution will almost certainly be necessary. But a true socialist revolution is a revolution establish true democracy, not rid ourselves of democracy. Socialism and radical democracy go hand in hand. One is not possible without the other. Democracy without socialism inevitably becomes a pseudo-democratic farce, as seen in western countries; socialism without democracy inevitably becomes a pseudo-socialist farce, as seen in Leninist countries. Any revolutionary movement that does not understand this is doomed to fail.
In lieu of replying line by line here, because that's just going to bore the both of us, ima just post this link. Read it or not or whatever, but it sums up p well our critique of democracy
https://libcom.org/library/a-contribution-critique-political-autonomy-gilles-dauve-2008
"Sharing is a basic and elementary necessary human attitude, but no-one seriously expects it to solve the social question. At best, it can alleviate it. No moralist or prophet has ever convinced the rich and the mighty to divide their wealth and power fairly between all human beings. We’re entitled to ask where this social (and not just political) “fairness” is going to come from ? Democracy can’t achieve it on its own. This so-called “real” democracy lacks reality."
Democracy is not the majority kindly asking the rich to please hand over their wealth and means of production. Democracy is the majority seizing that wealth and means of production from the rich after a society reaches a majority decision that it is right for the majority to do so. Socialism will inevitably follow from any system of majority rule in which the majority are not tricked into voting against their own interests.
Well I mean I guess you can define democracy however you want, and while I don't disagree with u in substance I am the gonna call what ur describing democracy
Back when I was an anarchist, I loved him. Looking back, he certainly has done some great works, but for the most part he is very liberal and sometimes quite anti-communist. Two examples I can think of are supporting liberal politicians and making apologies for the Khmer Rouge.
Back when I was an anarchist
What made you change your mind about that? Since I got interested in socialism, I've always leaned to the anarchist side (maybe that's Chomsky's influence too) but I'm open to everything and I plan to start slowly reading Marx.
but for the most part he is very liberal
I don't think that's fair, he definitely draws a lot of comparisons between the classical liberal "values" and the aims of anarchism but I think it's more to make a point than anything.
sometimes quite anti-communist
Do you have some links to him being anti-communist? I know he doesn't like the USSR (I think we pretty much all agree with him on that here) but I heard him talk positively about left communists and council communists.
I'm pretty sure he never made apologies for the Khmer Rouge, he only questioned the validity of certain claims, explained how U.S. atrocities created the perfect conditions to their rise and compared the treatement of the genocide by the american media to the one in East-Timor that was commited by the U.S. backed Indonesia.
At least, that's what I read in the two links I found. We should probably read his book on the subject, the one that caused the controversy.
As for the liberal politicians, it's shit, indeed, but not as bad as genocide denial.
Chris Knight's "On Chomsky"http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/category/noam_chomsky/
Those articles seems interesting but I can't access those in the Weekly Worker, do you know if I could find them somewhere else?
a radical liberal who tries to converge via critique de facto and de jure liberal values of the west
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Oops, I mean to say, that YPG supports France's war on terror.
what great leftists
Yeah, sure is awful to develop good relations with cobelligerents when your very existence is on the line! Ideological purity is so much more important than not being wiped out.
I don't know that anyone disagrees with them doing what they have to to defend themselves from ISIL, this is more of a criticism of those who think Rojava is socialist because reasons.
you don't see anything deplorable about them allying with the west, which essentially created isis? They're inevitably going to turn on them at some point
So what, you support national liberation movements?
What national liberation movement? If you think that's what the Kurds are fighting for your information is either extremely outdated or you're only listening to liberal sources that don't care to talk about the KCU's current goals.
Kurds aren't fighting for national liberation
I would just like to point out that you're the only person I've ever seen say this. The simple fact that Rojava exists contradicts your point.
Do you understand what Rojava is? They're not fighting for independence. Their goal is "democratic confederalism" since they've rejected the concept of the nationstate.
LOL
Great combination, very detailed counterpoint.
pure ideology.
I'm really shocked at how quick leftcoms are to dismiss Rojava here. Of course they're not perfect, they're trying to build something in the middle of a war with very little infrastructure.
However they are genuinely revolutionary, and it's not "pure ideology" since they're establishing popular councils to govern themselves and establishing social control over the economy at the local level.
I really don't understand why leftcoms are acting like Rojava isn't socialist enough when they're doing something radical in a tough situation. Save that ideological purity bullshit for the tankies.
I'm really shocked at how quick leftcoms are to dismiss Rojava here.
and im "shocked" and how quickly anarchists fall to propaganda. but its fine, pkk and cohorts are now totally anarchistic and follow "democratic confederalism" because öcalan demanded it. so all is good i guess.
Of course they're not perfect,
you sound like "democratic socialists" defending sanders with saying "he isnt perfect but..."
However they are genuinely revolutionary, and it's not "pure ideology" since they're establishing popular councils to govern themselves and establishing social control over the economy at the local level.
so all the different classes in rojova work together to gouvern themselfs? capitalists and workers side by side? sound more like class colaboration than emancipation of the working class. i did read the constitution of rojova private property is protected by the law(funny how much that sound like a state). not to mention it doenst matter how "democratic" capitalism is, it is still capitalism.
I really don't understand why leftcoms are acting like Rojava isn't socialist enough when they're doing something radical in a tough situation.
im not shitting on rojova for not being socialistic enough, i know it couldnt be socialist even if the players at hand actually wanted that. but i will shit on people who belive propaganda or delude themselfs becaue of pure ideology.
Save that ideological purity bullshit for the tankies.
i dont know, you kinda sound like a tankie, who also complain about that leftcoms dont see their favourite capitalist states as socialism and say stuff like "cuba/ussr/dkpr/china isnt socialistic enough for those darn ultra-leftists".
They can reject the concept of a nation state all they want, but they ARE a nation state.
Okay, describe their system of governance, then.
Regardless of how they govern themselves, the social relations that make Capitalism are present. How they govern themselves does not have any effect on whether or not they are a nation state.
There's a one party government in one side that legally can restrict freedoms such as speech, and on the other hand they have democratic councils. These councils founded and maintained by the PYD and affiliates. I really can't see anything revolutionary here.
The ideology of the PKK/YPG seems to be "democratic confederalism" which in Ocalan's view is an explicit challenge to nation states.
http://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ocalan-Democratic-Confederalism.pdf
It doesn't matter what their ideology is, what matters is their content.
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I got a very different vibe from the article. They didn't call the terrorists barbarians, they just said that it was a prime example of capitalist barbarism that already exists everywhere in the world.
fitting ISIS into the paradigm of capitalist imperialism may be convenient and confirming....but I don't think it quite works
Why? They invade other countries to gain control of their oil fields and just Friday carried out an attack on foreign soil a couple thousand miles away from where they are.
they certainly share certain characteristics. but they're also transnational, both in a material sense, and an ideological/identity sense. And their motivation is ideological rather than material it seems (not interested in self-increasing capital as an end in itself). Also it's unclear how ISIS relate to those countries they invade, i.e. they don't exist as a country that invades and colonises others. The invasion, conquering and 'colonising' is the country.
The invasion, conquering and 'colonising' is the country.
This seems like an unnecessary distinction and more in line with a Leninist conception of imperialism as only a direct economic benefit. Was Russia not acting imperialistically when they annexed Crimea? Was the US not imperialist during westward expansion and the Indian Wars?
I guess I just see imperialism as implying competition between states. I don't think ISIS is really – fundamentally – 'competing' with 'the west' or whatever at all.
Yeah exactly. ISIL is trying to create a state and the author of the article called them a nascent imperialism.
but they're also transnational, both in a material sense, and an ideological/identity sense. And their motivation is ideological rather than material it seems (not interested in self-increasing capital as an end in itself).
Does that really rule out them not adhering to capitalist imperialism?
And every leftist is gushing all over him. This is the counter-point to the threads on r/socialism.
This type of thing is my usual day to day problem in regards to politics. Strangely there has cropped up a weird mythology in regards to the post-war Labour government. So most of the time it's about people, usually young people, who know nothing of the history of the Labour governments, the party, or of it's economic policies, so we get a return of Keynes and managed capitalism.
On the other hand there is another stripe who try to downplay Corbyn and instead insist that he means little and it's the movement that is important. While this is true, it does no good to sit on ones' hands and not lampoon Corbyn, Labour and all of the associated baggage.
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I think I'm done with even going to /r/socialism at this point. I just need to convince myself to not click that link..
The comments on your Corbyn link from libcom are terrible. Especially the top comment:
"Stop being picky"
"Something something Corbyn will save us from the Tory menace"
"You're an accelerationist!"
Everyone's favorite Irish Trot has become especially annoying since becoming mod.
He's really going for it right now. I guess this shows how far trots have degenerated when they have to support vaguely lefty Labour candidates.
interestings
democracy vs. liberalism
the swift death of the Labour Blairites and their essential absorption by/as the Tories
fun watching Blairites cry...plus they now have to practice being out of powers and having to play the game of political machinations within the Party the traditionally role of the lefties in Labour (of which Corbyn is emblematic)
whether Corbyn will become more centrist
the changes to Party relations have meant the withdrawal of union funding – to the tune of millions of pounds – the question then amounts to how will Labour fill that gap? Capital's got the real money. That said unions will attempt to keep donations up as long as they have their man Corbyn at the top.
will reveal the 'hard left' and faux Marxist's idealism against reality...that keynesianism didn't die due to an ideological defeat in a 'battle of ideas', but rather because it had simply become insufferable for capitalism thus causing the rupture of the 1970s
interesting to see how an 'old' style of politics interacts with a post-1990s 'post-political' PR politics. The right-wing press are very influential and powerful in Britain today and they tore Ed Millibland a new one.
any nascent increase in class struggle on the part of workers viz. the new anti-strike laws will find its political expression automatically associated with Corbyn, i.e. with the union bureaucracy and party officialdom thus remaining inherently limited etc.
Press analysis has been quite bad on the prospects of Corbyn victory in 2020, insofar as they take the electorate at the election in 2015 as given, as solid. Corbyn has shown he's able to 'politicise' - in terms of parliamentary politics - many people who didn't vote in 2015, especially the young. Those that didn't vote were the single biggest % in 2015 G.E. The problem isn't getting elected - cf. liberalism vs. democracy: the best capitalists know the risks of democracy and populism - it's actually doing anything. Most of his policies are just idealist and beyond whilst remaining within the logic of capitalism.
may be the final glorious death of Labour unless there's a real miracle/unexpected event as they realise that the Tories, after spending years in the wilderness under Blair, have become the go-to managers of capitalism.
the supposedly old ideas of Corbyn will probably seem even more old in 2020 a time by which the Conservatives will have carried through – often irreversibly – much of their austerity programme leaving little space for a then meaningless 'anti-austerity'. That said given the world economic outlook austerity may well remain.
All in all it's a very interesting development which could go many ways. I don't think it will help bring a revolution in anyway though. Still for any disinterested observer it's nice to see how the establishment was taken so easily off guard. I have many friends close to Corbyn and I've met him a couple of times myself...so quickly has he gone from irrelevance to stardom. But remember this, Brit's like nothing better to see someone fall as quickly as they'd risen.
The trots are claiming victory:
"Not to fear, ever declining membership, everything is just as we analysed and the revolution is just around the corner! Have you sold your quota of 'Trotsky Weekly' newspapers yet?"
It's strange, I was speaking to a trot in left unity who you wouldn't get they impression of jumping on the Corbyn bandwagon but lo and behold, he is. They're either being mendacious or are just suffering from years of being out in the cold and getting trot brainrot. But I guess revolution is a question of leadership; first as tragedy second as pale imitation.
It's always been about personality to them, if Corbyn did a cat impression on tv and make the odd questionable comment about Jews the only entryist support he would get would be to the Bradford bielection. By the time the election comes he will be 71 and passing the torch to some former accountant in any case. Hopefully once Labour croaks the 'left' goes with them.
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I am pragmatic. Im more pragmatic than these neo keynesians. I don't think that any of these reforms are at all possible, and some of them seem to be designed to circumvent any actual socialist movement, such as the state sanctioned cooperative management of certain industries. It's not surprising that these politics are the first that people turn to, but it is surprising the numbers of people and groups who out right support Corbyn with no criticism. And it's not just with Labour, there are other socialists groups who want to fill the place of the left wing if capitalism. They're outright lying to people.
I am also not an accelerationist, no left communist is. We would like a strong independent class and party bur Labour isn't it, nor is any party that tails parliament.
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He's not a Marxist. He doesn't claim to be. And yes, only the proletariat can make the revolution, not a political party you vote for. And thirdly, I don't just sit on this sub complaining, I hardly post because I have to constantly deal with people who think nationalisation of the railway is socialism. You're just projecting wishful thinking on Corbyn. How can you say thay subsuming the working class to a bourgeois parliament can help the working class in time of massive capitalist crisis, when even the state of China can't prop up its economy with huge state intervention? Not only that, but theres a myth that Labour did all of these things in the 40s out of a socialist set of principles, ehich is not how it happened. Corbyn is a reformist like the anti working class Tony Benn, he's even trying to resurrect the same failed ideas of Benn.
I guess I'm a bit more pragmatic thant the rest of this sub
so your pragmatism means waiting 5 years for the next elections, hopeing that a then 70 year old corbyn will run for prime minister and then even more hopeing that he will win. i dont know, i dont think that this is pragmatic at all.
We can sit here all day criticising Trots and Stalinists, but we shouldn't loose connection to reality; there are thousands of people dying due to being cut of their welfare by Torie/"Labour" governments.
and that gouverment will be in power for at least 4 or 5 more years, not matter corbyn and labour. and then again labour is a bourgeois party that has pushed through austerity without much care. one man wont change a party.
Getting an actual leftist elected - not Syriza or Bernie Sanders -
syriza was filled with "actual leftists" many of whom are even more left wing than corbyn, so i have to wonder if you would've included syriza 6 months ago.
will at least make things better for the population until the Revolution.
sure corbyn, as opposition leader, will make things better for the population somehow.
I get that reformism alone won't work, but I don't understand the animosity from revolutionary socialists towards reformist politicians.
looking back at any elected reformist... well history can teach you a thing or two.
They are not the way to communism, but they will at least improve the current situation.
looking at syriza...
I could really use the current situation changing, the Tory/Labour governments are devastating for me and many others but I'm not going to pretend St. Corbyn of Islington North is going to rescue me. We are not critical of him because it doesn't matter, we are critical because it does.
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“Communism abolishes eternal truths common to all social forms, such as freedom, justice, religion, and all morality.” “Now – we allow ourselves to paraphrase for clarity and defence against the usual counterfeiters – these are only forms common to all types of society that have so far appeared and are all based on the exploitation of one part of society on the other. All these forms must dissolve with the complete disappearance of class antagonism, the aim of us communists”.
[...]
Engels and Lenin have insisted on this point on many occasions. Religion as a private matter in relation to the state was a bourgeois democratic requirement. But religion as a private matter in relation to the party is an enormity. The communist party cannot tolerate freedom of religious or philosophical conscience in its ranks. And its aim is to eradicate religious positions and, more generally, anti-classist superstitions from all consciences.
More precisely, the Marxist thesis is that consciousness is not a matter for the human person or the individual subject, determined by a mass of impulses that cannot be controlled or evaluated in its circle; consciousness, or better: theoretical knowledge, is a collective matter for the class when it reaches the point of organising itself in a party.
The liberation of consciences from the clutches of old superstitions is not a matter of propagandist educationism but above all of strength. Violence is not only an economic agent, but a professor of philosophy.
Well, that fits pretty well with what has been said on the topic of morality and educationism here recently.
The only one I have found so far is Alexandra Kollontai's "Worker's Opposition." I know embarrassingly little about the Worker's Opposition, so I'd appreciate it if you could share what you have on this topic. Thanks in advance!
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That is because there isn't that much to say about them. They wanted to erode the party and dictatorship in favor of a more producer self management type of arrangement of the economy. People want to add more weight to them than they ever actually had, due to their trade unionist and cooperativist leanings and as an opposition supposedly to Lenin, which is ignorant of how the party actually functioned.
That makes sense. I was wondering why it was so hard to find any substance about them.
You can read about the arguments surrounding the relationship between the trade unions and the party if you want to get more information about it as that was the main issue they formed over.
Why are you interested in it?
Because I want to understand the history of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia. I don't know enough about the worker's opposition to understand its historical role so I figured I'd ask.
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Did you find anything interesting about it that you'd like to share?
Found this interesting because it clearly and obviously shows how far away "Leninism" is from Lenin's perspective.
"Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke. And classes still remain and will remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship will become unnecessary when classes disappear. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat they will not disappear."
…
"General talk about freedom, equality and democracy is in fact but a blind repetition of concepts shaped by the relations of commodity production. To attempt to solve the concrete problems of the dictatorship of the proletariat by such generalities is tantamount to accepting the theories and principles of the bourgeoisie in their entirety."
...
"Long ago Engels in his Anti-Dühring explained that the concept “equality” is moulded from the relations of commodity production; equality becomes a prejudice if it is not understood to mean the abolition of classes. This elementary truth regarding the distinction between the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist conception of equality is constantly being forgotten."
I wonder if there are translation errors.... or if the translation is simply dated. Claims of no more "private property", statements owing to state ownership, the existence of classes, the need to address continued commodity production, exchange, etc. He never claims that the Russian State is socialist, but does distinguish "social" and "socialized" relations.
More importantly, he highlights the juxtaposition of the Russian State as it existed when this was written versus the "Second International Socialist's" incomplete understanding of Socialism.
Socialism means the abolition of classes.
In this demarcation lies the whole essence of socialism.
And it is not surprising that the socialists who are socialists in word but petty-bourgeois democrats in deed (the Martovs, the Chernovs, the Kautskys and others) do not understand this essence of socialism.
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The version with translated annotations was taking down for some reason.
Someone linked me to the transcript from Libcom
If you're referring to this (why didn't you link that, in case other people are interested in it?), then you will see that the opening paragraph mentions that its the translation of a written interview, and that the video interview is a different one. It might very well be that the content overlaps, but it's not identical.
I didn't link it because I wasn't entirely sure
Living up to your name.
why are you such a degenerate?
The Wikipedia article doesn't explain it very well. How do council communists think that the state should be run? How do they interpret "dictatorship of the proletariat"? Do they reject centralized state ownership of the means of production?
Thanks
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Council communism doesn't really exist anymore. The reason why that article is vague is because it was vague to begin with, and ended up changing in a short period of time before fizzling out and then having parts of it taken up much later by fringe leftists. But the short answers to your questions:
What is known as council communism came out of early 1920s Germany. They take the brunt of Lenin's critique in Left Wing Communism, which is maybe where you should start. Originally they weren't so anti-party (but they did more or less reject the leading role of the party) but some where (Ruhle) and it eventually moved in that direction.
Beside that text by Lenin, you can read this https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/on-anton-pannekoek-marxism-versus-idealism-or-the-party-versus-sects/
and https://libriincogniti.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/on-paul-mattick-revolutionary-idealism-and-enterprise-socialism/ which appears to be a pretty poor translation, but still.
Turning the revolution into a problem of conscience, Pannekoek and the entire German “left” resolutely place themselves on the field of idealism. Whether this mass consciousness is the result of class struggle does not change the question...
For all these ideologues, idealists, be they German social democrats or “leftists”, the political struggle, the revolution and the “revolt” are identified with the struggle for the IDEA which must win, for the socialist idea; for them, revolution takes place when the masses consciously struggle for the realization of communist society, when their immediate objective is socialism...
To the extent that bourgeois materialism of the German “left” corresponds to an idealistic deviation in the workers movement, we prefer to define it as proletarian or “revolutionary” idealism, no less distant from Marxism than any other idealism.
Okay yeah this makes sense I was wondering how those of the German left, specifically pannekoek can be considered communist when he pushes a bourgeois materialism and stood in opposition to working class parties.
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A translation of a later section of this work was recently posted in this subreddit as well. You can find it here:
This was a great introduction. Will definitely read the rest of that collection of articles, so thanks for the link.
It was interesting to see Stalinism and Maoism critiqued from the point of view of doctrine vs. tactics. The party's doctrine is "forever binding on the movement," but tactics derive from the doctrine and "declaredly transitory." E.g.
We remind the reader of the many, often cited examples, such as the famous transition in Western Europe from the fighting of defensive wars and wars of national independence, to the method of defeatism in any war conducted by the bourgeois State. Comrades need to understand that no problem will ever be resolved by resorting to a party tactical code.
You can link that to the Stalinists and Maoists in their erroneous understanding of the Russian Revolution, in that they propose that "historically one arrives at socialism through forms that include democratic ingredients; and socially side by side with peasant-populist elements, which is the main form that the degeneration, and the present ignominious situation, takes."
Just some random thoughts from reading.
The link doesn't work for me.
I think the problem is on your side here, it works perfectly fine both on desktop and mobile for me.
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New translation from the ICP:
"We wrote that the women’s question in its modern sense precisely coincides with the ending of the family as an economic unit, and that its persistence as a “political” framework for the sole aim of social conservation, able to hold together what capitalism has torn apart: the so-called alleged “family unit”, is in fact a nonsense from the moment social production and organization becomes responsible for all of the functions which were previously the prerogative of the family."
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This is a really nice text.
Damn these are flying out fast. Thank you!
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Marx was the genius who continued and consummated the three main ideological currents of the 19th century, as represented by the three most advanced countries of mankind: classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with French revolutionary doctrines in general.
???
What about this excerpt don’t you understand? German idealism and Hegelianism were considered the most advanced philosophy of the time. I don’t need to elaborate on the lasting influence of Hegel on Marx. England produced Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill. Adam Smith was Scottish, but it’s close (geographically). And socialism as a movement first took shape in France, with utopians like Saint-Simon, Fourier, Blanc, and even Proudhon.
Marx developed his thoughts through the critique of these thinkers and movements. As Marx himself said;
... And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic economy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.
In 1907, Kautsky gave a lecture on ‘The Three Sources of Marxism’, which Marx was supposed to have developed from German philosophy, English political economy and French utopianism. In his 1913 essay, Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, Lenin developed this notion still further. Marxism is presented as a ‘doctrine’, a ‘comprehensive’ and totally consistent set of ideas:
The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction or defence of bourgeois oppression.
This contrasts sharply with Marx’s own assessment of his work, which he always refused to think of either as complete, or as a ‘doctrine’. Indeed, how is it possible for a conception of revolution to be a total, unchanging ‘orthodoxy’?
Lenin begins with the identification of Marxism with materialism, and repeats his contention that ‘philosophical idealism ... always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion’. However, says Lenin, Marx ‘enriched’ eighteenth-century materialism with ‘dialectics’, here identified with
the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. [18]
Lenin goes on to reiterate his contention that Marx’s outlook is like that of the natural sciences and that ideas are a passive reflection of nature and society.
Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (ie developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (ie his various views and doctrines – philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society.
What, then, about the ideas of socialism? Are they, too, merely another such reflection of the economic system called ‘capitalism’?
Writes Cyril Smith and Don Cuckson (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/lenin.htm#n18)
Indeed, are we to accept that Marx and his writings are merely the perfect intellectual construction, the academics wet dream? Was Marx brewing a stew of European philosophy, or something else altogether?
Even Lenin takes a stand against this view later, after reading the Logic:
In 1914, before the outbreak of the war, Lenin began to write an article on ‘Karl Marx’ for the Granat Encyclopaedic Dictionary. In this article the same basic outlook prevails.
[...]
August 1914, as the first world war began, marked the most profound crisis for the world socialist movement and for Lenin personally. In one of the most amazing decisions of his life, amidst the ruins of the International, he turned to an intensive study of Hegel’s Science of Logic, supplemented by the final pages of the ‘Smaller Logic’ (the ‘Encyclopaedia Logic’). For three months in the autumn of 1914, he copied extracts from these very difficult books. As his reading progressed, these notes became more and more copious, including increasingly detailed comments. During the following year, he studied some other works of Hegel, including the lectures on the history of Greek philosophy, and the Philosophy of History. He also read Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
As this work proceeds, Lenin’s philosophical conceptions change drastically, in ways which undoubtedly affected all his subsequent theoretical and practical work. He twice wrote to the publishers, asking to amend his Encyclopaedia article. But Lenin’s lengthy extracts and notes on Hegel were never shown to anyone else, and were made public only after his death. (Deborin discovered them in 1925.) We shall not try to discuss them in any detail here.
At first, Lenin tries to assimilate what he is reading to his old philosophical framework. As he says, he wants ‘to read Hegel materialistically’. As he proceeds, this project becomes more and more difficult to carry out. By the time he attempts to summarise his conclusions, in the 1915 fragment On Dialectics, Lenin has started for the first time to question Plekhanov’s philosophical lead, and even to make a mild criticism of Engels’ account of dialectics. Although he still writes that ‘idealism is clerical obscurantism’, Lenin now also sees that ‘philosophical idealism is nonsense only from the standpoint of crude, simple, metaphysical materialism’.
At the time that Lenin was working, hardly anyone understood what Hegel was attempting to achieve in the Science of Logic, which was seen as quite separate from his social and historical works. In fact, this book is a sustained and systematic onslaught on any scheme of thought which somehow sees itself as being external to social life. Lenin appears to have read neither the Phenomenology of Spirit nor the Philosophy of Right, and never saw how Hegel’s thinking about logic was bound up with his notion of human development. Above all, we must not forget that Lenin could know nothing of Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts, with its ‘Critique of Hegel’s Dialectic and Philosophy as a Whole’, or of the German Ideology.
As his Hegel study proceeds, he begins to see the deep connection between the Science of Logic and Marx’s Capital, and he was probably the first person to comment on this since Marx himself. Since he still thinks, like Kautsky, that Capital expounds Marx’s ‘economic doctrines’, he is restricted to noting a few parallels between the methods of Marx’s book and Hegel’s, and remains cut off from the human content of Hegel’s work. ‘Marx applied Hegel’s dialectics in its rational form to political economy’.
[...]
Engels’ counterposition of Hegel’s ‘method’ and his ‘system’ leads Lenin to think that Marx has ‘applied’ Hegel’s ‘dialectical method’, and this has subsequently misled many people. Hegel’s method does not exist outside his entire social and historical outlook, ready for ‘application’ to some other problem. Instead, Marx turns it into its direct opposite, as he states in the ‘Afterword’ to the Second Edition of Capital. Even when Marx employs the same categories as Hegel – quantity, quality, actuality, and so on – they have entirely different significance. In Hegel, they are stages of the development of Spirit, while for Marx they are moments of his communist critique of bourgeois philosophy as a whole. Only in the light of Marx’s critique of Hegel, which is inseparable from his idea of communism, can the real importance of Hegel’s work for understanding Marx be seen
There is no doubt that Lenin’s major contributions in 1915-17 all bear the marks of his Hegel studies. Imperialism, the April Theses and State and Revolution, all mark fundamental departures from the ideas of Kautsky and the Second International. Nonetheless, in Lenin’s approach to Hegel he remained unable to grasp the central concept of freedom. From the middle of 1918 onwards, the desperate struggle for the survival of the isolated revolution pushed back the thinking of all who participated in it. In the statements of the newly-formed Communist International, only the crudest philosophical ideas are to be found.
(Ibid.)
What do you think?
in Lenin’s approach to Hegel he remained unable to grasp the central concept of freedom
I think it's nonsense.
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Its usually terribly gauche to refer to the Marx Myths series willy nilly, but I'm aware that certain trots have taken to regurgitating the myth of "simple commodity production" from Mandel (why read Marx when you can read Mandel?!), which, as Arthur points out, is one of those concepts, like "false consciousness" or "dialectical materialism", taken from Engels, expounded upon endlessly, and then attributed to poor Marx. I therefore wish to leave this here so that said trots might shove their Mandel right up. In any case, I hope this will raise interest in Chris Arthur, who is a wonderful scholar of the Marx-Hegel relationship, continuing in the venerable tradition of Dunayaskaya, James, and Cyril Smith. It's a short essay: tolle lege!
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Assuming you are completely correct about this, I still am not sure why a concept that can be attributed to Engels, rather than Marx, must be considered to lack validity. Is it your argument that Engels contributed nothing of value to historical materialism?
The claim that Arthur is objecting to is that Marx wrote about "simple commodity production". So nothing is being said about validity. Now, I haven't said anything here to that effect either. I think Engels did some wonderful work, especially w/r/t women, the family, etc. I am heavily ambivalent towards his understanding of Marx, which seems to sometimes be less than ideal, though in many cases he seemed to precede Marx, especially in an early essay on the critique of political economy.
Secondly, what does it mean to contribute to "historical materialism"? I don't think there is really such a thing as "historical materialism", except in the minds of later marxists, who, in many cases, aren't really my concern.
Further, are we to assume that the entire history of commodity production begins with capitalism? Who carried on trade in the ancient world. Even slaves were bought and sold. Are you saying there was no production for exchange prior to 1400AD?
I'm certainly not claiming that. I don't think it deserves to have its own term, since only under capitalism does it come to be definitive. Before capitalism, it remained a marginal tendency.
I have discussed Arthur on my blog quite often
O my, a celebrity!
I find his argument hopelessly obscuring.
I'm sure there are people out there that would be willing to help you understand it.
Arthur is not a supporter of Marx but a vociferous opponent of Marx and Labor Theory of Value.
I mean, you're a big fan of Postone and Land, and it seems to me that if we're gonna talk about opponents of Marx and the LTV, that we might sooner point to those two. But then again, I don't have a blog, so what do I know?
However, first let us note that Engels’s cast of mind was primarily historical. In his review of Marx’s 1859 Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy he put forward what came to be known as the ‘logical-historical’ method (another term Marx never used, by the way). When he responded to the first proofs of Capital, he reacted to the proposal to add a special appendix on the value-form by urging that this take the shape of a proof from history.[11] (Marx ignored this advice.)
Why is this?
Wait, why is what? Why did Engels have his particular cast of mind? Probably from his reading of Hegel, I would guess. Why did Marx ignore his suggestion? Probably because, as Arthur points out, his method was more Systematic than logical-historical. Arthur has written on Marx's method a great deal in, for example, his "Systematic Dialectic" which I put up on r/communists a while ago (I hate to continually re-refer to my own posts, but I do think Arthur is worth the read).
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It is of course true that socialist ideas were first and mainly — though not only — propounded by members of the middle class who had been disturbed by the inhuman social conditions of early capitalism. It was these conditions, not the level of their intelligence, that turned their attention to social change and therewith to the working class. It is therefore not surprising that the capitalist improvements at the turn of the century should mellow their critical acumen, and this all the more as the working class itself had lost most of its oppositional fervor. Marxism became a preoccupation of intellectuals and took on an academic character. It was no longer predominantly approached as a movement of workers but as a scientific problem to be argued about. Yet the disputes around the various issues raised by Marxism served to maintain the illusion of the Marxian nature of the labor movement until it was dispelled by the realities of World War I.
...
All the more astonishing is the unprecedented capitalist response to theoretical Marxism. This new interest in Marxism in general, and in “Marxist economics” in particular, pertains almost exclusively to the academic world, which is essentially the world of the middle class. There is an enormous outpouring of Marxian literature; “Marxology” has become a new profession, and there are Marxist branches of “radical” economics, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and so forth. All may prove to be no more than an intellectual fad. But even so this phenomenon bears witness to the present twilight state of capitalist society and its loss of confidence in its own future. Whereas in the past the progressive integration of the labor movement into the fabric of capitalism implied the accommodation of socialist theory to the realities of an unfolding capitalism, this process is now seemingly reversed through the many attempts to utilize the findings of Marxism for capitalist purposes. This two-pronged endeavor at reconciliation, at overcoming at least to some extent the antagonism between Marxian and bourgeois theory, reflects a crisis in both Marxism and bourgeois society.
I wonder at what point revolutionary Marxism will make a wide-spread return, especially if Mattick himself was already witnessing this "academic Marxism" in the 70s.
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And I thought leftcoms hated Bukharin and statism? Don't they?
Bukharin used to be a left communist.
What do you mean by "statism"?
Plenty of left communists are Leninists.
I'm fairly new to left-communism, but wasn't Bordiga, by at least some measure, Leninist?
Yes. Generally, Italian left communists tend to be Leninists while the Germans are not.
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Eurozone.
why tho
B/C you are thinking nationally in a system that is anything but. Those in power and their institutions get propped up by entire eurozone. Same as why the revolution failed in the 40s-50s due to US/Brit intervention, just this time it happens faster and earlier.
Why greece in particular?
It's probably the worst affected industrialized country by the 2008 crash, the condiitons there aren't nice, pretty high unemployment
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I can't give you an official leftcom positiontm , but as a historian myself I can only have immense respect for Eric Hobsbawm and his contributions to the study of nationalism, and his social histories on the emergence of capitalist bourgeois society. He was of course wrong in his analysis of the Soviet Union (he didn't consider it capitalist, but socialist), but this alone doesn't negate the immense quality of his entire oeuvre.
Yes, I've been reading some chapters of Age of Revolutions and Age of Capital, and they are excelent to understand the historical process of the consolidation of bourgeois order. I asked about him because I've read this article on Age of Extremes, in which the autor criticises him harshly, not only about his position on the Soviet Union. I was curious to know if this was a common opinion among other left communists
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Not explicitly about the Arab Spring, but does go into the "movement of squares" as the sub headline suggest:https://endnotes.org.uk/issues/3/en/endnotes-the-holding-pattern
Check this out:
http://insurgentnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/InsurgentNotes0711.pdf
I actually haven't read the whole issue but insurgent notes is good. Also note they're not doctrinaire leftcoms.
What does everyone think about the spartacist uprising?. Liebknecht and pieck'(the future stalinist president of east germany) decision to impulsively committ to an uprising ,which was a reckless idea of the indipendent socialists and the shop stewards in the first place, is often said to have been a negative turning point for the fate of the world revolution. Could things have gone differently if liebknecht and pieck had followed the central committee' mandate or if the spartacists had not joined the uspd in 1917?
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I think Marxists, especially Leninists and "libertarian Marxists", overly-romanticize the Spartacist Uprising, and the German Revolution as a whole, as something that could've led to a "world revolution" but was brutally crushed by the SPD. They love to use Lenin's quote about how Russia was the spark for the world revolution while Germany would be the fuel. However, both Lenin and most modern Marxists both have a poor view on the actual situation in Germany in late 1918 and early 1919. As you said, the "revolution" was basically an uprising of shopkeepers and party members, and there was almost zero revolutionary fervor outside of Kiel and Berlin. Luxemburg realized this and at first tried to persuade the Spartacists to not commit to the uprising, but she eventually was won over by Liebknecht and others. The Spartacist Uprising, in all reality, never had a chance to succeed, as a revolution in Germany at that time had to have the support of the heavy industry workers in the Ruhr valley in order to succeed, and the Spartacists were unable to achieve this. In fact, the Ruhr Valley uprising a year later had more of a chance to develop into a full-blown revolution than the Spartacist Uprising, as the Ruhr workers had been organized by the KPD and the KAPD into a capable fighting force. However, even the Ruhr Red Army never posed that big of a threat to the German government, and Germany throughout the Revolutions of 1917-1923 was never seriously threatened by the left. The communist left in Germany 1918-1921 by Gilles Dauvé and Denis Authier is good history of the workers' movements in Germany during this time period.
the spartacist uprising would have had to be avoided in the first place, i agree, noske was already preparing to crack down on the councils in berlin with the freikorps and the uprising provided a perfect justification. i have read that link you posted before, though i should reread it again. if the spartacist uprising(actually it was more an uspd uprising) had been avoided , could the prospects for revolution in germany and elsewhere have improved?. maybe the workers in berlin organized by an unsplit kpd without the rightward shift late in 1919 which was a reaction to the kpd' adventurism could have connected to uprisings elsewhere. another thing i was getting at is wheter a spartacus group who did not work in the uspd could have dealt with the organization problems which became apparent in early 1919, especially with party members acting without a specific mandate during the so called spartacist uprising .
Perhaps so. The Spartacist Uprising did much to induce reactionary thinking in the minds of many German workers against the "Bolshevik threat", and it helped organize the Friekorps, which would end up crushing the uprising in the Ruhr. I also agree with your analysis of the KPD. In my opinion, the Marxists in Germany still believed too much in the USPD and SPD during the time of the German Revolution, and I think this led in part to the rightward turn of the KPD. The KAPD arrived far too late to take advantage of the revolutionary wave in Germany, and the KPD's opportunism should set an example for how communist parties shouldn't act when proletarians are teetering on the edge of revolution. The KPD's rightward turn was probably going to happen whether or not the Spartacus Uprising happened or not, and to respond to your point, I think a Spartacist-esque party that was independent from the USPD probably would've been much better than the KPD, and the Berlin workers that eventually revolted probably should have moved to form their own independent party separate from the KPD, but I think they, and German communists as a whole, were too trusting in the Spartacists and the KPD to do this. I think a revolution in Germany was possible after WWI, but the communist parties and workers' councils made many mistakes. That's why I like studying 1918-1921 Germany so much; it gives us many examples of what not do when faced a possible revolution, but it also shows us things that we should do, and the council communist groups that arose immediately following this period were the first ones to critically examine it.
This is rather off topic but what is your view about liebknecht(karl obviously, not his more intellectually gifted father)? Was he a bit too impulsive and emotional as a person?. this is not meant to be an attack on him at all, it is just that the biographies of the members of the spartacus League fascinate me for some reason.
I have mixed feelings about Liebknecht. He was good as a party leader and organizer, but his beliefs tended more towards Leninism. I especially have a problem with him declaring the German Free Socialist Republic, as it seemed he was attempting to follow the Soviet example too closely than he should have, and this allowed Friedrich Ebert to organize a more unified resistance against the Spartacists because they now had another state that was challenging the, in their minds, legitimate government of the Weimer Republic. I definitely like Luxemburg better than Liebknecht, and I certainly prefer them both over Pieck, but it's very likely that, if he had lived, Liebknecht would have became what Pieck became. They were both far too trusting in the Soviet model, and Luxemburg was really the only one to question it, especially the dissolving of the soviets.
i have always seen liebknecht as being more of an activist than a long term leader. leninism is a bit loaded of a term in my opinion, also liebknecht's beliefs were closer to neokantianism than to marxism. i actually think that liebknecht's political trajectory had he survived is difficult to predict but he was too much of an idealist to become a stalinist in my opinion.
Perhaps so. I've seen Maoists that love to discuss him because he endorsed a sort of proto-protracted people's war. In my opinion, he was less of a Marxist theorist than an activist, like you said, and he was less concerned about Marx and Marxism than getting the working class into power.
What is slightly ironic in his sympathy for philosophical idealism is that his parents named him karl after marx , which is not surprising given that wilhelm liebknecht was a close friend of both marx and engels. Apparently though, the elder liebknecht was not really a marxist himself, as in his last years he rejected the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and seemed to be going toward a parliamentary ,defacto reformist road, like bebel did in the early 1900s and 1910s.
A lot of German "Marxists", sadly, went down that path. Bernstein and Kautsky are the most notable examples, but you also have the horrible Austromarxism school and of course the SPD. It's just Lassalle's ghost continuing to haunt German socialists.
Was not austromarxism a school which tried to fuse marxism and nationalism or am i mixing up this school with another?.
Yes, and then they developed a school of economics that held that the law of value would still exist under socialism and one that revised Marx's theory on the accumulation of capital. Lenin was influenced in part by the Austromarxists.
I did not know that Lenin had been influenced by austromarxism, was this in his approach to colonies of the main imperialist powers and to industrial devolpment while he was the head of a state which was going through a counterrevolutionary process and the bolsheviks thought they could hold on the supposed gains of the revolution in the the Russia soviet republic and then in the soviet union?. As far das kapital though, i am a bit too wary of my intellectual limitations to tackle it at the moment, my selfconfidence is low and i passed the italian equivalent of economics 101 with the grade of just 26 out of 30( i think it is the english equivalent of a B minus ).
Yes, Lenin's theory of imperialism was developed almost totally from Rudolf Hilferding's Finance Capital in which he stated that capitalism couldn't expand unless it invaded foreign markets (which is false). And don't fear Capital too much, it's not that esoteric of a book. Marx does a good job to explain every concept. Economics 101, at least when I took it, was basically a summary of political economy, and Marx addresses different issues in a different way than mainstream economics.
when did you take economics 101?. i am 22 and i took it last year, in the 2015-2016 academic year, i don't remember if it was in february\ march or in may\june. a huge problem is that i am often mildly depressed and apathetic and i can not check in unproductive obsessive interests like japanese anime, psychological testing or crime news. also this year they have turned the bachelor's degree thesis for poli science majors into a joke at la sapienza university in rome, you have to write just around 20\30 pages and i have almost finished it after starting it last november , yet i have to graduate in july because i looked for the interniship after i had given all the exams. i am trying to gather the concentration to read a synthesis of about 38 pages from das kapital book first from the group i symphatize for, though.
I'm 19, and just about to finish up my freshman year of college, and I took it earlier this school year, as I'm still undecided on if I want to minor in economics or not. My major is philosophy though, which is absolutely great. The only bad thing about phil is that you have to start off with the first philosophers (I.e. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. Democritus, Zeno of Elea, etc.). I understand their contributions to modern philosophy and how their theories shaped how we look at the world today, but quite frankly, it pains me to read that much idealism in one sitting.
http://alisononitaly.blogspot.it/2008/01/italian-examination-system.html. i have found this link about universities here in italy, it explains nicely how they work and how someone with a good verbal rote memory could do very well in a major that she\he likes . you can see this student struggled greatly to get used to the italian system, the same would happen to me if i were to go abroad( beside the fact that my self-care skills are comparable to that of someone in her early teens and i would likely not be able to live on my own).
Thank you!
I have not read hilferding'finance capital but i have read lenin' short book on imperialism and i do not remember well what was the part in which it was implied that capitalism during imperialism could only expand by invading foreign markets, i remember only lenin stating that capital Flows out of metropolitan countries and into the colonies was a defining aspect of imperialism and that It helped extraprofits. When you say that capitalism can thrive in imperialism without invading foreign markets are you also talking empirically about the cold war period in which global trade between developed and developing countries was more restricted to avoid Balance of payments crisis?. Theoretically could you clarify what is wrong with hilferding theory in simple Terms?
Hilferding was primarily wrong in two ways: one, he misunderstood Marx's theory on the accumulation of capital, and two, he revised Marx's crisis theory. Although Lenin didn't adopt this aspect of Hilferding's theory, Hilferding believed that capital wasn't in a permanent state of crisis as Marx said, and he based this off of a very poorly-conducted study in Austria that showed that the rate of profit remained relatively stable (herein lies the misreading of Marx; Marx never claimed that the rate of profit would always fall, but that it had a tendency to fall). Furthermore, Hilferding read Marx's theory of the accumulation of capital at face value only instead of putting it into context with the rest of Capital, something that has been repeated many times before, and therefore he believed that capital must always accumulate in order for capitalism to remain stable. This is where his theory on imperialism comes in: Hilferding mistakenly believed that invading foreign markets was the only way to ensure a steady accumulation of capital. Here, Hilferding (and, I should note, Rosa Luxemburg) made a Malthusian mistake in assuming that technological advances in efficiency and production would not outpace the devolution of capital. To summarize it, Hilferding was wrong twofold: he was first wrong in assuming capital accumulation must always increase, and secondly, he was wrong in assuming that imperialism was the only way for this increase to happen. While Lenin didn't quite quote Hilferding word for word, his theories on imperialism are heavily influenced by him, as Lenin's theory on the "flow of capital" was an essential part of Hilferding's explanation on how imperialism led to the increase of the accumulation of capital by decreasing its concentration temporarily.
thank you. when you talk about hilferding's malthusian mistake, are you writing about him underestimating the ability of technological advances to counter a bit the tendency of the rate of profit to fall by reducing the value of fixed capital?.
Yes. Hilferding was extremely short sighted in his analysis, and he formed a poor historical model when developing his theories. He failed to see how things like the industrial revolution led to the rate of profit actually increasing rather than decreasing. Another good example of this would be a period from roughly the early 80's to the early 00's in America, where advances in technology such as the computer and automation led to a growth in the rate of profit. This, contrary to what many Keynesians will tell you, does not "disprove" Marx, as the rate of profit has continued to fall after that.
thank you .it does not disprove marx, because after each accumulation process ends the rate of profit begins to fall?. also, off topic question, if my parents are( used to be in the case of my father who retired years ago due to illness) vice prefects, (relatively) high ranking state functionaries, are we a petty bourgeois household ?.
You aren't your parents though. You're not actively involved in any exploitation whatsoever, so that would most likely make you a prole. And besides, leftcoms aren't the "kill all the bourgeoisie" type. Marx never even said every bourgeois person needed to die, or that we should kill them, or any of that stuff. If you're petty bourgeoisie, you can still support the communist movement, but you're not someone who helps to drive it, just like intellectuals and other non-proletarians.
thank you, i know that the fact my parents are bureaucrats should not affect me , i was just wondering about the class position of our family as i am still a student. also does keynes not disproving marx have to do with the rate of profit
falling again after momentary rise or did i misread you?.
Indeed. In Mattick's critique of Keynesianism, he accepts that economies usually act in a cyclic manner. However, he disagrees with Keynes' preconception that the rate of profit tends to recover and then rise after a trough. In reality, the rate of profit tends to decrease after these cyclic actions. Keynes usually based his arguments off of GDP, which isn't a perfect indicator for the rate of profit.
What is that makes gdp a not fully reliable indicator for the rate of profit?. Does the impact of the tertiary Sector and finance have something to do with it?
Both do, but it's more in the labor aspect of economies. The rate of profit is derived by taking the total surplus value and dividing it by the stock of advanced capital and variable, which is best measured by taking GDP and subtracting worker compensation from it, and then again taking that figure and dividing it by the product of worker compensation and constant capital (stocks mainly). This means that GDP can increase, but as long as worker compensation and constant capital increase (aka if there is more investment in the stock market), the the rate of profit actually falls. Keynes was a bit shortsighted then in that regard, even though GDP does contribute a great deal to the rate of profit. That's a simplification, because a multitude of factors go into worker compensation and constant capital, but I'm pretty sure you get the picture.
So Keynes took gdp and divided it by the product of worker compensation and costant capital to get the rate of profit, rather than measuring the surplus value first?. Basically he mistook value for plusvalue?. Thank for your answers!
Correct. But you're welcome! It was great discussing with you.
Thank you,it was a pleasure for me too.I am in a bit of a negative mood today though. I have gotten my autism assessment results back yesterday and not only i found out i am very mildly autistic but also that, raven' matrices aside, which involves also verbal skills, where i scored in the average range( iq 100), i have scored very badly on a battery of nonverbal intelligence tests. One of the nonverbal intelligence tests was in the mildly intellectually disabled range( iq 68), another in the borderline range( iq 75) and the third in the borderline to low average range( iq 85). Now, i have a grade point average of almost 29 out of 30 as a political science international relationships major who is going to graduate with her bachelor' degree soon and i read and write english well for someone who is italian but I am very pessimistic about my ability to truly grasp marx with such pronounced deficits in nonverbal reasoning and visual- spatial processing. People with nonverbal learning difficulties( i have a diagnosis of aspergers but i think nonverbal learning disability fits as well , as the neuropsych said that i struggle with abstract thinking ) have problems with abstract reasoning also. No wonder that among the comrades of the organization whose i am a symphatizer i feel like i am the slowest mentally and that i think i use big words without fully understanding what i am talking about .I strongly suspected that i had nonverbal learning problems but i did not expect they were that severe, especially after i knew in advance that i had done well( above my expectations) on the Raven's. Granted the psych said i had test anxiety and estimated my verbal intelligence to be in the above average range but still this really makes me feel like a parrot who repeats back whatever marxian concept she has just memorized with limited actual understanding of the material.
does anyone want to answer?. this is a really interesting argument imo.
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I was about to post this as well.
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I've seen this lecture many times before - it's fantastic of course - but the true surprise is finding on the recommended videos list a new lecture by Michael Heinrich in English, uploaded a couple weeks ago. Woo!
Thanks for linking those new lectures from Heinrich. Good to know he's still banging away at it.
I am reading an article by William H. Shaw on Plekhanov's "On the Role of the Individual in History" and came across this passage, written by Shaw:
“Marx, it might be noted, diagnoses several analogous illusions in the study of political economy. Capital, for instance, takes credit for increases in productivity due to co-operation and scientific developments, obscuring the fact that its productive forces might be as well or better harnessed by a different socio-economic system."
Does Marx really ever say or imply this?
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He didn't, no. The idea that Marx believed in unilateral course of history is a vulgar understanding of his body of work. I think a lot of this confusion comes from this quote from the manifesto: "[The bourgeoisie's] fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." I see many people assume that what Marx is saying here is that communist revolution is inevitable, where in fact what he's trying to get at is that as a result of the intrinsic laws of capital accumulation,
a) the proletariat will crush the bourgeoisie and negate capital, or
b) both classes will mutually be destroyed (nuclear war, climate change etc. although I think he was alluding more to the dissolution of the Roman Empire into Feudalism).
The quote you posted is more or less saying that Marx believed technological advancement can occur under any mode of production, but the prevailing one will 'take credit' for the advancements due to its specific economic arrangements.
I recommend you check out these two texts which more or less deal with your question in a more comprehensive manner:
Marx’s Late Writings on Non-Western and Precapitalist Societies and Gender – Kevin B. Anderson
the understanding of marx including your comment has been very impressive in this thread. could you give me a quick summary of the leftcom position?
Yes. It's embedded in his theory of the tendential falling profit rate.
As production increases within a capitalist society, there's a tendency for the profit rate to fall, kind of paradoxically (Andrew Kliman did some very good empirical work on this.) Falling profit rates will typically induce crisis in the system. If none of the countervailing measures (TARP, in 2008, was a countervailing measure, for example) are successful, recession or depression will happen. From that point on, it could go one of two ways: workers act as a class for itself and begin to undertake their own liberation, or attempts at reforming the system will be made or to push the economy out of the crisis.
Marx does not give inevitability to a worker's revolution. The only thing he argues throughout his political works is that capitalist sets the stage for it. In his polemical works, he's a bit more... deterministic about it (probably mainly due to the fact that his polemics were written for his organizations or in the midst of uprisings.) His philosophical works are not. Everything is set squarely on the working class' shoulders to act themselves, but there's no guarantee given that they will.
I think you misunderstood my question, I meant to ask whether Marx thought the historical emergence of the capitalist mode of production was a 'historical necessity' or inevitability. For Marx, were humans destined to create capitalism, or, as the author in my OP suggests, was it merely an accident of history, and alternative economic systems were possible?
Gotcha.
I don't recall an argument for that being made, but I suppose it's sort of implied with historical materialism. Each mode of production is a product of class struggle, and revolutionary changes will be made which will usher in a new mode of production. From feudalism, you had the budding bourgeoisie, which went on to overthrow the lords and establish political systems that were favorable to their sort of economic organization and development. Thus, capitalism. The argument goes that the new oppressed class within capitalism is the proletariat, and only with them exists the possibility of overthrowing capitalism and abolishing class society altogether.
Whether Marx thought capitalism was inevitable, I couldn't tell you. I didn't get that from reading him, one way or the other. My impression is that he didn't really spend time on that sort of thing, which goes a little bit into alt-history crystal balling.
Someone else might be along to give you a definitive yes or no. I seem to remember someone, maybe here, making an argument for that case but I can't remember what they said, unfortunately.
Marx would have agree with Hegel probably that capitalism was a historical necessity but not inevitable. that may seem paradoxical but the point hegel makes is that history unfolds necessarily in a certain way when comprehended [backwards] from the present - you set a match to paper and it will necessarily alight into fire. This didn't make it inevitable, the match could not have been set to paper, or water could have been thrown upon it, and so on...yet from the perspective of a raging fire those possible alternatives, potentials were not realised, became closed, and the fire appears as a necessity of the lighting of paper. As such maybe something different could have happened instead of capitalism, but it's lost to us now given that history definitely has unfolded in a certain way and we have capitalism, counter-factuals are impossible. the train of events now appear as necessary just as if we imagine that water was thrown on the fire then it's smouldering would in turn today appear as necessary. does that make sense?
This is what you are looking for I think:
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol01/no04/marx.htm
So I'm personally finding myself more and more receptive to Left-Communism. Yet I find myself struggling to explain the history of "Communism" in history and why it turned out in such a way. For instance, figures like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc, even if I say that they deviate from Marx, one response I've received is that these figures were "too utopian".
In other words, if we are too utopian or aim for something like "equality", we will use brutal measures to enact that.
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deleted Whatisthis?
That's a great response. I think there is a tendency to find an "original sin" of communism by saying that any aspiration towards radical change leads to brutality.
The best short yet cohesive approach to it is given by Eclipse and Re-emergence, it compares the council communist and Bordigas analysis, and gives a good summary. It's strange to say that they deviated from Marx, they were all dedicated communists. But capitalism had survived the post WW1 revolutions and WW2. The law of value, abstract market forces, we're necessarily in Power of the Eastern bloc just as in the west.
Sometimes, as was the case with the Soviet Union, the actions of the party actively worked against revolutions in europe because the 3rd international was used for the self preservation of the soviet state. But that's as far as critique of communist practice is worth anything. Stalinism was just the capitalist counter revolution.
as SoCCantKillMe said Stalinism was the form the capitalism counter revolution took on after the ebbing away of the class struggle as a result of the isolation of the revolution and capitalist market structures. economic relations in russia never went beyond capitalism as socialism can only be a global system and the Bolsheviks,despite being at the beginning dedicated socialists,ended up fusing with new bureucratic capitalist state which was coming into being to deal with the civil war and productive disorganization and were also influenced by a substitutionist conception of the role of a revolutionary party had to play,as shown for example by the set up early on after the October Revolution of the Council of People's commissars as a bourgeois like cabinet ruling over the Soviet Congress. After the worker's councils lost power and the revolutionary wave was defeated elsewhere the seeds for Stalinism were already here and the third international became basically the main foreign policy instrument of a new state that needed to be recognized and also to strenghten economic and military ties with its fellow capitalist states and to do this the creation of mass parties was an useful mean to place pressure on its neighbours. this is more or less the analysis of the international communist current and the cwo among others(in italy there is battaglia comunista, which is an affiliate to the same bureau as the cwo, as well as several bordigaist groups).
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Should put this on rsocialism, if you aren't banned--I am.
Someone else already put it on r/socialism and it got downvoted to hell haha
Lol
Why would /r/socialism dislike this that much?
Something something brocialism hurr durr
Yeeah, thats been on the up-and-up lately.
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You're welcome!
Excellent read. I agree with everything. Communism should trancend politics.
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Very good article.
One thing that I would like to add is that the president is merely a bourgeois figurehead. People make a big deal out of it but in the end, it is merely meant to deflect from and uphold a vast hierarchy - local level government, state level, Congress, military, and the legislative branch. Suppose that someone actually committed to overthrowing the whole system suddenly becomes president today - would they really be able to actually do anything with all that? Even within the bourgeois order, the presidency is not some all-powerful office that has absolute power to change everything. It just gets all the attention to deflect from deeply entrenched control designed by and for the bourgeois, and that's also why revolution must come from below, not someone who manages to "get in" - there's too many failsafes.
Thanks!
It's actually the first article I've ever written and I am still very critical of my own understanding of the subjects (I have to give a large thanks to the folks at [ICT](leftcom.org) [I think they're in the sidebar] for helping me gather my thoughts into a presentable format and for doing a large part of the editing).
I was actually trying to show what you are talking about, although I would add a few caveats:
I don't think it is so much that the whole charade is meant to deflect attention away from monolithic state hierarchy so much as it is from capital and the nature of a state needed to ensure the conditions of the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production.
For example, in response to:
Suppose that someone actually committed to overthrowing the whole system suddenly becomes president today - would they really be able to actually do anything with all that? I think that someone actually committed to overthrowing the whole system would stay as far away from being a state functionary as possible. I think that the very role both demands and creates (or deeper engraves in one's ideas) either a sincere faith in the ability for the bourgeois state to create positive change or a more apathetic servility to what appears as overwhelming necessity (a more "it just has to be done" outlook).
You can't overthrow the conditions which necessitate a state to mediate relations between people (capitalism) from within the very state which ensures the reproduction of those very conditions (the bourgeois state).
The issue isn't so much running into "failsafes" as it is the most basic essence of the bourgeois state itself.
that's also why revolution must come from below, not someone who manages to "get in" I think the Sanders movement did partly come from below, insofar as that can mean anything. It came from both the state and the "people". It, along with Trump and Clinton, was a logical step in the evolution of American politics in the larger picture of the international capitalist crisis. He pulled people who might otherwise look for a radical alternative into the democratic machinery.
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Well, fuck them then
yuck
I am fine and dandy with reading the works of ultra-left revolutionaries, but how does one be able to analyze like they do? What is the process of critiquing that they undergo to develop theory? I hear a lot that "materialsim" and "dialectics" are dogmatic BS and that they are missing the point. So how does one analyze and critique like revolutionaries like Marx? I feel like all I do is accept revolutionary theory without the ability to think truly revolutionar-ly. What makes revolutionary communist thought, well, revolutionary communist thought?
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Here is an essay on exactly this question: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/marx-critique-philosophy.htm
You wanna be Marx but you reject dialectics because someone told you to? I don't mean to be rude or advocate for or against the dialectical method but probably you need to start drawing your own conclusions rather than uncritically following others'.
Edit: okay I guess that's something you're clearly aware of. I don't know what to tell you comrade.
I don't dismiss dialectics, at all. I'm frustrated not being able to expound theory on my own without someone holding my hand. I want the ability to analyze something for myself, and then see that it is truly revolutionary thought. When I read an article that I agree with, then read another article which critiques it, it blows my mind that I can't go beyond the article. I mean, it is easy to critique liberals, but that's because I'm a communist, but to critique the latest revolutionary theories? That requires revolutionary thought.
I don't see this as fully negative. The ability to really get into an article and agree with it is important to fully critique it. It is only once you almost agree with something that you can fully critique it.
I don't have a solid answer to your question, but I think that beginning with a solid understanding of what you believe is a solid start. I'd suggest writing down your beliefs and the foundation of your theory. Even if it feels like you are rehashing the work of others, I think that this is important (we all draw upon the work of others, no matter what, so influence from others is never a bad thing). Once you have written out what your foundations are, read through it and critique it. Do you agree with what you've written? Why or why not? How would you by critical of your work if you disagreed with it? Answer these questions and use them to build a stronger foundation. Talk to others about your foundation so that you might face critique from outside.
In doing this you'll begin to form a solid foundation for yourself. Out of this foundation it might become easier to critique other articles, even within marxist dialogue.
Thank you for the advice! While this is something I will use now, it still leaves the question of how to critique revolutionarly. Sure, I can critique things from a Marxist perspective, but what I want to learn is how to do the marxist critiquing itself, the actual critiquing abilities are what I lack. At one time, Marx walked on new ground by critiquing things in a revolutionary way, and although he had been a learned man, his critiques were revolutionary and stood on their own. Mine do not stand on their own, I require someone to already put a concept in my mind to be utilized in critiquing other subjects. And that critique is based off of a static ideology, lacking the revolutionary flare that makes people like Marx on another plane of thought. I not only want to know what it is to truly think and critique like a Marxist, but to expand that method of critiquing to cover new grounds.
This could be something that can't be learned though, and may be completely something that is either natural or something that requires a life changing epiphany.
I think that it is something that can be learned, but it is not something that is easy. My bias comes from academia, and I think that what you wish to accomplish takes years and years of study. Any form of proper and rigorous critique at the level you desire will likely take years of study.
Think about it like you would someone getting a PhD. To get into a PhD program you already need to have developed critical thinking skills at least to a BA/MA level. This is accomplished through 4-6 years of intensive study on a topic. Now, it is at the PhD level that you finally begin to develop the ability to be truly critical and add to the body of knowledge within a discipline – and in order to do this you partake in 5-8 years of rigorous study on a limited number of subjects within a very specific discipline. You need to know everything about your very limited field in order to begin adding to the body of knowledge, and in order to properly critique the work that is being done. Original work rests on having a full knowledge of everything that has come before.
What I'm trying to say is that this isn't an easy process. Critique is a skill that comes about from a lot of practice. I'm not exactly sure what you desire in your revolutionary critique outside of developing original things to add to the conversation. In order to bring those new perspectives in you need to understand the corpus of knowledge that exists.
So, lets take any communist theorist. Gramsci, for instance. It isn't simply because Gramsci has some revolutionary skill which allows him to critique previous theory. Gramsci knows the theory that exists, but he also sees the political and historical circumstances that he is living in. As a result of these circumstances, he can begin to poke holes in the old theory. Because of his background knowledge, and his critical thinking skills he is then able to produce new theories which fill in those holes. This seems, to me, what you want to be able to do. I'm sure that pure skill is a part of it, but hard work is also imperative.
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The reply by Fopenplop is, in general terms, correct. However, I feel like his/her comparison to academia is problematic. Academic work is individualistic and competitive at its very core. Revolutionary communist thought is also not an ideal that exists to be reproduced or to be 'achieved' in an individual person. There are, of course, the general intellectuals of a particular tendency of revolutionary thought to which we ascribe original ideas (e.g. Bordiga), however these intellectuals are always organically linked to more general developments within the proletariat and proletarian politics (Italian communist left, international communist left, et cetera). What I like to emphasise is not that you shouldn't strive to understand and learn about dialectics, however, do not be to harsh on yourself. What will perhaps be far more formative of your experience as a left communist will be to work collectively in an organisation, which will also help you develop the skills you would otherwise have to develop on your own - which can be daunting and even impossible task.
I understand people generally don't like "activism" but what does that mean and what should we be doing instead?
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I do activism in the sense that I think of it as improving the immediate lives of people who need it. I do charity work and food drives and things like that. I think the key is understanding that no activism or charity work in necessarily building socialism, because that concept doesn't make any sense.
Don't volunteer under the guise of "socialist work" volunteer with the goal of just helping people who need it.
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Interesting comment by Cleishbotham on that one.
Thanks for pointing that out. Damen's response to Bordiga (here refered to as "Alfa") is available on this page, under Overturning Praxis.
It's why I prefer Damen tbh.
Activism is when people believe that subjective factors outweigh objective conditions. It amounts to the idea that you can “spread consciousness” through various actions like selling newspapers, going on marches, staging one day protests, taking part in parliament, shilling for democrats, standing on street corners every week on a soap box, and so on. It pretty much posits that revolution is just a matter of convincing enough people of socialism. It takes revolution out of springing from objective conditions into the realm of superstructure and ideology. As such, it's a world outlook that is antithetical to Marxism. This sort of outlook not only shapes practice but it also shapes their on view of the nature of the party and it's relationship to the class.
And usually it's the idea that you can attract on mass these new converts into a mass party (or trade union, or what have you). But in reality, a mass party can't possibly be a revolutionary party. This is because only a minority of people can ever be communists at any one time under the normal functioning of capitalism. According to Marx, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”.
Now with that out of the way, the traditional answer is “build the class party”. This however shouldn't be confused with “building the movement”, which is what most people think it means. The traditional role of the party is not to recruit masses of people to it then lead those masses, but the coming together of individuals who work within and take part in class struggles, not to be infantile and confuse these fleeting moments as being revolutionary or “socialist” and to use these experiences as the material to add to the body of knowledge called Marxism.
That's like the tl;dr version of it and I'm not including other considerations.
use these experiences as the material to add to the body of knowledge called Marxism.
So it would be like a book club for Marxists?
Book club maybe in the sense of writing books? Left com parties tend to fetishise the collection of papers throughout their history. Most of the current tendencies are named after papers.
So the whole purpose of a Left com party is to discuss, there is no action?
Are you not reading my post?
Yes, but Im not smart.
There's many different kinds of "action". The problem isn't participation in things, which communists should be doing anyway. The problem is the belief that activism itself can lead to revolution. It inflates the role of subjective experience over objective. And yes, discussion is part of the process of understanding what is going on.
Okay, just to clear this up...
I am the president of a party, what should I be doing?
I am a party member, what should I be doing?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. I've read Bordiga's critique and participated in activism, so I find myself agreeing with some, but still not sure exactly the best use of our time is.
i will fight without caring if you can "build" socialism or not. I don't have any other reaction.
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The Last Graveyard
Even the machine is nodding off
Sealed workshops store diseased iron
Wages concealed behind curtains
Like the love that young workers bury at the bottom of their hearts
With no time for expression, emotion crumbles into dust
They have stomachs forged of iron
Full of thick acid, sulfuric and nitric
Industry captures their tears before they have the chance to fall
Time flows by, their heads lost in fog
Output weighs down their age, pain works overtime day and night
In their lives, dizziness before their time is latent
The jig forces the skin to peel
And while it’s at it, plates on a layer of aluminum alloy
Some still endure, while others are taken by illness
I am dozing between them, guarding
The last graveyard of our youth.
http://www.ultra-com.org/blog/four-years-later-still-a-graveyard-of-our-youth/
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Thanks for posting this; this is really helpful for coming to a better understanding of the differences between anarchism and anti-authoritarian communism.
These texts actually defend "authoritarianism", like Marx and Engels did.
Perhaps that was a poor choice of words. I simply meant communism that was in opposition to the USSR. They mention the degeneration of the party there into a state capitalist ruling class.
But yes, you are right, they do defend a sort of authoritarianism.
What is the Left Communist view on Bookchin and Communalism? Is it just "hippie idealism", or does it have any value? It, supposedly, rejects classism and class struggle, but I see little evidence of this in what Communalists say.
Anyone got any idea about it at all?
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I'm a communalist, which if you haven't heard of I recommend you check out here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism_(political_philosophy). I don't think it's overly idealistic at all, if anything it has more basing in reality than the rest of libertarian socialism. Also it 100% does not reject classism or class struggle at all, that's a big part of it so I'm not sure where you got that from. It is communist. I think if you read about it you might find parts of it you find interesting because it isn't that far from some left communist ideas. At the least, Murray Bookchin's ideas around the environment are really interesting for any leftist really. Feel free to ask me any questions about it or check out /r/communalists.
Bookchin explicitly rejected class struggle in Listen, Marxist!
Then what is this?
Some anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists have recently written that I do not “believe” in the existence of classes—an accusation that is almost too ridiculous to answer. I have no doubt that we live in a class society; in fact, conflicts between classes would doubtless exist in citizens’ assemblies as well. For this reason, libertarian municipalism does not forsake the notion of class struggle but carries it out not only in the factories but also into the civic or municipal arena. - Thoughts on Libertarian Municipalism, Murray Bookchin
That doesn't say that he thinks class struggle is the motivator of history though.
I mean fair enough if he changed his views but i firmly remember the main point of Listen, Marxist! being that Marxists were outmoded for relying on class and instead should rely on the young and dropouts. I guess i owe it a re-read to clarify but thats definitely what i took away from it.
conflicts between classes would doubtless exist in citizens’ assemblies as well.
Doesn't sound very communist to me.
He seems to see these assemblies preceding communism, perhaps catalytic in causing it.
It doesn't matter, communism is a proletarian movement. The only consequence of permitting other classes a place in these "citizens' assemblies" is compromise to the existing order and class collaborationism, chaining the working class to interests other than its own. If Bookchin sees these assemblies as preceding communism, then they should be assemblies that are expressions of worker power i.e. exclusively proletarian. If he sees them as a model for the future (which is fundamentally a utopian and idealist suggestion) then he sees classes as existing in his "communalist society" which means it is not a communist one.
He doesn't see classes as existing in communism. This is like saying we see a state existing in communism because we see the proletariat seizing state power in order to reach it. I'm not sure if it's accelerationism he's going for with the class struggle in these assemblies, but he sees them as a means to an end. I'm not familiar with their function in getting to communism but they don't exist in his Communalist society.
If Communalism = what bookchin thinks, then it's predicated more on fantasies and caricatures than anything else.
Well it clearly isn't. He tried to analyse capitalism's weaknesses and how it links to other problems in society and remedy them based on that. It is, for the most part, materialist, as far as I can tell. It does not reject the economic sphere but claims there are other dimensions.
I am very sceptical of this trend amongst Marxists to dismiss anything that isn't through a Marxist lens, even if it is through a materialist lens with analysis.
Well it clearly isn't.
It clearly is. I have no idea who this "Marxist" is that he's trying to make listen. The things he says about Marx are wrong, and the things he says about Marxism are also wrong when they're not caricatures.
"Listen, Marxist!" is targeted at the "Marxists" of his day, i.e. Stalinists and Maoists. It's dumb, strawmanning, caricaturing and patronisingly wrong in many areas. This, however, makes up none of the canon of his political work in opposition to "Marxism".
The murder of Mike Brown certainly seemed to be a symbolic turning point. The response was, as far as I know, the biggest in the past 20 years or so, and they prompted similar responses to police violence throughout the country. In Baltimore there were even fights that left cops injured.
But were they successful? Did they achieve any real change? Were they potential revolutions that didn't pan out?
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Have you read the piece bu Endnotes (http://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-brown-v-ferguson)? I'm not from the US so not really up to date but i thought it was a realy good analysis. This was also interesting: http://unityandstruggle.org/2014/12/11/burn-down-the-prison/
Ah cool, I haven't. Thanks for the links!
That endnotes piece has also been formatted into printable zine format here:
https://subversionpress.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/brown-v-ferguson/
The response was, as far as I know, the biggest in the past 20 years or so
I just realized that 1999 was almost 20 years ago? I'm by no means old but damn.
In my totally optimistic view, I don't think it would be wrong to call 2014-2015 a revolutionary moment. It's what always makes me chuckle when tankies pretend that revolution is impossible in America.
I completely forgot about the anti-globalization stuff. I was thinking the riots in LA in 92, so that is a bit more recent.
What, in your mind, kept it just a moment and nothing more? A simple lack of numbers compared to the heavy-handed state response, or do you think there's more to it?
It seemed pretty isolated generally. The bigger reactions only happened in Ferguson and Baltimore (if I'm not forgetting anything). It also seemed to fail to expand itself into more than just racism, whereas the 1968 French Revolution expanded to more than just a student's movement.
And if I'm not mistaken, the demands made were never more radical than simply a call for greater police accountability and more black cops in black neighborhoods; I don't recall seeing anyone calling for an abolition of the police.
whereas the 1968 French Revolution expanded to more than just a student's movement.
Sorry to hijack the thread but what did/do left-coms think of the events of Mai 68?
Gilles Dauve wrote about it a little bit in Eclipse and Reemergence of the Communist Movement.
Is there any distinction between the two terms? Are they interchangeable or is an ultra-leftist are specific type of leftcom?
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Left communism or as it is also known the communist left is a historical tendency that originated in the 20s in Germany and Italy. The term can also refer to those groups (ICC, ICT, the various bordigist groups etc) still in existence that have an organic connection through time to that historical period.
The term ultra left can refer to the communist left or more generally those who are influenced by the communist left but stand outside of any organic connection to the historic communist left. In other words you can be an ultra leftist w out being part of the communist left but the communist left is always ultra left
"Ultra-left" is most often used as an insult by tankies, but beyond that I'm not aware of any distinction between the two.
where im from "ultra-left" is a term used by social democrats to refer to MLMs so who knows what it is supposed to mean
... MLMs in specific?
I think Gilles Dauve uses the term 'ultra-leftism' to refer to council communists. At least, that was the sense I got.
There is a self-identified "ultra-left", going back to the '70s. Left communism is sort of an older phenomenon going back to the twenties.
I would say that ultra leftists are to the left of left communists. For example, the German left communist KAPD called for the "ruthless enforcement of the obligation to work," while the ultra-left sees the abolition of work and the working class as part of the process of communism and something to be realized immediately.
Neither is particularly well known today.
Ultra-leftism refers to the "communization" theories of groups such as Theorie Communiste and La Banquise, with Gilles Dauvé being the most influential. This started in the late 60s in France but the tendency is still active with groups such as Endnotes and Riff-Raff.
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Bordiga
Depends on what you mean by "vanguardism"?
is vanguardism looked poorly upon by leftcom?
"Vanguardism" as it is understood today, is a social-democratic deformation which has little to do with Marx or a Marxist conception of party and class.
i guess i have some reading up to do myself. generally, i don't see anything wrong with it (i also subscribe to squadism, especially in urban areas pertaining to antifa crews and such), but i can see how the vanguard can be misused.
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One thing that I've never understood about UBI is that if the working class is powerful enough to demand it, couldn't they just take over the means of the production?
That's assuming they're aware of taking over the means of production as a priority, which they mostly aren't.
By working class, I hope you're not just talking about the lower classes of the current world, because having a strong education is essential to the strategic knowledge required to successfully have a revolution, one which won't be vulnerable to degeneration towards moving back to the previous system.
The push back will be from a position of those educated in war.
because having a strong education is essential to the strategic knowledge required to successfully have a revolution
The education one gets from having the burgeoise leech off their labour is essential to being revolutionary period. Stratagy is another matter and the workers can educate themselves when needed fairly easily with all the resources accessible these days, workers are perfectly capable of being intellectuals.
That's assuming they're aware of taking over the means of production as a priority, which they mostly aren't.
true
By working class, I hope you're not just talking about the lower classes of the current world
I'm talking about the proletariat
because having a strong education is essential to the strategic knowledge required to successfully have a revolution
Class consciousness is essential to a revolution and I have no idea what you mean by "a strong education" and why it excludes the "lower classes" (which are the proletariat btw).
By working class, I hope you're not just talking about the lower classes of the current world
Still an elitist piece of shit huh? Are you also still a Ukranian nationalist and anti-Russian? Because in case you don't know yet, since your flair says you're interested in learning about left communism's "core tenets," left communists are almost invariably opposed to nationalism in all its forms as well as xenophobia and racism.
Elitist? No. The cult of the lowest common denominator is inherently Leninist. It's just not practical to expect a construction worker to understand all the nuances of revolutionary activity, and his or her lack of education can and will put them at risk for falling for counter-revolutionary ideas.
I'm anti-Russian imperialism, yeah, but no longer a Ukrainian nationalist.
No, Leninists believe that the working class is too stupid to make revolution themselves and so need to be controlled and educated by the vanguard party. This is what you are doing.
lowest common denominator
Yup, elitist.
It's just not practical to expect a construction worker to understand all the nuances of revolutionary activity
A construction worker, your so-called "lowest common denominator" knows more about the troubles of living in capitalist society than you, as a descendant of noblemen, would ever know. I haven't a clue what made you think left communism was something you'd be into but I guess that's what happens when you get all your information from Wikipedia.
and his or her lack of education can and will put them at risk for falling for counter-revolutionary ideas.
You as an educated and supposedly superior human being, openly declared yourself to be a fascist. Your not being part of the "lowest common denominator" did not stop you from being counter revolutionary.
I don't understand the hostility.
Why shouldn't I join your ideology? Is it because that on the merit of my previous ideas, I'm automatically the enemy?
I've already stated repetitively that my deepest sympathies lie with this movement, and that I'm willing to contribute as much as possible to its advancement.
Cut me some slack, I've been a Fascist for a long time, so of course I'll end up with familiar rhetoric.
In addition, knowing the harshness of capitalism doesn't mean that that person will automatically have the education to subvert counter-revolutionary sabotage. That sort of thing requires training, and mass-education in terms of training the population against that sort of sabotage is a necessary step.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the core ideas here is that the revolution must result in the entire population having the power that Leninists claim must be in the hands of the Vanguard Party. If I'm right, then I must highlight that I'm against the idea of a Vanguard Party.
I don't understand the hostility.
Because I know what it's like to have you around from my time on /r/debatefascism.
Is it because that on the merit of my previous ideas, I'm automatically the enemy?
They seem a lot like your present ideas since you're still using the phrase "lowest common denominator" to refer to the working class. And this isn't about rhetoric, your particular phrasing and your beliefs that the working class is incapable of making revolution themselves shows clearly your contempt for the working class.
In addition, knowing the harshness of capitalism doesn't mean that that person will automatically have the education to subvert counter-revolutionary sabotage.
The working class are revolutionary because they are exploited. It's not the working class who sabotaged their own revolutions, but bourgeois intellectuals who substituted themselves for the working class.
but one of the core ideas here is that the revolution must result in the entire population having the power that Leninists claim must be in the hands of the Vanguard Party.
The entire population seems to include people who aren't workers. No, the only people who need power are those who are willing to take it; that is, the revolutionary working class. This isn't the Leninist vanguard of "professional revolutionaries" but a vanguard of the most advanced movement of the working class. The same "lowest common denominator" that you have so much contempt for is the ones who will make the revolution, and they don't need your perceived superiority to make it.
It's not the working class who sabotaged their own revolutions, but bourgeois intellectuals who substituted themselves for the working class.
not quite. and this history tends away from materialism and towards 'great man history'.
I would advise strongly against fetishising any class.
Like it or not, we're all in this together, and our mutual enemy is the billionaire class.
In addition, as we seize and internationalise the modes of production, we cannot have a chicken farmer be placed into an administrative position, because that's just poor human resource management.
If said chicken farmer wishes to obtain a better position, the new society will provide him or her with easy access to basic needs, and therefore higher education will become a priority.
Nothing that I'm saying is counter-revolutionary, and further clarification is required, I'll be happy to clarify whatever is concerning you.
Again, don't assume I'm here with malice, because that's simply unfair and very much vulgar—if I was what you suspect me to be, then I wouldn't waste my time here, I would have sympathies with other organisations. Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to a lack of information, either out of ignorance (not on my part), or poor clarification (perhaps on my part).
I would advise strongly against fetishising any class.
I'm not fetishizing anything. The working class is the only revolutionary class in society, and they are revolutionary because they are exploited. As such it is only the working class which can make revolution. "The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class themselves."
Like it or not, we're all in this together, and our mutual enemy is the billionaire class.
Yeah, I don't think left communism is for you if your personal enemy is billionaires. How much money and land do you own again handed down to you by your family that you for some reason feel you have a right to?
internationalise the modes of production
What does that even mean?
we cannot have a chicken farmer be placed into an administrative position, because that's just poor human resource management.
Elitism, again. The working class already runs society, that you think they are incapable of doing so shows your class blindspot.
don't assume I'm here with malice
I don't think you're here with malice, I think you are a willfully ignorant person who thinks he's better than other people because of your family history. I want people here to know what kind of person you are.
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I wrote something that sort of answers this a while ago for /r/DebateFascism so I'll just copy and paste it;
Atheist and Liberal Democrat supporter, typical "middle of the road" bullshit to hide my lack of political understanding.
Social Democrat and Nordic model lover, after a little bit of education in sociological concepts and the detriment of inequality on the overall well being of society, I became a big proponent of the expansion of the welfare state and Keynesian economics.
Old Labour supporter, a big lover of Attlee and types like Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner. I was skeptical about Miliband but he was the best we had, I reasoned.
Democratic Socialist, mainly inspired by reading quite a bit of Orwell's works and a bit about his life, I was very much into reformism and I was still worried of Marxism and communism in general, because I still didn't really understand it.
Socialist, I read The Communist Mannifesto and some other Marxist works and in school I had learned a lot about Lenin and the history of the Russian revolution. I plainly called myself a "socialist" because I wasn't sure of my position at that point, but I came to accept the necessity of revolution.
Marxist-Leninist, I very briefly got sucked into the world of Stalinism and for a while I found myself reading a lot of Stalinist apologia. My visit to Russia during this time had me infatuated with the history of the country. I still have a some Stalinist propaganda hung on my wall, but its more of an ironic thing at this point. This period really lasted less than a month and I never quite got to the level of reading Grover Furr.
Classical Marxist, after some time reading more of Marx's own works rather than that by Lenin and Stalin, I came to realise that the USSR wasn't socialist or even an example of the DotP. As a result I decided that until I had found a sufficient ideology to align myself to, that I was just going to focus on theory from Marx and Engels. In this time I spent a lot of time looking at the Paris Commune and the First International, while also looking into Luxemburgism and the other communist movements at the start of the 20th century.
Council Communist/Left Communist, this is where I am currently at, after getting a more solid grasp on Marx's actual theories and reading about all the various movements in the history of communism, this is the position that seemed the most in line with what I had read and it seemed to have the best understanding of why the previous attempts at achieving socialism failed. I'm still reading from the various traditions, trying to work out which I most align with. I've also flirted with Anarchism, but I'm still quite entrenched in my Marxist thought.
I never quite got to the level of reading Grover Furr.
basic
[deleted]
I had a couple different phases but just before I started reading left-com writings and re-reading Marx I was a Marxist-Leninist. As close to a tankie as you can get without supporting North Korea.
Pretty much, I read the manifesto and liked it. From there I think I adopted a sort of anarchism but I didn't really read anything so it was a really ignorant form of anarchism. Then later as I read more, as a response to what I didn't like in some anarchist critiques of the USSR, I started to read Lenin's The State and Revolution and Stalin's Anarchism or Socialism? which was pretty much the first step into my FULLCOMMUNISM phase. From then I read a little Marx here or there but mostly just Lenin and Stalin, a good portion of it being Stalin. At this point I was neck deep in tankie filth.
Then I got tired of the tankie culture (also when I started to be actively sober but that's possibly a personal thing) and how too much of the tankie analysis was just defending/comparing X, Y, Z and not about the actual relations within the USSR. At that same time /u/red-rooster and /u/atlasing would talk with the tankie lords at /r/communism101 which made me think a lot about what I had taken for granted in reading Stalin reference Marx instead of reading Marx himself. I think it was mostly what the function of the state was that started the snowball.
From then I started reading Bordiga which led to Gorter and Dauve which led to Pannekoek and so on. Also at that point I was re-reading Marx to try and not take what's being said at face-value or not trying to find in Marx examples of how the USSR could be justified.
So: really ignorant anarchist -> really ignorant Marxist-Leninist -> probably still quite ignorant left-com
Didn't mean to write an autobiography here lol
What attracts people to reading stalin in the first place?
When I first started getting into Marxism myself, I found that Stalinism simplifies Marxist theory to an extreme by distorting it. It makes it a lot more accessable than actually reading Marx.
I tried reading "The Foundations of Leninism" and found it virtually unreadable. He was honestly a terrible writer.
Must every paragraph start with a question and answer ? Yes, it must.
The best part is how some tankies actually recommend that people read "The Foundations of Leninism" because they claim it's easier to read than what Lenin actually wrote.
I also found his work tedious.
It wasn't succinct; perhaps it reads better in Russian.
It doesn't read any better in Russian
For me it was being influenced by ML friends or even here seeing MLs recommend works of his. Then before I had really read much Marx aside from the basics, Stalin was much easier to read so I took an interest in his writings. The tankie culture I surrounded myself in also just reinforced it's grasp.
At this point I was probably 17-18 with some drug abuse problems so it was just a dark phase I guess. It also could have been just a sort of angst against the US that I carried on from my early Anarchist phase.
Liberal feminist, vaguely anti-capitalist (5 years) -> radical feminist, sympathised with USSR (2 years) -> a brief brush against proletarian feminism -> anarchist (4 months) -> left-communist (5 days so far LOL). You probably won't see me posting here, I started reading Marx just a few days ago.
Well in my first year of high school I was probably centre-right/libertarianish, mainly coz I listened to a lot of people praising the current ruling centre-right party in NZ.
After getting back into politics about 3 years later, I started out as a New Labour type voter, since I believed in a sort of balance between business and labour. I quickly grew into an Old Labour social democrat coz I thought the welfare policies were a no brainer and i started feeling like more interested in the whole labour aspect of politics.
In my last year of high school (2013) and start of 2014 when I started working full time, i got sick of social democracy's shittiness and went radical left, but went with Anarchism since I felt cautious about Marx coz i still negatively associated him with the USSR.
After realising how anarchist theory wasn't so great, i read some of marx and lenin's stuff and turned into a mild Marxist-Leninist as i thought there were a lot of annoying lies about the USSR yada yada, ipso facto i went with the whole "muh actually existing socialism" thing for a while. This led me down the rabbit hole downwards into Tankieland, i even subscribed to StalinSociety (ugh!) and watched a video of Harpal Brad (ugh!!!) and was bordering on Stalinism
After seeing SolidBlues becoming a leftcom, i was intrigued and began looking into the topic more, while also tiring of the intellectual exercises needed to maintain the M-L doctrine. This led me to read a few articles and a few reddit leftcom discussions in order to get a sense of what leftcommunism was all about. Naturally, I realised most of what I had heard and read about Marx from Leninists was crap and went back to the man himself, so now here I am, a regular infantile.
It's interesting how the very mechanism used to keep us away from Marxism eventually backfires.
After seeing SolidBlues becoming a leftcom, i was intrigued and began looking into the topic more, while also tiring of the intellectual exercises needed to maintain the M-L doctrine. This led me to read a few articles and a few reddit leftcom discussions in order to get a sense of what leftcommunism was all about. Naturally, I realised most of what I had heard and read about Marx from Leninists was crap and went back to the man himself, so now here I am, a regular infantile.
So uh, admitted tank here, but do you remember any of the threads or articles you read? Trying to put some feelers out for what leftcommunism is about.
The recommended readings on the sidebar are pretty good, and there are a couple of threads on here and other subreddits about what leftcommunism is - on mobile so I can't link but the AMA hosted by /u/atlasing and /u/blackened_sunn on debateanarchism a while back is a great resource.
Also, it sounds a bit odd but I've learned plenty from just sort of 'following' many of the regulars here around by looking at their comments and reading the discussions they get into around reddit. Blackenedsunn and atlasing are both good, per_levy, pzaaa (sp?) and Solid are great as well and red-rooster is probably the cream of the crop here, as they know more about Marx's economic theory than pretty much any other redditor. Zach and Quinton are two relatively new guys like me who are also quite informative in their discussions. There's probably others but that's who I mainly remember off the top of my head :P I've learnt a hell of a lot from these peeps.
I'm in this weird state where I'm in between left communism and anarcho-communism (especifismo in particular), just walking along the interface. However, this side of the fence is becoming more and more appealing. I want to call myself a left communist, but I also want to call myself an especifista. And unlike with people, there's not much room to be polyamorous with politics.
I'm writing from a United States/Caribbean perspective.
Like some people here, I was a liberal when first politically conscious. I got caught into left-liberal/pro-Obama journals, and became a social democrat (it doesn't take that much political thought to become one) during debates regarding healthcare, immigration and Occupy.
Despite the naivety of this age, I still have a bit of a soft spot for it. I was the kind of kid that would always donate to UNICEF and read Amnesty International reports. I also played freerice as if it would actually do anything (I know, I know).
Unfortunately, Occupy went nowhere quickly and it became harder to defend the Obamadrama, so I just ended up deciding that I wanted to be some kind of socialist. Which tendency I would stick to would be a different question.
I lived in Jamaica for months at a time, but one summer, when the structural adjustment from the IMF (artificial currency devaluation [atop that due to the financial crisis], austerity measures, greater imports) and Jamaica's drought spell started, I radicalised based on the sources I learned from: I vowed to be a communist from that point on. However, being indoctrinated educated in the United States, the Ghost of McCarthy hung over me, so I could not embrace Marxism as an epistemology. I had to find a "safe" communism. And I did find it: anarcho-communism.
[edit: From anarcho-communism, I learned about especifismo from a few discussions online and the position papers of South American anarchist groups. It seemed to speak to the issues I had with anarcho-communism (especially the mega-individualist bent of it and the anarchism I found in the United States in general).]
I'm glad I found anarcho-communism, because I think when done with a clear head, and a little histmat, it can go a long way. It was also this tendency that instilled in me the importance of other movements: black liberation, feminism, trans liberation, post-colonialism, alter-globalisation, and disabled rights. However, I regret shunning Marxism. Knowing what I do now about it, I think I would have come to very similar conclusions (i.e. I would have been here looking at the ancom side of the fence).
Exposure to those other movements was important because, no matter what I did, I could not get away from Marxism. It's like you folks think of everything! Sooner or later, when learning liberation theory, some Marxist (maybe Marx or Engels themselves) will show up. And I noticed something else: with the exception of the occasional Trotskyist or Maoist, they were all leftcoms. It became such a problem that I resolved to understand these pieces from the tendency they come from.
This is when I picked up some Bordiga and Dauve. (I've yet to read much of the German-Dutch side; I'm almost in love with the Italian and French communist movements.) And I've felt comfortable in this tendency ever since. My goals, given this long ideological development, are to:
Read a lineage of Marxist works all the way from the Manifesto to Dauve,
Get a better history of proletarian movements (especially outside of Europe/N. America), and
Fully resolve my concerns regarding the national question
to see what conclusions are similar, what changes, and which tendency I belong to.
I want to call myself a left communist, but I also want to call myself an especifista. And unlike with people, there's not much room to be polyamorous with politics.
I don't see why not. I mean, it is certainly possible to be both an anarchist and a Marxist, specially once you forget old petty politics and focus on the real movement for emancipation. I for one am an anarchist who doesn't identify as a Marxist, but even i do draw quite a lot from Marx.
Absolutely. Left sectarianism doesn't help anyone, and labels that people give themselves are useful only as heuristics, giving you a general idea of where people are coming from politically. I myself came to the radical left as an anarchist, but tons of what I actually spend my time reading is stuff from the many and varied libertarian Marxist tendencies (autonomism, communization theory, Marx himself, the Frankfurt School, etc) and streams of post-structuralist thought (Agamben, Foucault, Tiqqun/Invisible Committee, Deleuze, etc). Doesn't mean I'm not still interested in classical anarchists like Kropotkin, Bakunin, Malatesta, as well as modern anarchist tendencies like post-leftism, insurrectionism, and so on.
I feel I'm still an anarchist at heart, but the labels don't matter to me like they once did. 'Libertarian communist' will do just fine.
Left sectarianism doesn't help anyone
I don't think it has prevented anything either. The whole history of the communist movement has been factional disputes within and between the various parties and tendencies, none of which had prevented any revolutionary activity by working class itself as far as I am aware. The only time really is when left unity types have hindered revolutionary activity by trying to keep together a mass party with the centre and right wings. And this is really where I see most of the problems coming from, when people start arguing that the "left" has to be organised into a mass party with various political tendencies, not all of which are compatible, for some political struggle in bourgeois parliaments.
I'm extremely wary of 'left unity' too, for what it's worth. Got no time for parties, parliaments, or centralized unions. By left sectarianism I mean intellectually: dogmatism towards a particular -ism, and refusal to charitably engage with other schools of thought within the libertarian left.
Yeah well I often get told that I'm dogmatic by people on the "libertarian left" when I just elucidate basic communist positions like the abolition of wage labour. The people on both sides can be just as bad as each other.
I have an entire doctrine available here: /r/SocialCorporatism.
I'll allow it to exist as a possible path towards an eventual post-scarcity world, however, I realised that the ideas behind left communism are far more practical in terms of immediate change, so now my allegiance is mainly to this cause and I will contribute as much as I can.
But you don't still hold those views, right? They don't jive with communism.
Obviously not. That's why I'm here.
I'm just clarifying for the other users.
umm... what?
Read it and don't be rude, please and thanks.
Well I'd recommend abandoning corporatism entirely because that's completely antithetical to communism in like every way possible
I'm not abandoning anything, I'm leaving that political ideology as is as a standalone entity, while allying myself with left communism.
Read the pdf.
that was a terrifying experience
I don't know what that means.
Read the pdf.
so pretty much a weird version of Stalinism
What made you interested in left communism?
I've always been interested in achieving a post-scarcity society, one which has rendered classes, borders, ethnicity and even the biological necessity for a family unit obsolete.
Before my recent "full conversion", my goal was to use a progressive humanist corporatism as a stepping stone towards the socialist mode of production by technologically making the capitalist mode of production permanently obsolete, and I still acknowledge that we reside in a world of resource scarcity, so that any restrictions to consumer demand, itself driven by a neverending force of innovation, will create a black market, and without a proper checkmate against capitalist economic monopolism that can arise with an improper implementation of a socialist economy, shared poverty might become a reality.
However, it's very likely that with what we know now, we can theorise a strategy that would maintain the benefits of what capitalism produces today without any maintenance of isolated wealth.
left communism are far more practical in terms of immediate change
that's a rare pov
I turned towards communism a couple years ago after watching RT one night and seeing Caleb Maupin doing commentary. I wasn’t too familiar with communism back then but was more curious about it when he started saying what communism represented. I asked myself why the US was so against a movement that stood for everything that we all should stand for.
I followed Caleb more closely by reading his FB status updates and reading his news articles. He kept hammering the point of how evil the US was and how great these other nations the US was attacking were. I struggled reconciling that a bit, but I ended up embracing communism and started defending the USSR, Cuba, DPRK, etc, to my friends.
I also discovered Jason Unruhe around this time and started watching his videos. My knowledge was still nascent, but I still disagreed with Third Worldism. I watched his videos anyway because he provided unique commentary I wasn’t getting anywhere else.
It wasn’t until I wanted to engage with others about communism that my understanding of it grew exponentially, especially when I signed up for Reddit. I signed onto Reddit for nothing else except to talk about communism with others. That’s when I started realizing that not all communists were in harmony.
Reddit was where I learned about the MLs, Trotskyists, anarchists. Even though I subscribed to the Left Communism subreddit when I first registered with Reddit, it was such an inactive group that I didn’t pay much attention to it. I started paying closer attention to LCs when they would argue with MLs in other subreddits. That got me more curious to their side.
LCs are truer to the words of Marx than all these other groups I learned about.
That’s where I am today, and I’m certain this is my final destination.
One of the core tenets of Left Communism is the concept of spontaneous revolution from below without the need of a Vanguard party.
Because I'm new to this current of thought, but have the most sympathies to it than any other political idea from the position of radical anti-imperialism, I'd like a more in-depth explanation of this idea (spontaneism, as it's apparently sometimes called) and why it functions best, and whether or not it requires any social and/or economic prerequisites.
Is it correct to conclude that its absolute decentralisation is a method to prevent centralised violence that can be redirected back at the revolution(s)?
If I'm mistaken about something, let me know.
Edit: Forgot to add that I wanted to know if there are any core elements of Left Communism that are essential but are often overlooked.
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One of the core tenets of Left Communism is the concept of spontaneous revolution from below without the need of a Vanguard party.
That depends on which type of left communist you speak to. Bordigaists for example think that without the party there is no revolution. But as is often the case, the whole concept of the "vanguard" is misunderstood or distorted as the myth of the Bolshevik party.
Spontaneity is one thing, but I'm not sure if this is an accurate presentation of the problem either. You can't manufacture class struggle as a small revolutionary minority in times of social-peace, and mass parties that are revolutionary are also an impossibility (the prevailing ideas of society are the ideas of the ruling class and all that). Again, depending on which type of left communist you speak to, the role of the party is going to differ in regards to changing situations in the organisation of labour as the material conditions change. Are they in a union? Are they moving out of the unions? etc
But in general, the problem has two periods which have the same question but different answers; in times of social-peace, and in times of class struggle, and what can be done in each?
Is it correct to conclude that its absolute decentralisation is a method to prevent centralised violence that can be redirected back at the revolution(s)?
I'm not sure what you are asking here. I would think that most left communists would argue for centralisation.
Forgot to add that I wanted to know if there are any core elements of Left Communism that are essential but are often overlooked.
I'm not sure what you are asking here. I would think that most left communists would argue for centralisation.
In reference to this page, Revolutionary Spontaneity "is a tendency to believe that social revolution can and should occur spontaneously from below, without the aid or guidance of a vanguard party, and that it cannot and should not be brought about by the actions of individuals or parties who might attempt to foment such a revolution."
My interpretation of that line was, backed by the idea of Left Communism being inherently against Democratic Centralism altogether, that the concept calls for being against any revolutionary centralisation.
Since you say that most Left Communism would argue for centralisation, what kind is it and how does it different from Lenin's Democratic Centralism?
Note: I've always been very much against Leninism, and this inquiry is for clarification purposes only.
Well the context of that wikipedia page seems to be Lenin's argument against economism, which I think is still relevant as it's still a tendency within the workers' movement. The problem is the formulation that Lenin comes up with of introducing socialism into the workers' movement. Basically, only intellectuals can be socialists and workers can never attain anything more than trade union consciousness, which was and still is the typical "orthodox marxism" of the second international and social-democrats. Lenin wrote this in 1903 and in 1905 was proven wrong with the 1905 revolutions. Lenin would never print this work again in his life time, that he had bent the rod too far in that direction.
I personally think that the party is important for revolution but that the ideas about it as bringing socialism in from outside the class is wrong. The party is a growth of the class, an organ of it, just like any other organ of class power. The German-Dutch left, council communists, usually have different views on it.
As to democratic centralism, that too is mostly a myth. The pro-party left communists describe a tendency towards organic centralism which explains the tendency of democratic centralism to turn towards dictatorial routes.
You should look into the German-Dutch tradition. It's not one that I'm familiar enough to make comment on. So look into Pannekoek, Mattick, Ruhle and uh, a few others. They were, I think, the first tendency to be expelled, or leave, the third international and would move towards an anti-party position.
As to democratic centralism, that too is mostly a myth. The pro-party left communists describe a tendency towards organic centralism which explains the tendency of democratic centralism to turn towards dictatorial routes.
What's the distinction between parties that are an organ of the proletariat and democratic centralist parties that end up being dictatorial?
I don't think that there is a clear cut answer. I would say that they no longer are the class party when they start substituting themselves for the class (which could mean that the class no longer exists because it's been defeated, or the party no longer has a basis in the class) and/or start acting against the class.
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In reality a Corbyn-led Labour Party will perform a useful function as part of capitalism’s political apparatus. In the face of deepening cuts in services and other attacks on living standards, the ruling class is aware that there is the possibility of discontent from those who are most affected. This does not need to be on the scale of widespread unrest for it to be a concern for the bourgeoisie. Labour will be able to present itself as a radical alternative for those who are the victims of a continuing programme of austerity and impoverishment. At this stage the existence of a ‘party of protest’ (which doesn’t challenge the fundamentals of the capitalist system, only points to its impact on ‘the many’) will serve British capitalism well.
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This caused a lot of people in /r/socialism to lose their minds and honestly that's probably a good thing at this point.
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After receiving trillions of euros of public money from the European Union (EU) supposedly to alleviate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, French and European employers are restructuring the economy with mass layoffs and austerity plans.
It’s hilarious that some people still think the EU is a pro-worker institution. I remember during the Brexit campaign many social-democrats were pleading with us to vote Remain because the EU was a guarantor of workers’ rights. Laughable.
I mean the "people" who think that are just the ones holding the bullhorn circlejerking to their own opinion pieces, mostly petite bourgeois liberals. Actual workers have fewer illusions about who their enemies are. Any time I talk politics with my coworkers they are definitely aware that all these institutions are hostile to them, but the real problem is that I get a sort of hopeless/ resigned feel from them; that they lack confidence they can actually wield political power, because they're so weighed down by responsibilities and the inability to thrive on their low wages. It seems like a sort of chicken-egg problem. The labor movement lacks strength because of worker insecurity/ low wages, and wages are low and the workers are insecure because the labor movement lacks strength. It's a real conundrum. The other fetter is that the ranks are filled with a retired old people and college students who don't actually need the job, so they don't give a rat's ass about being combative at all, because they're just doing the job to "have something to do" or are living off student loans. These types are slowly dwindling though and their disappearance I think will be accelerated as the lagging consequences of this year's events catches up with us.
Most of the discussions on this subreddit tend to deal with the development/nature of the USSR but not frequently discussed is China. Is there any resources to read that explain the Chinese revolution, and its development in the 20th century you guys would recommend? How its economy has been shaped over time, or really anything dealing with it.
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If you have no knowledge of the historical facts at all, it would be best to first delve into ordinary history books for information.
As for communist considerations of Chinese conditions, I'm not quite sure why you - and many other people for that matter - display so little independent initiative and do not simply search yourself before resorting to asking in a thread. We have a list of recommended reading and sites in the sidebar. If navigating them proves too difficult, it is always possible to employ the modifier "site:" on a search engine to get results. "china site:sinistra.net", or "site:quinterna.org", "site:international-communist-party.org" and so on would've immediately netted you a few results. Is that so hard?
The most prominent texts in English on the topic are probably these three:
The ICP dealt with the Chinese question in party meetings in detail across several years as well, but to my knowledge, these texts remain untranslated. Some were done in 1962 for example, and are mentioned here.
Is there any ordinary history books you would recommend or just download the first thing that comes up?
Yeah I totally missed the recommended sites. I appreciate you showing the modifier site function In hindsight its not that hard but I had no idea you could do that. Thanks for the information.
Is there any ordinary history books you would recommend or just download the first thing that comes up?
The books I have read on China are not in English. I don't know what the English standard works are. It's pretty likely though that there has been a thread on that subject on /r/askhistorians - if not, you could ask there. Though I would be wary of asking them any specific historical questions.
Yeah I totally missed the recommended sites. I appreciate you showing the modifier site function In hindsight its not that hard but I had no idea you could do that. Thanks for the information.
You're welcome. That search modifier function is pretty useful in general. In case you didn't know that either, there are more handy modifiers like that.
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Australian here, offering the little commentary I can.
While most of the worst places for worker organisation integrate unions into the state legally (e.g. the Nordic model or co-determination), the major unions in Australia are integrated politically through their long-term major influence in the Australian Labor Party and its state divisions.
Their heavy involvement in Parliament, which has gone back to the country’s Federation, has turned the focus away to some degree away from fighting the employer and towards fighting the Liberal-National coalition and preserving the unions’ position of power over law-making by getting Labor elected, which has led to a general support by leadership for the Labor Party’s social democratic program. Unionism is intertwined wth the Labor Party here culturally, since all the way back in the 1890s when the labour movements in the colonies managed to come together informally.
These days though Labor is just another social democratic/Third Way party of capital. It has other factions (notably centrists and middle class moralists), foreign actor influence, and the nature of the political landscape pulling on it. It does usually have somewhat more success in implementing and maintaining its reforms then its equivalents in other Western countries.
It also doesn’t help that News Corp and (far more tacitly) the state broadcaster among other media powers have been on the warpath against unions and more generally against workers for a long time now. News Corp even has an effective monopoly on regional news in the state of Queensland. The constant open demonisation of unions and strike activity on the basis of things like economic growth, corruption, and a mythology of “intimidating union thugs” has contributed to a growing opposition to organisation. Worker atomisation has been ongoing in front of our eyes for a while here.
The Liberal-National coalition also isn’t hesitant about restricting industrial action. They’ve tried multiple times to make most industrial action de facto illegal, and will probably pursue it again once the pandemic emergency has eased. The Bill would make deregistering unions (or whatever other worker groups take action) trivial, and thus make pretty much all industrial action taken by that union illegal, subjecting it to huge fines and forced disbandment.
Hopefully this is a small helpful addition to the information given in the article.
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Add in the increasingly casualised and insecure workforce (something like 1/3rd of workers were part-time and underemployment was at all time high in 2019 iirc, which has probably increased in the pandemic), and the situation seems pretty dire.
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) is taking the action in response to Patrick’s bid to cut some 50 pages of conditions out of its agreement and on Thursday notified further work bans at Port Botany and new four-hour stoppages in Brisbane on Friday and next week. MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin dismissed the delays reported by Shipping Australia as “absurd, evidence-free claims about the waterfront bargaining currently under way”. “Their latest hysterics attempt to create fear in the general public in a destructive effort to exploit COVID anxiety already in the community for their blatant self interest,” he said. “There is no evidence that the limited, completely legal forms of industrial actions are causing the ridiculous delays claimed.” He also rejected Patrick’s suggestion that Maersk would shift its work to DP World as “equally ludicrous”.
And here's the union's statement on it for the complete picture.
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In other works, Smith is very critical of both of them - which is not to say that Smith gets everything right either: his latent, abstract humanism is evident in this piece here as well.
Can you recommend any decent writings on, or critiques of, ‘Marxist humanism’ a la Raya Dunayevskaya, or humanism more broadly? I’m not well-read on the topic, and I’ve struggled to find a concise definition of what humanism actually is or represents, beyond a focus on the abstract human individual.
Thank you for your response - it was very illuminating, as always. The contradiction between acknowledging, on the one hand, that form cannot be separated from content (‘‘Form has no value if it is not the form of its content.’), and, on the other, attempting to rescue the dialectical method of Hegel from his idealism, is something I picked up on as well. I will definitely give the Bordiga-Korsch correspondence a read.
I’m not well-read on the topic, and I’ve struggled to find a concise definition of what humanism actually is or represents, beyond a focus on the abstract human individual.
As for this, "Marxist-Humanism" is similar to what Marx and Engels discuss as "True Socialism" both in the chapter on Socialist and Communist Literature in the Manifesto, and as a separate chapter in the German Ideology. If you've read both of these, you'll have a preliminary grasp.
‘For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote “Alienation of Humanity”’.
Damn. Right on the nose, lol
The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed “Philosophy of Action”
This one's funny as well, considering Gramsci's use of the term "philosophy of praxis". He got it handed from Labriola, who got it from Cieszkowski, who influenced Moses Hess. This sentence from the Manifesto is actually not a good translation, as the original is "Philosophie der Tat", that is, "philosophy of the act" or "deed". Marx here has Hess in mind.
Can you recommend any decent writings on, or critiques of, ‘Marxist humanism’ a la Raya Dunayevskaya, or humanism more broadly?
I don't know of books or texts dealing with it directly. Not that it would be a tough nut to crack: in most cases, Dunayevskaya's and her modern epigones' nonsense practically screams in your face. But I'm not sure if anyone has put in the effort to thoroughly debunk her. What might be of interest to you is /u/pzaaa dealing with ideas that Andrew Kliman got from her here. Of course Althusser also criticises humanism, but his writing is a whole different can of worms with no less problems, and Lenin's alleged "stick bending" does not exactly seem like a wise approach.
Thanks a lot!
You're welcome.
By the way, upon rereading this Korsch letter, I found that there's an omission indicated towards the end by MIA. I looked the letter up in this new stupid book by Brill on Bordiga, and the omission is there too. Then I checked the original, and found that it's a whole two paragraphs that are missing. A rough translation would be this:
I believe that one of the weaknesses of the present International has been that of being a local and national "opposition bloc". It is necessary to reflect on this, clearly not to arrive at exaggerations, but to draw lasting benefits from these lessons. Lenin stopped much of the work of "spontaneous" formation, by counting on bringing the various groups together in broad outlines in the fiery heat of the Russian revolution, and only then fuse them homogeneously afterwards. For the most part, he did not succeed.
I well understand that the work I am proposing is not easy because of a lack of organisational connections, publication possibilities, propaganda etc. Nevertheless, I believe there is still time to wait. New external events will come, and in any case I expect that the system of the condition of siege will come to an end from exhaustion before it has forced us to take up the provocations. I believe that this time we will not be carried away by the fact that the Russian opposition has had to sign a number of sentences against us, perhaps in order to cut back at some other point in the torturous drafting of the document. These reflexes also enter into the calculations of the "Bolshevisators".
I will contact Libri Incogniti about this, maybe they can do a full retranslation of the letter.
So I looked into this a bit more, because it astonished me, as it seems like quite an important omission with the criticism of Lenin contained in it. MIA names Sinistra as a source, where the paragraphs are also missing. Sinistra in turn cites "Communist Left", issue 9 as a source, which is the publication of the "Il Partito" ICP. They, however, have the complete text: https://www.international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/CL09.htm#LEFT_ARCHIVES
I'm not sure if the text originally was incomplete within the physical publication of the ICP and they only added it in complete rendition online, or if Sinistra is the culprit. Perhaps Sinistra in reality also worked off a different source in Italian that had the omission. Given what the excluded section deals with, I also wonder if there was some sort of political motive behind leaving it out. In any case, it reflects badly on the authors of the Brill book that they'd carry on with this mistake. It makes me wonder if they even did a new translation of this letter at all, or if they just reproduced it as is.
Incidentally what are people’s thoughts on Karl Korsch? He strikes many of the same notes as Smith. His essay Marxism and Philosophy argues that Marx represented a break with philosophy as such, which I agree with. But he also seems to take issue with the prominence afforded to economic considerations vis a vis philosophical ones in Marxist analysis. And later in life he seems to have shown a tendency towards ‘adapting’ Marxism to the problems posed by modern society, which raises obvious concerns for proponents of the idea of an ‘invariant doctrine’.
It’s possible I’ve misunderstood this aspect of his work, though. I can’t help but wonder how the ICP would have appraised him, but I’m not aware of any interaction between them.
He strikes many of the same notes as Smith.
Korsch's approach is not at all similar to what Smith puts forward here. Korsch's "Marxism and Philosophy" is rather very similar to Lukács' "History and Class Consciousness", and it ran up against the same limitations. In other works, Smith is very critical of both of them - which is not to say that Smith gets everything right either: his latent, abstract humanism is evident in this piece here as well.
Incidentally what are people’s thoughts on Karl Korsch? [...] His essay Marxism and Philosophy argues that Marx represented a break with philosophy as such, which I agree with. But he also seems to take issue with the prominence afforded to economic considerations vis a vis philosophical ones in Marxist analysis.
Korsch entangled himself in many contradictions that he could not resolve. On the one hand, he acknowledges that critical-scientific communism breaks with philosophy as such, on the other, he speaks of "Marxist philosophy" and is sure that the problems of his time mainly require a reexamination of the relation between critical-scientific communism and philosophy. Was the pressing issue really that the members of the Third International had not understood Hegel and his relation to Marx and Engels well enough? Further, Korsch knows that a method cannot be separated from the content it expresses, but then goes on to confidently speak about "materialist dialectics", rescuing the "dialectical method" from idealist mystifications and a "dialectical materialism" bestowed upon the labour movement by Marx and Engels.
He demands the materialist conception of history be applied to itself, but then everywhere falls short of it. Consider how haphazardly he describes the division between reformism, centrism and revolutionism within the labour movement. He does not examine their class content, or in what way the practice corresponding to the previous schism between revisionism and "Orthodox Marxism" precipitated the further split: the problem of how immediate problems of the class relate to its final aim. Consequently, he can also only impute the alleged reemergence of pure, unadulterated "revolutionary Marxism" at the advent of the Third International to the fact that revolution would now be on the agenda again. He is completely ignorant of the role the middle-class plays in opportunism within the labour movement. In short: He is affected by the very limitedness he set out to criticise. Mostly, the existence of his work is indicative of a crisis of his time.
Additionally, "Marxism and Philosophy" was written in 1923. Both the 1844 manuscripts, which contain a large part of Marx's critique of philosophy, and the German Ideology, in which Marx and Engels "settled accounts with their former philosophical conscience", were first published nine years later, so he also lacked some vital material for the task he himself set out to accomplish.
And later in life he seems to have shown a tendency towards ‘adapting’ Marxism to the problems posed by modern society, which raises obvious concerns for proponents of the idea of an ‘invariant doctrine’.
The communist left repeatedly refers to critical-scientific communism as a "doctrine". This is not much of a problem with them, since it is evident from the rest of their writing that they mean the same content as that which Marx and Engels expressed. But strictly speaking, it is not accurate to call communism a doctrine. Engels himself acknowledged that within the course of a single year in 1847, when in the draft to the Manifesto he exclaimed:
Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.
but then more correctly stated:
Communism is not a doctrine but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts. [...] Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.
As for "invariance", Korsch in "Marxism and Philosophy" himself remarks that:
Nevertheless, the central characteristic of Marxist theory remains essentially unaltered even in the later writings of Marx and Engels.
This is very close to what invariance means. It does not mean that critical-scientific communism has a universally valid recipe ready at hand for all times and all conditions, but it means that as a critical science it has been complete since the time of Marx and Engels and requires no improvement. Now, I am not sure what Korsch precisely meant by "adapting Marxism" later, but he falls short of even appropriating this "new science" completely himself, hence it would not be particularly surprising for him to later see a need for revision.
I can’t help but wonder how the ICP would have appraised him, but I’m not aware of any interaction between them.
Bordiga and Korsch maintained a conversation via letters in 1926 which deal with political problems, which in any case is much more interesting than the theoretical problems that Korsch was grappling with.
But strictly speaking, it is not accurate to call communism a doctrine. Engels himself acknowledged that within the course of a single year in 1847
On the Marxists.org links you provided it gives the date for Principles of Communism as "Written October-November 1847" while The Communists and Karl Heinzen as "Written September 26 and October 3, 1847".
Are these dates correct? If so it would seem Principles of Communism was actually written later, unless the line "Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat" was carried over from an earlier draft. But if Engels had changed his position on "doctrine" you'd think he would not keep that line.
On the Marxists.org links you provided it gives the date for Principles of Communism as "Written October-November 1847" while The Communists and Karl Heinzen as "Written September 26 and October 3, 1847".
I'm aware.
Are these dates correct?
Yes, they are.
If so it would seem Principles of Communism was actually written later
Advanced maths, I'm impressed.
unless the line "Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat" was carried over from an earlier draft.
The earlier draft was the "Communist Confession of Faith", and you won't find the line there.
But if Engels had changed his position on "doctrine" you'd think he would not keep that line.
It is there because the text had the form of a catechism, so an exposition of doctrine. As is well known, Engels deemed that whole format inadequate in the month in which he finished writing it, which is why it was ditched in favour of the much more developed Manifesto of the Communist Party. Most likely, one reason for ditching the format was the contradiction with the content it meant to express which Engels clarified for himself in replying to Heinzen. That's also why you won't find talk of "doctrine" in later texts either, such as in the Anti-Dühring.
Do Adorno, Horkheimer et al have any insights of value to the communist movement, or are they merely representatives of a trend towards academization of Marxism and its ossification into a ‘framework’ or ‘lens’ with which to view the world? I’m dragging my way through Dialectic of Enlightenment as we speak, and I’ll be honest in admitting that I’ve gained very little from it. The style it’s written in is utterly inscrutable to me.
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Adorno and Horkheimer are not communists. They are philosophers. Their writings have nothing to do with communism.
Thanks for the link, I seem to recall reading your (excellent) summary in that thread. I was beginning to suspect as much, mainly because there seems to be no attempt to link the observations made to any kind of practical activity, and also because of the bizarre psychological elements they’ve introduced.
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Sometimes I wonder if people even read the posts linked.
Why is it that everyone who posts in /r/criticaltheory is an unmitigated moron?
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How does this "critique" not apply to them?
And where have I said that the explanations in that link would "discredit" Adorno and Horkheimer? I simply said that what they wrote has no relation to communism, and that it is philosophy. The idea that this would "discredit" them is yours solely. Does their philosophy not hold up as philosophy?
Why do you feel the need to put philosophy into relation with communism? Could it be because you want to attribute some meaning to your own activity beyond itself?
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Thanks for the resources, I’ll take a look at them.
My interest in the Frankfurt School was sparked by Lukacs - having read his History and Class Consciousness, I was hoping to gain a clearer, more specific picture of the historical development of bourgeois science and its limitations. DoE seemed like it would provide that. I think the staccato style has caught me off guard.
Lukács' work also has very little to do with communism.
For the same reason that Adorno and Horkheimer’s doesn’t?
You should be able to evaluate that yourself.
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Why would the work of the People's Commissar for Education and Culture in the Hungarian Soviet Republic have anything to do with communism?
Exactly! Why would it? Did Lunacharsky's ideas about God-building and Proletkult have anything to do with communism? After all, he held the same position as Lukács, only in Russia.
Just because he was a member of the communist party and a commissar of the Fifth Division of the Hungarian Red Army, and said his work was explicitly connected to Marxism and communism?
Stalin also was a member of the communist party, he was a people's commissar and later general secretary of the central committee, and he also claimed that his work would be "explicitly connected to Marxism and communism". This means very little.
Ridiculous, comrades, as you can see here.
Right.
DrRedTerror (who I'm sure has been in a leadership position of a communist party, or minister in a communist government, or an officer in a red army himself)
I'm sure it is difficult to understand for a cuck enamoured by bourgeois norms, but personal credentials are quite meaningless when examining the correctness of a judgement.
How dare the ordinary worker criticise the great Stalin? They know nothing of party work, after all!
has definitively proved otherwise, on Reddit.
I haven't "proven" anything, because I did not set out to do so.
I look forward to the rebuttal that the active member of a revolutionary communist party and government was not true enough to your idea of Marxism.
The matter never was about whether he was "true enough to Marxism" or my "idea of it". The matter was communism. We've already established that his position in the party is meaningless with regard to that, so what's the deal here? For what it's worth: Bukharin and Zinoviev called Lukács' and Korsch's work garbage. Both of them were also "active members of a revolutionary communist party and government". Is their opinion more accurate?
The actual content of History and Class Consciousness is about Orthodox Marxism, Bolshevism, the place of the proletariat in history, Rosa Luxemburg.
I doubt you have even read it. This sounds like you skimmed the headlines on MIA.
You can think it's wrong, feel free, but to say it has "very little to do with communism" is demonstrably and objectively false.
As you so impressively demonstrated here. Keep posting in philosophy subreddits, maybe one day the holy light will shine upon you.
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yes in many way, though fraught and complex
lol fuck sake
Yet, if we just think of how various students of Adorno/Horkeimer influenced the German New Left, and the New Marx Reading in particular, along with their influence on the likes of Open Marxism, then clearly many communists have found something in their thought.
The implication that the currents you listed are communist is quite funny.
merely representatives of a trend towards academization of Marxism
they aren't reprensatives of this, even if they are this also, since they are not above the train of history they critique. that they acknowledge this and make it an element of their own thought is in their favour.
They are this, and they are not. Is this dialectics? They are not above the "train of history" of middle class cucks not willing to give up their social standing? Colour me surprised! I don't see how this "favours" them in any way for communism.
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The good element of Dialectic of Enlightenment is their opposition to the Bourgeois Enlightenment
Bourgeois Enlightenment, as opposed to proletarian Enlightenment? Haha.
and specifically the pernicious and violent combination of Sketpicism and contempt for the poor.
If only philosophers showed more compassion for the poor in their pathetic activity! Do you think any proletarian gives a shit about this? At least Hegel still had the merit of trying to consider the world as it is.
I would further say that Adorno and Horkheimer's work on the culture industry is very good
Thank you for your two cents, no one cares.
and helpful in understanding the real domination of Capital, as Camatte discusses.
None of this philosophical garbage has to do anything with what Marx discusses as the real subsumption of capital. Besides, you're talking about the same Camatte who deluded himself into considering capital to be a mere representation within the minds of a "universal class". What is the relation to communism again?
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what the fuck kind of nonsense way is /u/dr_marx running this sub?
what makes you think I'm running it, retard?
e: ban me then try to ask me a question, big brain hours
no one gives a shit what you think
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The fact that you are an admin. And even if you and herr RedTerror are different people, you clearly have the same goal regarding this sub, and you very much share positions regarding communism
Holy crap, you're telling me that communists can hold the same views as each other?!
as well as contempt toward people on reddit.
Some, but it's mostly all of you degenerates who think you're communists. The internet just allows us to witness the immense scale of stupidity out there, and how it reinforces itself.
You do you, but don't be dishonest about why you and your circle run this sub the way you do.
It should be obvious how we run the sub and to what ends, it's on the side bar. I know that reading comprehension isn't strong amongst people who have a boner for adorno, but we really did try to make it as simple as possible.
I like that you've used an alt to make this post lol. How mad are you?
Why don't you have the guts to bring forward your disagreement in content, instead of whining about moderation? Could it be because you're a retarded student of philosophy?
It's funny when the monkeys think they are the ones running the zoo.
I live in a small town in the metro-Atlanta area. I am a restaurant employee at a national chain, which is not unionized. I have no clue where to start trying to help fix that, but maybe calling in a national sized union for support would work? Or should I start ground level canvassing for a union among coworkers at my store and at others. Do you guys have any advice?
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Contact a national union.
Will do. Any suggestions on where I can find info about some of the stronger national unions for the food industry? I know of Unite Here, which would seem like a decent choice since they're the national union for the Culinary Union, but all I know is what's on their website, and their presence in GA is slim, but I guess most unions are in GA.
I can't speak for any particular union. You're best asking people who are in them, and then finding it if it's possible to make you a member. They might ask you to become a union rep or a shop steward if you're the only representative in the whole area.
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Did you find anything interesting in there?
I knew nothing about the WPUS before reading this so I found everything about it interesting, but something I found particularly noteworthy was their abstentionist position.
Here’s their “Ballot Box" resolution which can be found in the appendix of the book:
Considering, That the Workingmen’s Party of the United States in the first place directs its efforts to the economical struggle;
Considering, That only in the economical arena the combatants for the Workingmen’s Party can be trained and disciplined;
Considering, That in this country the ballot box has long ago ceased to record the popular will, and only serves to falsify the same in the hands of professional politicians;
Considering, That the organization of the working people is not yet far enough developed to overthrow at once this state of corruption;
Considering, That this middle class Republic has produced an enormous amount of small reformers and quacks, the intruding of whom into the Workingmen’s Party will only be facilitated by a political movement, and
Considering, That the corruption and mis-application of the ballot box as well as the silly reform movement flourish most in the years of presidential elections, at such times greatly endangering the organization of workingmen;
For these reasons the Union Congress meeting at Philadelphia this 22nd day of July 1876, Resolved,
The sections of this party as well as all workingmen in general are earnestly invited to abstain from all political movements for the present and to turn their back on the ballot box.
The Workingmen will therewith save themselves bitter disappointments, and their time and efforts will be directed far better towards the organization of the workingmen, which organization is frequently destroyed and always injured by a hasty political movement.
Let us bide our time! It will come!
To be clear, their position wasn’t a principled anti-electoralism, but was rather a kind of temporary abstentionism contingent on the strength of the workers' movement.
Thus, the former Internationalists saw trade unionism as a necessary prelude to working-class politics and expected the new party to pursue this course in accordance with the platform and principles adopted at the founding congress. McDonnell, speaking for the Marxists, argued that this meant that it was necessary “to drop political action altogether for a good while yet, and in the meantime to organize the Labor Party [that is, the Workingmen’s Party of the United States] and Trade Unions and to agitate in them labor questions only. There is absolutely no other way to a future victorious political action.” He stressed the need for socialist education in order to build up “an army of workmen who cannot be bribed to vote for their enemies, who cannot be led astray by capitalistic issues, who will learn to think for themselves and to acquaint themselves with the true means of salvation, who will rather die then betray the cause of labor. Before we have such an army, it is utter folly to attempt political action.” Patient organizing and educational work, he went on, were more important than appealing to voters in election campaigns: “The man who will not join the union of his trade and the labor party, and will not read its papers and documents, will not throw a vote that may benefit himself and his fellows. Much less can he be expected to help in effecting the greatest of all revolutions that ever was planned and demanded by the exigencies of the age.”
There was also the concern that participation in elections would result in the sacrificing of socialist principles.
The Marxists warned that a rush to the ballot box without careful preparations in advance and without trade-union support would never secure lasting results. The electoral success in the fall of 1877, they cautioned, was no proof of the need to revise the party rules. All it demonstrated was that if the party combined with reformers, Greenbackers, and even worse elements, it could chalk up temporary gains at the polls, but socialist principles would go out the window. Already in San Francisco, some leaders and many members of the Workingmen’s Party of the United States, were uniting with the Workingmen’s Party of California, led by the unprincipled demagogue, Denis Kearney, and organized solely against the “Chinese menace,” even though it included a few reformist planks in its platform. Previously, Kearney had been rejected for membership in the WPUS as an enemy of the working class, and “The Chinese Must Go” slogan he had popularized had been attacked by the California socialists as an obstacle to the proper solution of the Chinese problem. (The “proper solution,” in the eyes of the Marxists, was to oppose the importation of Chinese workers for anti-labor activity, but to endorse the voluntary immigration of Chinese, and to organize Chinese workers in the United States, along with other workers, and raise their wages through trade-union activity.) But in their desire for popularity and electoral success at any cost, the WPUS leaders in San Francisco were ready to sacrifice socialist principles. The Marxists maintained that only by standing by established policy and avoiding premature political activity could the socialist movement be built on a true foundation.
To equate participation in elections with politics is very confused on their part.
To be clear, their position wasn’t a principled anti-electoralism, but was rather a kind of temporary abstentionism contingent on the strength of the workers' movement.
It's good that it was contigent - anti-parliamentarism on principle is more of an anarchist position.
To equate participation in elections with politics is very confused on their part.
Yes that confused me at first, but it's clear that by 'political' they were referring specifically to election activity.
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There are three volumes that deal with the period from 1917 to 1923 within Carr's long history of Soviet Russia, but for some reason only the second volume is on archive.org, so this will have to serve as a pars pro toto. volume one and three can be found here, respectively here. Hardly an impediment, as surely it is generally known how to get hold of the other books.
I will reproduce some excerpts on the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks from the first book here, in the vain hope that they serve as an incentive to read the work, instead of being quoted to win arguments all over Reddit. Of course, it should be self-evident that a history book isn't bound to be the best source on matters of scientific communism, so as everything else, Carr's ideas about - for example - Marx's writings ought to be treated with the appropriate critical distance too.
Iskra was designed to give, in the words of the preliminary announcement of its birth, "a definite physiognomy and organization" to the scattered Russian social-democratic movement:
Before uniting, and in order to unite, we must first decisively and definitely draw a line of separation. Otherwise our union would be merely a fiction covering up the present confusion and preventing its radical removal. It will therefore be understood that we do not intend to make our organ a mere collection of variegated opinions. We shall on the contrary conduct it in the spirit of a strictly defined policy.
[...]
Lenin's self-assurance in the infallibility of his creed was rendered all the more formidable by his lack of personal pretensions. The denunciation of opponents, and the attribution of their intellectual myopia to moral obliquity, had been fixed in the Russian tradition since Belinsky and in the revolutionary tradition since Marx, if not earlier. But the fanaticism was none the less real because it was traditional; and even fellow-revolutionaries were shocked by the ruthlessness with which Lenin excommunicated dissidents. "A sectarian with a serious Marxist training, a Marxist sectarian", was the final verdict of the bitterly hostile Potresov who regarded Lenin as "constitutionally incapable of digesting opinions different from his own".
[...]
Plekhanov was quickly shocked by the uncompromising consistency with which Lenin proposed to exploit the victory [on the topic of party organisation]. The Mensheviks whom Lenin wished to excommunicate included most of Plekhanov's old friends and associates. Lenin's stringent party discipline had been approved by Plekhanov in principle, but, when it came to enforcement, proved alien to the less rigid notions of political organization which he had unconsciously imbibed during his long sojourn in the west.
[...]
Echoes of the split [between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks] were soon heard in the German Social-Democratic Party which had had its own troubles over the schism of the "revisionists". The apparent unanimity of almost all the prominent members of the Russian party - for Lenin's followers were rank-and-filers with scarcely a known name among them - won almost universal support for the Mensheviks. Kautsky not only refused to publish in the German social-democratic journal Neue Zeit an article from Lenin defending the Bolshevik standpoint, but sent to the Menshevik Iskra for publication a copy of a letter roundly condemning Lenin's attitude. The most substantial attack on Lenin was an article in Neue Zeit in July 1904 by Rosa Luxemburg, who denounced his policy of "ultracentralism" as bureaucratic and not democratic.
[...]
Lenin remained apparently unmoved by all these attacks. He had behind him the example and authority of Marx who, when criticized for his attacks on other German revolutionaries, had replied in his journal:
Our task consists in unsparing criticism directed even more against our so-called "friends" than against open enemies; and in so acting we gladly renounce a cheap democratic popularity.
[...]
He was not alarmed when the Mensheviks accused him of supporting the bureaucratic principle against the democratic principle. If bureaucracy meant centralism and democracy "autonomism", then revolutionary social-democracy stood for the first against the second.
[...]
Nor was Lenin's answer to Menshevik criticism confined to words. Undaunted by the isolation in which he had been left by the breach with Iskra, unmoved by opposition or by defections, he summoned a meeting of twenty-two Bolshevik stalwarts at Geneva in August 1904, and created a "bureau of committees of the majority" to serve as a new Bolshevik central organization. At the end of the year he founded a new journal , Vpered ("Forward"), to take the place of the renegade Iskra. His main anxiety was to forestall any hasty movement for reunion which might compromise the purity and independence of Bolshevik doctrine and taint it with the heresies of Menshevism. In party correspondence of the period he demanded "everywhere and most decisively schism, schism, schism". To split the party and to expel dissenters from the ranks rather than jeopardize unity even in minor particulars was the principle which Lenin applied and bequeathed to his successors. It was the result of profound intellectual conviction, and accorded perfectly with his masterful and self-confident personality. He returned to it again and again even when he had seemed momentarily to abandon it in the interests of conciliation.
As a sidenote, it's very amusing to see Carr here stressing Lenin's inclination towards schism, when having read the excerpt from Bourrinet's history of the ICP that was posted here some time ago:
The Bianchini group decided, without any real justification, to label itself the “International Communist Party”, from the first issue of its organ Il Partito Comunista. The second ICP could moreover refer to the letter of Bordiga who had elevated schism to the rank of cardinal virtue: “Schisms were born from respect for the Doctrine on the one hand, and from a revolutionary rupture with the latter on the other… The way of new humanity lies in revolution. Schism gives birth to revolution”.
Bourrinet's precocious writing style in what is supposed to be a history is annoying enough as is, but the idea that this tendency of splitting was Bordiga's original thought is really ridiculous. It doesn't surprise me that a self-professed councilist would not look too much into Lenin, but it's still a pathetic display.
Equally funny is reading this keeping in mind all the allegations of bureaucracy made against "organic centralism" and the ICP, or thinking of how the notoriously opportunist Trotskyists try to sell democratic centralism by emphasising democracy. Or the contemporary "efforts" to amalgamate the most diverse views under a common "organisation". Or the attempts to revive the ideas of Kautsky and Luxemburg...
Having read about half of the first book, the account of the lead up to October is somewhat less satisfying than for example Rabinowitch's is. Carr's critics who assert that he has a victor bias seem to have a point: He mostly talks about Lenin's actions, largely brushing aside others. It's as if throughout he already has the result in mind, and is working towards that - the July episode and the Kornilov coup are so far treated in a meagre two sentences.
It looks like he was mainly working off of official documents - it's high politics that he is interested in. Where Rabinowitch goes into a lot more detail regarding disagreements within the party and the arguments behind them, as well as developments within the proletariat and the rank and file, Carr addresses these issues in a formal manner once the initial quarrels on the question of organisation are settled. For example, Lenin from Finland arguing for an armed insurrection was initially met with as much hostility as his April Theses were, with his party colleagues thinking he had lost touch with Russian conditions. Carr treats the matter almost as a rubberstamp affair in comparison to Rabinowitch.
An advantage over Rabinowitch though is that Carr describes Lenin's conduct and theoretical underpinnings much more meticulously.
Another neat quote from the book:
The April conference itself had recognized the importance of "rapprochement and union with groups and movements which really stand on the ground of internationalism". On May 10, 1917, Lenin in person attended a meeting of the Mezhraiontsy and offered them a seat on the editorial board of Pravda and on the organizing committee of the forthcoming party congress, proposing also to extend the offer to Martov's group of "internationalist" Mensheviks. According to notes taken by Lenin at the time, Trotsky replied that he was in agreement "in so far as Bolshevism internationalizes itself", but added proudly: "The Bolsheviks have de-Bolshevized themselves, and I cannot call myself a Bolshevik. It is impossible to demand of us a recognition of Bolshevism." The meeting led to no result. In effect, Trotsky, faithful to his old policy of reconciliation all round, wanted an amalgamation of the groups on equal terms and under: a new name. Lenin had no intention of weakening or diluting the instrument which he had created; the party must remain supreme and intact. He could afford to wait.
A History of Soviet Russia
A History of Soviet Russia is a 14-volume work by E. H. Carr, covering the first twelve years of the history of the Soviet Union. It was first published from 1950 onward and re-issued from 1978 onward.
The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Volume 1. (1950)
The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Volume 2.
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Marx also mentions wages first developing in the army in the Grundrisse, incidentally written around the same time.
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It is precisely these differences that have furnished both parties with their battlecries and some members of the League have called the defenders of the Manifesto reactionaries, seeking thereby to make them unpopular, which however does not worry them in the least, as they do not seek popularity.
This must be utterly incomprehensible for leftists.
I am looking to improve my understanding on the Spanish Civil War so I was looking for some reading on it.
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PDF publication. In depth https://libcom.org/library/workers-against-work-michael-seidman
Noice
Hugh Thomas’s The Spanish Civil War
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A short biography of Christian Riechers, author of the following text, can be found in our translation of his obituary for Amadeo Bordiga. This is Riechers’ critique of Jacques Camatte and his journal Invariance. For further reading on the topic, refer also to the International Communist Party’s “Clarification regarding some ‘Surpassers of Marxism’“, published in Programme Communiste.
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A short piece by the International Communist Party affirming the fundamental incompatibility of critical communism and religion.
I went to home
“The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blind forces of capitalism”
Buddy, have you heard of Mormonism? It’s literally a bourgeois cult. I don’t think there’s any necessary connection between religion and class.
It’s literally a bourgeois cult. I don’t think there’s any necessary connection between religion and class.
You just said that "it's literally a bourgeois cult".
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This is really awful.
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Because Mattick, both of them, are putting the cart before the horse. The Russian revolution didn't abolish capitalism therefore the Bolsheviks were actually bourgeois revolutionaries. The false premises here and the lazy logic end up with him just saying stupid contradictory nonsense. Pretty sure that should have been obvious.
i think the degeneration of the russian revolution clouded many revolutionaries' view of bolshevism so that they revised their earlier understanding of what the russian revolution stood for to deny the magnitude of the proletariat's defeat after the end of the revolutionary wave.
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As we wrote in our article of 2013 entitled "The instrumentalization of the Kurdish question by the imperialists": The only way out of the Kurdish drama is that of class struggle and not of autonomy!
Let's just hope nationalism doesn't get in the way of class struggle
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Earlier I made a post asking if anyone knew any good reading material on or had any good responses’ to Eugen Böhm-Bawerk's “Karl Marx and the Close of His System” in which Böhm-Bawerk, an Austrian economist, criticizes Marx’s conception of the LTV and exploitation. I found this fantastic response by Bukharin which I believe sufficiently rebuttals this bourgeois economist’s critique of Marx.
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Where could I find the “essential” texts written by Onorato Damen? I’m interested in reading more stuff by Onorato Damen and/or the Internationalist Communist Party in order to clarify my understanding of the divergences of this tendency from the Bordigists.
I’ve tried looking through the ICT’s website, especially Battaglia Comunista, but it’s pretty difficult to navigate.
Also, I initially attempted to post this on r/marxism_101, but it informed me that I wasn’t allowed.
Can anyone help me out, here?
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The ICT have a book called "Bordiga: Beyond the Myth" and it is listed on the front page of their website.
I overlooked that, thanks
Can anyone point me to something written by Bordiga or another left communist on imperialism or national liberation? I would also appreciate it greatly if you could provide a summary for me, it would help me understand the text better.
In particular, I wanted to know what their position was on supporting some bourgeois movements (such as anti-colonial and independence struggles) against more exploitative bourgeois designs (such as colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism)... while the communism is a negation of capital, is it at all contradictory to take sides in struggles between bourgeois struggles if one believes that there is a lesser evil among them?
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Thank you so much!
You're welcome!
What was the anarchists reasoning for supporting the war? I've no respect for them, but I thought they'd at least be consistent enough to not support WWI
What’s your critique of the ICC? I’m curious since I myself am very sympathetic to them
https://www.reddit.com/r/marxism_101/comments/7ldymt/what_do_left_communists_think_generally_about/
Personally thought this thread was helpful.
I would also appreciate it greatly if you could provide a summary for me, it would help me understand the text better.
Just read the bloody essays.
I will, though usually I read difficult texts with some sort of guide so that I don't have some fundamental misunderstandings of them : )
If you think you've misunderstood something read it and read it again and keep reading it till you do understand it.
It's more of me trying to follow a certain point but not having the historical or philosophical context, but the two from libcom are easy to understand. Trying to parse the third. thanks so much for these sources!
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I agree that it is very hagiographical, but I see the thesis of the text as an elaboration, really, of just Lenin's LWC, and how it argues against councilists and Stalinists. The work is more so a 'rescue' of Lenin's work from principally the Stalinists of that time.
Nice excerpts from it, I wrote some of them down here: https://ruthlesskritik.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/passages-from-il-programma-comunistas-left-wing-communism-an-infantile-disorder-condemnation-of-renegades-to-come/
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I've only read the first two chapters, haven't finished it
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Didnt this man become some kind of primitivist hippie later on?
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I never read him as an anprim as such, but, like Marcuse (albeit for different reasons), he does seem to think class struggle isn't a possibility anymore. Does that not mean that he implicitly thinks capitalism will destroy itself and not move onto communism (in a sense, like Kaczynski)? Or would you say that's a misreading?
Do you happen to know his email?
Does he know english?
He knows english and does respond.
No idea.
I'd appreciate anyone who has read this to answer my questions and concerns I have with it. If you haven't read it, here it is: https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/john-holloway/article.htm
For Engels, dialectics comprehends the objective movement of nature and society, a movement independent of the subject.
Cf. Marx’s 1st thesis on Feuerbach, which raises the question: Is ‘Marxism’s’ science a return to Feuerbachian materialism? I would say it is more complicated. Engels had always distinguished his materialism (under the name of ‘modern materialism’) from old materialism a la Feuerbach, so he saw something different in it, namely the inclusion of dialectics. I’m not sure where to take this thought, yet.
… [T]he notion of ‘objective laws’ suggests a duality between an objective structural movement of history independent of people’s will, on the one hand, and the subjective struggles for a better world, on the other.
As such,
struggle in this perspective cannot be seen as self-emancipatory: it acquires significance only in relation to the realisation of the goal. The whole concept of struggle is then instrumental: it is a struggle to achieve an end, to arrive somewhere. The positivisation of the concept of science implies a positivisation of the concept of struggle. Struggle, from being struggle-against, is metamorphosed into being struggle-for.
…
[For the ‘Marxists’,] struggle is not a process of self-emancipation which would create a socialist society (whatever that might turn out to be), but just the opposite: struggle is an instrument to achieve a preconceived end which would then provide freedom for all.
Are they not one and the same? Struggle-against and struggle-for?
… The use of Marxist categories to answer the questions of social science inevitably involves a reinterpretation of those categories — for example a reinterpretation of value as an economic category, or class as a sociological category. The attempt to use Marxist categories to construct an alternative economics or an alternative sociology is always problematic, not because it involves a deviation from the ‘true meaning’ of ‘true Marxism’, but because the categories do not always stand up to such reinterpretation. Thus, these reinterpretations have often given rise to considerable debate and to a questioning of the validity of the categories themselves. For example, once value is reinterpreted as the basis for a theory of price, then doubts can be (and have been) raised about its relevance; once ‘working class’ is understood as a sociological category describing an identifiable group of people, then doubts can fairly be raised about the significance of ‘class struggle’ for understanding the dynamic of contemporary social development. The integration of Marxism into social science, far from giving it a secure home, actually undermines the basis of the categories which Marxists use.
Holloway is saying that Marx uses ‘value’ and ‘working class’, etc., as transitory concepts, moments of alienation and fetishism in human life which are then abolished in the self-emancipation of the proletariat. That is how I interpret what Holloway is implying. However, what is the problem to studying these concepts? What problem is there to locate the magnitude of value of, e.g., a commodity? If there is no working class in a country, say early 20th century Russia in which the working class was very small relative to the population — is that not using a ‘static’ or ‘sociological’ definition of working class?
Finally, Holloway discusses the implications of this Engelsian theory: the vanguard party.
“If science is understood as an objectively ‘correct’ understanding of society, then it follows that those most likely to attain such an understanding will be those with greatest access to education (understood, presumably, as being at least potentially scientific).”
“Given the organisation of education in capitalist society, these will be members of the bourgeoisie. Science, consequently, can come to the proletariat only from outside.”
“If the movement to socialism is based on the scientific understanding of society, then it must be led by bourgeois intellectuals and those ‘proletarians distinguished by their intellectual development’ to whom they have transmitted their scientific understanding.”
“Scientific socialism, understood in this way, is the theory of the emancipation of the proletariat, but certainly not of its self-emancipation. Class struggle is understood instrumentally, not as a process of self-emancipation but as the struggle to create a society in which the proletariat would be emancipated:”
“hence the pivotal role of ‘conquering power’. The whole point of conquering power is that it is a means of liberating others. It is the means by which class-conscious revolutionaries, organised in the party, can liberate the proletariat. In a theory in which the working class is a ‘they’, distinguished from a ‘we’ who are conscious of the need for revolution, the notion of ‘taking power’ is simply the articulation that joins the ‘they’ and the ‘we’.”
As for the first 4 arguments, I appreciate Holloway’s insight and can follow his train of thought. However, argument 5 seems to be ignorant on the communist party. The communist party does not seize power, but the proletariat led by the communist party does. One cannot seize power without the other (assuming we are discussing actually –communist parties and not communist parties in-name). The proletariat and its party smash the bourgeois state and, through its established councils, exercise its dictatorship over the other classes.
But even after making my argument that Holloway does not understand the role of the communist party — imagining it to be a Blanquist sort of conspiracy and not tied to the working class — I still cannot help but feel, given his excellent arguments earlier, that maybe I’m not 100% understanding his point. Am I?
Sorry for the long post, but thank you!
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If you want to know more about what Holloway thinks read the rest of his book Change the World Without Taking Power, it is on libcom. It has been a while since I've read it.
Are they not one and the same? Struggle-against and struggle-for?
Well he sometimes talks as if it is, he talks about against-and-beyond a lot. But here I think he's probably talking about a struggle-against the state and he would see a struggle-for in that situation to be the kind of thing that leads to 'Communist states'. His idea of struggle is an immediate thing and as he says in your quote he is against 'instrumental' struggle. His theory is (supposed to be) against mediation, which leads him down a whole series of false paths including equating objectification to fetishism (he has a broad definition of both). His faux-Marxism is part anarchism, part communisation and part True Socialism. His critique of 'Traditional Marxism' isn't bad though, like Postone in that way, worth reading.
Holloway is saying that Marx uses ‘value’ and ‘working class’, etc., as transitory concepts, moments of alienation and fetishism in human life which are then abolished in the self-emancipation of the proletariat. That is how I interpret what Holloway is implying. However, what is the problem to studying these concepts? What problem is there to locate the magnitude of value of, e.g., a commodity?
He doesn't seem to be saying you shouldn't do so.
If there is no working class in a country, say early 20th century Russia in which the working class was very small relative to the population — is that not using a ‘static’ or ‘sociological’ definition of working class?
Well you didn't give a definition so no.
But even after making my argument that Holloway does not understand the role of the communist party — imagining it to be a Blanquist sort of conspiracy and not tied to the working class — I still cannot help but feel, given his excellent arguments earlier, that maybe I’m not 100% understanding his point. Am I?
I don't know how you understand it but he thinks the traditional 'scientific socialist' understanding of class struggle leads to a division between the party and the workers.
Holloway's own notion of struggle is itself bourgeois (he is one of those bourgeois intellectuals he warns us against) and dismissive of the working class and its revolutionary nature. Read his books.
What do you think about movements for self-determination by marginalized ethnic groups in a society? Here I'm thinking in particular of a group like the Black Panthers, which viewed itself as a black nationalist organization fighting for the emancipation of black people within American society. More generally I'm talking about black groups which see themselves as fighting for the social status of black people within white dominated society, the preservation of "black identity" and "black culture" and resisting "assimilation" into white culture, etc. Obviously, racial lines in society closely parallel class lines.
Does their identification as an ethnic/nationalist movement disqualify them as a proletarian movement?
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Does their identification as an ethnic/nationalist movement disqualify them as a proletarian movement?
Yes
Kenan Malik, describing the shift from class to cultural politics he saw in the Black and Asian communities of London, explains that "Political struggles unite across ethnic or cultural divisions; cultural struggles inevitably fragment." Rather than uniting activists across cultural lines to fight our common oppression "the shift from the political to the cultural arena helped entrench old divisions and to create new ones."
https://libcom.org/blog/hawaii-class-militancy-or-cultural-patriotism-28062015
On one hand i completely agree what you said, but I think it's more ambivalent than that. If you look at the black slaves in Haiti for example, how could they have got into class struggles together with the white population which was oppressing them?
Edit: Spelling.
As far as I'm aware, race was tied to class in Haiti. Lighter skinned black Haitians were often elevated in class society over darker skinned Haitians. That lesson isn't so much to see the nationalist angle of the rebellions, but to see how race is tied to class often times.
Partially true, but the fact that the white/light skinned people of the middle class collaborated with the slave owners (=upper class) makes it hard to expect the black slaves to free all of society of the upper class instead of just freeing themselves from upper/middle class. Therefore the revolution automatically becomes ethnical, the question is if the revolutionaries define it as such or as a revolution for general freedom for everyone.
I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with marginalized ethnic groups seeking to undo the structures of their oppression, but there's a problem of priorities involved. There was a time for ethnic nationalism, but that time has passed - we're all in the same boat now. The capitalist system has been in a state of continual crisis for almost a century, and many of these problems are heightened, if not caused by problems of political economy.
There is a balance to be found, I think, in treating advanced capitalism's most acute symptoms, like racism and imperialism, and removing the root cause. Nationalism and racial prejudice have no place in a contemporary proletarian movement, regardless of their source.
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2011 was a big year for what became known as the movement of the squares, from the Arab Spring, to China, to Occupy. I was wondering if any yous had any good histories and/or analysis of this movement, especially where it concerns the potentials of mass rebellion in China, and how the government reactions to the protests can illuminate state strategies. Or, otherwise, how it reveals the status of class and its various politics in China, a country who's middle-class is now larger than the USA.
thanks
In response to gasoline shortages which started in December, along with drastic price increases which were announced for the start of 2017, the past week has seen various forms of unrest throughout Mexico. Officially blamed on pipeline theft and rising maintenance costs, upcoming deregulation of the state-owned Pemex gas monopoly is the likely cause.
Roads have been blockaded, protests have erupted, looting has occurred, and truckers have seized toll booths and waived fares, among other actions. Pemex has already warned the protests could negatively affect the fuel supply, seemingly oblivious to the shortages already happening.
As the governing PRI remains silent, their center-left opposition is already attempting to divert the discontent for their own ends, calling for "peaceful revolution" involving boycotts and undoubtedly their own electoral campaigns in 2018. Peña Nieto replaced by Lopez Obrador, an EZLN protest candidate, or any other symbolic opposition would not reverse or halt the descent into barbarism.
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Mexico has a beautiful and brutal revolutionary history. So.. lol @ the call for "peaceful revolution."
Do you predict drastic change or business as usual?
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energise and legitimise the far-right across Europe. its been awful seeing all these fascist leaders jubilant and triumphant. and the liberals are already making peace with the candidate they called unequivocally a disaster, whether that's all this talk of unity (with the fash), or the fact Le Pen will be appearing later today (sunday) on the Andrew Marr show....a literal fascist on the major British current affairs programme on remembrance sunday. Liberals are literally scum.
business as usual
I'm hoping the liberal opposition to him will now start letting go of the post-1989 liberal concensus but I'm honestly more inclined to say business as usual.
Idk what this means. Care to elaborate?
I think this election doesn't as much signal a sudden rise of the right but the slow and steady collapse of 25 years of "third way-ism" by e.g. the New Democrats. This vacuum will for the most part be filled by your Sanderses and Corbyns but I'm slightly hopeful that a tiny fraction of the public will become more open to radical politics, though this is probably all just wishful thinking on my part.
Trump's victory is just going to further legitimize the rise of far-right parties across the world. Marine Le Pen has already come out in support of trump and I'm assuming plenty of other parties in Europe have as well, so has Pauline Hanson etc. You get the point.
I don't know what the future will look like. Trump is extremely unpredictable. He's already claimed he'd quell down on his anti-latinx and anti-immigrant stances by legalizing some undocumented immigrants (although that article is from August so who knows) but there is absolutely no reason to trust him. Not to mention that the white supremacist populism that's followed his presidency is not going to disappear. Although on the economic side it should be pretty obvious. Trump's economic policy is just going to further lower wages and that have already been decreasing since the 70's or whatever.
Anti-fascism's necessity is obvious at this point but it's important that we don't allow this to develop into defense of liberal democracy and capitalism as it historically has done.
defense of liberal democracy and capitalism
That's pretty much what anti-fascism is.
afa really isn't defending either of those things, and fascism is the vanguard of anti-communism.
further, i think the article that was posted to this sub earlier makes some good points about how easy it is for communism, as the real movement against the present state of things, to incubate fascism.
that said, most people's (liberals) ideas on how to combat fascism involve some kind of popular front / class collaborationism, which is a mistake.
Capitalism is the vanguard of anti-communism
Since there's no noncapitalist anti-communism in the world, and capitalism has been a totality for a while now, capitalism is not really a subset of anything broader than currently exists, but "vanguard" meaning "advanced guard" implies that it is a subset of a larger whole. Fascism is a subset of capitalism, and it is certainly particularly committed to fighting communism, so I think you could say it represents an anticommunist vanguard of capitalism.
Don't get me wrong, antifascism as a end in itself is not anticapitalist, but fighting fascism is necessarily part of fighting capitalism and defending communism.
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yes, and an anti fascist coalition does not necessarily involve class collaboration or any other compromise any more than any other sort of radical action
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I'm saying radical action isn't limited to united fronts...?
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i think we might be thinking of "coalition" in different senses. a coalition does not necessarily imply compromise - it could be between groups which are equally as far left as each other.
in a united front sense, yes, i agree such a coalition is compromising insofar as one group which is far-left compromises for the sake of another group's more moderate goals.
but fascists face a real threat to communists and minorities - stalking them, assaulting them, even murdering them. protecting the furthest of far left ultradank proles isn't really a compromise imo, even if it means working with someone who doesn't share the same superduperleftwing analysis.
that said, leninists have a way of trying to subvert groups to their more moderate goals.
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it does not offend me and i am not using it as a pejorative. super-duper is actually a superlative. thanks for the quick psych analysis attempt, though.
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i accused you of being a dogmatic purist?
pretty sure that never happened
you're just trying to insult my intelligence at this point, but since you can't read what i wrote, i don't really care about what you think is intelligent.
I guess one interesting thing is that Trump didn't come about as reaction to communism or economic crisis, as fascists typically have, but as reaction to Black Lives Matter, immigration, feminism and economic stagnation. He can persecute black people, he can assault the rights of women, but I'm not really sure what positive things he might (or even can) do regarding the economy. He definitely can't bring back many mining or manufacturing jobs - productivity is too high compared to what it once was, and profits aren't what they once were for the same reason. Obama is already pushing the limits of what oil we can extract. Deportations can decrease the size of the labor pool, but it also decreases the number of consumers by the same amount. Additionally, many immigrants receive some education overseas, decreasing the amount of costly public education they receive here.
I guess he could (and probably will) start wars, but that could (and I hope will) be hugely unpopular.
The media certainly will do their best to prop him up.
I guess one interesting thing is that Trump didn't come about as reaction to communism or economic crisis, as fascists typically have, but as reaction to Black Lives Matter, immigration, feminism and economic stagnation.
This is interesting indeed. I have had troubles trying to square the Trump cube with the round hole of the Frankfurt-derived theory of fascism (i.e. of state- or fuehrer- mediated rackets, reaction against liberalism's failure to deliver on its promises, etc) and the way I tried to do this was by conceiving of Trump as a "partial fascist," that is, of the rolling-back of liberalism to some extent, not quite extinguishing its kernel, but excising some of it and filling the gap.
Yet Trump really isn't going to make that significant an economic change. America isn't in the same degree of economic crisis as Weimar Germany was, after all. So thinking of him as operating mainly on the superstructure is helpful here.
i think a Trump's victory will result in a change,drastic or not. while Trump was not backed by the main capitalist factions of the united states they do not seem too worried about him right now. this victory will likely bring with it a further mainstreaming of the open nationalism and racism spewed by fascist groups ,who are drawing into this trap a disaffected but not class conscious part of the working class. while i do not think Trump is likely to be able to push through important features of his program he and the repubblican-controlled congress will increase the crackdown on migrant and minority workers in a classical divide and rule strategy. that young people are taking to streets is perhaps a good thing, as most of them are workers, but they do not seem to have a clear class perspective and they may get drawn into bourgeois antifascism and\or into the wing of the democratic party close to sanders. these developments are worrying, even though we are yet not dealing with fascism
its fuckin w.e
Howdy. I'm an anarchist who's gotten interested in left communism recently. I wanted to know what folks here think of the Spanish Revolution and if there are any left communist critiques of the revolution. Many of us consider it a success insofar as it formed a functioning socialist society, though as far as anarchism goes, I think it fell short in trying to dismantle social hierarchy and the state.
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When Insurrections Die offers some good analysis, starting from the section titled Barcelona 1936. To put it briefly, Dauvé notes how almost every single group, including the CNT and the POUM, participated in the bourgeois popular front, held back proletarian insurrections and strikes, and eventually paved the way for their own massacre at the hands of first the Stalinists and socialists, then the fascists. He also has some criticism of the collectivisation, saying it was doomed from the beginning because it excluded communisation; that is, it changed the form of capitalist production (replaced executives with cooperatives, replaced the standing army with the armed population, etc.) while maintaining its content (e.g. wage-labour, even if wages were equalised and replaced with coupons). "What money brings together cannot be free, and sooner or later money becomes its master."
I haven't read it yet, but there's also The Spanish Revolution, Past and Future: Grandeur and Poverty of Anarchism; How the Working Class Takes Over (or Doesn’t), Then and Now by Loren Goldner, which forms the third chapter of his latest book.
This is good for a non-dogmatic left communist perspective (with some interesting critiques of the bordigist position): https://libcom.org/library/theses-spanish-civil-war-revolutionary-situation-created-july-19-1936-balance-agust%C3%ADn-gu
Howdy, Revolutionary Spain was had to some degree a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and proved Marxists and Anarchists can work together. However, it never really exceeded that.
What is the dialectical relationship that Bordiga is suggesting? I got a bit confused at that part.
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I asked a similar question a while back and got some pretty good responses.
Cheers! I'll give it a read.
He's suggesting that, as opposed to going to class, partying contains the essence of the revolutionary instinct, and for this reason, should be nurtured over and above all else.
partying contains the essence of the revolutionary instinct
420 blaze it
"420 blaze it"
– rosa deluxemburg
And thus, /r/shittymarxism_101 was born.
as opposed to going to class, partying contains the essence of the revolutionary instinct
Eeer, what? The class is revolutionary because of their position to the MoP and subordination to capital. To suggest that the 'revolutionary instinct' comes from the party is to delve back into the idealist party building mindset of the second international.
for this reason, [the party] should be nurtured over and above all else.
That isn't what Bordiga is saying at all.
E: I'm denser than a black hole.
I'm fairly sure it was a joke.
Ah. It appears my sarcasm detector is broken.
Hehe, no problem. Happens to all of us :D
HOLY FUCK DUDE I AM DYING
most I've laughed on the internet in ages.
Glad you found my fuck up amusing fam ;) I need to get some sleep, holy shit.
Sleep isn't as important as class yo!
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Interesting read. One correction however. The theory of the relative autonomy of the was state was first formulated in the late 1960s by Nicos Poulantzas , which influenced many including Hal Draper.
Hi, I'm already a converted commie -- I've read the Manifesto and Lenin's The State and Revolution but, I am confused as to how left communism can be more "left"? I thought it already was left.
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Basically when the communist movement crystallised there were many tendencies or "wings" within the Comintern (Communist International aka Third International). The "Left wing" emphasised the autonomous activity of the working class and therefore tended to oppose, for example, participation in bourgeois parliament or trade unions, alliances with bourgeois or reformist forces, etc. Hence they were to the "left" of the leadership (e.g. Lenin, Zinoviev, Trotsky) who advocated these tactics.
left communists criticized the Bolsheviks and the Comintern(especially after the second congress) for advocating policies such as participation in trade unions or in bourgeois parliaments ,and the degeneration of the communist international and of the russian revolution in general as a result of the failure of the international revolution. The most well known left communist currents were the German-Dutch left and the Italian left. The Italian left embraced a conception of the party as a vanguard of the proletarian(Bordiga was said to be more Leninist than Lenin) and while they regarded parliamentarism and activity in reactionary unions critically for them it was not as much of a deal-breaker(in their relationship with the Soviet Union and the Comintern) as it was for the German-Dutch left which was influenced by councilism and rejected the need for a party(the most prominent theorist was Pannekoek but those who followed Ruhle were the most vocal in condemning parties which they saw as being a strument for political struggle which suited the bourgeois and not the proletariat). The German-Dutch left came to deny came to deny the proletarian character of the russian revolution and to see bolshevism as containing the seeds of Stalinism(at least some of them like Pannekoek did ) When the Comintern became an instrument of the Soviet Union Leftcoms denounced this betrayal of internationalism. Since real communists are not part of the bourgeois political spectrum, left communism is just a term meant to differentiate them from pseudo-communists like stalinists,trots and the like.
Whenever I read or hear the term "left communism", I just imagine the word "actually" preceding it. So it's always "actually left communism", or simply "actually communism."
Nah it was literally just the left-wing of the early 20th century international communist movement.
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Left Communism basically means non-Leninist Marxism
That's not the basic meaning of it.
the writings of Amadeo Bordiga and is more party based but still critical of Leninism
A cursory glance at Bordiga would reveal otherwise.
Dutch-German left communism is synonymous with council communism and is influenced by Anton Panekoek.
It's rather vulgar to say that those movements were influenced by individuals.
so they are often accused as being utopian or idealistic by Leninists.
By people on reddit who don't know what those words mean or have a basic reading of history.
I joined this forum awhile ago, and have since become critical of left communism. I highly suggest reading Lenin - left wing communism, an infantile disorder for a breakdown, but basically leftcoms disagree with any attempt to attain communism in less than ideal circumstances. What constitutes ideal is different for every leftcom, but they generally disapprove of the proletarian violence, or the dictatorship of the proletariat, IE the proletariat taking state power by force. They disapprove of trying to attain socialism when the material conditions for capitalism are still prevalent (which is fair, but hard to define, and it leads to many leftcoms denouncing revolutions because they are less than ideal) .
If you're not going to bother then I'm just going to ban you.
You have read nothing by the Communist Left, and have demonstrated your ignorance squarely. Bordiga is often heralded as "more Leninist than Lenin" for his emphasis on a dictatorial proletarian party, and he promoted a totalitarian approach to revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. You also clearly don't know what socialism is, based on your notion of the proletariat merely hijacking the current bourgeois state. Why do people post such nonsense without forethought?
They haven't even read that Lenin pamphlet.
This is 100% incorrect. No left-communists are against either violence or the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bordiga saw the dictatorship of the proletariat as necessarily the dictatorship of the vanguard party. They also don't follow that shit about "the material conditions for capitalism" being still prevalent, I think you've confused left-communists with reformists.
I don't think you've read (or at least understood) Lenin's pamphlet because those aren't even the accusations he levels.
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Really strange that this comment has so many upvotes... are people here aware of the history of the communist movement?
Do you realise left-communism comes from the (very violent) revolutions that swept Europe in the early 20th century?
Do you realise left-communists like Pannekoek and Bordiga first defined themselves as a distinct tendency when they railed hard against revisionists like Bernstein and Turati, who opposed revolution and the proletarian dictatorship?
I feel like this sub attracts a bunch of liberals who see the anti-Stalinism and think we oppose it from the same standpoint as bourgeois forces.
I've banned them. They had the mistaken impression that we allowed anarchists in here.
You should think about adding something about that to the sidebar. "Other varieties of non-Leninist Marxism" makes people from /r/socialism who follow the ideas of Varoufakis and Richard Wolff to think they have something in common with left-communism, when in reality those ideas are further from ours than Lenin's and Trotsky's.
I also think it's worth adding something about how "left-communism" is not one of many "ideal societies" to be imposed, that we don't oppose Leninism because we think hierarchy or repression is bad, etc.
There's this weird thing on reddit where people see different Marxist tendencies as a variety of utopias to pick from, and see theory as something innate to you like a personality (e.g. you had someone coming in here recently saying "I took some tests online that say I'm a left-communist", but there's daily posts on /r/socialism saying "I believe x and y, what type of socialist am I?"). These idiots seeing "left-communism" as a subjective self-definition is part of the same trend.
It's like consumer identity politics ("I'm a mac user!") transposed onto politics. I don't know if it's a US American thing, cause I've never seen it in real life, at least to this extent. All the colourful and obscure "flair" you can add to your username on /r/socialism certainly doesn't help.
There's this weird thing on reddit where people see different Marxist tendencies as a variety of utopias to pick from, and see theory as something innate to you like a personality (e.g. you had someone coming in here recently saying "I took some tests online that say I'm a left-communist", but there's daily posts on /r/socialism saying "I believe x and y, what type of socialist am I?"). These idiots seeing "left-communism" as a subjective self-definition is part of the same trend.
It's like consumer identity politics ("I'm a mac user!") transposed onto politics. I don't know if it's a US American thing, cause I've never seen it in real life, at least to this extent. All the colourful and obscure "flair" you can add to your username on /r/socialism certainly doesn't help.
This is a very good observation, and exactly what is happening in my opinion. A lot of people talk about political tendencies as if they were something you just choose from, in order to present yourself in a way that you think will be viewed as what you are (e.g.: "I used to be an an-cap, then became an-com and am now syndicalist"). It's very disturbing.
Yes I was thinking that.
I feel like this sub attracts a bunch of liberals who see the anti-Stalinism and think we oppose it from the same standpoint as bourgeois forces.
I think they prefer the term "anarchists", comrade.
No left communist is against the dotp or revolution. I'm not entirely sure how one can even come to the conclusion that they are. Probably by never reading any text from the communist left.
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If they're against violence or the dotp they're not left-communists, they're not even Marxists.
When we talk about "left-communism" we're not talking about an abstract, individual, subjective decision - we're talking about a historical movement that actually happened.
My point was that there isn't a test one has to pass to call one's self a left-communist.
Yes there is. If someone rejects the dotp, revolution, etc, then they're not a communist. It's that simple. No left communist would reject this.
Of course, it's true that anyone can just call themselves anything, but this doesn't mean that what they are saying tallies up with reality. Just look at the amount of people who post on /r/socialism and /r/communism who think that they are communists.
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No, they're not. If they were then they wouldn't so obviously reveal their utopian bend in their name.
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Communism before Marx was, like socialism, utopian. Utopianism doesn't matter no what the subject is; it's only hypothetical, and not based in reality.
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So sayeth some guy on the internet. That makes it true.
Here in the real world, anarchists are not Utopian Socialists and Communism existed long before Marx took it up.
You're blatantly ignoring me. Communism existed before Marx but it wasn't Marx's communism and it was utopian, so it's irrelevant now. Anarcho-communism is just the spectre of it combined with social democracy. Anarchists are utopian socialists, and you haven't really given me anything that says otherwise.
Look, I'm sorry if you think that everyone with antagonistic conceptions and political goals can somehow all be correct. This isn't an open platform for you to declare logically inconsistent ideas as consistent ones.
They're utopian social democrats with no understanding of state formation or class struggle; they're not communists in the Marxist sense, which is really the only sense that matters.
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It's really fucking funny that anarchists think they're left communists.
E: It's been pointed out to me that they didn't call themselves a "left" communist. So I amended my post. I hope this suits them better.
You might want to add something to the sidebar about anarchism too
Isn't Dauve?
The main question is not the seizure of power by the workers. It is absurd to advocate the dictatorship of the working class as it is now. The workers as they are now are incapable of managing anything: they are just a part of the valorization mechanism, and are subjected to the dictatorship of capital. The dictatorship of the existing working class cannot be anything but the dictatorship of its representatives, i.e., the leaders of the unions and workers' parties. This is the state of affairs in the "socialist" countries, and it is the programme of the democratic left in the rest of the world.
...No? Did you even read what you just posted?
yes, i did read it. can you... explain how he's not saying that?
i actually just happened to be reading it and came across that part - i guess i'm not sure what he's saying there, then.
i'm familiar with the dotp-as-revolution, but he doesn't seem to be saying that?
The main question is not the seizure of power by the workers. It is absurd to advocate the dictatorship of the working class as it is now. The workers as they are now are incapable of managing anything: they are just a part of the valorization mechanism, and are subjected to the dictatorship of capital. The dictatorship of the existing working class cannot be anything but the dictatorship of its representatives, i.e., the leaders of the unions and workers' parties. This is the state of affairs in the "socialist" countries, and it is the programme of the democratic left in the rest of the world.
Dauve is not saying that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not feasible or desirable, merely that outside a revolutionary situation the working class do not posses the consciousness necessary to create anything other than a dictatorship of its representatives (nor could they).
oh, i see. i thought he just meant in this stage of capitalism; like this was a development we couldn't return from. thanks!
It is pretty accurate, if you're against the dictatorship of the proletariat then you're not a Marxist. Period.
"I don't know anything about left communism, but let me tell you why it's wrong."
Great job, comrade. Lenin would be proud.
aka "they aren't willing to believe that every country with a red flag is socialist" But seriously, the fact that we place such high emphasis on the material conditions is because one nation overthrowing its government in this epoch of global capitalism cannot achieve socialism. Also, we disapprove of violence?
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Aside from the, at times, shoddy translation this was a great read. My only objection was that the writer seemed to be favorable of Leninism and assumed the Bolsheviks actually established a "socialist" state--this of course being in contrast to the various workers movements that they crushed.
assumed the Bolsheviks actually established a "socialist" state
Where is this hinted in the article? Having any familiarity with the currents behind n+1 or historically left communism would make it clear that the author is writing with Bolshevism's elimination of feudal forms in mind, not an abstraction of "establishing socialism".
this of course being in contrast to the various workers movements that they crushed
By the standards of any other existing organization acting in the period of the revolution and civil war, the Bolshevik wing of social democracy, as well as other sections which merged willingly with it in the course of even greater and growing worker-class support and composition, was a party which most effectively acted for a proletarian dictatorship.
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I don't think this text is great at all, nor really left communist (unless that's achieved by simply putting unnecessary Bordiga quotes in). Maybe its coz I'm from the UK but this didn't tell me a lot about the state of student struggles in the US really. For one no Trotskyist would seriously disagree with the analysis presented within. Similarly the title of the article is really reaching for something that just isn't grasped. On the level of analysis much is to be desired; the weakness of student struggles in the US is obvious, and predictable is the appeal to a sacred history which seems to embody the opposites of the present, but between the 'then' and 'now' what? The US student struggles haven't always been so weak as they presently are, even if they possessed an inherent weakness. What is the real history behind the present beyond that 'activist history' invoked by Berkeley? What is the history of the University as a form responsive to the dictats of capital and the state? What's the logic behind tuition fees and privatisation? And so on and so on.
Take the UK, not a great history of student struggles (i.e. a relatively weak 1960s compared to the West), but a consistent one...especially in 1960s-80s, after that we see a decline (bar some eruptions in the mid 1990s, early 2000s over Iraq and then Israel) until the 2010 movement which has produced a raft of politicised 'activists' of a very different character to the ones described here (i.e. though not without problems, they certainly don't cooperate with management despite open communists and anarchists effectively controlled some of Britain leading universities student unions...that history contrasts the bad analysis of bureaucracy that's invoked in this article) many of which are communists or anarchists and many have been marginally successful at keeping the struggle within the Universities "up" beyond the decline of the immediate 2010 moment (this is contrasted to the dire state of the union movement which are laughable – its relationship with students is interesting). The situation today is the UK, paradoxically considering its history, has perhaps one of the strongest student movements in Europe outside of France and Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal), (for example there was relatively large cops off campus movement in 2014 across the UK, this rather shows at least the difference between the UK and US if only because US campuses actually have stationed cops on campus, and thus a practical achievement a lot easier and the issue a lot more overtly present...or maybe it was precisely the cops presence that prevents such a movement??).
Lots more could be said of the political composition of this movement, its tactics and ideology, relationship to Corbyn, relationship to workers' and community struggles, dominance of high-ranking universities as centres of struggle, the failures, the successes etc.). Now I don't have any total analysis or coherent theory of this just fragments...but this article tells me two things I knew already a) the US student movement is conservative/easily co-opted b) burn down the university (just contentless).....the UK student movement has loads of problems, but most activists here would agree with both (a) and (b). Only in contrast to the US movement does this article come as radical maybe, to me it seems faux radical with little content. And the potential was lost when the example subverted what it was supposed to be an example of.
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- The first step in re-establishing a revolutionary theory and practice consists in breaking with that Marxism which claims to monopolize revolutionary initiative as well as theoretical and practical direction.
Korsch is interesting. He seems to have had such clear insight into a very murky world and for all that he still managed to disappear into the historical void never to be seen again. Is there anything of his that sticks out as required reading?
the mystical identification of the development of the capitalist economy with the social revolution of the working class
It's a strange sentiment. The idea that capitalism can and does adapt by bringing opposition into the fold doesn't ever seem to offend anyone. Isn't that what they were so recently complaining happened to Black Lives Matter? Clinton threw money at them, or something, and that was it. Smothered in the crib. Dare to suggest that may have happened to 'actually existing socialism' and your virtual body will be swinging from a virtual bridge by morning. Mystical is right.
Is there anything of his that sticks out as required reading?
His most popular work is probably Marxism and Philosophy (including the "anti-critique"). I was kinda doing a read of it here a while ago.
It's a strange sentiment. The idea that capitalism can and does adapt by bringing opposition into the fold doesn't ever seem to offend anyone. Isn't that what they were so recently complaining happened to Black Lives Matter? Clinton threw money at them, or something, and that was it. Smothered in the crib. Dare to suggest that may have happened to 'actually existing socialism' and your virtual body will be swinging from a virtual bridge by morning. Mystical is right.
That section is more about people who argue that the workers themselves have to develop capitalism once they attained political power.
Since revolutions don't happen because of ideologies, what is the role of individual communists like us? Is "agitate, educate, organize" what we should do, like it's often repeated on subs like /r/socialism?
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In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
I should really re-read the Manifesto. Thanks for your answer!
It's a good book. The prefaces are also well worth going over once in a while.
Communism is not a programme one puts into practice or makes others put into practice, but a social movement. Those who develop and defend theoretical communism do not have any advantages over others except a clearer understanding and a more rigorous expression; like all others who are not especially concerned by theory, they feel the practical need for communism. They have no privilege whatsoever; they do not carry the knowledge that will set the revolution in motion; but, on the other hand, they have no fear of becoming "leaders" by explaining their positions. The communist revolution, like every other revolution, is the product of real needs and living conditions. The problem is to shed light on an existing historical movement.
Communism is not an ideal to be realized: it already exists, not as a society, but as an effort, a task to prepare for. It is the movement which tries to abolish the conditions of life determined by wage-labour, and it will abolish them by revolution. The discussion of communism is not academic. It is not a debate about what will be done tomorrow. It is an integral part of a whole series of immediate and distant tasks, among which discussion is only one aspect, an attempt to achieve theoretical understanding. Inversely, the tasks can be carried out more easily and efficiently if one can answer the question: where are we going?
-- eclipse and re-emergence of the communist movement ch1 pg1
This is a very broad question. Communists at certain times have certain roles to perform. In times of social peace and reaction, it is to maintain the revolutionary theory. In times of social strife, it is to examine what is going on, link up worker struggles and help with the formation of the class.
help with the formation of the class.
What do you mean by that?
The linking up of isolated proletarian outbreaks with each other so that the class can act as a whole.
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What a timely post. I've been thinking about this for a while now, so it's good that a piece like this is here.
I also enjoy that this is yet another piece that stresses that socialism is an open-ended question instead of a programmatic answer.
The experiences of societies in the 'Third World' are fundamentally different, not least because they have been progressively underdeveloped (1) by the Western industrial powers for several centuries. There is no reason to suppose that these societies must necessarily follow the development of Western societies, with the institutions of Statehood, bourgeois democracy, and so on.
I've had suspicions that Marx was deviating from his method when proposing the Asiatic mode of production, and that Marxists do the same when they generalise feudalism. It feels like a bit of fixing history to streamline it to capitalism, you know? I always thought it was okay for the pre-capitalist Earth to have many different modes of production, because capitalism is the first necessarily global mode of production and, in fact, what some Marxists call “semi-feudal” I call holdouts of previous modes of production in underdeveloped countries. I believe this quote may be hinting at the basic premises if not my conclusion. Do you believe so? Do you agree with my conclusion? And if so, does it call for a do-over of Marxist historiography?
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I posted this in the Rojava thread, but thought I may as well post it here since it's so relevant lol. Great timing on GMiL's part
Great timing on GMiL's part
Okay, which one of you is it?!
Whoever it is, I'm flattered.
But they are doing some pretty revolutionary stuff? I don't see why there's this disdain for them taking advantage of cobelligerents' capabilities.
Well we could go back and forth all day on how 'revolutionary' the YPG are, but in terms of criticising them for asking for Western intervention, it's more a matter of communists not taking sides in bourgeois conflicts than actual ideological purity or outrage at the Kurds for daring to ask for help against ISIS. /u/spiritof56 put it best in the recent Rojava thread imo:
If there is an actual communist movement then it shouldn't be hard to identify it, but people seem to talking solely about the Kurdish state without really understanding what that is or even really what relation it has with its neighbours or the international community.
Pretty revolutionary stuff or actual revolutionary stuff?
Seriously? They are doing genuinely revolutionary things. They are organizing society in radically left-wing ways. Yes, they're militarily cooperating with imperialists, but considering the fact that they're surrounded by enemies and primarily cooperating against an existential threat, can you blame them?
Revolutionary things like what?
I'm really not getting into this. There is abundant information on the social, political, and economic organization in Rojava.If you honestly want to know about it, you won't have a hard time learning. I don't want to get into an argument now, though.
If there's so much then it won't be hard to mention some.
It's pretty easy to sit back and criticize them for asking for help when it not our families that would be enslaved, slaughtered, and raped if Daesh captured Kobani. Communism must look like we envision it or it doesn't count. Amiright? /s
and its pretty easy to "support" things on the internet, just type solidarity on a forum and you're done. on more serious note, the ones they ask for "help" are the ones that destabalized the entire region, who are allied with the supporters of isis, who throught their actions helped to create isis. also those good helpers are allied with the turkish state wich is in war with the pkk and every kurdish movement in that region. but hey its all good, the usa/france/uk/whoever else will just kill several thousands of civilians, not that anarchists would care, muh rojova afterall. amiright?
Communism must look like we envision it or it doesn't count.
there is no communist revolution or anything like it happening in rojova. and i wonder if all the anarchists would be so much into rojova if bookchin wasnt namedroped and they officially call themselfs democratic confederalists.
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A short piece by council communist Anton Pannekoek outlining some of the basics behind his ideas of the worker's council as the organ of proletarian revolution and, for a time, to play a part in the political function of governing; before turning into simple objects of economic management after the revolution.
What are your thoughts on this piece? Do you have any criticisms? Did you find anything partciularly interesting or learn anything new about council/left communism you were unaware of?
Personally, while I agree with the exclusion of certain classes from the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, I'm not sure that I agree political power (during the revolution) should only come from the workplace; what about those out of work or unable to work due to disability or simple unemployment? I worry it could leave them voiceless, although I think this issue is rectifiable by having some form of community council or by opening the doors of workplace councils to those who are not in work or cannot work.
Currently I'm still developing my own position within the wider 'branch' of left communism and I'm unsure of what I see the role of the party as, I hope by bringing this piece up that somebody might offer a helpful insight.
what about those out of work or unable to work due to disability or simple unemployment?
Aside from the disabled, how could people be unemployed during a working class revolution? Aren't people unemployed / underemployed in capitalist society because the capitalist class benefits by hiring fewer, overworked people?
It seems ironic that there would be unemployment during the DotP.
This book is next on my list to read as soon as I finish A Small Key Can Open A Large Door: The Rojava Revolution.
This isn't the actual book, this is just a small article style piece he wrote beforehand, of the same name. I've only just started the actual book, but I'm reading so much at the moment that I'm making slow progress.
Hello everyone,
For a while know I have been mostly looking to Marxist-Leninist subs to find where I am politically. I have heard many leftcoms say that ML's don't have a decent understanding of Marxism. So I ask you what works do I read, and in what order, to get a good understanding of Marx and Engels?
Thanks alot
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Id say start with Principles of Communism, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and at least the section of Feuerbach from The German Ideology.
Ive heard that some people don't recommend Marx's Capital for beginners but I would also recommend that. For me it was very slow to get into but it gives a necessary analysis of capitalism and a better understanding of Marxism in general. If you don't want to jump into it right away you could check out Marx's Value, Price and Profit and Wage Labour and Capital to give you the foundations.
Thanks alot :)
No problem!
I also think Bordiga's "Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism" is worth looking at as well but may not be particularly what you're looking for atm.
Also, I'm just reading the Marx-Engels Reader (2nd Edition) right now and it might be what you're looking for. It explains the development of Marx in the beginning and goes from his early works, to his later works, to Engels last works. I definitely recommend it.
Do you have a link for that? Sounds like an interesting read.
I'm reading the physical book so I don't know how good that is but it seems fine.
Cheers for the link!
Isn't that abridged?
Do you mean the texts included?
If so then yeah. For example it includes parts of The German Ideology and Capital Vol 1 but of course it's not the full texts. By no means does it replace the originals but I think it's a good intro that introduces someone to Marx directly.
Oh, I thought that all of the texts in it were abridged.
I don't think order is important. You just need to understand the context. So I think it's helpful to read some sort of biography of their ideas. In this case I would recommend David McLellan's Marx before Marxism and Marxism after Marx, if you can find them. There's also Karl Marx: His Life and Works written by Ruhle.
But probably the more important things to get is how they approached the subject so you should read Theses on Feuerbach, some of the sections dealing with materialism and such in the German Ideology and The Preface to the Contribution to Critique of Political Economy. Then there's Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.
Then uh, Capital, The Civil War in France, the 18th Brumaire (my fav), the Manifesto, the gothakritik and pretty much everything else. There's a lot to read and just reading any of it is an improvement over reading none of it.
Thanks, that helps!
The only thing that you actually need to know about Marxism is that it's a ruthless critique of everything existing. The rest is just filler.
David McClellan also has a book "Karl Marx: Selected writings" which I would recommend, it's a just over 650 pages and contains extracts, introductions by McLellan and a long bibliography. I mostly use it as a quick reference manual but you could read right through it beginning to end. I've been reading his 'Young Hegelians and Karl Marx' recently, he knows his stuff.
I wouldn't recommend that selected writings over say the volumes put out by the soviet union (footnotes aside). He rearranged the text which makes it pretty useless if you want to follow the actual texts that Marx and Engels wrote.
By rearranging the text do you mean mixing up the order (the second edition seems to be correct in that regard) or rearranging the text in the extracts themselves? Good point about the footnotes on the MECW the intros are also crap. The advantage of the McLellan over MECW is it's a single volume, maybe the Marx-Engels Reader would be better, I've never looked into it.
I had to pull out my copy to double check this, but I think that the more truncated texts such as the gothkritik has been rearranged (If memory serves me the 18th Brumaire is also rearranged...)
And I think I'm biased a little because it is just extracts. But looking over the table of contents it probably would provide a good introduction, even if it's sort of more representative of what Dave thinks is important (not that that's bad). Maybe it's just the obsessive compulsive in my who wants to own the more complete works.
I think the issue has been made a little moot by the fact that people can now easily download copies and put them on kindles these days, I suppose.
With growing income inequality more people are starting to get involved in the discussion about socialism. This has me wondering about what lefcoms feel. What would you suggest a person do that wants to stop the inequality? Is it frowned upon to join an organization? Do you organize with social movements such as BLM? Please share what you all feel is the best course of action in growing a revolutionary movement and how you would engage someone with 0 theory.
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Where ever the class is then communists should be also.
how you would engage someone with 0 theory.
If you know what you are talking about then you should be able to explain it to anyone.
The first step to understanding "how to organize", or how to intervene in the class struggle, is being able to sort out which conflicts have a "proletarian character" and which do not. Likewise for joining a group, you don't want to join one that's bourgeois.
But how do you actually differentiate between those that have a "proletarian character" and those that don't?
Are they composed entirely or primarily by proletarians who are organizing themselves on the basis of the fact that they are proletarians? Then they likely have a proletarian character.
Are they composed of entirely or primarily by ideologues who are organizing themselves on the basis of ideas, where the only proletarians in the organization are only there to pay their dues to keep the ideologues out of the labor market? Then they likely do not have a proletarian character.
By percentage of flatcaps you see in the crowd.
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For to take an extreme example in Italy, in the early 1970′s union bureaucrats for the major Italian unions could not even enter many factories because they would be run off by the workers. And meanwhile the Trotskyists’ were saying “We have to capture the unions as vehicles for revolutionary struggle.” Most Trotskyist groups, including the IS group, were going into the factories and trying to take over the union apparatus under their program.
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I've seen Lenin's "What is to be done?" show up a few times now. Is that still viewed as relevant by anyone at all? The criticisms of that seem hard to ignore even for the most fervent ML.
A lot of trot groups and neo-kauts still hold the party and socialism part as relevant, even though Lenin would later admit that he bent the rod too far in that direction and the book was never published again after the 1905 revolutions.
At the 1924 congress of the Comintern, according to Max Eastman, there were three big pictures behind the speaker’s stand-Marx, Engels and Lassalle. I think it shows how Lassalle was viewed that late as a revolutionary who had contributed to the development of the working class movement. In fact it was Lassalle, not Lenin, who was the first person to argue that the revolutionary party should be a special military party of professional revolutionaries. And because Lassalle was eliminated from the revolutionary pantheon, starting in the mid 1920s, his great influence on the Russian movement is not widely appreciated. After the 1924 congress, it was at that time when they discovered the documents that showed that Lassalle had been meeting secretly with Bismarck. Again I’m not sure about the dates there but it was after 1924 that Lassalle was forgotten. He went into the unmentionable file.
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The language on the state, on trade unions and on parliaments is pretty vague and contradictory. And there's support for national liberation so that's not good. Plus the whole communism thing as being a state of affairs.
I see these exact points of unity pop up in several places, encouraging
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That's really exciting to hear. Those points were excellent and there's barely a leftist organization in the U.S. that isn't revisionist or moving towards supporting fucking Sanders as their primary form of organizing.
Are you gonna back this up with more information or just play the mysterious stranger?
mysterious stranger is cooler for sure
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Do you have a group name? Is there somewhere I can read more about your project? Any possibility of a west coast expansion?
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Is the email for contacting your comrades or are you requesting I directed further questions via email?
Lol these sound like they could have been written by some disadent trot group
Who wants to mod it cause icbf
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I have little mod experience but I could help out if needed.
I deal with this co-op nonsense all the time though so I'm absolutely excited to see this sub.
I've never modded anything before but I could probably do it
The trick is to never compromise.
Yes this subreddit needs to happen. Mod me pls
Aww yiss I haven't got any mod experience but ill help out if you need it
Can I also post basic income stuff? They're mostly the same crowd
Yeah sure, why not.
Not modded a sub yet, have lots of free time. Would love to be modded. So sick of dealing with the coop people though.
Can I make the banner the Mutualist flag?
Go crazy
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co-ops
I had a subreddit that I mod but noone posts. I mod.
I'll admit I know very little about them at all, but nothing I read leads me to think anything highly of them. Mostly it's just neutral though, not negative. I honestly can't wrap my head around why anarchists seem to like them so much. It just strikes me as a nationalist, utopian socialist community led by a faceless vanguard (seriously though, what's with the masks?).
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Largely a movement to protect traditional ways of peasant organization. It's just indigenous nationalism with talk of democracy and civil society. Anarchists probably like them because of the class dimensions involved, the middling classes, and the idea of autonomous regions which is something that anarchists are into. Anarchists aren't above supporting nationalism and national liberation. The funniest thing I read about anarchists was a pamphlet about "keep[ing] the revolution local" in regards to implementing more bicycle routes.
The funniest thing I read about anarchists was a pamphlet about "keep[ing] the revolution local" in regards to implementing more bicycle routes.
that is hilarious
I'm not that antagonistic when it comes to most things about anarchism but their localistic and nationalistic tendencies really are the worst.
I'm maybe a bit jaded when it comes to anarchists after spending a lot of time with them, and seeing them destroy organisations that I've been in.
What organizations?
Mostly things involving tenants unions and things against the dwp. Plus others but I don't want to get into them over reddit.
The funniest thing I read about anarchists was a pamphlet about "keep[ing] the revolution local" in regards to implementing more bicycle routes.
Actual existing anarchism
they have faults, but pretty rad all things considered
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what is their practical suggestion beyond "link its struggles with those of the world working class and to develop a truly internationalist and revolutionary perspective"?
It gladdens me to announce that /r/LibertarianMarxist is back in operation after a very long silence, and (hopefully) is going to see some new life as a meeting ground for anti-authoritarian Marxists and other sympathetic commies. Given the historical links between libertarian Marxism and left communism, I hope that the kind folks of this subreddit will find some interest.
Cheers!
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Which historical links would they be? I'm not against being authoritarian and I don't think most left communists, historic and other wise, would be either. What exactly are the stances taken by libertarian marxism?
Namely, that a lot of historical left-communists such as Antonie Pannekoek and Guy Debord have also been considered libertarian Marxists. As to stances, libertarian Marxism tends to align strongly with other libertarian socialist schools of thought in terms of organization and revolutionary strategy.
Debord, a leftcom? How?
I could have sworn I'd seen him included among their number on some list somewhere, but on closer inspection it looks like I was mistaken--not sure how I got that one.
On wikipedia it does list him as a leftcom.
Namely, that a lot of historical left-communists such as Antonie Pannekoek and Guy Debord have also been considered libertarian Marxists.
I think that's a bit anachronistic.
As to stances, libertarian Marxism tends to align strongly with other libertarian socialist schools of thought in terms of organization and revolutionary strategy.
What I mean is, what exactly makes one a libertarian marxist? Is it within the organisation? In relation to the seizure of power? I know real life people who consider themselves to be libertarian socialists but their positions all boil down to questions of democracy, which I think is little more than navel gazing.
I think that's a bit anachronistic.
How so?
Is it within the organisation? In relation to the seizure of power?
Essentially, yes.
EDIT: Posted while unfinished, apologies--libertarian Marxists favor horizontal organization and reject the need for a state in the transition from capitalism to socialism.
So, Anarchists with a hard on for Marx.
Anti-Stalinist, but Pro-Soviet kitsch. Disillusioned Anarchists. Delusional revisionists who think Rosa Luxembourg was a suffragette.
Usually, "Libertarian Marxism" just means a vague and very awkward assortment of "libertarian" theorists (regardless of whether they would have actually seen themselves as that or not) and theory a la wikipedia. I don't think it has ever meant anything more than that. I would like to be corrected on this if I'm wrong.
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Well there is a Wikipedia Page for it.
There's also a wikipedia page for the illuminati.
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and Trotskyism. Libertarian Marxism is also critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France; emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, Libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.
Interesting:Listofpoliticalideologies|DanielGuérin|Communism|Anti-authoritarianism
ParentcommentercantoggleNSFWordelete.Willalsodeleteoncommentscoreof-1orless.|FAQs|Mods|MagicWords
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The last part that speaks about athletes being suppressed should be ignored for obvious reasons.
Vol 4 has been referenced a couple times by Rabinowitch so far in my reading of *Prelude to Revolution*, and I'm interested in reading the meetings he's referencing (specifically an April 6th meeting of the Central Committee Bureau where Kamenev disagreed with Lenin). The journal is online, but only available to scholars. I was hoping somebody here had a PDF or login for the journal. In addition, I'd be grateful for any sources on the 'All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies' held March 27 - April 3. I've looked everywhere I can think to online, and I can't find anything on it besides the Wikipedia page and its source which is just another wiki entry for a Russian site. That site lists the sources as: Lenin V.I., Luiblanovshchina, Full. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 31; The Great October Socialist Revolution, Chronicle of Events, vol. 1 (February 27 - May 6, 1917), Moscow, 1957.
However I have had little luck in finding either of those. Are these books that I can buy or read online? Any help is much appreciated.
Edit: Additionally, I am very interested in finding a fuller history on the R.S.D.L.P.. Are there any recommended books for like 1890s to 1917? A long list is fine, if not preferred.
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I have access to it, but only in HTML. I can't read Russian, but I'll put copy the contents into a document as best I can and send them to you.
Here is a link to an epub of the whole volume. You can read it with Calibre or and epub reader extension for your browser. I couldn't get it to download as PDF. Sorry for the scuffed formatting: http://www.filedropper.com/vol4voprosyistorii
Hello, I apologize if my questions are basic, im still a leftoid and a bad reader.
Lots of leftcom ideology stresses the need for the proletariat to be the core, not the ancillary to a revolution, and obviously a dictatorship of the proletariat must have proletariat leading to work at all.
However, in modern society especially, I am confused as to the distinctions. From my understanding, someone in the proletariat must sell their labor power to a firm or individual for a wage as their primary source of living (and their labor must add value to a commodity?).
However, it confuses to me on the specifics. For example, is a high salaried but non-shareholding investment banker (or any financial profession) for Goldman Sachs a part of the proletariat? Even if his work is purely in trading stocks and organizing IPOs, which ostensibly don't particularly add value to an economy? What about someone who invests their wage overtime, and derives income from their capital investments, enough to survive on, but work a job for extra income anyway? Are workers in a cooperative who (for the sake of argument) don't receive a wage but a cut of the profits just part of one giant bourgeois entrepreneurial partnership? How does a party ensure it speaks directly for proletarians and is their primary method of political and class struggle, and what would its requirements be for being proletarian. In countries with a labor aristocracy, many of whom have retirement plans based on capital investment simply impossible areas for revolution to occur? Can a polity exist with no legitimate proletariat and all value production coming from overseas?
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From my understanding, someone in the proletariat must sell their labor power to a firm or individual for a wage as their primary source of living (and their labor must add value to a commodity?).
No. I addressed this here.
For example, is a high salaried but non-shareholding investment banker (or any financial profession) for Goldman Sachs a part of the proletariat?
No. It's also worth noting here that a salary is not identical with a wage.
Even if his work is purely in trading stocks and organizing IPOs, which ostensibly don't particularly add value to an economy?
How does something "ostensibly not particularly add value to an economy"? Is there then a "hidden and unparticular" way to "add value"? Is "an economy" that of a nation state? But the question itself should already be answered by the link I provided above.
What about someone who invests their wage overtime, and derives income from their capital investments, enough to survive on, but work a job for extra income anyway?
This should be clarified from the comments linked in that thread above.
Are workers in a cooperative who (for the sake of argument) don't receive a wage but a cut of the profits just part of one giant bourgeois entrepreneurial partnership?
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
How does a party ensure it speaks directly for proletarians and is their primary method of political and class struggle
The party engages with struggles of workers where they are already happening, within their institutions, and puts forward perspectives so they can succeed and hence become more general.
and what would its requirements be for being proletarian.
The question is not that of the yardstick of the party. What is relevant is what the proletariat is.
In countries with a labor aristocracy
I'd appreciate if you could explain what you think the "labour aristocracy" is.
Can a polity exist with no legitimate proletariat and all value production coming from overseas?
God knows what this means. What is a polity? What is a legitimate proletariat? Is there an illegitimate proletariat? How can value production come from overseas?
God knows what this means. What is a polity? What is a legitimate proletariat? How can value production come from overseas?
I think he's just asking if there are any small countries composed entirely (or almost entirely) of bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, who simply import all their means of subsistence from other countries. Not that it's particularly important, but surely something like Vatican City or some small independent islands in the Pacific would be characterized as such.
But they don't exist without a "legitimate proletariat" by the very fact that "value production [comes] from overseas". I don't know anything about these tiny island nations but places like the Vatican, San Marino, Monaco, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein exist squarely in the middle of industrial countries and couldn't exist otherwise, and this goes for places like the City of London, and the tax haven islands.
But they don't exist without a "legitimate proletariat" by the very fact that "value production [comes] from overseas".
Yeah OP's phraseology was clearly nonsensical, I was just trying to draw out whatever he might be getting at.
places like the Vatican, San Marino, Monaco, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein exist squarely in the middle of industrial countries and couldn't exist otherwise, and this goes for places like the City of London, and the tax haven islands.
Yeah those were the types of places I thought of when I read it. Though it seems OP likes to speak in terms of purely hypothetical abstraction so who knows.
Yeah those were the types of places I thought of when I read it. Though it seems OP likes to speak in terms of purely hypothetical abstraction so who knows.
These places are accidents of history, stemming from feudal remnants and nobility becoming figures of finance capital. It would be pointless to talk about it hypothetically, they don't exist hypothetically.
In the comments by u/pzaaa in the post that you linked, middle class is defined as a class which owns some property/capital but does not own enough to sustain itself without a wage. How is this different from the petty bourgeoisie? Does the petty bourgeoisie always have to employ the labor of others? Also, is this definition of middle class similar to PMC (if this is even a useful category)? I’ve generally seen PMC defined as salaried mental workers who do not own means of production and whose major role can be described as the reproduction of capitalist culture and class relations.
In the comments by u/pzaaa in the post that you linked, middle class is defined as a class which owns some property/capital but does not own enough to sustain itself without a wage.
This isn't what they said. To define is to delimit. They made it a big point in their comments to show that the middle class is precisely characterised by its "fuzziness", because it has two boundaries - one to the bourgeoisie and one to the proletariat. That's why they provided examples to illustrate that there are no hard and fast rules to identify this position. To understand what the middle class is, one has to understand what the two classes bordering it are. Note that this middle position was occupied by different strata during the development from pre-capitalist relations of production to bourgeois society in full bloom. Hence, when Marx uses the term the content is slightly different compared to today.
How is this different from the petty bourgeoisie?
In the very post you were just talking about:
I think it's fair to approximate this term petite-bourgeois to the modern middle class
If you talk about present conditions, you can use the two interchangeably.
Does the petty bourgeoisie always have to employ the labor of others?
At this point I'm wondering if you have even read the comments you mentioned at the beginning.
Also, is this definition of middle class similar to PMC (if this is even a useful category)?
The "professional-managerial class" - writing it out for those who can't be fucked to look into the latest dumb acronym peddled by leftists either - is a concept that academics have come up with in the 1970s. It seems to serve lower middle class failures who spend their lives stuck with a useless college degree to denounce others who have managed to get a cushy office job. Essentially it's an attempt of self-conscious petty bourgeois individuals to distance themselves from being petty bourgeois. "Middle class" or "petty bourgeoisie" fully suffice to describe these strata.
Ok, thanks.
in fact we have to do here not with workers, but with petty bourgeois and those who would like and are able to become petty bourgeois; people whose incomes gradually rise as a rule, even if within certain limits, such as clerks and employees in similar occupations. The income of the worker, however, in the best case remains the same in amount, and in reality it falls in proportion to the increase of his family and its growing needs. -- Engels, The Housing Question
Since i can't comment on the old thread, i will leave this remark by Engels here
Why?
he remarks here that aspiring petty bourgeois and petty bourgeois had incomes that gradually rose as a rule, and for the worker it generally stays the same. I thought it was another good identifier not mentioned here from the fuzzy lines of the middle class and the proletariat.
Party and Class directly addresses a lot of what you've asked here. As regards your question on automation, Capital, and in particular Chapter 15: Machinery and Modern Industry demonstrates the effect that machinery has on workers.
Bad reader or no, it'll benefit you much more to read the above than to get a synopsis here.
Thanks for the reading.
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This is a very naive outlook. No one can seriously believe this.
I dont believe anything I am just looking at how these scenarios would play out
You'd be well-advised to stop wasting your time with abstract hypotheticals and to think about reality instead.
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This should be pinned. The critiques from the Gegenstandpunkt are so fundamental opposed to a bourgeois mindset, it a joy to read them.
Criticism of ideology is just about the only thing they do well, though.
You should stop posting this site. People are too stupid here to read things critically.
What do you mean with this remark?
That I agree with what has been said on the matter in this thread. To GegenStandpunkt, everything is to be reduced to a matter of will. Compare this to Marx:
The principle of politics is the will. The more one-sided – i.e., the more prefect – political understanding is, the more completely it puts its faith in the omnipotence of the will, the blinder it is towards the natural and spiritual limitations of the will, the more incapable it becomes of discovering the real source of the evils of society.
It isn't surprising that they call Hegel's Phenomenology a terrible book, then. They understand neither him, nor Marx entirely.
I still often see signs of morality within the left communist circles. Any such purposing that there is a right or wrong way to run society assumes some form of morality, even if it is dissasociated with the prevailing dominate moralities. To say that suffering should be avoided, that there is a preference of egaltarianism in social struggles, any sort of humanist leanings, remains a form of morality
What are you trying to say? That communism necessarily includes morality, or that certain people calling themselves "left communists" are not critical enough of morality?
The group who wrote this is not left communist at all, by the way.
I would say yes to both of those statements. The latter statement isnt that much of an issue. I dont expect much from individuals.
For the former, I am not criticizing its commitment for having a form of morality, but rather I am criticizing any such proposals that state that it doesnt have any morality attached to it at all. Its morality is based on the class interests of the proletariat. If left communism, or rather communism proper, had no morality involved, then it would be disinterested at best. There is obviously a humanistic stance that underlies the very basis of communism. Why else would one want to reorganize society if one did not think that there was something "better"? The very insistence on there being a "better way" presupposes some sense of morality.
I think a better critique for a communist, assuming that they genuinely want to defend the communist hypothesis, is to criticize prevailing moralities and moralities that are against the morality that arises from the proletarian consciousness.
This attempt of reintroducing philosophy into communism rests on a wrong conception of what morality and communism even are. It's like setting out to reinvent Trotsky's "Their Morals and Ours" (which incidentally, certain blogs seem to be trying to do as well). Judging from this "communist hypothesis" Badiou-esque claptrap, it looks like you are caught up in philosophy entirely. More, the conception of communism as confronting society from the outside to have it reorganised is a step back from Marx's Theses on Feuerbach.
On one hand, I can see and understand your critique. I do have a bias for philosophy. On the other hand, I still think that is an oversimplified view of my position of philosophy and communism. There is a reason I gave up philosophy on the academic level. Take a moment and give me the benefit of the doubt.
I dont imagine that some intellectuals will be the ones to lead the revolution like some kind of college socialist dream. As if there were some kind of beings who are completely neutral when it comes to capitalism, laying outside of the system and able to reorganize it like some kind of gods. Marx is pretty clear that communism will arise from forces immanent to capitalist society.
But that is still beyond my point that a morality will arise and be associated with the communist movement as given by the proletariat.
On the other hand, I still think that is an oversimplified view of my position of philosophy and communism
gee I wonder why
But that is still beyond my point that a morality will arise and be associated with the communist movement as given by the proletariat.
That's your stupid opinion, the continual attempts at reintegrating bourgeois norms into the communist movement. Your arguing in the same way of people who say that the state will exist forever, that commodity production will exist because it is a natural condition, and the same sort of people who say that climate change is an essentially communist concern.
You're also the type of person who proves how "debating" is tied up intrinsically with bourgeois and class culture, trying to worm asinine asides into things to complicate them, and proof that debating is a waste of time.
Your cult following really gives you a sense of purpose, doesnt it.
I don't know what is more liberal. Your insistence to explore users histories from your obvious throwaway, or the fact that you think neutral rationality exists.
neutral rationality exists
marxism, you see, is a hammer, and it can be wielded in many ways, much like the theory of evolution. some might use the theory of evolution for the detached pursuit of science, the petty bourgeoisie will find a morality within it and use it for eugenics. clearly there is no such thing as a neutral rationality to evolution! this user contradicts themselves constantly throughout this whole thread. ironically a great example of what the OP is talking about
im not sure how they imagine me having a cult and also throwaways
although
they do have an imaginary friend who watches them masturbate
As if there were some kind of beings who are completely neutral when it comes to capitalism, laying outside of the system and able to reorganize it like some kind of gods. Marx is pretty clear that communism will arise from forces immanent to capitalist society.
But that is still beyond my point that a morality will arise and be associated with the communist movement as given by the proletariat.
What are you attempting to say here? I already had to reduce your initial statement to two options for clarity, I don't want to pull out everything out of your nose. Why don't you just plainly say what you think without all this allegorical vagueness and indeterminacy attached, which forces everyone to guess? I'm aware that this is what people are taught to do in academia so they can't be pinned down for the garbage they write, but please leave that out of here.
Either you're making morality so abstract that it can pertain to absolutely everything, or you are merely proclaiming the banality that morality corresponds to capital's existence. If it is the latter, then think of the absurdity of upholding religion for the same reason, irrespective of the communist critique of it.
I do not claim to know what "proletarian consciousness" or any of the other terms given by you are.
I do not claim to know what "proletarian consciousness" or any of the other terms given by you are.
It's when you smoke a pipe while wearing your overalls instead of a cigarette.
It isnt nearly as complicated as you're making it. My claim is simple, anyone who says that there is a right or wrong way of doing anything on a social and nonobjective level is making a moral claim. Anyone who says that rationality should be the basis of all decision making is making a moral claim. Regardless of how any of those terms are defined, it is a relational claim.
And I love how no one here can ever debate an idea without the inovcation of some personal post history. Every time i dont use one of my throwaways, downvotes and the ad hominems always come out. All the while you all will upvote the opinions of my throwaways.
My claim is simple, anyone who says that there is a right or wrong way of doing anything on a social and nonobjective level is making a moral claim. Anyone who says that rationality should be the basis of all decision making is making a moral claim. Regardless of how any of those terms are defined, it is a relational claim.
You really sound like you spent too much time in US style debate clubs. "My claim" - why the fuck does everything you write read like you are writing some goddamn paper? Are those formalisms too deeply ingrained to get rid of?
The point of the critique of morality, since it seems to go over your head, is precisely this attitude you are showing here. Social relations like the state, money, etc. are objective in capitalist society, and they don't care for you confronting them with wishes regarding how they ought to be, since they serve purposes intrinsic to them. Likewise, they cannot be done away with by arbitrary means. If I look at a rocket engineer's aerodynamic calculations and notice a mistake, is it morality when I tell them that their doing is unsuited for the purpose they have set themselves?
And you still haven't given me the clarification on your earlier drivel that I asked for.
Never been in a debate club or even a debate formally. I was responding to you asking me to clarify my position, so I did. Sorry clear articulations annoy you. Sounds like a personal problem.
And I am not saying that one should not critique morality, I have no clue how you pulled that out of anything that I have said. I even mentioned that one should critique bourgeois morality when i said "critique prevailing moralities". Communism is at its base, a moral system. Unless you believe it is a detached descriptive theory.
And for the engineering question, I am questioning your reading comprehension. Did you miss the part where I said "right or wrong in the social realm"?
I think if I made a wordcloud of this subreddit, drivel and tripe would be huge words.
Communism is at its base, a moral system.
lol
I am questioning your reading comprehension
I'm questioning which college you went to.
Never been a debate club or even a debate formally.
I was making a comparison - that's what the word "like" indicates. I could not care less about your personal life.
I was responding to you asking me to clarify my position, so I did. Sorry clear articulations annoy you.
None of what you have written in this thread deserves the predication "clear".
And I am not saying that one should not critique morality, I have no clue how you pulled that out of anything that I have said. I even mentioned that one should critique bourgeois morality when i said "critique prevailing moralities".
I am aware of what you are arguing. I am saying you don't understand the critique of morality, or communism, precisely because you put the qualifier "bourgeois" and "prevailing".
Communism is at its base, a moral system. Unless you believe it is a detached descriptive theory.
And this is what we are arguing about. Are you deliberately ignoring what I write?
And for the engineering question, I am questioning your reading comprehension. Did you miss the part where I said "right or wrong in the social realm"?
Did you miss the part before that analogy?
I think if I made a wordcloud of this subreddit, drivel and tripe would be huge words.
Clearly the problem is with those that call out the nonsense, not with the nonsense itself.
Lets reformulate and leave out personal jabs then.
What I am trying to say over this entire conversation is this. Communism is an immanent reorganization of production based on a form of rationality. Rationality in itself is not a moral system. Determining how to use rationality is a moral choice.
I will use an example. The problems that come up in any discipline of an science that can be solved is a matter of rational choice. Determining how to apply any system of science is a matter of moral choice. Doing the calculations for where a rocket will land is a rational choice. Determining where the rocket should land is a moral choice.
There is a science to communism, which would be the detached descriptive theory. There is also a morality to communism which determines how the proletariat should use that theory. This is the dialectic of theory and practice. It is on one hand a descriptive theory, and on the other a moral application.
Communism is an immanent reorganization of production based on a form of rationality.
No, it is not.
I will use an example. The problems that come up in any discipline of an science that can be solved is a matter of rational choice. Determining how to apply any system of science is a matter of moral choice. Doing the calculations for where a rocket will land is a rational choice. Determining where the rocket should land is a moral choice.
The point is not about telling the engineer where the rocket should land, but showing that certain means are incompatible with the engineer's already made decision on the rocket's landing place, as well as showing that certain landing places they have excluded, respectively only chosen on the basis of the means immediately available to them are not unreachable, respectively necessary after all.
Communism is not imposing a specific landing place. It's not a determinate "mode of production" in the same manner as capitalism is. It does not imply pushing people towards a certain kind of organisation of society - that is what utopianism would be. This is precisely why all the people attempting to shoehorn the proletariat into particular forms of organisation are wrong, why revolution is not a matter of organisational forms.
There is a science to communism, which would be the detached descriptive theory. There is also a morality to communism which determines how the proletariat should use that theory.
There are many ways of communicating that one hasn't understood anything of communism. This is certainly one of them.
What does Engels say? "Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat." Where is the morality in pointing out that certain means are not suited for this liberation? Where is the morality in pointing out that certain purposes people have set themselves are incompatible with capitalist social forms, and hence require this liberation? Where is the morality in pointing out that some purposes people have only set themselves on the basis of the means capitalist society hands them are in fact not necessary? Where is the morality in pointing out that some purposes people have discarded on the basis of capitalist society are not unattainable after all?
On the other hand, is this now "detached" and "descriptive"?
To make this clear: This does not mean that the communist party is to take up the flag of a supposedly half-way stuck Enlightenment again - I merely used this example to get the point across. Communism is as little a matter of will as it is one of morality. Such an educationist outlook is precisely the position of, for example, GegenStandpunkt, which I criticised somewhere else in this thread. Marx is clear that communism arises not from will, but from need:
These “socialists” or “true socialists”, as they call themselves, regard foreign communist literature not as the expression and the product of a real movement but as purely theoretical writings which have been evolved — in the same way as they imagine the German philosophical systems to have been evolved — by a process of “pure thought”. It never occurs to them that, even when these writings do preach a system, they spring from the practical needs, the conditions of life in their entirety of a particular class in a particular country. They innocently take on trust the illusion, cherished by some of these literary party representatives, that it is a question of the “most reasonable” social order and not the needs of a particular class and a particular time.
In the Holy Family, he also calls need the "practical expression of necessity".
This is the dialectic of theory and practice.
Fucking hell.
Since you are so eager to bring in philosophy, it might be a good idea to take a look at what Hegel thought about morality.
Lets reformulate
No let's not. I don't know what kind of weird fantasy Marxism you think you're talking about, but it has nothing to do with the communist movement. Maybe next time read some books instead of commentaries.
communism isn't a system though, its the abolition of capitalism by the workers
I like that you're reduced to this to defend your college degree.
I am criticizing any such proposals that state that it doesnt have any morality attached to it at all
Man evolved the hand out of a morality (or lack thereof).
defend the communist hypothesis, is to criticize prevailing moralities and moralities that are against the morality that arises from the proletarian consciousness
Imagine all of those poor philosophy students on the streets if we didn't.
How so? I am not arguing for a morality. I am just saying you can't escape it.
Edit: I rarely see any substantial critiques or claims from you. Do you ever have anything to say or do you just like to rile people up?
There is a time and place for critiques, however, arguing with religious weirdos on reddit about morality and communism isn't particularly high on my to do list.
This user was lamenting on several christian subs about christians rejecting them for being a communist and communists rejecting them for being a christian. Surprising, isn't it, that a religious nut would want to try to insert some sort of morality into communism. I was going to make a comment about them seemingly to want a proletarian religion before they deleted their account.
You are literally arguing for morality as you claim communism is a moral system. Absolute dunce.
Any such purposing that there is a right or wrong way to run society assumes some form of morality
Any such purposing? I see that a sensuous understanding of rational practicality is a little beyond your scope.
I am making the claim that to proclaim "rational practicality" is to assume that what is "rational" is what is moral.
And I'm telling you that's stupid.
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It is also noticeable how Marx rapidly delineated the typical internal antagonisms of what will be the highest phase of capitalism as analysed by Lenin - commercial rivalry, export of capital, speculation, competition for raw materials and the rising price of the latter - so many phenomena of «blazing reality» which so-called bourgeois progress, far from having cleared away, has extended to the entire planet. This proves once more that imperialism is not a «new and unforeseen» fact but the generalisation in space and the exacerbation in time of phenomena well known for more than half a century before by Marxist science.
I'd put it a bit differently and say that the text disproves the very notion of the capitalist form of imperialism as a "stage", and instead shows that it appeared alongside all other forms corresponding to bourgeois rule.
It's worth noting here that the well-known English title of Lenin's pamphlet, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", is actually a politically motivated deviation from the less ambiguous original title. This change was pushed in the late 1920s after Lenin's death. The Russian title is "Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма", translating to "Imperialism as the Latest Phase of Capitalism" ("Period" or "Chapter" might also work instead of "Phase"), which is an allusion to the subtitle of Rudolf Hildering's "Finance Capital". Here's an article from the Monthly Review discussing this.
It is shameful how long it took to finally sit down and read this document. A pleasure to read, of course, but there is one concept, in spite of reading Marx and Bordiga, that I'm too thick in the head to understand. Namely, the lower stage of communism Marx, and in this case Bordiga, refers to. Bordiga states that the "non-permanent, non-cumulative coupon" which he aptly describes as similar to 'ration cards' would "correspond to the amount of labour given to society".
I never quite found a satisfying explanation in the works presented in the side bar, but this seems to be the closest one. To my understanding, labour would still be a necessity, yes? Does this mean, in the (hopefully short) process of "destroying the market system", labour would still be required as a means of survival? With the hope that in the future, labour's necessity will cease, and the distinction between leisure and labour will end?
Would really appreciate some clarification.
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Marx describes it in the first chapter of capital
Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with political economists,[30] let us take a look at him on his island. Moderate though he be, yet some few wants he has to satisfy, and must therefore do a little useful work of various sorts, such as making tools and furniture, taming goats, fishing and hunting. Of his prayers and the like we take no account, since they are a source of pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation. In spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of human labour. Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kinds of work. Whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another, depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch, ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations necessary for their production; and lastly, of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him. All the relations between Robinson and the objects that form this wealth of his own creation, are here so simple and clear as to be intelligible without exertion, even to Mr. Sedley Taylor. And yet those relations contain all that is essential to the determination of value.
...
Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.
The ledger is the labour voucher.
Thank you so much for the response. I'm getting a clearer picture, but sadly I've been endowed with dim wits. Just one more question, if you'd indulge me. I understand that there would be "unlimited distribution in the higher stage." But, as you and other in the thread have pointed out, labour would remain even in the higher stage, in some capacity or another. Does this mean that contribution to society in the form of labour would be a prerequisite to have access to this distribution? An entirely academic question, I know, and one I wouldn't fault you for ridiculing, but I seem to remember Marx rightly criticizing Proudhon for his failure to recognise the disparities between individuals' capacity for labour, dependendent on their health, or something along those lines.
Your problem, it seems to me, is that you seem to consider communism as some type of society you examine from the point of view of how it would or could function - you take the perspective of a social engineer who wants to find out if his idea is practicable.
Beyond the critique of the Gotha programme and Capital Volume I that have been mentioned here, Marx also talks about labour certificates in Volume II and III of Capital, as well as in the Grundrisse. In Volume II, he mentions them like this:
Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time.
The reason he speaks about them in such an unconcerned tone ("for all it matters") is because it is really not an important subject. The question of how labour is allocated in communist society is a practical question facing society then, not a theoretical one you plan out in advance. It's precisely the point that the associated labourers are no longer subject to the alien workings of capital, but can decide freely for themselves.
My first fault was not having read precisely those works. I plan on reading Volumes II and III, along with Grundrisse at some point, but to tell the truth I'm a little burned out on Marx right now! And, you are right, questions of practicality are of little importance, but I can never help being pedantic. Nevertheless, thank you and u/dr_marx so much, you are both always so helpful.
My first fault was not having read precisely those works. I plan on reading Volumes II and III, along with Grundrisse at some point, but to tell the truth I'm a little burned out on Marx right now!
I wasn't trying to scold you for not knowing about these passages, I was merely trying to give you further things to look into.
And, you are right, questions of practicality are of little importance, but I can never help being pedantic.
The first phase of communist society and labour vouchers can be understood with logic conceptually, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a firm grasp on them in principle. I just wanted to point out that what is underlying that "pendantic attitude" might be a wrong way to think about the issue to begin with. Conceptually thinking about how communism should work is the mistake. Communism isn't a matter of decreeing an imagined society into existence. This whole labour voucher issue is only a practical problem whose solution will be dependent upon the technological, cultural, and all other factors, of a given society that has to confront it. My impression is that Marx discusses labour vouchers not only because of practical considerations, but also because they were an idea of the labour movement at the time.
Nevertheless, thank you and u/dr_marx so much, you are both always so helpful.
You're welcome.
Does this mean that contribution to society in the form of labour would be a prerequisite to have access to this distribution?
No. It is how it is described above. The total amount of labor to be conducted is calculated and then sub divided amongst the number of people there is to carry that out. A social fund is, according to Marx, something that would be set up for those who couldn't work, which would be covered by the understanding of bourgeois right in regards to distribution, in some cases and in others presumably a more directly social system would be put into motion. This is rather secondary.
In the critique of the Gotha program
Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
The thing you keep bringing up about the abolition of labor, or its conversion into leisure, is a petty bourgeois concern and only intersects communism tangentially.
See, now I get it. Worst part is I actually remember that part , but the meaning flew completely past my head. Thanks again!
Is it petty bourgeois because it is not an immediate and vital concern/demand of the proletariat?
To what extent then is "alienation" itself a petty bourgeois concern?
I can see how an overly fervent desire for, and wild formulations of, a more "human" society, could be used by the disillusioned petty bourgeos merely as a sort of mental crutch. However, it seems like writing it off as fundamentally petty bourgeois is to discount a significant part of Marx' findings and the full extent of how radical communism really is.
Is it petty bourgeois because it is not an immediate and vital concern/demand of the proletariat?
This is why it is petty bourgeois.
To what extent then is "alienation" itself a petty bourgeois concern?
I can see how an overly fervent desire for, and wild formulations of, a more "human" society, could be used by the disillusioned petty bourgeos merely as a sort of mental crutch. However, it seems like writing it off as fundamentally petty bourgeois is to discount a significant part of Marx' findings and the full extent of how radical communism really is.
Alienation seems to be, among leftists, a muddled catch all concept that is used in the place of various phenomena to avoid saying something concrete. Say "alienation" and people won't ask further questions!
If the term is used like Marx used it, it is certainly not a petty bourgeois concern. On the other hand, the ways in which different philosophers have since appropriated the word are another matter entirely. Often, alienation seems to be viewed as some sort of subjective or psychological condition. For many people it appears to have no other content than the feeling of powerlessness and angst of the petty bourgeoisie, or just a general state of depression. In these cases, it is certainly a fixation of the middle class. As you mentioned, the objectives of the proletariat are - at least at the outset - of a more immediate nature.
Thanks for responding to a month old post.
You're welcome. I might not be the person you asked, but I hope I was able to help anyway.
To my understanding, labour would still be a necessity, yes?
Yes. Labour, without adjectives, would also be a necessity in the "higher phase". I think the other user already explained that sufficiently.
Does this mean, in the (hopefully short) process of "destroying the market system", labour would still be required as a means of survival?
It would also be required afterwards.
With the hope that in the future, labour's necessity will cease
That sounds like a dull future to me.
and the distinction between leisure and labour will end?
This is different from what you talked about before.
I wrote a bit about "labour" and "work", as well as what Marx thought about them here, perhaps that is interesting to you:
Other than that, I'm not sure what you are precisely asking about the "first phase".
I've read your comment, and thanks, it clarifies much.
"labour, then, as the creator of use-values, as useful labour, is a condition of human existence which is independent of all forms of society; it is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself". From Kapital, commodities and money. So yeah, labour is universal to human civilization in a sense, but the social relations around it are not. Work is a specific kind of alienated labour that only occurs under capitalism.
That much I already know but that's not what I'm asking. I'm just having a hard time understanding, or perhaps visualizing, the lower stage of communism.
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Entering a governing coalition with the right wing Independent Greeks (ANEL) was the first sign of things to come.
The first sign was its mere existence, the bourgeois nature of Syriza doesn't change depending on their specific political moved. I agree that this kind of coalitions are a good illustration of that nature
The title exactly.
The relationship between the Communist Left and the power struggles in the USSR and in the Comintern have drawn my attention lately. Personally, I had a mostly favourable view of Bukharin's line, since it kept the leninist position on the relationship the proletarian dictatorship should pursue with the peasantry to not only save the DotP and the country from a new civil war, but also as the only way to maintain the proletarian hold on power. I knew Bordiga and the Italian Communist Left had, in the 1920s, come to support Trotsky and the Left Opposition; yet, I've also come to know that late on, Bordiga argued that the "super-industrialization" of the "Left" (which came to be applied by Stalin) would produce an enormous bureaucratic apparatus.
As said Loren Goldner in Communism is the material human community:
Bordiga’s analysis of Russia (as developed after 1945) is as follows. While his faction had totally supported Trotsky in the faction fight of the 20′s, largely for reasons related to Soviet/Comintern foreign policy, the Bordigist analysis took its distance from the super-industrialization strategy of the Left Opposition, for ultimately “Bukharinist” reasons. He felt after 1945 that only something like Bukharin’s strategy had any hope of preserving the international revolutionary character of the regime, (which to Bordiga was more important than Russian industrialization) because it would not destroy the Bolshevik party. Bukharin said in the 1924-28 faction fights that the implementation of Trotsky’s leftist “super-industrialization” strategy could only be carried out by the most elephantine state bureaucracy history had ever seen
What are your thoughts?
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I really don't think that this is accurate. The left were mainly concerned with the preservation of the party and in Russia this meant struggling against the peasant/petite-bourgeois class in the countryside. This is why they wrote a lot about the agrarian question. The ICP felt that the kolkhoz was the worst possible outcome for this because it ended up in compromise with the peasantry with the preservation in law of a backward form of property and an ending of class struggle in the countryside. Bukharin's proposal was better because at least it aimed towards the creation of a modern agriculture and also the possibility of further class struggle in the future with the resumption of the world revolutionary movement with the creation of agricultural proletarians against kulaks and agro-capitalists.
Personally, I had a mostly favourable view of Bukharin's line, since it kept the leninist position on the relationship the proletarian dictatorship should pursue with the peasantry to not only save the DotP and the country from a new civil war
Political "line" is code for political dogmatism and it's extremely dubious to suggest that Bukharin adhered to a Leninist "line" (in the more than dubious way you appear to understand Bukharin), especially when Lenin consistently declared the class opposition between peasant and proletarian and who would be the first to announce a civil war in the countryside. It was the Stalinist compromise with the peasants that ended any meaningful class struggle (i.e. civil war) in the countryside.
Turns out Bordiga did come to support Bukharin’s plan.
Sorry it’s in french, but it’s from the still untranslated “Economic and Social Structures of the Russia of Today”.
The left were mainly concerned with the preservation of the party and in Russia this meant struggling against the peasant/petite-bourgeois class in the countryside.
No, quite the contrary, both to the position Bordiga defended and to the principles undeniably laid by Lenin and the Bolshevik party. Equating the Peasantry as a whole with the Petite Bourgeoisie is mistaken, since Lenin also clearly established in his studies of the Russian Land Question the essentially different interests that separated the Poor Peasants and the Rich Peasants, with the Middle Peasantry as a swing strata.
“Stalinist” compromise with the peasants? I didn’t realize coercive collectivization and a civil war in the countryside could be considered compromise.
Anyway, knowing you and by the tone of your answer, I will not maintain this discussion. Goodbye.
Sorry it’s in french
I can read French.
still untranslated “Economic and Social Structures of the Russia of Today”.
The relevant part is in English.
No, quite the contrary, both to the position Bordiga defended and to the principles undeniably laid by Lenin and the Bolshevik party. Equating the Peasantry as a whole with the Petite Bourgeoisie is mistaken, since Lenin also clearly established in his studies of the Russian Land Question the essentially different interests that separated the Poor Peasants and the Rich Peasants, with the Middle Peasantry as a swing strata.
It is not quite the contrary.
Equating the Peasantry as a whole with the Petite Bourgeoisie is mistaken
It is as if you haven't read what I wrote and instead immediately took gumption at the fact that someone said you were wrong. Regardless, here is Lenin
But we say that our goal is equality, and by that we mean the abolition of classes. Then the class distinction between workers and peasants should be abolished. That is exactly our object. A society in which the class distinction between workers and peasants still exists is neither a communist society nor a socialist society. True, if the word socialism is interpreted in a certain sense, it might be called a socialist society, but that would be mere sophistry, an argument about words. Socialism is the first stage of communism; but it is not worth while arguing about words. One thing is clear, and that is, that as long as the class distinction between workers and peasants exists, it is no use talking about equality, unless we want to bring grist to the mill of the bourgeoisie. The peasantry constitute a class of the patriarchal era, a class which has been reared by decades and centuries of slavery; and throughout all these decades the peasants existed as small proprietors, first, under the heel of other classes, and later, formally free and equal, but as property-owners and the owners of food products.
There are numerous other instances of this. I could quote whole texts and link to them but I don't think that would really do much to change your mind. It appears to be set. Do you need for me to explain to why the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" is a propaganda slogan and the reason why it exists?
“Stalinist” compromise with the peasants? I didn’t realize coercive collectivization and a civil war in the countryside could be considered compromise.
Next time you really should read the text you link to as evidence of your position if you want to argue with me first because it makes you look stupid when that text says the opposite. This is what the book says and this is the argument it makes.
Anyway, knowing you and by the tone of your answer, I will not maintain this discussion. Goodbye.
My tone was completely neutral. You must have a large chip on your shoulder which is of no concern to, and has nothing to do with, me.
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This is the first in a five part exposition of the struggles in Italy in the period of 1921-1924, examining the role of fascism and social-democracy within the overall context of bourgeois counter-revolution.
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Thanks for posting this. I've always felt something kind of "off" about going on vacation/taking vacation time, but I was never really able to put it into words.
I just encountered something about this in Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program by Debord, comparing the spectacle of tourism to striptease:
Modern mass tourism presents cities and landscapes not in order to satisfy authentic desires to live in such human or geographical milieus; it presents them as pure, rapid, superficial spectacles (spectacles from which one can gain prestige by reminiscing about them).
The context of this passage is the disappearance of authentic culture in capitalist society. The alienated culture propogated to us must not, though, appear obvious; the relation of directors to executants must be preserved in the relation between authors and spectators. In doing so, spectacularization must continually involve the spectators and must therefore at least partially appear rational. The spectacle is reinforced by diverting desires that are now impossible to realize as a condition of present society.
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some of the more pro-nationalist voices aren't great, and obviously the actual ethnonationalism (which i don't think was a majority position) is bad.
the ICP's article about it from 1971 echoes my thoughts on the BP pretty well
Yeah, something that comes before you were likely born totally "echoes" your thoughts.
Delusion manifest.
not sure what your point is? Marx wrote all of his work before any of us were born (i hope) and i'd say that we all feel like his works are accurate today... it's not like the 70s were 200 years ago. how is what i said delusional?
You have missed the point. Your thoughts are the echoes of these texts, not the other way around.
okay, semantics, i'm sorry that i didn't use the word "echoes" in the proper context. language is fluid, the fact is that you understood what i was attempting to say and i was very obviously not trying to say that i had these thoughts before a document written years before my birth lol.
still not sure what you were attempting to achieve in calling that out or how that makes me in any way "delusional"
No, I did not "understand," because you made it ambiguous. What you said, and what you likely think, are what I disagree with. You think that your thoughts precede the text, and that it's convenient that you were reaffirmed by the texts, which are regarded as "correct," when you realized that your thoughts had some similarities.
Therefore, I called you out on your bullshit self-aggrandizing behavior. Observing the obvious does not make you cool. Stop deluding yourself. Your phrasing betrays your thoughts more than your own interpretation of them does.
inb4 general denial
lol fuck off no one cares
>2018
>not understanding inb4
> thinking i care
>thinking you have to care
it is not your ideology, but your praxis, m'comrade
>saying you don't care repeatedly
did you read an anti-bullying pamphlet somewhere?
it lasted for a little under a decade, right?
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I don't know which leninists say this. The point of the NEP was to preserve the relationship that the soviet state had the peasantry. Most of the things that occurred during the NEP was in the demands of the Kronstadt sailors (apart from all of the directly political stuff).
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This draft was written in March 1845 at a critical juncture between the Paris Manuscripts and the German Ideology. In it Marx uses the same kind of analysis as in the Paris Manuscripts but puts it in terms that readers unfamiliar with 'Hegelian' terminology will be able to understand. There is much in this little-read article that could be quoted and should be central to an understanding of the communist viewpoint. But I just want to point out one theme in this article that gets little attention: sacrifice. The word comes up 17 times in this short draft (itself the remains of a larger manuscript) including a few times where he is quoting List. Sacrifice was one of the main themes of Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity (it also came into play more heavily in his later works) this passage from near the end of the book is one of many examples:
The bloody human sacrifice is in fact only a rude, material expression of the inmost secret of religion. Where bloody human sacrifices are offered to God, such sacrifices are regarded as the highest thing, physical existence as the chief mood. For this reason life is sacrificed to God, and it is so on extraordinary occasions; the supposition being that this is the way to show him the greatest honour. If Christianity no longer, at least in our day, offers bloody sacrifices to its God, this arises, to say nothing of other reasons, from the fact that physical existence is no longer regarded as the highest good. Hence the soul, the emotions are now offered to God, because these are held to be something higher. But the common case is, that in religion man sacrifices some duty towards man – such as that of respecting the life of his fellow, of being grateful to him – to a religious obligation, – sacrifices his relation to man to his relation to God. The Christians, by the idea that God is without wants, and that he is only an object of pure adoration, have certainly done away with many pernicious conceptions. But this freedom from wants is only a metaphysical idea, which is by no means part of the peculiar nature of religion. When the need for worship is supposed to exist only on one side, the subjective side, this has the invariable effect of one-sidedness, and leaves the religious emotions cold; hence, if not in express words, yet in fact, there must be attributed to God a condition corresponding to the subjective need, the need of the worshipper, in order to establish reciprocity.
And this passage from the preface to the second edition of 1843:
... I say an historico-philosophical analysis, in distinction from a merely historical analysis of Christianity. The historical critic – such a one, for example, as Daumer or Ghillany – shows that the Lord’s Supper is a rite lineally descended from the ancient cultus of human sacrifice; that once, instead of bread and wine, real human flesh and blood were partaken. I, on the contrary, take as the object of my analysis and reduction only the Christian significance of the rite, that view of it which is sanctioned in Christianity, and I proceed on the supposition that only that significance which a dogma or institution has in Christianity (of course in ancient Christianity, not in modern), whether it may present itself in other religions or not, is also the true origin of that dogma or institution in so far as it is Christian.
Marx comes back to talk about sacrifice in 1847 this time about a new book by Daumer (i.e. not the earlier one Feuerbach mentioned) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/30.htm See also Marx on Suicide: https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1845/09/suicide.htm
This is not a theme (if you can call it a theme) that he later abandoned, it was used and developed throughout his life, including in Capital. Self-sacrifice is central to the capitalist mode of production (Marx comments in the Paris Manuscripts: "External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification."). Sacrifice was not only renunciation and mortification but also communion with God or the fetish object because they both consume of the sacrifice. Sacrifice in the basic analysis of labour is first the self-sacrifice of the labourer in selling oneself, second the sacrifice of renunciation of the object produced, and third the artificial relation of the fetishised commodity to the worker, of the labourer communing with the commodity, the world of commodities, inside this realm. That is they find their subjectivity in the inverted, artificial subjectivity of the world of commodities, which is truly only the realm of relations between things, objects. However we want to frame this, the point is that alienation, fetishism etc. involve self-sacrifice (& cannibalism, mortification etc.) and self-denial, the negation of which means self-affirmation. The issue at root is the relation between the individual and society, the individual producer and the production process as a whole. Communism entails subjects finding their subjectivity (and freedom) in and through their association, in society, in the production process conceived as a whole. The act of mapping out the production process as Marx helped to do was a great step towards this aim, towards conceiving self-deriving self-affirmation in and through the real communion between the individual and society, based on the naturally occuring combination in large scale industry which allows us to see beyond the production process in its present form. From this List draft:
It is possible, of course, to regard industry from a completely different point of view than that of sordid huckstering interest, from which it is nowadays regarded not only by the individual merchant and the individual manufacturer, but also by the manufacturing nations and the trading nations. Industry can be regarded as a great workshop in which man first takes possession of his own forces and the forces of nature, objectifies himself and creates for himself the conditions for a human existence. When industry is regarded in this way, one abstracts from the circumstances in which it operates today, and in which it exists as industry; one’s standpoint is not from within the industrial epoch, but above it; industry is regarded not by what it is for man today, but by what present-day man is for human history, what he is historically; it is not its present-day existence (not industry as such) that is recognised, but rather the power which industry has without knowing or willing it and which destroys it and creates the basis for a human existence.
This draft was written at a time when Marx was about to set himself apart from the True or German Socialists, his main criticism of them was that they were alienated from the struggles and the real movement and revolutionary changes in French and English society so they could only subsume the revolutionary (in their time if not now) writings and ideas of the communists in these countries into their own philosophical, German, petty-bourgeois understanding. They had the arrogance to claim that this German socialist thought was the only 'True' socialism! Marx saw a similar thing in List, what the True Socialists were to English and French Communism, Herr List was to English and French Political Economy. Where Herr List thinks he has the True Political Economy, he also thinks Germany should be free of the real material international economy, dominated at that time by England, that the German bourgeoisie should be able to exploit the German proletariat but should be free from exploitation by the English bourgeoisie. (See also: https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1848/free-trade/index.htm) Little does he know at this time that no country can escape capital "it batters down all Chinese walls". On the other end, neither can self-contained 'True Socialism' escape from the realities of the communist movement. It is the universal and international nature of the proletariat that overcomes all one-sided utopian prejudices in the minds of would-be revolutionaries and visionaries.
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Thanks for sharing.
Published in French in L’Ouvrier Communiste, monthly journal of the Communist Workers Groups, Paris, No. 9/10, May 1930.
You can find the pdfs and retranscribed articles here. The article in question is only in the pdf of number 9/10, under the conclusion of Gorter's open letter. All in French.
Specifically referring to Section 5 (Value, Time, and Communism) in Eclipse and Reemergence of the Communist Movement. Is it a compelling critique? Does it misrepresent what Marx had in mind? The text can be found online here.
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That was a really informative thread. I'm so happy that I opened it.
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This seems a very shallow analysis of labor vouchers and, so far as I can tell, ignores the bulk of the most developed work on the subject: https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/gik/1930/
Jan Appel is a bit of a utopian.
How so?
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Kämpa Tillsammans! is really good. Their theoretical work, unsure if they have been translated, are really influenced by Bordiga and Jacques Cammate which is nice.
Riff-Raff is also really good, who's later issues were influenced by Kämpa Tillsammans!
The title is pretty self-explanatory. Is there any good historical analysis of late Imperial Russia that leftcommunists might recommend? Most of the "socialist" analysis you can generally find is from a Soviet or Leninist perspective.
By that I mean, is it an adequate introduction to Communism to recommend to people?
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Value, Price and Profit is much better.
The manifesto is an important document but outdated, especially for its list of reforms.
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It was meant to be something workers pushed for in order to further develop (liberal) capitalist social relations in Europe, which was still largely feudal/absolutist at the time (the Manifesto was written during the Revolutions of 1848 which was basically the liberal bourgeoisie + the paroles vs the absolutist aristocracy), while maximising the material benefits of this development for themselves
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No - this is what the Party was asking to be implemented by the government at the time so that they might later be powerful enough to establish a DoTP.
It's a bit accelerationist, in that it asks for measures to more quickly develop capitalist relations, and Marx moved away from it in later writings. Obviously, we can see today that the real subsumption of labor under capital does not really result in a larger communist movement. Marx later writes about this in Capital. Since value seemingly comes equally from capital and land in addition to labor, wage labor does not result in a sort of Class Consciousness that makes the source of value apparent.
Marx never proposes a universal program to establish a DoTP (though he did make specific recommendations for the party he was involved with); remember that quote?
Communism is not a state of affairs to be established; it is the real movement to abolish the present state of things.
In other words, these things happen organically, and it's not possible to plan things out when they are not tangible possibilities.
The communist manifesto was an attempt to legitimise (and perhaps unite) communist parties as political parties and I imagine that the manifesto (and especially the 10 aims) were essentially the core of an electoral programme. Meaning: vote for the communists and we will try to implement these 10.
Well Marx's methods progressed over time? He was young and presented communist politics in ways he wouldn't in later life.
He learned the lesson to not make reformist demands?
I prefer Engel's Principles of Communism and Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky: The ABC of Communism as an intro.
Kind of. It's primarily a polemical document, more or less written for a specific event, but it's stood up well nonetheless, especially with its discussion of the varying kinds of socialist milieus. Many of the suggested actions aren't that relevant, though, from the point of view of praxis.
I prefer Critique of the Gotha Program, though, where ot regards a discussion of communism.
Nah, I don't think so. It's both too dated and too focused on history (I think - I've only been listening to an audiobook recording of it part and parcel while on my breaks at work).
This is kind of legitimately embarrassing, but the thing that introduced me to communism was the "8-Bit Philosophy" video on Marxism and the one titled "Is Capitalism Bad For You?" They're garbage, but they're accessible. For example, the Marcism video led me to believe that Marx beleived in a teleological view of history, which could not be further from reality.
Marx himself would have probably told you he didn't think so, especially after the 1850s or so.
No, it's a pamphlet. Why are Americans so lazy?
it's not just americans who are lazy lol
because it's our right!
I'm not saying it's all people should read. Just wondering if people think it's a good pamphlet to introduce people to Marx and Communism.
My history teacher showed us this in like tenth grade, and showed us the Ten Planks, and said, "this all sounds pretty good, but it really got out of control, and today we mostly have these things established anyway," implying that was all Marx wanted, and now that these things had mostly been achieved, people weren't so poor anymore. And then Lenin promised those things so he could take over but power corrupts and they went too far, just like the French Revolution, etc.
So I don't think it's really that useful of a document. Marx's analyses of capitalism were his most important contributions to the world.
I think Capital along with an introduction to it (Heinrich and Harvey are good) is the best place to start, actually. It's his best work, it's his most important work, and the intros can get you started faster than reading anything Marx wrote. It kind of takes a while to get used to the old writing style.
I believe it's a typical American thing to believe communism is, when have you read the manifesto and Bernie Sanders becomes president (careful it's a rant)
A a communist you have the knowledge to change life and you are able to criticize everyday life in capitalism. The first is called freedom according to Marx and the latter is necessary to convince people and to build a future.
Most so called leftists are a sort of opportunistic disease carrier by waiting of the doomsday of capitalism and having capitalistic concepts in their minds.
When people are proud of having read the manifesto something serious with their education went wrong.
What is your view on the Zapatistas?
What do you think about Anarchism?
Can someone please explain the Left Com definition of 'Vanguard'? I hear left communists say that they oppose the LENINIST Vanguard a lot, but support the idea of a vanguard in general. What is this idea? How will it be organised if not by a party?
Thoughts on anti-fascism?
I've heard Left Coms oppose trade unions before. Why is this?
I know it's a bit late, but thoughts on brexit?
I've heard LeftComs oppose the definition of Socialism as 'democratically controlled MoP'. What definition do Left Coms use?
Is their any book (preferably an audiobook) that I can sit down and after reading/listening to it, I will understand the basic beliefs of Left Coms?
EDIT: Also, what are the main differences between Bordigism & Councilism, and are there any other Left Com schools of thought?
Please understand that I come here academically rather than out of a will to be converted.
Thanks in advanced.
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Can someone please explain the Left Com definition of 'Vanguard'? I hear left communists say that they oppose the LENINIST Vanguard a lot, but support the idea of a vanguard in general.
the most advanced sectors of the working class are the "vaguard", wich doesnt mean "professional revolutionary" wich is just a fancy term leninists use for party bureaucrat. also "the leninist vanguard is a substitionist one, where the party is the class, and also distinct from the class as well"
Thoughts on anti-fascism?
eh, in practise it defends one part of capitalism(liberalism) to hold back another part of it(fascism) while kinda ignoring that the former creates the latter.
I've heard Left Coms oppose trade unions before. Why is this?
trade unions are an integral part of capitalism the people on top of the unions, the actual labour aristocraty, has no interest in ending capitalism and will do everything in their power to hold back any revolutionary activity.
I know it's a bit late, but thoughts on brexit?
it happend, nothing really to say about it. for the working class there was no real option, either more nationalistic capitalism or more european capitalism. its was lose/lose situation for workers.
I've heard LeftComs oppose the definition of Socialism as 'democratically controlled MoP'. What definition do Left Coms use?
socialism is the movement that ends capitalism, "democratically controlled MoP" on the other hand is capitalism. the people who usually argue that socialism is just democratic controll of mop dont care much about wagelabour, comoddity production and exploitation all still being active in that scenario.
Is their any book (preferably an audiobook) that I can sit down and after reading/listening to it, I will understand the basic beliefs of Left Coms?
im sorry but i dont know any audiobooks on left communism but these two articles should help you, they are from the sidebar wich has a lot more reading material:
http://libcom.org/library/left-communism-its-ideology
http://libcom.org/library/bordiga-versus-pannekoek
also this book is easy enough, modern and explains a lot of basic conepts of ultra-leftist thought get it, im sure a pdf is easy to find online: "Eclipse and re-emergence of the communist movement"
Also, what are the main differences between Bordigism & Councilism
bordigists believe that the russian revolution was a proletarian one, council coms believe it was a bourgeois one. bordgiists believe in the party, council coms do not.
http://libcom.org/library/bordiga-versus-pannekoek
are there any other Left Com schools of thought
there is communization, wich you can read about in the very good and easy to read "Eclipse and re-emergence of the communist movement" wich is also a good modern ultra-leftist text that explains a lot of the basic concepts of ultra left thought.
Please understand that I come here academically rather than out of a will to be converted.
oh dont worry, we dont want to "convert" people.
Thanks for the informative response
bordigists believe that the russian revolution was a proletarian one, council coms believe it was a bourgeois one. bordgiists believe in the party, council coms do not.
Which revolutions do council coms consider proletarian?
There were lots of small left com groups with different opinions. I recommend reading Philippe Bourrinets 'the german dutch communist left'
A.) The Zapatistas are good for what they are, but I'm more into technological advancement of the working class. The Zapatistas represent peasants, primarily, not that that's a bad thing. But any movement based on the redistribution of property to would be small land owners isn't the kind of revolution we're looking for. But, in context and for the circumstance, it's a good movement.
B.) I'm personally highly influenced by some anarchists and have a positive view of them. I think a lot of the discussion about state and hierarchy between Marxists and anarchists tend to be about semantics rather than any concrete concepts. I'm an outsider on this view (maybe on view A as well) so dont take it as a concrete "leftcom" concern. Although there are some leftcoms who do publicize this view. David Adam, the MHI, etc.
C.) The vanguard is the idea, at its base, that the "advanced" sections of the working class would lead the revolution. Bordigists are typically the leftcoms who publicize the idea of the vanguard, but it's found in some primitive form in Engels, as well.
I think it's a condescending idea and don't think the working class needs to be lead. It'll lead itself. Least of all does it need to be lead by a party.
C.) Fascism is a result of capitalist degeneration from the right wing and is primarily sourced from the petty bourgeoisie. To oppose fascism is to oppose capitalism as well, so antifa is redundant.
I like antifas though.
D.) Trade unions arose and developed with capitalism. And they're easily coopted by capitalists. They're good for advancing workers rights in the near term, but they can't be vectors of revolutionary action. Most trade unions tend to oppose revolutionary action because the union bureaucratic depend on capitalism for their positions and power.
E.) I have no hard and fast opinion on Brexit. Don't really care one way or the other.
F.) Bordigidts typically are the anti-democratic sections of leftcomm. Council communism, lib Marxists, etc., have democracy as a foundation. Now, there is an error when socialists say "worker ownership of the means of production." Thats not communism, because the working class doesn't exist in communism. It'd be socially controlled means if production, rather. At that point, it's worth questioning whether democracy would have a need to exist, since everything would boil down to the administration of things, and if there's a superabundance of wealth then there's really nothing to fight over.
F.) Leftcomm is a broad label, and so far as I'm aware there's not a single book about it. Though I could be wrong.
C.) The vanguard is the idea, at its base, that the "advanced" sections of the working class would lead the revolution. Bordigists are typically the leftcoms who publicize the idea of the vanguard, but it's found in some primitive form in Engels, as well. I think it's a condescending idea and don't think the working class needs to be lead. It'll lead itself. Least of all does it need to be lead by a party.
incorrect explanation, grouping together organic centralism and democratic centralism is a bastardization of bordiga
And yet, i didn't do that. Bordiga was still hot on the idea of vanguardism, regardless of his views on democracy. That is what i was addressing.
Is their any book (preferably an audiobook) that I can sit down and after reading/listening to it, I will understand the basic beliefs of Left Coms?
There are links to reading material in the sidebar.
there is no Left Communism. There are Left Communisms.
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This is great
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The pan-leftists are today’s greatest sectarians. Of course, the unity shouters would consider themselves partisans of workers unity. But the unity of the left is not only entirely separated from but is in fact opposed to the movement of the united class. It is the height of naivety to believe that the ‘left’ in general or even in any great number are advocates of proletarian interest, the program which ends with the abolition of their very condition as a class along with any propagation of a false general interest represented by state and democracy. Enforcing the unity of the left on principle can lead to nothing other than the collaboration with the bourgeois socialists, the labour fakirs, all of those who represent the interests of capital’s left political apparatus who despite their rhetoric, are nothing other than capital disguised in red clothing
Is your account shadowbanned?
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The article is not without it's problems, especially the last third, but the general gist is there.
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Soooo the revolutionary fervors are coming to a close then? Anyone have any info on the final outcome? Was the labor law overturned?
the law was forced through parliament about two weeks ago.
i don't think it really was revolutionary in the first place. it's an interesting case first of all for its faults and limitations, which i think this article spells out well. there never was any general strike or a "blockade of the economy", and more importantly real working class strength and autonomy wasn't really built (which a general strike actually would presupppose; it's not something you simply declare). that doesn't mean the whole ordeal was useless, but that it's only useful in a negative sense: to draw lessons of what not to do, or what to do differently. whether the french working class will draw those lessons, remains to be seen. at least this article is a real contribution to such a discussion.
And now I am sad.
Thanks for the info however. Maybe in a year I can read a good book on this.
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Federici selects dispossession as a major cause. Yet dispossessing farmers of their lands, villagers of their community links and women of their crafts and skills was only a negative condition, a necessary albeit insufficient condition.
Maybe Dauve should re consult Marx:
In the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and “unattached” proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process. The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods.
Of course there are push factors and Dauve is right to critique ignoring these
Housework does not result in surplus-value, it does not generate a commodity sold on a market
but it does, labor power.
From whichever point of view you look at it, female domestic work is not structurally indispensable to capital.
But domestic work of some kind is. Whether is is done by the spouse, by the worker themselves, by a servant, by a house cleaning service, by a prostitute, etc, the daily reproduction of labor power is essential. It may not always be done by women but it is massively disproportionately done by women.
writes as if everything was exploitation, everything was work and everything created value.
So what does escape exploitation? Even "leisure" time is surplus labor in the creation of data whether we're online using reddit or facebook or taking a walk with a smart phone in our pocket. What parts of our lives have not been subsumed by capital?
Wages for housework
I will agree that this failed slogan and tactic.
The practical inability to undertake a critique of the factory resulted in the factory being theoretically expanded to the home.
I will agree that contemporary Marxism lacks the will, ability, desire to understand contemporary work. But that doesn't mean we should ignore that exploitation and commodification exist not just inside a factory or office building but in nearly ever part of lives right down to our genetic code.
Dauve's should really be railing against his own inability to to understand contemporary work and the changes in work across space and time.
Some good comments on this from a thread on libcom -
"I was surprised to find how terrible that text is. Dauvé first completely omits the fact that the central tenet of any Marxian analysis of modes of production is the relationship of the immediate producer to the means of production, and criticizes Federici for emphasizing "disposession" (and some aspects of it that were undertheorized by Marx). But it was this very dispossession that enabled capitalist production and with it the "lowering [of] the cost of labour... by manufacturing the same articles cheaper", which Dauvé sees as the real reason behind Britain's overtaking of India's cottons industry. Later, he affirms that the separation from the means of production is crucial, but fails to realize the consequences of this for the first argument
He then dismisses Federici as a reformist because she acknowledges the influence of Selma James, a supposed reformist. (Whether any of them is a reformist is irrelevant; they both may well be, but the thing is that the entire argument by association is invalid.) Finally, he ascribes to Federici some claims (e.g. that "human evolution is first and foremost a question of power") -- without much textual evidence -- that he then bravely goes on to criticize.
Criticize Federici by all means (the actual historical evidence produced in Caliban and the Witch is sketchy, the idea that non-capitalist development could have been possible in Europe on the basis of anti-feudal uprisings and their proto-communist ideas is questionable, the fliriting with the notion of domestic labor as labor productive of value or surplus-value is misguided, the idea that housewives lower the value of labor power is wrong, the strategy of commons may well lead to reformism, the thesis that the nuclear family household is a necessary condition for the reproduction of labor power is unwarranted, the talk of a serious crisis in reproduction unfolding today is overblown), but at least get the textual facts right and do it without the sectarian posturing of a bitter pensioner who gets less limelight than Negri.
BTW, Dauvé argues for re-examining "Capital's first chapter". He could definitely use having another look at it because it appears he does not understand it very well. In the linked article, he says "...use value is an analytic category both opposed to and encompassed by exchange value: it is impossible to do away with one without doing away with the other". This amounts to a complete undoing of Marx's theory of value (of course, this is the same blunder as in that Endnotes article). But who cares for theories when you can have sloganeering of being "against work". "
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This is great.
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Additional readings:
This piece by Adam Hanieh
These two articles (1 / 2) in French from Gilles Dauvé's blog (but not by him)
I've seen them classified as left-coms, but I don't think I've yet asked whether such a classification is appropriate. Are the Situationists left-coms, left-com adjacent, or not at all? What do left-coms (at least those on this sub) think of the situationists?
Let me preemptively apologize if this question has already been asked.
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I have mixed feelings really. Some of their work is interesting and has remained accurate, but the extreme ease by which it was absorbed into mainstream (liberal) philosophy and art is a cause for concern in my eyes. You can't go 20 feet into a contemporary art exhibit without seeing some variation on détournement. Hardly radical anymore, unfortunately.
I haven't yet read SotS (been planning a reading at some point), but wasn't this something Debord was concerned with? And yes, I can't really stand the way ideas conceived of as radical are disemboweled and turned into buzzwords for liberal academics and intellectuals--thankfully, revolutions aren't waged by ideas, but by classes.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not nearly knowledgeable to discuss the timeliness (or lack thereof) of Debord's analysis.
Also, keep in mind that much of Debord's analysis (especially in SotS) became somewhat out of date in the decades following, which is something he even admitted and was readily aware of. SotS was a book very much "put on the map" by May '68, but with 50 years of retrospect we can see clear theoretical limits.
Can you point me towards some good books/thinkers that have critiqued Debord's ideas? I found Debord in the past year and am constantly shocked at how accurate it seems to be for today. I feel like Debord was way ahead of his time and he might have got big at the end of the 60s but that doesn't mean people understood his work.
OP I don't know if I could call myself a leftcom yet but I'm certainly not a tankie. I think situationists helped me get past some self-doubt obstacles and affirmed for me that I wasn't alone in thinking some things- eg cult of GDP, faith in "stuff" to make us "happy", "our state would be different this time"
edit: btw yeah art is dead
Well Debord himself revisited SotS later in life with an albeit more pessimistic perspective in a book called Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, which you can read in full here (and probably other places as well if you google it).
Some pieces critical of the SI include this text by Raoul Vaneigem and Dauve wrote a criticism of the SI here as well.
I've also read Comments and a few things by Vaneigem including his excellent Revolution of Everyday Life. I think what I liked most about the SI is the spirit they embody, the rejection of bourgeois society and the banality and mediocrity it entails. I don't know about you comrade, but I find life terribly boring sometimes. I think SI is particularly resonating with me atm because I'm a student again. I hate the university as a thing, I see it for what it is, just ritual examination by the state to see if we are worthy of being allowed into the higher social strata, but I know I need money and compared to a lot of jobs and access I have to fields due to my limited resources and capital (and I have to deal with stigma) uni is easy.
edit: thanks for the link to Dauve
the extreme ease by which it was absorbed into mainstream (liberal) philosophy and art is a cause for concern in my eyes. You can't go 20 feet into a contemporary art exhibit without seeing some variation on détournement.
So... I take it radicalism has been commodified?
Welcome to the history of the 20th century left. You can pick up your Che shirt at the gift kiosk on your way out of the mausoleum museum.
I'm going to my winter retreat in the tropics for a week and I'll have a lot of time on my yacht for reading. I assume that we'll all have time on our yachts so why not make the most of it? /u/mosestrod made the suggestion about looking into imperialism and whether the old ideas still stand up. But I'm open to anything really after a few martinis. Or heck, we can write and then kickstart an abc to Marxism and rake in that sweet proletarian dough.
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I've been collecting stuff on Imperialism and think this would be a really interesting topic
Like what? I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Articles:http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/980/rethinking-imperialism/http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=12034http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.be/2004/11/imperialism-reconsidered-reposted_16.htmlhttp://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/?p=1076http://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415741149 (chapter 11. The Theory of Imperialism by Michael Heinrich, but haven't found a pdf)http://libcom.org/library/new-world-order-rhetoric-and-reality-wildcat
Bookshttps://www.scribd.com/doc/282741235/Conclusion-from-Bob-Sutcliffe-Studies-in-the-Theory-of-Imperialismhttp://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=0A48E3F928FAE565ACBD3DFC8D7651C2http://digamo.free.fr/brewer1990.pdfhttp://users.ntua.gr/jmilios/1__Rethinking_Imperialism__A_Study_of_Capitalist_Rule.pdf
plus Open Marxism stuff??
I was thinking more about government blue books.
I'm in, not so enthusiastic about imperialism though, weren't we going to read Korsch at one point?
That's sort of on going. https://www.reddit.com/r/marxistbookclub/comments/3rsbwf/marxism_and_philosophy_by_karl_korsch_1923/
not so enthusiastic about imperialism though
Also, I was also thinking about reading Hegel, maybe something easy like his aesthetics, but I can't guarantee that I'll be able to make much progress in a week.
Now Hegel I can be enthusiastic about. There is some crossover with his work on aesthetics and his philosophy of history, he delivered those two lectures side by side or back to back IIRC so the PH is another easyish one to consider. His Philosophical Propadeutic may be worth doing also. That said, I haven't gotten round to Korsch yet.
Korsch is more difficult just because 99% of what he wrote isn't easily available in English, which our friend /u/per_levy is being an asshole about not translating him. It would be interesting to apply the ideas of Korsch upon Korsch himself, or to talk about why he thinks that Lenin's State and Revolution is a high point. I think maybe besides Marxism and Philosophy in that regard is to look at his and Pannekoek's writings on Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-criticism.
which our friend /u/per_levy is being an asshole about not translating him.
:[ but i suck at translating, besides 10 volumes of around 700 pages is far beyond my capabilites.
Lukacs' Lenin Unity of Thought is probably an important one relevant to that context, I think that was the one he was verging on Stalinism in. What do you mean by applying Korsch to Korsch? From what I gather he was questioning the relationship of theory and practice, and thereby theorising theory..?
Lenin's study of Hegel and it's relation to his shifts in thought and actions is another to look into.
Korsch seemed to view Lenin's State and Revolution within the coming together of a revolutionary Marxism. I just wanted to look at how his ideas also developed, and if they were so because of the reasons he seemed to be applying them to others.
Yes I think State and Revolution had a lot to do with his engagement with Bukharin (I'm not a big fan of Bukharin) I'm not sure of the specifics of this debate but the book seems like an aberration in Lenin's thought at an important historical time. But he never seemed to have a coherent doctrine in any case, certainly not as 'Leninism' would claim. It's also interesting that when Korsch published Marxism and Philosophy (at the same time as Lukacs History & Class Consciousness) Trotsky, Zionoviev and Bukharin were the ones trying to make sure that it was never looked at, as opposed when Lenin was around and any old Pravda article was up for discussion. Apparently Bukharin said of Korsch's work at the 5th congress "We cannot put every piece of garbage up for discussion". Then both Korsch and Lukacs called themselves 'Leninists' for a while.
I would also like to do a group reading / discussion thing about Hegel. Just to voice my opinion I'd prefer it over the imperialism topic but either way I'm interested in participating.
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Where are you planning to start with Kant? I could do with brushing up on the first critique.
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics was what I had in mind. I expect attempting any of the critiques at this point could be classified as an act of self-harm, and that does seem to be the recommended entry point.
Looking around now I expect I'll get to this first, actually. There's no timeline on the rest, at least not yet, but that's short enough to read with dinner.
made the suggestion about looking into imperialism and whether the old ideas still stand up
What do you mean by old ideas? Like lenins piece on imperialism?
Things that aren't a hundred years old
So...yes?
Oh right sorry, I'm drunk.
I'm in, my summer classes both finish in just over a week so I'll finally have lots of spare time to read.
I'm stuck in New Zealand for a few weeks so I'll have plenty of time to get involved.
yes. please.
Right, I can't guarantee that I'll get around to it, but I'll try to read at least some of hegels history of philosophy and if others want to do something on imperialism then I can engage in a discussion on that.
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Noticed the downvotes? I'm totally open to good reads arguing against crisis or whatever else on the subject. Thanks.
I think that every post gets down votes here.
You could give Paul Mattick a try or look in the direction of Kliman. I can't really remember much in the way of things that talk exclusively of crisis of capitalism.
I read this a few days back and can't see any reason not to recommend it. Crisis of civilisation - Gilles Dauvé.
It might be easy to recommend everything he's written. Informative, engaging, not a hint of bullshit, and he's actually alive. Sometimes it's almost perplexing to find theorists who haven't been dead for a hundred years.
I oppose it, but do you think that it can bring about a revolution faster? And is the revolution inevitable? Do reforms make a revolution less likely?
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Not to mention that fighting for working people has a direct effect on how working people percieve and support us.
How do you conceive communism being achieved by reform? Do you think the international revolution will be brought about by the actions of 200 or so (for each country) political parties in positions of power in all their respective parliamentary systems?
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So you would first require through parliamentary methods for the abolition of borders?
I'm questioning your idea that we can achieve communism through reform, in how can it specifically be achieved, because to me it seems incredibly idealist and impractical; let alone the usual critique of reformism.
Doesn't work. You'll never get workers to join your movement by making life worse for them.
Depends exactly what you mean by accelerationism. Raising minimum wage, for example, helps bring the contradictions of capitalism to a head as it makes business ventures less profitable and increases barriers to market entry. This could qualify as accelerationism.
I don't believe immiseration causes socialist revolution
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sking my four year old to go without healthy food or access to medical care. Why? For a theory? If you ask working-class people to suffer so your movement might, maybe gain more momentum, you're a pretty terrible socialist.
Exactly, just escalate the situation by struggling for the working class, it's not complicated
Did the leftist parties in the US get big in 1932 by fighting for worst conditions for workers?
From your point of view (ie as left communists), what are some of the major criticisms of Marx's method of analysis and his works? I'm trying to avoid the mistake of upholding basically everything Marx did, even when there could be real problems with his work that hinder a left-com analysis of the world today.
e: and Engels of course
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Didn't Marx support parliamentary parties and national liberation under certain circumstances? That's definitely something we would criticize him for
Pretty sure he supported national liberation in Poland.
I remember reading about him and Engels being supportive of the 1867 Reform Act and the 1872 Ballot Act, as they thought that the extension of voting rights (even if only to the more well-off workers) would lead the workers to vote in a revolutionary socialist/communist party, especially since the class divisions in the UK were so stark at the time.
That obviously didn't happen, and within a decade Engels was writing about the "bourgeois proletarians" of the UK. At least that's what I remember, anyone is free to correct me if I'm wrong. The support of parliamentary parties is definitely a valid criticism of Marx, though he can be forgiven to an extent, since he didn't have the hindsight of a century of parliamentary parties (notably social democrats) being thoroughly subsumed by capital.
And I don't remember reading about Marx himself defending national liberation, especially the example of Poland that /u/zach101a2z gave. In what works does he do that?
We Germans have a particular interest in the liberation of Poland. German princes have profited from the partition of Poland and German soldiers are still exercising oppression in Galicia and Posen [parts of Poland]. It must be the concern of us Germans, above all, of us German democrats, to remove this stain from our nation. A nation cannot be free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations. Thus Germany cannot be liberated without the liberation of Poland from oppression by Germans. And for this reason Poland and Germany have a common interest, for this reason Polish and German democrats can work together for the liberation of both nations.
From Engels' speech at the International Meeting held in London on November 29, 1847 to mark the 17th Anniversary of the Polish Uprising of 1830
At least he frames it as in the interests of Germans and the Polish, which is contrary to how MTWs usually frame it: "I support socialism even though as a first worlder my conditions would be worse under socialism because no imperialism."
maybe. but I feel like the 'certain circumstances' was important. let's not forget Marx was writing in a time when national projects were 'under construction' and thus rather weak, in those moments it was thus easier perhaps to see through them or how they could be a challenge to capital or how they were useful to supersede the petty traditionalism/folkism of pre-capitalist societies (German regionalism etc.). Also we can blame Marx's time...he was after all living in a time where the proletariat was only just becoming an independent force and then only just, the peasantry was still massive force as was the old order. When it came to the splits within the bourgeois ruling-class over the national question in Germany, to oppose the junkers was often to place yourself on the side of the vanguard bourgeoisie. This question is of course similar to bourgeois rights. It's always hard for theory and practice to think/act beyond under conditions where the bourgeois had often barely stabilised their political rule.
Now given what we know now with the bloody catalogue that's the late 19th and whole 20C. national liberation simply isn't really in question (also because nations have in most places solidified and cannot be subverted etc.). But let's also not forget also that internationalism presupposes nations. That said whilst always maintaining an internationalist stance we must not fall into the trap of anarchism which places opposition before analysis...not all states/nations are equal even if we oppose them all equally.
His handwriting was shockingly bad. His method and standpoint is the main thing to take from Marx. But he isn't infallible, some of what he said is just wrong, some of it was suitable for his time and place but not ours, but this is the same for any human, he himself changed his view on this or that practical problem as his history unfolded. Since he wasn't expounding a doctrine but rather engaging in a critique, you don't need to look to him for things to accept or reject, he's asking questions more than giving answers. Aristotle was wrong about slavery, but the syllogism is pretty good, you don't need his views on slavery to use it. Socrates was wrong about immortality, we think, but it doesn't invalidate his method. I don't think it's a matter of upholding anything in the way of his opinion on this or that event, you may agree with him on it or not and most of it we do agree, what you can take from him is something to utilise yourself.
I think Engels was a lot closer to Marx normatively, with his conclusions than he was instrumentally, with his method.
His handwriting was shockingly bad
Well you'll hear no arguments otherwise from me :P
I think Engels was a lot closer to Marx normatively, with his conclusions than he was instrumentally, with his method.
Interesting. What would you (or others here) say were the important differences in the methods of the two thinkers? I'm still pretty new to leftcommunism, and Marxism in general, so I still have a lot to read/learn.
Other than that, I very much agree with what you're saying about his 'critique' rather than his 'doctrine', I'll definitely try and keep that in mind as I work my way through his writings. Thanks!
It's not a leftcommunist thing but I would say there are differences. I don't want to blame Fred for anything that happened in the history of Marxism in the 20th century but his role was very important in popularising Marx and interpreting his work, he did better than anybody else could have possibly done. A lot of the works we now have of Marx, Engels didn't seem to read, Grunrisse, 1844 manuscripts etc so it was especially difficult. It's important that his own views were not that different from Marx but, where it was, it is significant. The difference between Volume 3 of Capital and Marx's writings for it is pretty glaring, Marx's manuscripts for it were only published in 1992 MEGA. There are a few people that have written about the difference that I don't always agree with - Terrell Carver wrote a few books on them, 'Marx and Engels the intellectual relationship' makes some interesting contrasts, his sympathy seems to lie with Engels (He seems to see the dividing point between them to be the account of 'production' if I remember correctly, I only half agree with this). Michael Heinrich wrote this https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/editorial/heinrich.htm which you will want to read with a skeptical eye. There is also Arthur, CJ. ‘Engels as Interpreter of Marx’s Economics' Engels Today: A Centenary Appreciation. His website has some of his writings but not this piece http://www.chrisarthur.net/ There are some others that I can't recommend because they either don't deal with the subject fairly or I haven't read them.
But this is just as far as economics goes, there is also that whole dialectics of nature thing, I think Engels method was somewhat positivistic whereas Marx was not positivistic at all. I suppose you could see it as a good thing that we have different angles, Engels focussed on laws and quantifiable aspects but didn't seem to be interested in what Marx thought was most important, which is mostly contained in chapter one of capital. I'm still in the process of trying to get to the bottom of what was going on myself, so don't take my word on any of this. The only thing I would say is that they need to be read as independent people, who have ideas in their own right, they are not one and the same as Christ and Yahweh like Stalinism seemed to paint them, though that does not mean their views are antagonistic.
I think the critique point is relevant to this, their use of critique seems to be a difference between them.
Karl Korsch wrote a lot of criticisms of Karl Marx and Marxism, so much so that he was labeled an anarchist in 1950. You might want to read him. Here's his page on MIA.
The Ten Theses was exactly the sort of work I was looking for, so reading some more Korsch should be very helpful I think. Cheers Solid!
Any work(s) in particular or is it kind of scattered throughout?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1950/ten-theses.htm
You could start with this, it's short and to the point, as is most of Korsch's work, from what I've read.
Wow, that was really short and to the point! This sort of stuff is generally what I was looking for, more so than specific examples of Marx having wrong conclusions about certain things due to him living in 19th Century Europe (though those are appreciated as well). Thanks for this.
This got me thinking, what contemporary prominent left communists are there? The best I've found are some mid-century works from Mattick and this one.
I'm firmly of the belief that ideologies should change over time, and this is sort of problematized by the fact that most leftcom pieces seem to be from around 100 years ago.
Obviously a lot of it is valuable, but could you (or anyone else) recommend anything newer?
Gilles Dauvé is one who comes to mind.
A lot of modern theory and writings on Left Communism comes from the still active groups such as the ICP, ICC and ICT. I've read some of the material released by the ICC and attended one of their meetings and it's clear to me that they're actively working to keep the ideology modern and continue to expand upon it. They have a lot of discussion on an idea that they call "Decadent Capitalism" which is rather interesting and which leads to a lot of debates between them and the ICT, from what I've observed. So you could give reading some of the pieces released by these groups a go.
There are some also other ultra-left groups and theorists, especially those behind the theory of Communisation, which could be worth reading into and there are plenty of works from Anarchists which we can certainly take from.
You may be interested in Loren Goldner http://breaktheirhaughtypower.org/
Do you know what he means when he refers to the russian revolution of 1928? Does he mean stalin's collectivization?
It's the only thing that makes sense to me, it was when the first five year plan went into effect and so can be seen as an economic revolution.
u da best <3
Thank you, but I'm far from the best.
I can't say I've read all of it yet. There's the ten theses posted by Quinton, The Crisis of Marxism. Paul Mattick wrote a biography of Korsch as well where he argues that Korsch never abandoned Marxism by that his criticism of Marxism is the ultimate expression of following Marx's path.
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the part on women in the revolution is really good
This article provides a really clear and concise analysis on the situation and prospects of Rojava, giving an insight into the whole picture; not just the snippets that make it seem like an ultra-democratic paradise.
It'd be interesting to see an Anarchist response to the conclusion, especially about what Dauve outlines as the "best case scenario" I'm curious whether they actually believe that the situation in Rojava could actually develop into something more.
I posted it in /r/anarchism also. Apparently it's "[r]ather typical rhetoric from a Marxist, in other words it is it's own best refutation."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/3r1bbj/rojava_reality_rhetoric_gilles_dauve_2015/
"is its own best refutation" is pretty funny though since Dauve said the same thing about pro-Rojava anarchists.
The same person is now saying that classes aren't real lol
classes never existed
capitalism was just a cruel joke
I'm an ancom and found this piece very incisive and thought-provoking. Rojava is something I'm still trying to learn more about, and intelligent criticism like this helps to map out the key problematics and genuine successes incurred by their attempt at social revolution.
Edit: I posted this essay at /r/anarchocommunism too.
Do anti-imps still support Syria?
some definitely do. Usually the ones that support China and the DPRK
Oh right cause the US supports the rebels while China supports the government.
SolidBlues, I replied to you but you never got back to me on /r/DebateAnarchism (link) on Anarchism, the Zapatistas (mainly) and Rojava. I see that you have an intrest in these topics (specifically on the critical side). It seems that here, you seem to be mocking (typically Anarchists) others. Nevertheless, I have saved this article because I will read it over the weekend.
Next summer, a 3-day school at Leicester University on 'Kurdish culture, history and politics from the beginning hitherto' will occur. Its not set yet but I believe I will be doing a presentation on the 'different left ideological views upon Rojava'. It will contain Marxism and Anarchism (and respectively, their strains). I don't know if I am to include Left-Communism because the impressions I've been getting from this subreddit, you and other Left-Communists in the past have been poor and outright rude.
I will get back on this article, and most likely comment through here.
I never got back to you because I didn't see the point in continuing to repeat myself over what I actually said to have no effect on your misinterpretation of what I said.
Your impressions are poor because we challenge your preconceived beliefs and willingness to take oppressed struggles at face value. Class struggle does happen in Rojava because there are workers and bosses. There's also a state but because anarchists don't understand the state some like to imagine it isn't there. There's also the fetishization of particular forms of democracy and the fetishization of women with guns that leads some of you to let wishful thinking blind you.
Dauve talks about all of this in the essay by the way, I hope you do read it.
to repeat myself over what I actually said to have no effect on your misinterpretation of what I said.
The thing is, I quote every thing you say, and reply back based on that topic - which for the third time, you've been failing to do. Please, using quotation, provide evidence of my misinterpretation.
Your impressions are poor because we challenge your preconceived beliefs and willingness to take oppressed struggles at face value.
Again, using quotation, please mark where I have stated that I support the Zapatista or Rojavan movement without any evidence of their integrity.
Everything you've stated there I've replied back, its so annoying how you do not reply back to my points and keep diverting the topic. I wrote pretty much a long abstract upon your views, and all you have is a small paragraph aimed at 'my impressions'.
I will read the essay from Dauve. But even if I was Marx himself criticizing this essay, I feel that you would take no time in considering it. I know the exact reason why you didn't reply. A main point is that you've given a partial answer here nothing to do with your original point nor my comments on them, which by the way you could have done over there.
When you accused me of claiming that anarchists didn't care about class struggle, that was your misrepresentation. And I could have reword, restated, and reaffirmed exactly what I said and meant a thousand times and you would never have gotten off of that. That is why I stopped responding to you.
When you accused me of claiming that anarchists didn't care about class struggle, that was your misrepresentation.
Again, quote me the exact sentence(s).
I've been reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed and this is one of the main points Freire brings up, that both oppressors and oppressed are dehumanized and thus it is the task of the oppressed to essentially liberate both by erasing the duality that separates them and not merely become "oppressors of the oppressors." He then goes on to say that the oppressors, by virtue of their power, cannot liberate the oppressed. The only way they can help the oppressed is if they give up their positions as oppressors, which I'm pretty much inclined to agree with for fairly obvious reasons.
What do you all think of this?
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This was my conclusion after reading the 1844 Manuscripts.
Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.
So, this is a different thread, I know. I'd like you, if you'd please, give me your best defense of a Leninist vanguard. If you HAD to defend the concept, how would you?
Second part, explain why your best defense is flawed and why it still won't work.
Strange request, sorry. I am at an identity crisis with accepting either a vanguard in the Leninist sense compared to a direct switch into communism. The Leninist concept of "socialism" as a transition stage to communism makes sense to me. Tear me up, comrades.
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I'm more communisation leaning than others so others here might disagree, I don't know.
First thing, what do you mean by 'Leninist'? I know Trotsky used the term in a speech the day that Lenin died to associate himself with the late leader in order to help his own struggle for power: "Lenin is no more, but Leninism endures. The immortal in Lenin, his doctrine, his work, his method, his example, lives in us, lives in the party that he founded, lives in the first workmen’s State whose head he was and which he guided." But was Lenin a 'Leninist'?
The 1902 Pamphlet 'What is to be done?' where the 'vanguard' concept originates is rooted in the history of the second international and it is supposed to be concerned with the problems of the Russian movement at that time. Lenin's aim was to show himself as a supporter of the International, the editorial board of the Iskra (including Plekhanov), and Kautsky in his fight with Bernstein; the organisational proposals in the pamphlet reflect this. This is why it contains strange phrases like 'Consciousness from without' and ‘the vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia’. (Lenin thought 'consciousness' required 'science') (For an opposing view see MECW Vol. 6 pp.177-8 http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm 'Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class...')
It is a mistake to associate Lenin's 1902 line with 'The Leninist concept of "socialism" as a transition stage to communism'. The Russian Marxists didn't talk of 'socialist revolution' in 1902, Trotsky began to talk in these terms in his 1907 'Results and Prospects' but Lenin didn't pick it up until a decade after this! Lenin went back on 'What is to be done' almost immediately after it was published (See the 1903 congress and Lenin's former comrade Bogdanov claiming in 1908 that Lenin betrayed the 1902 formulation.) In a 1907 reissuing of the pamphlet Lenin claimed:
"What Is To Be Done? is a summary of Iskra tactics and Iskra organisational policy in 1901 and 1902. Precisely a “summary”, no more and no less. That will be clear to anyone who takes the trouble to go through the file of Iskra for 1901 and 1902. But to pass judgement on that summary without knowing Iskra’s struggle against the then dominant trend of Economism, without understanding that struggle, is sheer idle talk. Iskra fought for an organisation of professional revolutionaries." - LCW, Vol. 13
If you want to find out when the ideas for revolutionary organisation in this pamphlet were made canonical, focus in on what Zinoviev was doing after Lenin had his first stroke. I would say that this is why Trotsky never agreed with the pamphlet until he died, but Trotsky was also one of it's first critics, way before Zinoviev became a major figure on the scene; for some reason the Trots take it as a manual for 'taking power'. That is the 'Party' taking power I might add, Lenin's revolutionary subject, not anything to do with 'universal human emancipation'.
A defense of the 'Leninist vanguard':
"the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy" https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm
It follows that the Leninist vanguard is helpful in order to take the Victorian working class movement under the control of 'The Party', because they'd be fucked without us.
I'd reply that communism is ‘the movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority' (Manifesto). The working class can only emancipate itself, the party is able to support but not to force us to be free, that's the whole point of freedom isn't it?
A+ write up.
I usually line up with bordiga, in that the vanguard can be useful but is not what "drives" the revolution, nor does the revolution lay in the hands of the vanguard. But it is almost essential.
Thanks, I'm sympathetic to that view - I should study up more on Bordiga. I think organisational questions are difficult because they must always remain open questions - but it's helpful to cross out some of the answers.
Excellent post
I think you're going to have to explain the "Leninist vanguard" in order to answer this question. I think that Bordiga's conception of the party was different to Lenin's, and more subversive. I think you should read this article, Bordiga versus Pannekoek as it might help clarify certain positions. Regardless, for Bordiga, the party was central to the revolution:
The class Party is the indispensable organ for the proletarian revolutionary struggle. The Communist Party consists of the most advanced and resolute part of the proletariat, unites the efforts of the working masses transforming their struggles for group interests and contingent issues into the general struggle for the revolutionary emancipation of the proletariat. Propagating the revolutionary theory among the masses, organising the material means of action, leading the working class all along its struggle, by securing the historical continuity and the international unity of the movement, are duties of the Party.
And
It is the Party alone which therefore represents, organises and directs the proletarian dictatorship
also
the political party of the working class, the indispensable instrument in the struggles for the emancipation of this class
I think normally that the "leninist vanguard" is concieved as being substitutionist or a force from outside the proletariat, but for Bordiga this wasn't really the case. The party was a part of the class
In the same way we must reject any conception of the party as a group of enlightened scholars or conscious individuals. On the contrary, the Party is the organic tissue whose function inside the working class is to carry out its revolutionary task in all its aspects and in its successive phases.
I can't seem to edit my post, but a typical ML vanguard.
Also, this is wonderful.
Well here's the thing. A stalinist party has never gotten to power on the back of a proletarian movement. They've always either been a part of the counter revolution or they've been installed by military power. The clearest examples of the substitionist nature of these types of parties are the maoist ones where they get into power on the back of a guerrilla war by the peasantry, having almost to zero proletarian content.
So, this is a different thread, I know. I'd like you, if you'd please, give me your best defense of a Leninist vanguard. If you HAD to defend the concept, how would you?
I used to be Stalinist so I suppose I would say that the Leninist vanguard, under ideal conditions (that benevolent dictatorship bruh), would be incredibly efficient to transform society.
However, even if this didn't ignore the realities and the necessity of social revolution, I find it hard to believe that an individual or group can resist the pressures that come with power; and it's basically impossible to guarantee that future leaders would not themselves succumb to the privilege especially if they lived it their entire lives.
Strange request, sorry. I am at an identity crisis with accepting either a vanguard in the Leninist sense compared to a direct switch into communism. The Leninist concept of "socialism" as a transition stage to communism makes sense to me.
What kind of communist would that make you though? Left communists believe there will be a transition period (the revolution). Even anarchists, as far as I understand, don't believe it's possible to go straight to communism (those who want communism anyway).
I can't recall ever coming across anything clear about the party from any stalinist. Just statements such as "it leads the working class". I met one old SLP guy and he thought that the party should lead the proletariat the same way a parent leads a child (an authoritarian parent btw which leads me to question his upbringing). The clearest stuff probably comes from maoists though, but that just out right says they're a substitionist party. Which probably explains tankies today saying that anything with red flags is socialism.
I think most Stalinists and Trots just view the party like any other political party, no different than the Democrats in America or Labour in the UK, only with revolutionary rhetoric and activism. At least that was how I used to view the party.
cf. infestation of parliamentary larping in 'socialist' circles throughout reddit
Sorry is I was unclear. I meant the transition period being a state rules by a communist party.
Well the people who believe that can hardly be called socialists I think when they imagine that the working class needs to be ordered about to get anything done, especially when they support the suppression of workers movements (such as Kronstadt).
As a Trotskyist - a vanguard party is necessary because most of the working class is not class conscious except in a revolutionary situation. Hence in order to have a socialist party, you're going to need to appeal to the most conscious group of workers. This in turn feeds back into educating and raising the consciousness of the working class. Waiting for the working class to spontaneously turn socialist makes little sense because upsurges like that are rare and usually directionless.
I'm thinking of course that you're also interested in Democratic Centralism, which I defend on the grounds that workers' parties without a mechanism to ensure ideological continuity tend to degenerate as a result of labor bureaucracies into non-socialist parties. Not to mention it enables a small group of people to efficiently act whereas more consensus based parties tend to get stuck.
I used to think democratic centralism was inherently authoritarian, but my opinion has since changed because it's pretty obvious that it has little bearing on how authoritarian a party is.
Who educates the educators?
The educators are educated both through the direct experience of the capitalist mode of production and through the experiences of workers in the capitalist mode of production. Workers however generally tend to merely react to capitalism in a way which throws light on the necessary course but not in a way that is systemic or coherent enough to act upon; that's the task of educators. Thus workers' councils may have arisen independently, but it took the Bolsheviks to make a revolution and actually articulate that workers' councils were the socialist form of government.
The educators are educated both through the direct experience of the capitalist mode of production and through the experiences of workers in the capitalist mode of production.
So the educators aren't educated by people but rather by experience. While the workers themselves are unable to be educated by experience so they need special teachers to come and 'raise their consciousness'. What is it about workers that you think makes them so incapable of learning by experience and where does this special power of learning by experience come from that only some can get it? Are you not saying here that workers are dumb but we are clever so we must control/manipulate/trick/force them into doing what we want?
I just said they're educated by people. No one told anyone to create workers' councils, yet they ended up in Lenin's theories.
It's not that workers' can't do things. They can. It's just that it tends to be rare and undirected. You need it to be systematized so you have a coherent set of goals and an effective strategy. You need a party in order to be able to build the working class. I'm simply saying that historical experience is pretty clear that you need a party to be able to build consciousness in a way that can actually make a revolution.
which I defend on the grounds that workers' parties without a mechanism to ensure ideological continuity tend to degenerate as a result of labor bureaucracies into non-socialist parties.
Sorry this is old but... Like every DemCent party to ever lead a country?
Left communists are for a vanguard party.
Tell that to council communists...
I would if there were any left.
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Do you know if the "unpublished sixth chapter" of Capital that the author talks about the sixth chapter in the edition on MIA?
The chapter can be found here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/
From the intro:
“The Results of the Direct Production Process” is part of a third draft of Capital which Marx wrote between the summer of 1863 and the summer of 1864, based on a plan Marx made for the work in December 1862. This manuscript has been lost, apart from a few pages from what would become the first five chapters of Capital, some related footnotes, and what was to become the sixth chapter. The pagination and content of this sixth chapter indicate that it followed on from five previous chapters. By the time Capital was completed however, this chapter had not been not included.
It is included as an appendix to the Penguin version and in MECW vol. 34, both the same awful translation.
Awesome thank you.
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Great article, thanks for posting!
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"The reality is that workers understand the nature of work and its perversion under capitalism better than do middle class young people, because workers work and struggle in the system daily. But the consciousness raising approach would have us not discuss the nature of capitalism with them at this time, except to tell them they don’t receive the full value of what they produce, as if workers don’t already know that. I contend that the nature of capitalism is what we should be discussing with them."
Decent article. The 99% thing always annoys me, if it was 50-50 wouldn't that be the same as 100-0? I like the MHI but I disagree with them on their interpretation of Hegel and including talk of their interpretation of the dialectic doesn't help in an article about interaction with workers, instead of saying 'Marx laid out two aspects of dialectical reality' it would make just as much sense to say 'Marx laid out two aspects of reality' whether their reading of Hegel, Marx and Lenin's notebooks as interpreted by Dunayevskaya is right or not. The point in the article on slogans and half truths is very good - Lenin wrote in 'What the Friends of the People are':
“We do not say to the world,” Marx wrote as far back as 1843, and he fulfilled this programme to the letter, “we do not say to the world: ‘cease struggling, your whole struggle is senseless’. All we do is to provide it with a true slogan of struggle.”
Marx actually wrote this:
'We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.'
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I would be interested reading this in a group, along with a couple other books. So far I have one by Negri and another by Lukacs. It might be interesting to read all of these folks interpreting Lenin, given the different positions they're coming from. What do you think?
Also available here as a PDF.https://libcom.org/files/Pannekoek%20-%20Lenin%20as%20Philosopher.pdf
That PDF has a terrible introduction. I don't know why the got a libertarian to write an intro to a book by Pannekoek that basically argues against Pannekoek and supports Lenin.
LOL. I didn't look at the introduction, I just appreciated the PDF. I know the text is revised. If we were to read this along with the other two interpretations, would you prefer the MIA version or the PDF?
But it might still be interesting to look at how/why the editor draws a conclusion against Pannekoek and for Lenin.
I've had a quick look. It just looks like minor things have been changed, such as bolshevists changed to bolsheviks etc.
I presume that by the gist of the argument that Pannekoek makes, that Lenin never left a bourgeois materialist outlook, then that would explain by some bourgeois libertarian finds Lenin more appealing.
Korsch also wrote a short appendix to this. I think that Karl Korsch might be another person worth reading if you enjoy reading Pannekoek.
We also have a reddit for you to post stuff in if you want to do a group reading https://www.reddit.com/r/marxistbookclub/
"A witty German Social-Democrat of the seventies of the last century called the postal service an example of the socialist economic system. This is very true. At the present the postal service is a business organized on the lines of state-capitalist monopoly."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch03.htm
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Well, it would be fair to quote the whole thing:
Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.
//not a leninist
yeah but just to quote that thing
Everybody talks about imperialism. But imperialism is merely monopoly capitalism.
That capitalism in Russia has also become monopoly capitalism is sufficiently attested by the examples of the Produgol, the Prodamet, the Sugar Syndicate, etc. This Sugar Syndicate is an object-lesson in the way monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly capitalism.
And what is the state? It is an organisation of the ruling class — in Germany, for instance, of the Junkers and capitalists. And therefore what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call "war-time socialism" is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and clearly, war-time penal servitude for the workers and war-time protection for capitalist profits.
Now try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state- monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!
For if a huge capitalist undertaking becomes a monopoly, it means that it serves the whole nation. If it has become a state monopoly, it means that the state (i.e., the armed organisation of the population, the workers and peasants above all, provided there is revolutionary democracy) directs the whole undertaking. In whose interest?
Lenin's formulation is that for socialism to happen, nationalisation or monopoly, has to happen under a capitalist framework. Socialism is now not a class struggle operation, the class acting as a class under every day struggle, it is it one vulgar materialism and also one under nationalist guise. This is leaving aside Lenin's terrible presentation of the state. This formulation of socialism is just junk. He even mentions pay being in socialism in the state and revolution. There's nothing revolutionary about it unless one thinks that political coups and state control amounts to revolution.
I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying he was not so obvious about it as your quote purports it to be. The thing is - he truly believed that state-monopoly capitalism was a path towards something better. For him this was, in fact, revolutionary.
He was, of course, quite wrong - state capitalism has its own schemes of operation.
you're welcome
Leninists are just social-democrats on crack ... nothing new here folks
lolzki
He said many weird things. I read through a speech he made at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. In 1917 or 1918 i think. He claimed that the Paris Commune perished at the hands of mensheviks and SR's.
Edit: found the source!https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/jan/10.htm
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This "Putrid Democracy Throws Itself into the Arms of Fascism" text is pretty terrible.
Hi,
Hopefully this is not a dumb question. I have been planning on reading many of the texts available on https://www.marxists.org
However, I would prefer not to read them on my computer screen because that is not a comfortable place to sit and it can be a big strain on the eyes. So I have been thinking of getting an Amazon Kindle for the purpose of reading these texts.
Has anyone tried this, and does the Kindle work well for this purpose? I assume that many of the most important texts available on the website are available in a format compatible with being viewed properly on the Kindle?
Thank you
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There is a horrible web browser on the Kindle which you can use.
There are several ebooks here.https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/index.htm
Mobi-files can be transferred without a problem, the others can be converted with Calibre.
You can create very quick and dirty ebooks for Kindle by copying the text into a .doc and mailing it to your Kindle email. Amazon converts it and sends it to your Kindle. Or you can just create a .mobi with the document.
All marxists.org texts are in HTML, and ereaders use formats that are based on that. You could easily download the webpages and convert them to .mobi or .azw using Calibre in your computer. But the problem with marxists.org is that they often split books in chapters, so you would have to do this for every chapter, unless you figure out how to merge those files.
One solution is to use wget to grab the entire directory as it is hosted, e.g.:
wget -np -nH -r --cut-dirs=4 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/
Once complete, import class-struggles-france/index.htm into Calibre and it will pull all chapters together.
There's a Firefox add-on for converting webpages to ebooks and emailing them to your Kindle
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All economists share the error of examining surplus-value not as such, in its pure form, but in the particular forms of profit and rent. What theoretical errors must necessarily arise from this will be shown more fully in Chapter III, in the analysis of the greatly changed form which surplus-value assumes as profit.
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Our activities in the trade union oppositions
For trade union freedoms
Here above we publish the flyer signed by the party that our comrades distributed at the national demonstration of SI Cobas held in Modena on Saturday, April 6, in defence of the freedom of trade unions and the head of the union, under trial. The demonstration, in the presence of more than a thousand workers, was successful, in a similar way to the previous ones organised by this union in all these last years.
The mobilisation was prepared, as well as with assemblies at the workplace, by the spread of an appeal of that union, "The strike and the freedom of trade union initiative are not matters of criminal law", addressed "to all representatives of the legal, academic, art, culture and entertainment world, and to all activists who at the trade union, political and social level share the text and aims" which concluded: We ask all political, social and trade union forces that are genuinely democratic, as well as representatives of the legal, academic, art, cultural and entertainment worlds, to subscribe to this appeal for the full acquittal of Aldo Milani from the accusations made and to launch a campaign for the total decriminalisation of the crime of " blocking roads " for social or trade union reasons and to sanction the prohibition of the use of the "Electoral Wards" in the event of trade union unrest outside the workplace".
If the propagandistic intent and the objective of the appeal are shared, it is not the same to turn indiscriminately to the "sincerely democratic forces" because it can make workers believe that they have allied political movements outside their own class, including some of the bourgeois parties, and on which they can rely.
Democracy, moreover, is one of the ideologies of the bourgeoisie, which has shown itself to be no less anti-worker than others that are only apparently opposed.
The objective of bringing to our side forces and undecided intermediate social classes can be done not by making concessions to their beliefs and by diluting our class identity (which has the opposite effect) but, on the contrary, by showing our trade union movement strengthened and socially determined, which would be well underway by promoting a mobilisation involving all the confrontational trade unionism, trade union militants and workers in defence of trade union freedoms.
For these reasons our fellow workers individually did not sign it.
And, internally, we have proposed that it should not be signed by the Workers' and Workers' Coordination for Class Unity, and that instead it should draw up a communiqué of solidarity with content in line with what has been said here. Within this working group, the issues raised by us were also shared by trade union activists who were not members of our party; others argued that the support of the Coordination for the appeal of SI Cobas, beyond the merit of the issues raised by us, had the value of reaffirming the need for a fighting trade unionism union above the divisions between the acronyms; the SI Cobas militants considered the appeal of their union correct. Evaluating not without foundation the second consideration and the question not of great importance, our comrades decided to discipline themselves to the decision of the majority to sign the appeal of the SI Cobas. The Coordination, however, has also published its own appeal, which can be read here.
In the SI Cobas
If the appeal promoted by SI Cobas was open to criticism for the reasons set out above, nevertheless one cannot deny the fact that this union was the one that more than any other in Italy was able to defend the weapon of the strike in the only correct way, by using it. Just in these last months SI Cobas has been engaged in very hard struggles at Italpizza in Modena, at Toncar in Muggiò, at Tintoria DL in Prato, to cite the main examples.
What the leadership of SI Cobas lacks is the distrust towards the unity of action of confrontational trade unionism and workers as the main way to strengthen class unionism and defeat opportunism within its organisations and currents. This road would help the SI Cobas to overcome the isolation in which the regime's trade unionism and mastery want to maintain it and would increase its prestige among the workers.
In the USB
Also the Unione Sindacale di Base has promoted a campaign in defence of trade union freedoms, but with a conduct and arguments almost completely unrelated to class unionism. It has promoted, in solitude, a strike of all sectors of the working class for the previous 12 April. Against this decision, our comrades and other trade union activists who are members of the USB have drawn up an appeal in favour of a general strike uniting all the fighting trade unionism, published on 20 March. In the meantime, the Guarantee Commission has decided to revoke the strike. The reaction of the USB leadership was so contradictory and confused that there was serious doubt as to whether there was any real willingness to organise the strike. This only confirms the hypothesis that this union is increasingly aiming to be recognised, like the confederal unions, by the political forces of the government in office, moving further away from confrontational trade unionism.
Following the intervention of the Guarantee Commission, in fact, the leaders of the USB have renounced the proclamation of the general strike, replacing it with strikes divided by trade categories. On these decisions, the USB Registered Coordination for the Class Union has drawn up, with the collaboration of our comrades, a document that explains well the seriousness of the conduct of the management of this union.
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Questions which enable Social-Democratic deputies to abandon a purely negative attitude are very narrowly circumscribed. All are questions which immediately involve the relation of workers to capitalists: factory legislation, the normal working-day, employer’s liability, payment in goods, etc. Perhaps also improvements in the purely bourgeois sense such as constitute a positive step forward: standardisation of coins and weights, freedom of movement, extension of personal freedom, etc. You're unlikely to be troubled with these for the time being. In the case of all other economic questions, such as protective tariffs, nationalisation of the railways, assurance companies, etc., Social-Democratic deputies must always uphold the vital principle of consenting to nothing that increases the power of the government vis-à-vis the people. And this is made all the easier in that feelings within the party itself will, of course, invariably be divided in such cases and hence abstention, a negative attitude, is automatically called for.
[...]
The passages in the report I particularly have in mind are 1. those in which so much emphasis is laid on winning over public opinion — to have this factor against you was to be hamstrung; it was a matter of life and death that ‘this hatred be turned into sympathy’, etc — sympathy! from people who just before, during the Terror had shown themselves to be dirty blackguards. There was no need to go to such lengths, especially as the Terror had long since ended; — 2. those to the effect that the party, which condemns war in any shape or form (hence also the one which it is forced to wage, which it wages notwithstanding) and whose goal is the universal fraternisation of all men (in terms of a slogan the goal of every party, in terms of immediate reality that of none, for not even we wish to fraternise with the bourgeois so long as they wish to remain bourgeois), cannot envisage civil war (hence not even in a case where civil war is the only means to the end). This proposition may also be construed as follows: that a party which condemns bloodshed in any shape or form cannot envisage either blood-letting or the amputation of gangrenous limbs, or scientific vivisection. Why all these empty phrases? I'm not asking that all your language should be ‘vigorous’, I am not reproaching the Report for saying too little — on the contrary, there is much that would have been better left unsaid. The next part is much better and so Hans Most has fortunately overlooked the few passages out of which he could have made capital.
[...]
That the petty bourgeois and peasants should be joining us is, I grant you, a sign of the movement’s rapid progress, but it also constitutes a danger to the movement, once one forgets not only that these people have got to come, but also that they are coming simply because they have got to. Their joining us proves that the proletariat really has become the leading class. But since the ideas and ambitions they bring with them are those of the petty bourgeois and the peasant, it must not be forgotten that the proletariat would forfeit its leading historical role were it to make concessions to those ideas and ambitions.
That the petty bourgeois and peasants should be joining us is, I grant you, a sign of the movement’s rapid progress, but it also constitutes a danger to the movement, once one forgets not only that these people have got to come, but also that they are coming simply because they have got to. Their joining us proves that the proletariat really has become the leading class. But since the ideas and ambitions they bring with them are those of the petty bourgeois and the peasant, it must not be forgotten that the proletariat would forfeit its leading historical role were it to make concessions to those ideas and ambitions.
If only certain "communists" on Reddit who like to parrot nonsense about the smychka understood this.
Pandering to the petty bourgeoisie is pretty much the entire content of leftism.
Hey guys, sorry if the question may sound obvious, but after a year of research into Marxism and Anarchism I still can't get hold of the difference between these two tendencies.
This is because a conciliary kind of management is trasversal to both tendencies, and AFAIK LeftCom doesn't have any "unjust hierarchy", as Anarchists intend them.
Could someone explain this difference ?
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I am curious what you consider the similarities to be since you don't see a difference.
The fact that OP didn't want to answer this question tells the story of this thread.
This is because a conciliary kind of management is trasversal to both tendencies
What kind of management are you talking about?
AFAIK LeftCom doesn't have any "unjust hierarchy", as Anarchists intend them
Seems like that would be a point of irreconcilable difference.
What kind of management are you talking about?
I mean the control of production and social life through councils. Aren't those practically the same kind of organization usually proposed in AC ?
LeftCom doesn't have any "unjust hierarchy"
With this I mean that there isn't a hierarchy like in ML/MLM and other non-anarchist political systems, thus making it assimilable with an anarchism (even if unconscious/not declared). This is because everything is decided in councils/assemblies of the workers and the people, and not for example through a party bureaucracy that could be seen as an unlegitimized organ of power.
I mean the control of production and social life through councils. Aren't those practically the same kind of organization usually proposed in AC ?
I'm curious what left communist you think argues for that
With this I mean that there isn't a hierarchy like in ML/MLM and other non-anarchist political systems, thus making it assimilable with an anarchism (even if unconscious/not declared). This is because everything is decided in councils/assemblies of the workers and the people, and not for example through a party bureaucracy that could be seen as an unlegitimized organ of power.
I think that you should stop reading things like A Beginner's Guide to Marxism and read proper things. You can read Italian? Start with this
I am Italian, so no problem at all : )
Hello fellow italian, from what you have described you seem far closer to anarchism than to marxism. Communism is not about the democratization of firms' management of wage workers, it is the abolition of firms employing wage labour for value-producing commodity production embodying alienated labour. In one sentence communism is the abolition of the law of value and all its attendant characteristics like value, surplus value, commodity production and money (the list goes on). Without this key insight of communism being the abolition of the law of value many former radicals affiliated to anarchism, revolutionary syndacalism or anarcosyndacalism turned their backs on the international working class and ended up supporting their own country during an imperialist war or even fascism. As you are italian like me i am sure you are familiar with figures such edmondo rossoni who went from being a revolutionary syndacalist to becoming the head of fascist trade-unionism. Kroptikin himself crossed a line when he betrayed the working class by siding with the russian bourgeoise during the first imperialist world war. Even Mussolini was a non-marxist maximalist socialist inspired by a sort of left revisionism drawing heavily on revolutionary syndacalism and anarchism as well . This political trajectory was also followed by pre ww1 anti-militarist socialists like Herve in France.
[deleted]
Your understanding of the matter at hand is so deficient that it is impossible to give you a reply that would not just make you reproduce different errors. I really don't know where I would start: The whole way in which you approach politics - let alone communism - is wrong, as is evidenced in the replies you've given in this thread.
This "year of research" that you referenced may have included browsing Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia as well as reading some introductory works, but it certainly did not include a proper study of Marx's and Engels' writings. So if you genuinely desire your question answered, what you should do is precisely that. The sidebar here has a "recommended reading"-section, where you can find some classic works listed. If you read only the first five of them, perhaps throw the Manifesto on top, you should already be on a path that helps you get to your answer.
Maybe I've been understanding things upside down, but I've read the first chapters of the Capital, the German Ideology, Wage Labour and Capital, The Conquest of Bread etc.
My study until now has been limited to Marx and Kropotkin, mainly, on Marx mostly on a philosophical basis but also on some Marxian Economics and politics, while now I'm focusing on his sociology and what stemmed from there (for example Debord, Baudrillard etc).
Kropotkin, on the other hand, has been studied under the more sociological basis (cooperation vs competition) and the other themes of the Conquest of Bread like the likeable work, the lack of justification of property and so on. Also some Bakunin.
So, if I may object, I've been studying a whole year with some pretty reliable sources (critiqueofcrisistheory.com, libcom.org, theanarchistlibrary.org, chrisarthur.net and so on).
The point is that I'm familiar with anarchism and Marxism, but have never delved deep into Left Communism, and that's why I made this question. The fact that I can't pinpoint the difference between AnCom and LeftCom doesn't have anything to do with my knowledge of other topics.
I'll surely read some stuff about Bordiga etc, but for example IMO the Manifesto badly represents Marx's thought (both in the earlier years and in the later years), and honestly I'd recommend more the Principles of Communism of Engels.
Likely this reply is just an upset rant, but while I'll surely research some LeftCom specific material, I'm not that happy to see my whole fucking year of effort thrown under a bridge just for being focused on other things. Sorry.
/rant
Thanks for the recommendation though, I see you've replied in a genuine fashion so don't feel attacked by this.
I'm not that happy to see my whole fucking year of effort thrown under a bridge just for being focused on other things.
The sad fact is that everyone goes through this process. The sadder fact is that nearly no one breaks out of it. So don't feel bad about it.
IMO the Manifesto badly represents Marx's thought (both in the earlier years and in the later years), and honestly I'd recommend more the Principles of Communism of Engels.
What the hell are you talking about? Why would a document written by Engels, deemed to be insufficient by both Marx and Engels, and never published by them, be a better representation of Marx's thought compared to the Manifesto, which was written by both Marx and Engels and which they continued to promote their whole lives? Do you think you understand Marx's thought better than Marx understood Marx's thought?
Do you think you understand Marx's thought better than Marx understood Marx's thought?
No, it's just that in my opinion (and I remark IN MY OPINION), the Manifesto doesn't elaborate enough on the core thematics of Marx (IN MY OPINION). At this point, I prefer the Principles because of their cleaner style.
By removing all the rhetorical fluff, you get a simpler and more understandable explanation of some key points of communism.
No, it's just that in my opinion (and I remark IN MY OPINION), the Manifesto doesn't elaborate enough on the core thematics of Marx (IN MY OPINION).
Just two days ago, I posted a great text to this subreddit on the topic of "freedom of opinion" that you implicitly invoke here. I highly recommend you read it before you make more of a clown of yourself. Maybe also have a look at this.
By removing all the rhetorical fluff, you get a simpler and more understandable explanation of some key points of communism.
Obviously removing the "rhetorical fluff" didn't make anything simple enough for you to understand "some key points of communism".
Do you not understand that the "rhetorical fluff" is part of Marx’s thought? Have you considered that they may have had reasons for writing as they did? Marx and Engels were revolutionaries and the Manifesto is explicitly a call for revolution, but you seem to want to approach their expressed views as if they were merely a list of cold dispassionate academic theses. If you reduce Marxism down to a few abstract ideas and concepts and you pick and choose which ones you happen to find appealing, you miss the whole point and end up falsifying Marx as so many others have done.
Trust me, you are not familiar with Marx or Marxism at all.
The fact that I can't pinpoint the difference between AnCom and LeftCom doesn't have anything to do with my knowledge of other topics.
It really does.
but for example IMO the Manifesto badly represents Marx's thought (both in the earlier years and in the later years), and honestly I'd recommend more the Principles of Communism of Engels.
It's this kind of thing that causes people to pull their hair out.
With this reply you've confirmed what I was getting at.
I've read the first chapters of the Capital, the German Ideology, Wage Labour and Capital
My study until now has been limited to Marx [...] on a philosophical basis but also on some Marxian Economics and politics, while now I'm focusing on his sociology
If you're not lying to yourself about having read those works, the fact that you apparently made so little sense of them perhaps has to do with the fact that you are looking for "Marx on a philosophical basis", a "Marxian economics", "Marxian politics" and "Marxian sociology". Surely if Marx wanted to establish these things, you can point me to him making that explicit, right?
and what stemmed from there (for example Debord, Baudrillard etc).
I don't see what that has to do with communism.
So, if I may object, I've been studying a whole year with some pretty reliable sources (critiqueofcrisistheory.com, libcom.org, theanarchistlibrary.org, chrisarthur.net and so on).
A Wordpress blog and sites hosting secondary literature by random people constitute "reliable sources" to you?
The point is that I'm familiar with anarchism and Marxism, but have never delved deep into Left Communism, and that's why I made this question.
You should consider that you know almost nothing about Marx, and that this is what causes your confusion about left communism.
The fact that I can't pinpoint the difference between AnCom and LeftCom doesn't have anything to do with my knowledge of other topics.
Unfortunately for you, it does.
but for example IMO the Manifesto badly represents Marx's thought (both in the earlier years and in the later years), and honestly I'd recommend more the Principles of Communism of Engels.
And what would the reason for that be? How are you so full of yourself to not consider that the fact that you think so indicates a deficiency in your own understanding of what Marx wanted to get at? Why do you see yourself in a position to judge in this manner, when you admit to having only read The German Ideology, Wage Labour and Capital, as well as parts of Capital? If the Manifesto were a "bad representation of Marx's thought", don't you think he would have stated this himself? What do you make of all the references he and Engels make to the Manifesto in later years?
I'm not that happy to see my whole fucking year of effort thrown under a bridge
Do you demand a badge if you spend a year making a mud pie as well? If you have a genuine interest in communism, then this should be an indication for you to actually look into it beyond the surface. No one cares about your hurt ego.
Surely if Marx wanted to establish these things, you can point me to him making that explicit, right?
What does this even mean ? He put down some concepts, that were elaborated further by different people and establishing different currents of thought.
A Wordpress blog and sites hosting secondary literature by random people constitute "reliable sources" to you?
Does this mean they are not valid, tho ?
If the Manifesto were a "bad representation of Marx's thought", don't you think he would have stated this himself?
Well, not necessarily ? I find the concepts of alienation and structure/supestructure, along class struggle, to be the most imporant of his thought. If he had other priorities, it's not my problem. I don't see them elaborated enough in the Communist Manifesto, and I also find the conversation tone to be more dispersive and "journalistic", against a cleaner Q&A style in the Principles of Communism.
What does this even mean?
That if Marx aimed simply at creating yet another philosophy, sociology, respectively school of economics or politics, he'd have stated that. If you seriously think that "Capital" is an economics textbook just as Samuelson's "Economics" is, then it's no surprise that you are so hopelessly confused.
He put down some concepts, that were elaborated further by different people and establishing different currents of thought.
We are talking about Marx here, and not what some academics who invoke his name made of his work. This notion of different "currents of thought" is symptomatic for the idiotic plurality to be found in the humanities.
Does this mean they are not valid, tho ?
As the topic is Marx - no, they are not valid. Incidentally, I know the content of that "crisis theory" blog, and it has nothing to do with Marx, respectively communism.
I find the concepts of alienation and structure/supestructure [...], to be the most imporant of his thought.
It's great that you descend from your heavenly throne to enlighten us mere mortals on what you consider to be important in Marx, when you have admitted to having barely read three of his works. I have serious doubts that you even roughly grasp what he wanted to get at with both of those "concepts" - especially since they're introduced in works you didn't mention having read -, but apparently the only thing you care about is how you can employ them for your personal preestablished endeavours anyway.
along class struggle
Marx himself explicitly states that he didn't discover the class struggle, but that bourgeois historians did so.
If he had other priorities, it's not my problem.
Sure it's not your problem, if you don't aim at understanding communism from the outset. Honestly, you come across as the cliche of an academic here - an annoying know-it-all with an inflated ego that is eager to butcher the tiny bits of knowledge you have by proxy of three sources of shitty secondary literature, in order to produce a volume of irrelevant and obtuse nonsense that no one cares about, except other equally impotent individuals who you count on to be financing your life by buying that garbage.
I don't see them elaborated enough in the Communist Manifesto
This is again you ascribing an intent to Marx in writing a certain piece and afterwards complaining that it doesn't fulfil the function you wanted to see exerted by it. It's no wonder you're this clueless if you proceed like this.
I also find the conversation tone to be more dispersive and "journalistic", against a cleaner Q&A style in the Principles of Communism.
I can see how the writing style of the latter befits a mind already ruined by both the internet as well as academia.
A Wordpress blog and sites hosting secondary literature by random people constitute "reliable sources" to you?
Sorry for butting in about wordpress blogs or secondary sources but have you ever heard about kapitalism 101 wordpress? Is it any good? Because it was suggested to me on the marxism101 subreddit.
It seems to me that the politics of the author are leftist but does it provide a good or even decent introduction to the marxist critique of political economy? I have read some chapters of volume 1 and 3 of Capital but i am far from having a good grasp of it and i thought reading some blogs might help to ease me into some key concepts before reading the relevant chapters. It does not help that i fear that like Op i have been influenced by this academicistic mentality to some extent (not as much as op luckily) and that i have some serious personality flaws such as having an inferiority complex and being pretty egocentric.
Anyway to answer the op ancoms are not marxists, this is an huge difference between ancoms and leftcoms. Leftcoms criticize the soviet union because it was capitalist/state capitalist and not because unjust hierarchies did not empower the workers. The concept of unjust hierarchies is alien to marxism as marxism does not ignore differences among human beings, the goal of communism is focused on overcoming class society and the exploitation of man over man and not to cancel human differences.
You can have a democratic workplace such as in self-management or in cooperatives but this democracy won't diminish exploitation at all. As communism is the real moviment to abolish the present state of things, it aims to do away with workers and capital, not to empower workers.
Also leftcoms hold that the communist society will be the beginning of history and far from ideal. The concept of an ideal society itself is typical of idealism and not of marxism. Communist society will have its hands full with the problems inherited from capitalism such as global warming, soil erosion etc.
Is it any good?
No.
does it provide a good or even decent introduction to the marxist critique of political economy?
No.
i thought reading some blogs might help to ease me into some key concepts before reading the relevant chapters
They won't.
Leftcoms criticize the soviet union because it was capitalist/state capitalist and not because unjust hierarchies did not empower the workers.
That's not the criticism. The criticism is of the counter revolution.
So is there any blog out here which is even remotely decent? Or is the only option to start reading those chapters (i was struggling recently with figuring out what kind of labour is value-producing and what kind of labour instead does not produce value as well as with prices of production and cost prices) without reading any blog first? You are right on the point that i should have included the counter-revolutionary nature of the soviet union as the main reason for criticism but i thought that went without saying as an isolated proletarian bastion can not help but becoming counter-revolutionary in the long term due to the capitalist structure ultimately determining the political superstructure. Thank you, anyway. What is wrong with that blog specifically?. I am rather worried with the state of mastery of the marxist critique of political economy among youthful battaglia comunista candidate members and symphatizers attending la sapienza university. I am the most interested in it out of the battaglia comunista students but i am dumber than a rock.
Capital is self explanatory, and Marx and Engels wrote commentaries and appendixes on it. There are various other items linked on this sub. If you need to have it drummed into you then you can read Sul Filo del Tempo where the ICP constantly hammer on the same points.
I would not recommend any blog or youtube channel. There is no way for you to know if they understand what they are talking about, or if they have any kind of bias if you haven't read the same things they have.
Was not sul Filo del Tempo written by Bordiga before the Battaglia-ICP split? My weariness of it stems from the fact that i tried to read a criticism of bourgeoise microeconomics written by a german left-communist group which was posted here a while ago and it mostly went over my head.
I found some parts of Capital that i read to be self-explainatory but for other parts i benefited from previous explainations so i may have to read Sul Filo del Tempo to drum in my head some points i am not sure about. For example i found the concepts of a relative surplus-value and of a falling rate of profit to be relatively accessible but exactly how and why capital is devalorized, which is related to the falling rate of profit, is harder to get my head around.
What are your criticisms of Brendan Cooney/Kapitalism 101? Watching his videos they seemed good, but I thought he might have too much of a substantive understanding of value.
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Furthermore, the reason our respective visions of the ideal communist society seem so similar is because they're precisely identical. A communist is a communist is a communist. We all want the same endgame. We disagree on how to get there.
You are completely wrong. Communism has no ideal society. Anarchists have an ideal society because they are idealists and utopians.
Marxists apply Marxist analysis not just to theory but to praxis as well, leading to an outright a theory of praxis
This makes no sense. You're using words wrongly because you don't understand what is the issue. Praxis is theory and practice combined.
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but what's the point?
Because we're communists and we don't want to pollute the world with any more nonsense. Even if we accept your pathetic quibbling over semantics, you'd still be wrong and you have no idea why.
ICC pamphlet
Do you even follow the sub?
will engaging you really lead you to become magically less hyper-aggressive and holier-than-thou?
I could tell that you're too stupid to be engaged with which is why you weren't banned. People like you just love to drag out their defense, which is just more fun for us.
I see, thanks for the response!
Thus the only real difference doesn't lay as much in the political organization of the post-revolutionary action (unlike the ML/MLMs and other authoritarians/non anarchists who differ), as in the relationship between practical and theoretical frameworks, right ?
Because I've always seen LC and AC separated, although at this point they're just the same thing, but the first one simply has a Marxist outlook in it.
I see, thanks for the response!
This is a bad response. Don't bother with them.
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Your post is wrong on nearly every level. Pretty shocking really.
Luxemburgism isn't a goddamn thing. I mean it sums up the rest of your post nicely though.
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You might not believe in it or you might not like it but that doesn't change the fact that luxemburgism is a thing
And people believe that the world is flat.
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Do other people here think the party is still relevant?
Yes.
I'm aware of some of the more well-known books/works regarding gender, etc., in general, as well as some Marxist works on the issue. I'm not sure if this is more belonging to Marxism 101, but I thought I'd ask here if only to avoid soc-dem-ish opinions which no doubt I'd get most anywhere else; I'm asking for any recommendations people have regarding works that tackle the above subjects, any and all that people here think are worthwhile, relevant and engaging. If pressed I could assemble a list of works I already know of but really I want to just get a range since its a subject I'm increasingly interested in.
Positive or negative I don't mind either; as long as the work is sound. I may cross-post this to Marxism 101 but if people think this doesn't belong here I'll just transfer it only to there.
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Well, there's the Engels Origins of the family book
I have this list on gender saved, it is very communizer oriented but the ones I've read from it is very good.
Seconding the list, it's really good.
Is anyone able to link to any articles or books on Marxist commentary of the software situation (i.e. proprietary software, FOSS, FLOSS, GNU, copyleft)?
I'm pretty sure I accurately guess what the judgement on these things would be (irrelevant to some extent), but was interested in reading a little more purely out of interest. Posted this question here because I don't think not fits in with the rules over at /r/Marxism_101.
Thank you.
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Not OP, but thank you for these, and thanks to /u/bootymagnet for posting the Wark interview. I read The Telekommunist Manifesto and am maybe halfway through Cyber-Marx.
What's your assessment of Kleiner's venture communism? I really appreciated his criticism of copyleft, but the whole segment on venture communism seemed like the kind of left liberals you find on /r/soc that think an economy full of cooperatives is socialism. I know he mentions that it's only a tactic and not a vision for society post-capital, and I think he deserves credit for that, but the whole schema still fell flat for me.
Cyber-Marx is much recommended, especially for its 9th chapter on the "General Intellect" and its privatization of the internal culture of humanity. Some space is given to discuss digital privatization.
McKenzie Wark of the New School is interesting in regards to your question, arguing that privatization of software leads to an information-centered portion of the capitalist class. This article outlines much of his work: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23265507.2016.1217165
Did the revolution "fail" to because it eliminated the soviet councils, or was socialism not achievable given Russian conditions in the first place? Or something else entirely?
Excuse my imprecise language, but hopefully the gist of my question is understood.
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It failed because the world revolution failed, which left Russia isolated. That combined with most Russians being peasants who have little interest in the communist movement.
Yeah but aren't peasants naturally suited to communism once land and agricultural production is expropriated from the land lord class? I understand that rural people often have reactionary social views but I think that mutual solidarity can overcome that given time.
Peasants who produce for subsistence do not depend on wages and are therefore not proletarian and have no reason to desire the abolition of Capital.
Riiiiiiight. Thank you. That answer clears up so much. I'm reading China Mieville's October and your answer clears up why so many people viewed Lenins opinion on the peasants as anachronistic. Same with Maoism. Am i correct in assuming that within the implications of your statement on peasants is the crux of disagreement between Maoism and Leninism?
How could a truly commune driven peasant socoety defend itself from industrialised imperial aggression? That's a contradictory notion, no?
Maoism's focus on the peasants shows that it an expression of a bourgeois revolution because the historical role of the peasantry is to become the national-bourgeoisie.
How is it a given that peasants become a national bourgeoisie?
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No, not really. A self-sufficient peasant is still a peasant. They only become petty bourgeoisie when they move onto bringing the majority of their own income/subsistence from the market.
so it depends on how harshly you think petit-bourgeois that dictates the approach of how to deal with them. Stalin just chose to liquidate them and nip it in the bud while Chavez/Maduro thought that peaceful coexistence was possible and now they're dealing with a Fifth Column? Would that be legitimate line of analysis in your view?
That glosses over a lot of issues. First, peasants aren't the same as the petty bourgeoisie, otherwise they wouldn't be peasants. And they're not the national bourgeoisie that Mao or Stalin spoke of. The problem in Russia was how to move the peasants on to be modern agricultural capitalists. This is what the collectivisation drive was all about. Peasants were rounded up and either put into state-farms or collective-farms. But it wasn't a complete success. The collective-farms ran basically as private enterprises. The collectives were legally entitled to the land, to property, in perpetuity, while at the same time were able to work their own private plots and deal with the product from them as they saw fit, always on the market. So you ended up with a situation where they had "million ruble" collective farms and where the private plots were more productive, and contributed more, to the Russian economy than the collective farms.
That's not who the national-bourgeoisie are specifically, not according to Mao anyway.
How could a truly commune driven peasant socoety defend itself from industrialised imperial aggression? That's a contradictory notion, no?
The Maoist solution was to "democratize" access to the industrial production process.
There's a great text called Sorghum and Steel if you're interested.
Yeah but aren't peasants naturally suited to communism once land and agricultural production is expropriated from the land lord class?
No.
At least not in Russia at the time. Russia still had vestiges of feudal relations but was mass industrializing along Capitalist lines in the cities, however this was a small minority when compared to the vast number of peasants in the country.
The peasants had won their "liberation" in the mid 1800s. Land was privatized and given to peasant households. Peasants grew enough food to sustain themselves and then additional surplus was dumped directly to the subjective market for sale. Same for local handicrafts. The peasants had direct access to the Capitalist market and direct control over a large percentage of their surplus value. The Russian Revolution would have effectively cut their access to a lucrative market and their reaction was along the same lines as the bourgeoisie.
This is why in both the USSR and in China there was an effort to "proletarianize" the peasantry, but this faced resistence due to the preferred direct market access.
Ok. That makes total sense. If you live on a self-sustaining agricultural enterprise then you are really not in the same predicament as an industrial worker. So the New Economic Policy was a concession to that fact until Stalin and later Mao collectivized agricultural output.
The New Economic Policy basically allowed the kulak class to continue by letting them sell their surplus grain to feed the cities. Why did Stalin scrap this arrangement? Was it just to consolidate his own power as his detractors claim or was there a justification for it? Or was there some justifications but he took it a weird direction just to consolidate power?
So the New Economic Policy was a concession to that fact until Stalin and later Mao collectivized agricultural output.
It was also partly a concession to the fact that the peasant was the majority in Russia. I've also read elsewhere that the peasant in China isn't completely, or nearly as, comparable to the western conception of it, and that it's only partly through Marxist hagiography that we've come to believe this.
The New Economic Policy basically allowed the kulak class to continue by letting them sell their surplus grain to feed the cities. Why did Stalin scrap this arrangement? Was it just to consolidate his own power as his detractors claim or was there a justification for it? Or was there some justifications but he took it a weird direction just to consolidate power?
The NEP lead to an economic crisis and the only way to over come that was to destroy the traditional peasant way of life, which wasn't able to modernize, supposedly, the way that it was planned under the NEP.
What was the crisis? The only crisis I'm familiar with was the Ukrainian famine that was caused by the subsequent Stalinist collectivist efforts? I'm open to any source that contradicts that narrative, I jist haven't come across it as a Westerner.
The famous scissor crisis.
The NEP was an overture to both the peasant class as well as the petite bourgeoisie.
Smallholder peasants can not support a growing and industrialized nation. All nations collectivized their agriculture output and "proletarianize" the peasantry, both Capitalist and "Socialist" societies such a the USSR.
Yeah you're right because agriculture in the US is almost a completely separate economy.
There wasn't enough grain being sold to the cities.
Also, Kulaks were hoarding and slaughtering animals.
There was no way to have socialism in a country like Russia. The peasant question was unsolvable on a national scale so it was really the failure of the revolution in Germany that really ended it.
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Your comment is only valid if the revolution truly failed. How do you define success? Was the USSR not able to produce a massive and sustained increase in the quality of life and material conditions of >100,000,000 people?
Nice social democracy here, amigo.
Yes, it didn't lead to a classless, stateless society.
You answer your own questions. It failed to achiev communism/socialism.
Your comment is only valid if the revolution truly failed. How do you define success? Was the USSR not able to produce a massive and sustained increase in the quality of life and material conditions of >100,000,000 people?
You mean it succeeded in the bourgeois revolution?
Yes, it didn't lead to a classless, stateless society. And yes, revisionist counter revolutionaries changed its course (as has happened in China). However, to say the project was a failure of the Russian revolution and not a failure of the world revolution or a success by reactionary imperialist Western governments, in my opinion, is false.
One of the reasons as to why the world revolution failed was the policies enacted by the party leadership abandoning world revolution, which killed the revolution in Russia.
in my opinion
Your opinion doesn't mean shit.
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Good stuff
good read
I think they're really good, though they tend to overstate grand, all-encompassing narratives a bit.
Decent but not amazing, they're too "neo-Marxist" and I'm not crazy about Communization either.
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Marxism, in its sole valid definition, has three main groups of adversaries today. The first group: the bourgeoisie who proclaim the capitalist commodity type of economy to be permanent and its historical abolition and replacement by the socialist mode of production to be illusory, and consistently reject in its entirety the doctrine of economic determinism and the class struggle. The second group: the so-called Stalinist communists, who declare that they accept the Marxist doctrine of history and economics, but who advocate and defend, even in the highly developed capitalist countries, non-revolutionary demands, which are identical to, when not worse than, the politics (democracy) and economics (popular progressivism) of the traditional reformists. The third group: the self-declared advocates of the revolutionary doctrine and method who, nonetheless, attribute its current abandonment by the majority of the proletariat to defects and initial gaps in the theory that must therefore be rectified and brought up to date.
-Bordiga
I feel like Endnotes veers into that third category a bit
They continuously drive their point home that their critique is not one of the old workers' movement having the wrong ideas. They argue throughout History of Separation that the programmatism of the old workers' movement was appropriate to its era (see the Afterword especially).
Otto Rühles abridgement of Capital
What does everyone here think about it? I always recommend it to new readers.
For those who haven't heard of it, it's essentially the original (nothing added) but with the fat cut out (obsolete examples, superfluous literary references, etc.).
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I'd just start with the original.
Why?
If understanding Marx is the goal, the original is much more bloated and sluggish to get through. There is definitely value in reading the original, but that value lies more in understanding Marx as a person and intellectual in history. Just my opinion.
Yeah, I'm impatient and don't enjoy slugging though it all. I'd rather read a good abridgement and get 90% of the content than read the original and understand an unknown percentage. Consider how many notes I'd have to take or passages reread if I read the original because of how hard it is to read, and how much I'd forget if I read a lot because my memory is bad.
Most people don't want to read long 19th century political theory. I can, I have, but I really hate doing it. Their style is so annoying to read and hard for me to understand without a lot of annotating.
I don't personally have anything against it. I just don't think it does the work justice.
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Capital is full of references and polemics which are only of historical interest and does nothing to justify his arguments to a modern reader. That was all relevant in his time, not so much nowadays. Do you have some glaring example where Rühles abridgement cut out relevant justification? It is of course not even near perfect, but it does make the text significantly more accessible.
Maybe it lacks the justification it once had, but since that justification is wasted on a non-academic, modern reader anyways, what harm is done removing it?
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Labor unions, at least in the US, are nothing other than a commercial entity, of a clearly capitalist type, that attempts to realize on behalf of of the proletariat the maximum price for wage labor. Labor unions are an entity through which the revolutionary tendencies of the proletariat are bargained with, bought and sold, and revolutionary fervor is negotiated on terms of increased wages or marginally better working conditions and not in terms of full abolition and liberation.
Increased wages and better working conditions, however, are obviously in the interests of the proletariat and improves their situation at the moment which is good but do not expect them to be the organs of proletariat revolution.
Workers' councils >>>>>>>>>> trade unions
they are another capitalist business.
If anything, strongly support those that take radical action or really organize for the cause. Anything else supports the status quo that has allowed for wages to stagnate.
Pretty much this. In the United States since the Taft-Hartley act defanged union radicalism the majority of unions have become nothing more than another support structure of the status quo whose bureaucratic structures are more interested in maintaining their positions of influence than workers' rights hence the steady decline of unionization outside of public sector workers.
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This video does a great job at explaining the left communist perspective on world war 2 (how it was a barbaric massacre and not a defense against tyranny and dictatorship), and the actual motives for the allies and axis going to war. Ignore the pearl harbor advance knowledge conspiracy theory stuff in this.
Leftists tend to be pretty bad with the idea of wide sweeping conspiracies especially in regards to the ruling class. Hanlon's Razor always needs to be kept in mind especially in regards to global politics. Never attribute malice to anything that can be more easily explained by gross, ignorant incompetence.
Edit: Awesome video though I really enjoyed it even with the Pearl Harbor conspiracy.
Bit off topic but some Stalinist in /r/Socialism compared revolutionary defeatism in WWII to saying "I'm equally against both" with a rapist and rape victim. It always amazes me how ridiculous "Socialists" get with WWII.
Anytime WWII is mentioned /r/socialism becomes /r/AlliesWorship.
I recently saw a few comments on here (don't remember where exactly) which were kind of disparaging about communization theory, a tendency which up till that point I had always kind of conflated with present-day Left Communism. Communization theory obviously heavily builds on Left Communism, but I was wondering what some left communists think about it. I could see Gilles Dauve being closer to the classical Left Communist position than for instance Theorie Communiste and Endnotes.
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Communization theory is very broad, so even within the movement itself there will be many differences. For one, "communization" theorists like Tiqqun are marginally different from insurrectionary anarchists, while Dauvé draws almost entirely from classical leftcom tendencies; he even makes the point that the Italian left communists would probably view communization as too councilist and the council communists would probably view it as too Bordigist. In my opinion, communization theory does an excellent job at ruthlessly criticizing all that exists, so I would put it within the ultra-leftist tendency. But it's important to remember that "left communism" and "ultra-leftism" and arbitrary categorizations that shouldn't be strictly used, especially considering they were first used in a pejorative manner.
Also, the separation of the currents into nice little ideological "boxes" is pretty much against Marxism, and it create dogmatic thinking. But you should read more and decide for yourself.
I wasn't trying to categorize the theory so much as hear some critiques of it from the point of view of the historical tendency which it grew out of. To confront it with its own history, if you will. I wanted to see the real differences in praxis developed under different circumstances, and not just arbitrarily categorize "theories" (or, conversely, to arbitrarily universalize, ignoring the differences in conditions which these different theories took part in)
Wrong person
Whoops. Both of you made similar points about arbitrary categorization of "ideological schools"
Well, leftcomm views vary, especially since it only existed as a historical tendency. Many users here agree with communization, others are iffy. Communization varies too, but it seems as if most users here agree with the endnotes critiques and development.
Also, the separation of the currents into nice little ideological "boxes" is pretty much against Marxism, and it create dogmatic thinking. But you should read more and decide for yourself.
Your last sentence shows your, er, newness to it all, separating Dauvé from Endnotes (you know he is apart of the endnotes project, right?) as if it is an ideological battle. Edit: this is wrong, disregard it.
" Marxism is not a matter of choice between conflicting opinions, in the sense that Marxism is connected with a historic tradition." -Bordiga
Your last sentence shows your, er, newness to it all, separating Dauvé from Endnotes (you know he is apart of the endnotes project, right?) as if it is an ideological battle.
He's not.
Thanks for the correction.
Endnotes posted like one convo between Dauve and TC and hasn't done much with him since. They're really not all that similiar outside of being ultra-left theorists.
Well Endnotes issue 1 was pretty much just a collection of old Dauve texts.
It's not an ideological battle. It's praxis: the differing theorizations of Dauve and Endnotes arise out of different struggles and histories, and entail different courses of action. Of course they don't fit into boxes, because they've always been embroiled in the mess of historical situations. But there are real differences too, and these differences are not just "ideological" or "abstractions" or whatever.
You're right, but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the users who think that life is about choosing between the more correct ideology, which is what I was mentioning.
Ah fair enough
The Internationalist Workers Group in the US is having an online meeting this coming Thursday, April 6th, 7pm (-6 UMT/GMT). On topic of discussion is charting a new way forward for organized left communism in the US in the light of our expulsion of the GIO group in Canada. We're set on reworking our statutes, our platform and rebuilding a stronger and better organization. We also want to give sympathizers and members a chance to speak and we will do our best to field your questions. Anyone who is interested should PM me for connection info.
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I am interested, and a few other people might be as well. How can one join?
You can contact me at northcentraliwg@gmail.com for details on how one joins the IWG. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have.
Could you clarify the time if we're on the US east coast?
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Is it 8pm eastern or 9pm eastern?
9 pm eastern daylight savings time (EDT), my mistake
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That would be six pm EST?
8pm eastern would be 40 mins from now. 9pm eastern would be 100 mins from now.
This starts at 8pm eastern -- in 15 mins.
My apologies, I was in error. I am UTC -5 because of daylight savings time. I'll still be on and people can join in and recap.
What site was it on?
It was a Skype call.
I never got any info, but thanks.
For clarification: The Internationalist Workers' Group is an affiliate of the Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT).
Hey, just curious to know which online meeting tool you guys used for your international worker group online meeting? Did you use tools like webex, R-HUB web conferencing servers, Skype for business etc. or something else?
They are trotskyist i think and founded by Raya Dunayevskaya.
I am more specifically asking what ICC (international communist current) affiliated people think of it, and Left-Communists in general.
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Aren't Bordigists and Council Communists also stuck in the past? Personally I think we need to take the worthy lessons from various sorts of theorists, tendencies and movements without trying to dogmatically repeat them, if you came to similar conclusions that's fine but people need to critically apply such lessons and adapt to new circumstances. It is however true that as long as capitalism is around, theory and practice should have a certain consistency.
What exactly is stuck in the past? I don't think that there's anything in the present situation that requires an updating of Marxist theory. Maybe your perspective on what Marxism is needs to be re-evaluated rather than trying to re-evaluate Marxism.
I'm not re-evaluating Marxism though. It's just people need to advance Marxism and this means not clinging to things that are relevant to particular circumstances that don't exist right now. Limiting organization to worker councils or to the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat doesn't make any sense when neither off those things exist. Lenin didn't argue for Soviets because Marx told him to. It's not really Marxist theory that needs updating but Marxist prescriptions.
It's just people need to advance Marxism
What does this even mean and what needs to be advanced?
Limiting organization to worker councils or to the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat doesn't make any sense when neither off those things exist. Lenin didn't argue for Soviets because Marx told him to. It's not really Marxist theory that needs updating but Marxist prescriptions.
You're making an argument of a problem that doesn't exist. It's the people who "advance" Marxism are the ones who argue this way. Not me, and not anyone who's worth their Marxist salt.
Marxism is a dialectical movement/theory, meaning that it is always in flux and constantly changing and adapting to the always changing state of capitalist society. To say Marxism doesn't need 'updating' or be 're-evalutated' is frankly an anti-Marxist position.
I repeat, what exactly needs to be updated? What huge new development in capitalist production requires an update of Marxist positions? Has the failure of past revolutionary movements, and current struggles, been because the milieu have not properly understood Hegel's dialectic? Marxism isn't a dogma that requires updates. And it's clear that you are rudderless in this argument. Previously you were attempting to put forward that Dunayevskaya "expanded" on Marxism, and then back tracked, faulted, and admitted that she only re-emphasized Marx.
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Bordigists do exist, and actually do things. Unlike council communists who, through their drift into anti-partyism, dissolved themselves as a tendency.
Fair enough.
I'm pretty sure Bordigists don't have anything to do with communization theory.
Humanist Marxism isn't a tendency though. It's been designated as one, but in reality, it's just a school of thought that places more emphasis on Marx's earlier works rather than following the Althusserian anti-humanist current that believes Capital to be the summation of Marx's ideas. Raya used to be a Third Camp Trotskyist, but she broke with virtually every tendency and focused on the philosophy of humanist Marxism. However, because Marxist humanists tend to disagree with Leninism and its focus on "Mature Marx" (Marxist humanists usually don't make a distinction between "Young" and "Mature" Marx either), most Marxist humanists are leftcoms. However, like I said before, it's not an actual tendency in its own right, and is primarily a system of hermeneutics.
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Ah, my apologies, but I do agree, there aren't many good Marxist humanist journals left since Raya died and the Praxis School dissolved. I myself am a Marxist humanist but I'm also a communizer. I agree with you in that the anti-humanist camp should've died off long ago, because it's just another shitty reminder of Althusser's legacy.
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Tiqqun is really bad about this, but Dauvé is pretty humanist himself and I know he's criticized Althusser before.
u/Fonaaldan I wanted you to see this as well
pardon me?
your point?
here this is from last week:https://www.reddit.com/r/leftypolitics/comments/60yb5z/new_energy_source_discovered_to_replace_fracking/
i think i have bad shit buried at the bottom somewhere too.
cool. good enough answer.
They may make some nice pieces about political economy and mundane shit like that that you can find any decent Marxist (or even Marx) work. However, they all hold the worst political positions. Some times they're just outright trots, some times they're outright degenerate trots.
Raya was IST affiliated (american section of schactmanites), extra-hegelian and humanist marxist all at once. I am reading her over at marxists.org... you dont get all that at once. she does stuff on hegel, capital, and lenin's hegel notebooks, and was thrown down stairs for being a trot.
What's the point in rehashing Marx and then to turn around and support the same Trot positions?
coolness?
Read this if you're unfamiliar.
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Their works on Detroit workers and radical black workers are great. But I'm more a fan of Dunayevskaya than James, and really only after Dunayevskaya said that Trotsky was wrong, too.
Trots suck
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Yeah, she was for a while. When the Johnson-Forest Tendency was a thing, she was a Trot, participating in a Trot party. I mean, she was Trotsky's secretary for a short while in Mexico.
Once she broke with CLR James and Trotsky, though, she made important contributions to theory.
Once she broke with CLR James and Trotsky, though, she made important contributions to theory.
Not really. They're not new contributions if she is claiming to put Marx back into Marxism.
There are different Marx's (Hegelian, analytic, humanist, (post-)structuralist, young, old etc.), depending on how you read him (I admit some readings are better than others). It therefore isn't really as straightforward as you claim 'to put Marx back into Marxism'. That being said, what Dunayevskaya did was to further scrutinize the Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts of 1844, in order to expand on the yet under-theorized humanist and Hegelian side of Marx. Solely due to her reemphasizing and further development of the concept of alienated labour in a capitalist society she already made an important contribution to Marxist theory, because she managed to highlight a part of Marx which wasn't paid attention to as much as it should.
It is by the way obvious that you're speaking from a position of ignorance, and that you probably haven't read much (or even anything) written by her with care, for otherwise you would most certainly have a more nuanced view on her. In your comments you by the way often come across as rude, disrespectful, and arrogant about you're own (as you probably think, 'superior') understanding of Marx and Marxism. I really hope you stop doing this. Everyone is here to learn from others and better their understanding of capitalist society, which is a fundamental part of what it means to do politics. You being arrogant and disrespectful to others won't help anyone in their intellectual development, but will only leave them with a bad taste in their mouth.
in order to expand on the yet under-theorized humanist and Hegelian side of Marx
She isn't the only person to do this, and only reaffirming the ideas already contained in Marx isn't the same as developing new theory. But what's the point in having this expanded theory if all that amounts to her tendency are the same old Trotskyite talking points and political programs? You write a lot of nothing, over many sentences, like spreading butter thinly over a piece of bread.
It is by the way obvious that you're speaking from a position of ignorance, and that you probably haven't read much (or even anything) written by her with care
I've read nearly everything available. I've also read a lot more than just Dunayevskaya (I can even write her name correctly without having to look it up). But this is an easy dismissal to make as it doesn't require an actual rebuttal.
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Why should I waste my time trying to argue with someone up to their eye balls in ideology? Purely for the simple reason that other people might not be suckered in to your romanticized notion of a dogmatic Marxism.
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This is how old Plekhanov acted when Lenin began to trounce him opportunism.
If the miners are able to give their produce to whoever they wish, or use it however they wish, then this means that there is a possibility that people who really need it would miss out
I know Bordiga was for a technocratic planned economy essentially, but I want to hear what those against a planned economy make of this?
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Capitalism creates its own scarcity by divorcing the producer from the product of their labour and the institution of private property.
The central tenent of Marx's thinking was critique of all things. To him this was what communism was. Paired of course with the essence of that which seeks to abolish the present state of things, the working class. This means no idealistic construction of a perfect society a lá Plato's republic.
Yet it is unarguable fact that everything to do with human activity is itself human-planned. Take any supermarket. The products lining the shelf had to be placed there by a worker. The worker had to get the from the back. The store needed a lorry to deliver the goods it needed. That lorry needed to pick up that store's goods from a warehouse. That warehouse needed various consumer goods to arrive from all accross the country to even have them in the first place.
The point is all these production relations are planned and coordinated in a market economy. When you abolish private property, wages, the state, money and all that, then what will have changed about these, and specifically these, "organisation of production" questions? Nothing.
If you're wondering how the market allocates labour then Das Kapital might be a better help. But so far as I understand your question the miners would already know who needs their ores because, in the past, they've always been sending them to so-and-so and their number is on that desk over there in the office...
Yes, and that too is how I envision communism, but I don't know if I trust the miners to not use the scarce resource for purposes that wouldn't constitute the 'best possible allocation' of said resource. For instance, using that particular material in their home town rather than a better usage in another country
Collective production means collective responsibility. These people would surely reach a consensus that their collective labour would be best invested in the best collective return for their labour - the best use. It may well be a matter of talking to them arguing that, yeah you could send it here and get 5 widgets tomorrow (boy do we love widgets) or ship it, and get 10 in a week. That seems clear enough.
But let's say that they collectively refuse. Here we can see something has gone wrong. Maybe if they don't get their widgets something bad happens so they have to. The entire scenario depends. But in any case, without any other recourse left, with all available avenues pursued, it is not objectionable to state that a greater need must be fulfilled than that of theirs so why not replace them (fire them, remove them, get other people)? We are, after all human, and allowed to disagree. It is not a likely thing to ever occur but these resources are of some use and so we must serve the greater good.
My heart isn't into this thinking - In fact I'd argue it never comes to this under communism. People would be too well educated to not recognise the clear benefits of co-operating. (And I'm not talkin' 'bout no educatin' as we know it. Capitalist education is "just smart enough to run the machines".)
Doesn't production for some reward from the the people you produce for, mean exchange, and thus, not truly communistic?
In my view, communism would entail the abolition of private-property, and the realization that those who produce for you, you may not produce for all the time, and those you produce for, may not necessarily produce for you. Hence, the exchange-relation would be extinguished.
My worry is that the collective of workers would decide to use these scarce resources in a way that prevented their 'optimal' usage, for instance, not choosing to use their resource in a medical drug, but use it to decorate their home town, or something similar.
It seems like the post-scarcity of Marx's day, with less than a billion people in the world, is perhaps not feasible anymore, with the population having multiplied many times since then
But I don't particularly know, I don't know is the abolition of private-property, even if inevitable, would really work with the current resource and land scarcity.
Do you think it could?
Well the issue of these workers refusing to work i.e striking did strike me as a bit contrived.
My worry is that the collective of workers would decide to use these scarce resources in a way that prevented their 'optimal' usage, for instance, not choosing to use their resource in a medical drug, but use it to decorate their home town, or something similar.
I think this reveals more than anything your anxiety that motivates this question. Why would workers ever do something so clearly against collective interest. Why would a group of people ever reach that consensus? It takes some specificity to address any aspect of this question which would ultimately require us to already exist in communism to answer to any degree above mere speculation.
Onto your question of land and resource scarcity, I would disagree. Entirely. Capitalism must reproduce scarcity first to reproduce itself. It is, de facto, a system where large numbers of people cannot be given access to anything that might allow them to sustain themselves. Its logic is essentially all-encompassing. Hence the apparent urgency of the question of scarcity.
It can only ever be so, under the logic of the market. Gross over-production in some areas, massive shortages in others, the free hand needing "correction" etc. If the whole blasted lot were abolished I don't doubt that we would want for anything, if we were willing to work for it.
That's the thing about commodities, they obscure the humanity behind the thing and assume real relations between each other. Humans are subordinated to the whims of the market, the logic of capital, the law of value. Yet this entire world, warts and all, is made by humans. The young have no houses because the market dictates they are needed instead to serve as speculatice financial assets. The old, infirm are told that if they have no "effective demand"(Money) then they are on their own. Banks can literally make money out of thin air but are still forced to ask the government for bailouts when the entire sorry network collapses(when that money could just as well have been spent on useful things.) If society is organised on the principle of need, then why should we passively accept the world as it is today? No. Clearly we'd shape it to serve humanity. Not to mention the fact that we no longer need a finance person. That's a lot of available people who'll be able to do useful tasks rather than just look busy in an office.
Okay, thank you for clearing up the question of scarcity.
Do you think it is worth having a system where people cannot access some of the more scarce resources, and instead must almost 'prove' their need for said resources? Or is this a step too far? Perhaps the state or some organic organ preventing the wasteful usage of scarce resources is in order?
Also, do you think that this 'collective interest' would extend globally, enough to essentially form global consensus on the best usages for scarce resources, strong enough so that resource allocation was far closer to optimal than it is today?
I need a document to send to someone who is riddled with communist propaganda. I want to say to them "this is what actual communism is" and give them something but I don't know what.
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In addition, The Critique of the Gotha Program.
If money and the police are abolished, how exactly does the state continue to exist as a body with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence? Moreover, how can it suppress the bourgeoisie and reactionaries without these apparatus?
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There won't be a state. It's as simple as that.
To quote Engels:
it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.
This is a great question, but better suited for our sister sub /r/marxism_101/.
You might be asking how society would function without money or the state.
I think there are some options, it may look different for different people and places but one way would be to have small groups of people self organize around certain jobs. Essentially committees who organize labor.
One difference is its more demand driven. You would have a demand for good or materials and would declare that demand, those who can produce those goods or materials would produce them and fulfill the demand. Those who aren't sure what to do or what the priorities are would ask the committes. They would find out what are the highest demand goods or services and then based on their skills or interest they would figure out how to fulfill that demand. You could imagine software to help organize labor.
You can also envision ways to distribute labor for jobs nobody wants to do. Such as assigning everyone to smaller terms at the job. You can also imagine that worker safety becomes paramount, people simply won't work a job that isn't sufficiently safe. If the job needs to be done people will invest heavily in finding out ways to make it safe enough for people to actually do it.
There are a ton of jobs that are essentially completely pointless in this society, such as bankers and financial advisors, etc. There is an enormous amount of labor spent in a capitalist society on meta labor: labor related to money and advertising and government and securing and managing money.
A lot of aspects of society would likely change as well. The idea of every individual family having their own property and house doesn't really make sense. Food preparation and distribution would be more communal. Education would be free and voluntary.
Check out the book The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin as a good vision of how it could work. Or read about the Spanish revolution, there is a pretty good documentary with actual revolutionaries talking about how production worked while it lasted.
Regarding violence, it's up to individuals to be vigilant and protect the ideals of the society. You wouldn't necessarily have the bourgois in a society with no money, ideally all the members would be on board with the philosophy. Everybody enforces justice as they see fit, with the understanding that so would their neighbors.
How you kick start that society is a harder question. The Spanish did it through a lot of discourse social unity but then again they also ended up having to fight fascists and communists and eventually lost. Others think you have to start out with an authoritarian communist state then transition into social anarchism. This may be where Cuba is at right now, hard to say how that is going to pan out. It's also hard to say if it's possible to start out with that kind of blood on your hands and have it be worth it morally speaking.
whats up liberal?
hi everyone. apologies in advance if y'all get this sort of thing a lot. I tried searching for some answers in old posts but couldn't find much.
I'm interested in learning more about left-communism but I'm having trouble making sense of what exactly it is and what leftcoms believe. I've read a couple pieces on the sidebar, but a lot of the beliefs held there seem to contradict one another. I can't make sense of how council communism and whatever bordiga is advocating for can in any way be combined. Is left-communism just an umbrella term for a bunch of groups that don't actually agree with each other or is there some sort of coherent view that comes out of these seemingly contradictory groups?
Also I've seen left-coms tend to side against ML's and such when it comes to atrocities (holodomor, gulags etc) committed by the Soviet Union and other Cold War-era self-proclaimed socialist regimes. What do leftcoms believe is the cause of these failures on the part of cold-war states and how do they believe these problems can be avoided in future revolutions?
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Council communists and Bordigists were in the left wing of the 3rd International. The two disagreed on plenty, but modern left communists typically take influence from both.
To be clear, both agreed that the USSR failed to transcend capitalism.
To me, the usefulness of Bordiga lies in him disregarding whether the USSR was democratic, and analyzing the economics of the USSR as capitalist; the state maintained wage labor, as a means of accumulating capital. He emphasized content over form. Similarly, he emphasized that a revolution with councils was not enough - it must be socialist in content, which he saw the vanguard party as important in stressing.
The councilists might say the USSR was not democratic enough, that workers councils would have prevented atrocities. Bordigists might emphasize that the USSR was interested in maintaining itself as manager of capital, and in maintaining the proletariat as subservient to it. I think Bordiga himself would view capitalism itself as atrocity, and massacres and the like as crucial to maintaining capital.
I would say that the Russian Civil War was a Pyrrhic victory for the proletariat. It "won" the war with such losses that it lost control of the USSR. At the same time, international revolution failed to materialize (including failed revolts in Germany and Italy), leading Russia to isolate itself and struggle to survive in a capitalist world, unable to survive except on the terms of value and capital. International proletarian revolution is the only thing that can abolish capitalism.
The stickied post at the top of this sub, "The USSR Was a Capitalist Society," summarizes it this way:
State capitalism is not a new form of economy nor is it a transitional form between capitalism and socialism: it is pure capitalism, and appeared along with all the other forms of monopoly in the period of the victory of the bourgeoisie over the feudal powers. On the other hand, the capital-state relation lies at the basis of the bourgeois economy in all of its stages.
In short;
Capitalists existed in Russia. Both social and actual individuals. The state took the form of a capitalist and also the collective farms and peasants with their private plots. Markets existed, even free markets, including a black market. There were even "soviet millionaires". Private property was enshrined by law in the collective farms.
Capital ran Russia. The law of value made itself felt by the shifting changes in prices and wages and on what was produced. Profit existed, in fact, it was made into a legal requirement for state firms to make a profit. Speculation existed in the countryside with their markets.
Labour was alienated, there was a constant drive to push down wages and make labour more productive (along capitalist lines, of course). Relative freedom was only awarded due to the need for labour in the process of industrialisation. Still, unemployment was wide spread.
Russia was not tending towards or transitioning to socialism/communism only to be thwarted at the last minute by "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders".
To the other subscribers in this sub, reading that, I have always heard that unemployment did not exist in the USSR. Does anyone know what source gives that information that was widespread? /u/red-rooster - can you help?
How authoritarian was Bordiga exactly? I have heard differing commentary on this but I am interested in how authoritarianism would actually lead to worker councils to begin with. Would this be purely transitional? It seems incompatible.
Um... that would be hard to quantify. Personally, i reject the "authoritarian / libertarian" dichotomy (though I can say with certainty that I hate cops & prisons).
He would not say that councils were a necessary component of socialism or even the DoTP. To him, socialism being more a matter of the abolition of the law of value and all its forms - money, capital, etc., in other words objects holding social power over people. Accordingly, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would be the imposition of this abolitionist authority (in one way or another) by those who produce value, because in producing value, these people reproduce a society ruled by value, and as such, they hold the power to abolish that society, but the specific way they organize themselves to do so is not so important as their tasks.
He differs from the council communists in advocating the DoTP being led by the vanguard party, with the most advanced (class conscious) parts of the proletariat leading the fight to abolish value. The councilists advocated organization & resistance at the point of production, organizing unions, etc. to lead communist resistance in the workplace, with the mass strike being fundamental to revolution.
I think that at the same time, while he believed in a strong vanguard party, he didn't see it as absolutely necessary either - his critique of the councils being that they prioritized form over content. Nonetheless, Bordiga does think that the most class-conscious people would do best as accomplishing those tasks and he describes the vanguard party pretty well here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/fundamental-theses.htm especially in Section 2 - Tasks of the Party.
Thanks.
I know a lot of people dislike the whole spectrum thing but I'm a visual aspie so it helps to fit things into models that present a bigger picture even if it's not 100% cut and dry.
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Rude passengers will drink alcohol inside your car with their buddies without even asking you even though it risks your job and car. It has zero-effect on them because even if you get fired for their irresponsibility, they can always get another car. And if we taddle on them for bringing alcohol, it’s just a slap on the wrist for them and everyone moves on with life.
Tips used to be discouraged on the Uber platform but that’s been brainwashed into the heads of everyone to the point that it’s spread to the Lyft side – which does encourage tipping, but the Uber Effect has made its impact – so that tipping is practically nonexistent anywhere anymore.
You can earn more money late at night when bars are closing – but risk passengers vomiting in your car. You can avoid all that by working during the day, but you’ll have to work longer hours because the pay is less.
Now that they added UberEats, it gets mixed in with the ride requests. If an area is surging with higher rates for rides, you’ll be bombarded with Eats requests instead because drivers want the higher fares and don’t want to deliver food. (Food delivery isn’t affected by the surge.) If you keep declining the delivery requests because you want those surged rides, your acceptance rate goes down, and you’re at risk of deactivation.
It’s tough for the driver to win at anything in this industry.
It will be interesting where this new gig economy leads to, especially with respect to workers fightbacks. My intuition is that struggles against Uber et al,are going to somewhat structurally limited, given the increasing isolation and atomization of workers. This of course has implications for groups such as the IWW or other more conventional unions.
Interesting is an interesting way to put it, but I totally agree.
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First issue of the Kontra klasa magazine, published online by an internationalist collective of the same name from Zagreb, Croatia. Right now it's only in Serbo-croatian, but we'll translate some of it in a month or two :)
This is the only thing on English rn, the "About us" article:http://kontraklasa.org/about-us/
Looking forward to the translations, my friend :)
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Great text. Both Matticks write/wrote really readable and clear expositions.Thanks for sharing!
How is it that we have so many people who understand what it is to be "left communist" (What the ever the hell that is), and yet we haven't made an effort to create a central intelligence to work together? Is the time not right to start doing this collectively? I see theoreticians expounding criticisms of today's socioeconomic and political economy, like Dauve, but why is there no effort to start creating an organization for the discussion between all of these thinkers? I mean, we have the internet, to create a network of ultra-leftists is only a matter of dedicating time. We know the theory, and I feel like we are now at the time were it makes sense for it to organically actualize itself.
EDIT: Please read, I never mentioned building a class party or revolution. It is more of, "Why isn't there a network of ulrta-leftist babies"
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material conditions no good today try tomorrow ok
How are they not?
Yeah why are they not?
I need a magic leftism 8-ball with phrases like that on it
No thanks. I like my centralism to be organic and gluten free. Also, if you self admittedly don't know what left communism means then why did you post here to begin with?
I wasn't speaking of left communism as something to be understood, I understand it. I was merely making fun of the fact that using it in such a way implies it to be an ideology to be followed.
Also, how would this not be organic? We have the means, we have the people, we need the blueprints.
Because we don't crown ourselves the vanguard that's not how it works.
Sure, as individuals, but we know those who are apart of it, as they arise on their own.
Right, a vanguard will arise out of revolutionary action. You're sort of Lego building the revolution right now.
I think you're confused. /u/zanta78 was asking why are we not organizing the party, not just a vanguard.
No, I didn't confuse the party with the vanguard, the party only exists in revolutionary times. I was asking about the collection of the vanguard, preparty.
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This is pretty typical on this subreddit.
People conflate the vanguard party with organisation in the present day, assuming anyone who organises is building a mass party (which is nonsense, of course, even when it comes to Trotskyists). They misinterpret the critique of opportunism as a critique of communist work in general.
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Seeing Lenin as a wholly negative figure.
So this would be a question more fitted for revolutionary times?
I don't think it's something we even need to worry about. We don't need to plan the vanguard just like we don't need to plan or build a party. Those arise organically out of the working class taking action to liberate itself. It's not our job to build the organs for organization, it's the proletariats as a whole to do that.
There will always be an advanced section of the proletariat, le scary vangaurd, so it's always going to be organic. What are you if not this if you are here posting? The class party itself is an organ, and it is composed of these people who arise organically out of the class struggle.
I know we speak of that a lot, but what has that looked like in practice? Specifically, that is, what are some examples of truly proletarian parties and what events collected them.
Also, what are we to do as proletarians? As communists? Maybe that is a question for another thread.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think of it, I believe it to be a flawed question, as it would require an ideological basis to answer it.
All proletarian revolutions throughout history were done because of the conditions in which gave rise to them, and none of them had a party leading the head of them into battle. They were spontaneous uprisings that eventually gave way to organization through the proletariat dealing with the conditions in which they were operating. That's how it should be, organization should include the entirety of the proletariat and not just those who already think of themselves as enlightened communists.
As far as what we do now, focus on theory. Read and write as much as you can and volunteer on the basis of just helping people who need it.
and none of them had a party leading the head of them into battle.
This opinion of yours probably comes about through a poor understanding of history.
organization should include the entirety of the proletariat
It can't and it shouldn't. Only a minority will ever be communists before, during and after any sort of revolutionary insurrection.
I agree, especially considering that being a communist is outside of communizing. The communist have a understanding of where the revolution comes from and why, which gives them a perspective of how to encourage it. The proletariat will exist outside of organizations until they grow organically from communization during revolution, but the communist will gather on intellectual grounds to strengthen the revolution by conducting these organic organs of the proletariat to communize them.
I like my centralism not, as in I don't like centralism. Not even Bordiga's magic centralism, but not version.
There are organizations that are leftcomm, its just that the ideology is small to begin with and was/is overshadowed by idealistic/authoritarian tendencies in marxism (Leninism and its variants, anarchism, etc.) so they are tinee-tiny in comparison to more successful parties (Communist party of Japan, IWW)
Edit: Here is a list of all the leftcomm parties that currently exist http://www.broadleft.org/leftcomm.htm
There are many organisations you can join. Some of them are linked in the sidebar.
We live in a time of a lack of revolutionary activity so trying to form a mass party would be impossible and useless.
Who said anything about a mass party?
I never mentioned a class party.
You should have because this is what you are talking about.
What other type of communist party is there? The vanguard party is an organ of class rule.
We would all get killed by CIA
True, I doubt they're not too worried about trots anymore...
I mean isn't this forum and example? Not that I am interested in saying what leftcoms "should do" since I am not a leftcom.
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Really dig this, but is "merchandise" an incorrect translation from the Spanish "mercancías", with the correct (or, more standard) translation being "commodities"?
Or is that a conscious decision? After all "commodities" in English can also mean "goods" in general (hence idiots on reddit who think the "abolition of commodity production" means we don't want people to have nice things - "Like STALIN! It all makes sense now!"), while "merchandise" clarifies production for exchange.
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If these neo-Stalinist sects are “oriented” toward the working class – or toward the lumpenpoor, or the blacks, or the “third world”, etc. – it is only in the sense that men in a hurry orient toward a pack of horses. They make clear that the historical content of “Maoism” in its different varieties is the conception of the bureaucratic revolution-from-above engineered by a band of self-appointed leaders riding on the back of a class movement, and bridling it; for which end, the most suitable class is one with a minimum of capacity for initiative and self-organization, such as a peasantry. These elements are – some for reasons of class makeup, enemies to the revolutionary democracy of socialism.
Hence also these elements need the sect form of organization. For them the sect is not an unfortunate necessity due to the absence of a real movement: it is their movement. Minuscule size may not even be a drawback; for didn’t Castro “make” the revolution with only umpteen good men? [1*] How many commissars are needed on the Long March? This indeed is part of the dynamic behind the current proliferation of sects, since they are not inhibited by the prejudice that a “party” needs much of a rank and file.
Hmm.
The student radical, heart filled with sympathy for poor workers, turns to the Farm Workers’ struggle as one clearly meriting his support. Typically he does not “go to the people” by going to work in the fields like other workers; for should his special talents be buried under a clod? He goes to work “for the union”, i.e., as what the union calls a student volunteer. Impressed by his own self-sacrifice on the one hand, on the other he finds that the Farm Workers union scarcely measures up to his ideal of what the class struggle should look like. Pretty soon he complains that the student volunteers “have no say” in policy, i.e., he demands that powers of decision be partly shifted out of the union members’ hands and into those of the alien-class visitors who have deigned to donate their time. Or, finding that the internal life and democracy of the union are far from satisfactory, he may decide that the Farm Workers do not really deserve his support. He would bestow his saving presence only on certified-pure class struggles taking place on a different planetary plane.
How true.
But Hal Draper's group led to both the ISO and Solidarity, so maybe the "micro-sect" thesis is horseshit.
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Nothing really. It's only the loyal opposition to Stalinism.
How is it the "loyal opposition" if the Trotskyists faced the most brutal persecution of any political group in the USSR (and outside as well, e.g. in the Spanish Civil War)?
I'm admittedly not familiar with Trotskyism, besides the fact they believe revolution has to be international, I can't think of any more similarities. Hopefully someone else knows more than me.
Im just in an odd transition of political ideology right now and perhaps I am more of a Left Communist than I am a Trot but I am one or the other and im wondering if they are compatible. If you know any specific contradictions that could work. But thank you for the input!
At first glance there might appear the illusion of overlap, but there really isn't any common ground. At least not when you look at the basic premises of the two ideologies. Trotsky liked united fronts and anti-fascism, Left communists do not because they see capitalism and our relation to commodities as the problem, this means two things:
It's not about democracy or dictatorship in the workplace, nor in the political sphere, none of that changes our relation to commodities, how they are distributed and why we work. A lot of libsocs think they are close to left communism, because they overlook this.
The above point refutes Trotskys call for multi-party democracy, degeneration, all that, the world revolution failed and that's that. To give a quote i overuse, "Capitalism didn't prevail because of Lenins centrist policies, Lenins centrist policies prevailed because capitalism did.
This does not mean that you do not judge the actions of individuals and their action or political praxis, but you can't do it to try and critique the soviet union because it didn't fail at that level, doing that means you think that a certain administration of, or control over capital could negate capital, and that's simply not true.
Add to that the fact that Trotskyism is symptomatically culty, like, really culty. No matter which party you look at. I'd just stay away from there, wether you feel convinced by what i've said about left communism or not.
Left Communists exclusively do not support united fronts? I feel some would be for it. Also of course Trotskyists take into account the relation between capitalism and commodities they are just as marxist as any other.
So far I feel convinced by Trotskyism and I dont see the cult aspect other than the ideology being named after the founder. In that respect Marxism is almost cult like.
Left Communists exclusively do not support united fronts? I feel some would be for it.
Then they wouldn't be left communists.
So far I feel convinced by Trotskyism and I dont see the cult aspect other than the ideology being named after the founder. In that respect Marxism is almost cult like.
Trot parties are culty, it's not just the "ideology" that is culty, but how they actually operate. And I hate to break it to you, but you probably find trotskyism appealing for the same reason you found anarchism appealing.
Why did I find both appealing?
They share much in the way in their conception of the relation of the party to the class.
I feel some would be for it.
You won't find a left-com that does, because left communism defines capitalism and communism concretely, some other radical leftist strains of thought do as well, but differently, you can not say that something is essential to capitalism and then work together with people who think capitalism is defined by something else as you're trying to destroy it. I should note that there is a healthy amount of skepticism against the ideological left over all.
Also of course Trotskyists take into account the relation between capitalism and commodities they are just as marxist as any other.
Well what else do you take into account? Because those relations certainly didn't change in the soviet union, yet that wasn't Trotskys concern AFAIK, at best he just opposed bureaucracy as opposed to workers control. Again not realizing that the political options of the soviet government were limited to capitalist ones, he couldn't have done much differently than Stalin. You can either accept that capital can be handled differently and be called communism. That is to say redistribution of wealth and power, social democracy. Or you can accept left communism.
The only other alternative is some sham stage-theory, but if the 20th century didn't disprove that then nothing will kill that abomination.
I dont see the cult aspect
The cult aspect isn't in the theory, it's in the practice. (See the leeching onto any reformist movement, recently the Corbynistas), they will keep on supporting failing social democratic movements to the day they die because of their all fathers dedication to united fronts and pragmatism, some people waste their entire lives in those organisations, and they just won't change their minds once the rot takes a hold. Trust me, don't get stuck in that shit
I see, I agree with you mostly and am transitioning from Anarchism after 3 years. I then went to libertarian marxist to semi trot I guess. I disagree with joining reformist parties but rather we should have reformists led by revolutionaries.
Also I see a strong state such as the Soviet Union necessary as a buffer state perhaps to instigate and agitate with support for various communists internationally.
Also what did he oppose with workers control? Sorry if I come off as snarky I am just attempting to learn since he is such a disputed figure its hard to find the truth.
I disagree with joining reformist parties but rather we should have reformists led by revolutionaries.
Well it was formulated fairly well by Bordiga, the party doesn't have to be democratic and it doesn't have to cater to any ideology, it's a voluntary organization after all.
Also I see a strong state such as the Soviet Union necessary as a buffer state perhaps to instigate and agitate with support for various communists internationally.
Revolutions come in waves as has been observed, and i think it's safe to say that if a strong buffer state after several years of social peace could instigate a revolution then it would've happened at least once, but it never does, the SU just used the international to build mass parties which pressured the west into recognizing the Soviet Union as legitimate and as a geo-political bargaining chip, a leash which they could just as well pull if necessary(like when stalin told the american unions to back off during WW2, when they really had the chance to accomplish some real improvements) to repay favours.
Also what did he oppose with workers control? Sorry if I come off as snarky I am just attempting to learn since he is such a disputed figure its hard to find the truth.
He didn't oppose it, bad formulation on my part
What of cuba supporting mandelas revolution in south africa with arms? Doesnt this hold as a great example and also the soviet support of the republicans/cuba?
Well the republican situation is far more complex, the main reasons for that revolution failing were internal, the subjugation of the revolution to the social democratic government in the name of the war effort, this is the government that the Soviets supported, they supported aforementioned initiative as well.
Anti-apartheid was contributed to by a lot of states, and rightly so, but that doesn't mean that the ANF was a result of the communist movement beyond the ideological connection anti-racism had gotten to communism(Which was a conscious choice by the SU, which had bad racial relations of its own, though ofc not as bad as the more known examples). In general any guerilla that does terrorist attacks and/or and engages in a long protracted struggle of self defence may very well represent an oppressed minority, and even constitute a dual power to the legitimate government, but revolutions do not take place over decades, it didn't in russia, when the social order was overridden in a matter of days, it was the same in Spain, where several failed spontaneous and planned insurrections preceeded the 1936. The 1919 hungarian revolution (which suffered the same fate as the spanish in many ways) also happened within a span of a few months.
Well the transitional program is definitely at odds. Trotskyism is sort of still in that socialist arena of thinking that all we need to do is convince enough people that socialism is good and then we can have a worldwide revolution.
How is it at odds if I may ask?
Because it's at odds with the idea of communism being inherent within the class itself and poses revolution as a question of party interjection, a party that is not linked to the working class at all. Which is completely inline with the rest of Trotskyist thinking and tactics.
You will notice when dealing with Trotskyites that they talk a lot about revolution and not much about communism, if you separate the two you're bound to end up with a distorted idea of what communism is. A few years ago John Holloway had a talk/debate at one of these Trotskyist events in Dublin, he talked about needing to get rid of money and how we can't just take state power because then we will just reproduce the state power relation. The Trot got up and said something to the effect of "But the capitalists owe us money! Weber said the state is violence so they will be violent against us if we don't become the state! We are the many! We need workers majority power!"
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all i know is my gut says maybe.
What makes a comrade turn left-communist ... Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of ultra-leftism?
:D
Only to bourgeois fucks.
Would probably help if you defined authoritarianism, no point arguing past one another is there?
Supporting a state with power and control over the everyday lives of the people.
Would that include things like laws forbidding rape and murder?
No, just a super authoritarian state that controls everything
So there's some point between "a state that has laws against rape and murder" and "a state that controls everything" where you can say it's authoritarian?
Don't you think that point is going to be subjective?
But the problem with the state is that it always exists to suppress one class, and a state has never actually "withered away" before in history
I think if you separate the Weberian and the Marxian definitions of the state, and look at what a state does in those two senses, you can take the good and leave the bad:
In the Marxian sense the state is the method by which one class oppresses another
In the Weberian sense the state is the entity with the legal monopoly of force in an area.
At present the two definitions overlap: bourgeois dictatorships have the legal monopoly of force in their boundaries and they exist to give privileges and protection to the capitalist class at the expense of the proletariat.
But the idea of an entity with a monopoly on the use of force is very attractive, in my opinion: it prevents rape, murder and other abuses. An ad hoc response to "crimes" (if the term is applicable to a stateless society) would itself invite abuses (the rule of law allows us to avoid the violence of the state by making it predictable and knowable beforehand). The idealised Weberian state with democracy and rule of law would be completely compatible with socialism, in my opinion.
it prevents rape, murder and other abuses
This is naive beyond imagination. Do you think that passing laws against rape and murder creates a forcefield around every single person and makes sure nobody ever attacks them? Or do you think laws make lighting strike attackers down in retribution for their wrongdoing?
Laws don't do shit, other than being a yet another way in which the bourgeoisie oppresses the proletariat. So maybe the DotP would have laws, but a communist society wouldn't. Democracy + rule of law doesn't have anything to do with a real human community (the reason why we'd have chaos without the rule of law in this world that we currently live in is because there is no community.)
Could you explain how laws against rape and murder oppress the proletariat?
It's most obvious with laws against rape, given the fact that those laws aren't really enforced (or their enforcement is a joke) except for when it's opportune to do so. Which in turn reminds me of women getting sent to jail for murdering their abusive husbands, which makes it pretty obvious that keeping a lid on people and preventing conflict from boiling over too much is more important for law enforcement than making society into some sort of peaceful happy place, or making the world "safe." (And, of course, the entirety of a proletarian revolution would a massive crime whichever way you look at it (and it would definitely feature murder, because it has in the past).)
It's most obvious with laws against rape, given the fact that those laws aren't really enforced (or their enforcement is a joke) except for when it's opportune to do so
What
Which in turn reminds me of women getting sent to jail for murdering their abusive husbands
Do you think they shouldn't be punished for killing someone? I don't know how it works in America but in the UK people can be found not guilty if they used reasonable force either for self-defence or to prevent the commission of a crime.
And, of course, the entirety of a proletarian revolution would a massive crime whichever way you look at it
Given the trajectory of society over the last 200 years I don't think a violent revolution is necessary to achieve socialism.
What do you mean "what." Do you think laws against rape protect anyone against rape or that rapists are actually punished? I don't think you've quite looked into this stuff.
But in any case, you sound like a social democrat, so whatever. Good luck with you non-violent "revolution" lol.
In the Marxian sense the state is the method by which one class oppresses another
Not really.
https://www.marxists.org/encyclopedia/terms/s/t.htm#state
The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule.
Just because it's widely talked about doesn't make it any less of a misconception.
Okay, could you provide your own definition?
I'm more interested in providing a theory of the state rather than just a list of definitions. The suppression of one class by another doesn't make sense when we're talking about the proletariat gaining political power anyway, especially in regards to how the bourgeoisie does it with the proletariat. It's almost nonsensical.
What's the problem with suppressing the bourgeoisie? Wouldn't an anarchist "free territory" do the same?
Well, socialism is supposed to eliminate classes. So how can you oppress a class that doesn't exist, if socialism is classless?
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Socialism is not achieved overnight. You cannot simply storm the Houses of Parliament, hoist a red flag over Buckingham Palace and declare socialism. It is a bit more complicated than that. There will inevitably be a period between capitalism and communism during which time the proletariat is organised as the ruling class but capitalism and class society have yet to be abolished. During this period it becomes necessary for the proletariat to form their own state to suppress the dying bourgeoisie. This has been true of almost every proletarian revolution (including the "anarchist" ones).
The bourgeoisie do not cease to exist simply because the means of production in a single country have been expropriated. They are an international class with interests (and capital) that stretch across borders. History has shown us that the international bourgeois will go to great lengths to defend capitalism against revolution. It is necessary then for the proletariat to defend themselves and that means forming armed bodies of workers capable of defending themselves against counter-revolution.
Even at home the former bourgeois, stripped of their property and power, are still a threat to the revolution. There will be members of the bourgeois who are unhappy with their current situation and will seek to regain their stolen property and power. The role of the state in this instance is to prevent the bourgeois from being able to organise as a class and prevent counter-revolution.
When class society has been abolished, which will require an international revolution, then the state will begin to wither away as its role as an organ of class suppression becomes obsolete in a society with no class distinctions.
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My point is that where socialism is, there is no bourgeoisie, and where the bourgeoisie is, there is no socialism.
Did you read what I said? "The bourgeoisie do not cease to exist simply because the means of production in a single country have been expropriated." Socialism cannot be achieved until we have abolished class society but class society is not abolished overnight.
Thus you can't establish the working class as the ruling class, when, in fact, it is the only class possible in socialism (don't know how you'd categorize or reorganize farmers, that's a different story).
The majority of farmers are members of the bourgeois as they own and manage the means of production.
In Revolutionary Catalunya, the former bourgeoisie hid among the masses. But they weren't the bourgeoisie at that moment in time, they had a different relation to capital.
You should really read more about the Spanish Civil War because not did many members of the bourgeois retain their property and thus retained their position as a separate class but the Spanish anarchists didn't even go as far as to abolish the bourgeois state and instead sought to collaborate with the Spanish bourgeois to form their own state.
It means that the territories to be liberated by the revolution still have a bourgeoisie, but it can never be ruled by the proletariat, only destroyed.
Why not?
In a socialist revolution, everyone becomes a member of the proletariat because everyone shares the proletarian relationship to labour as private property claims are abolished.
Maybe in your fantasy world where achieving socialism is as simple as saying "we live in socialism now" but in the real world achieving a classless, stateless, moneyless society is not as simple as "believing" in it. You actually have to fight for it.
There is no internal bourgeoisie, only a counter-revolutionary force.
You honestly didn't read a single word of what I said, did you?
Exactly, and that's my problem with authoritarian socialism.
That's a misconception. Socialism, generally, is when the means of production are controlled by the workers, by the proletariat. There will may be classes that spring about, but the level of power one class holds over another is diminished as is the historical trend. Communism is where there is no state, no class, and no money -- also where the means of production are owned socially -- and a future point in human development.
The left communist definition of socialism is the same as communism. We see them both as being synonymous with one another and do not make the distinction between socialism and communism that other communists do.
Is there a reason for this differing viewpoint? Any major works along that vein?
Is there a reason for this differing viewpoint?
1) It's how Marx and Engels used the terminology.
2) To me, it seems most people who make the distinction support a "Socialist State" that tends to be counter-revolutionary. It typically encourages a poor view of revolution, e.g. the "revolution" is when a bunch of people with guns (Who call themselves a vanguard) establish a Social Democracy that's a step closer to communism b/c it has a red flag and what-not.
Socialism, generally, is when the means of production are controlled by the [workers]
Uh, no. You're actually presenting a misconception here. We also don't accept this social democratic and utopian separation of socialism and communism here.
the means of production are controlled by the worries
Autocorrect?
That's the problem with your definition. It's just an inaccurate description (of one facet of a state), not a theory. It doesn't explain why states exist or why they don't wither.
So supporting a state is your definition of authoritarianism? In that case, you could say that left communists are authoritarian.
Left communists don't support a state...
The DOTP is a state.
Comrade, please. It's a semi-state.
Basically my position.
Well it's not my position. When I'm talking about this I like to be as clear as possible, and not allow any sort of language that might confuse people.
No it isn't, it's merely the organ through which the working class exercises its power, this organ probably won't take the form of a state, since the state is the organ through which the bourgeoisie exercises its power. Different class, different ways to exercise class power.
it's merely the organ through which the working class exercises its power
So, a state?
I don't disagree with the rest you said but it doesn't make the description of the DOTP as a state any less accurate, in my view.
That seems like more of a definition of totalitarianism than authoritarianism.
Yes
Personally I don't find "libertarian" or "authoritarian" to be useful concepts.
Maybe
No
This was never the point to me, most revolutions are, leftcommunism in particular tends to fetischize democracy far less.
Personally, I am and always has been an atheist but I do think that we shouldn't fight religion itself, just the conditions that make religion necessary for some.
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Because we are taking the concepts that are within dialectical materialism (Marx's methods, generally) and idealizing them, trying to apply them to wherever we think they can fit.
I'm not sure I understand totally what you mean. You say that Marx applied his method of analysis to economics and sociology and that it worked out great but that when other people try to do the same thing with other things, it's idealism. Am I missing something?
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So it boils down to the fact that Marx was just better at it than people trying to emulate him? If that's it, then I agree with you.
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I understand and agree. Would you say that that's why Marx often created new words to explain things?
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Enlightenment Interrupted
is it worth reading?
Don't mind it. I see no point in fighting theism in the realm of 'reason' since theism isn't really in that realm to begin with for most people. Trying to fight religion without compromise only alienates most people who would otherwise be turned towards socialist causes if their doctrines were positively used to link towards socialist ideals.
Religion, from my understanding since a few years ago, seems simply unavoidable in the philosophical sense of a psychological dogmatism. I'm highly interested in philosophy of science, particularly in physics, and I see such a high similarity between dogmatic empirical/theoretical science and religion it's just saddening. It seems that most people can't live without the anchor of some kind of absolute they can always hold on to as their central truth, and the biggest irony is that 'atheists' do not realize it. Getting rid of theism doesn't rid the world of religion in general, it only rids it of religion in one form. I have a soft spot for mysticism since it's much more individual and more amenable to reason, but it too is disgustingly dogmatic at its core. Socialists are no less religious in their beliefs in general from what I see online, Marxists no less. This is where I think continentals have a huge insight analytics don't, and that is that many continentals see the very strong similarity and similar impulses of theology working in secular forms in the modern day even though they go unrecognized as such. To be truly secular and completely disconnect from the shadow of theology and irrational/rational mysticisms is a true feat if there is any.
Could humans do without religion as dogmatic absolutism like various rationalisms, empiricisms, scientisms, mysticisms, and theisms? I think that's a possibility, but I don't see it coming about.
Thank you for the answer, your comments are, as always, really interesting.
I am an atheist myself, and to a degree I agree with you. Allowing freedom of religion, even in a communist society, is important. While I personally believe that atheism should be tacitly encouraged, allowing others to believe what they want to believe is important. However, the minute religion begins to harm or actively work against the proletariat we have a moral obligation to combat it.
However, the minute religion begins to harm or actively work against the proletariat we have a moral obligation to combat it.
Yes, of course.
Religion is just another level of ideology.
What do you think should be done about religion, since it's not going to disappear instantly after the revolution?
"after the revolution" is a pretty ambiguous phrasing. religion like all ideology, comes out of social-relations in society and is manufactured just like anything else. change them, or eliminate them altogether, then religion will vanish. no one believes in the divine right of kings anymore and that didn't long.
Do you really believe that something that has been drilled in the head of people for all their lives will just vanish once the social-relations change? I'm pretty sure that a lot of people were still big fans of kings for quite some time after the liberal revolutions, obviously not anymore but 250 years doesn't really qualify as "not long".
Yes. Just need to take a look at the increasingly diminishing numbers of people who attend church. e: to be clear, people might still believe in god for a time, but i think that's also doubtful, but religion itself isn't going to survive without the reasons for it existence being there.
I don't think we're deeply changing social relations nowadays, though? Also, sure, in the west, there's less religious people but in other parts of the world, like the Middle East, there's not a lot of atheists.
We're not, but religion is an ideology like others in competition. The fact that in the middle east there's more of a monopoly on that doesn't diminish from this.
I don't think religion is an ideology like others, it's much more deeply rooted in people than political ideologies.
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I wouldn't say inherent but definitely a trait shared by a vast majority of humans throughout history. I'd say that since we can't explain everything, we always tried to find ways to justify these things we can't understand. I'm no expert on religion, though, so I may be totally wrong in my assessment.
Organized religion, however, seems pretty obviously not human nature, this much should be clear from a Marxist standpoint.
Yeah, of course, organized religion is horrible and no communist should support it, I'm more talking about personal beliefs, here, though.
TIL I'm probably the only religious left com lol
What do you think of liberation theology? I'm interested in your leftcom religious point of view.
Well, it is just a feel good thing for Christians who are also leftists. I try not to mix my politics up with my religion (Orthodox Christianity), but liberation theology tends to focus on the poor (which I have sympathy for), but most of my political activism lies with the working class, whether poor or rich.
Also, the Church has a lot of reactionary members, so that encourages me even more to keep them separate. The Orthodox Church was crippled by the Soviet Union and oppressed by them for a long time, so a lot of Orthodox have a disdain for any communist ideas. With that being said, a lot of new converts and younger people are very open to it, and there is a significant left wing in the church, trying to purge it of nationalism and other things.
You seem to have a positive view of the church (orthodox in this case) as an institution. Why? Every christian socialists/anarchists I've encountered have been strongly anticlerical so I'm a bit surprised.
Well, I'm not anti-heirarchy, so it's structure doesn't bother me. But the fact that it is tied politically with a lot of Nations, and doesn't focus on itself, bothers me. The institution itself represents the current power structures of society, and maintains the status quo, so I am against that too. But it will continue to exist, even after socialism, and I believe that part of it will vanish.
Thank you for your answers!
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Sick burn: If something is important in the debate over “communisation,” then it is to raise again the question of the possible outcome of class struggles, instead of merely describing them in indiscriminate strike reports. And if there is something right in it, then it is the insistence that this outcome can only be the end of the proletariat, not its triumph. The cited passages reveal, however, a failure that characterizes current radicals far beyond TC. If the socialism of the workers’ movement was little more than the perpetuation of the existing order under state control, then today’s radicalism is often mere pseudo-radicalism, because it can no longer decipher the potentials for another society in the existing one. The result is a kind of inverted fetishism: What the political economists do as intentional apology is here done as apparent denunciation. Just as from the narrow-minded perspective of political economy any means of production is by nature capital and labour can only take the form of wage-labour, so also do most communisers conflate the specific social form of the production process with its material shape. Burning down factories and other buildings is hence seen as the highest expression of revolutionary subjectivity, as was most beautifully shown by Greek TC followers who declared the recent London riots to be a “historical milestone” and presented the burning of factories by striking workers in Bangladesh as a way of “attacking their own existence as proletarians.” Even the simple counting of the items that proletarians loot and freely distribute in the course of an uprising is seen by some communisers as an original sin since the point is to realize “the absolute anti-planning.” As much as TC insists that the revolutionary rupture can only arise from class struggle, the content of this rupture remains mystical: “The abolition of classes also means the abolition of activity as subjectivity as well as of its product as objectivity facing it […] The de-objectification of the world unfolds in the movement of the revolution itself.” Instead of criticizing the social forms of activity and product (wage-labour and the commodity), activity and product as such are condemned; instead of criticizing the bare subjectivity of the wage labourer and the objectivity of capital confronting him as an alien power, war is declared on subjectivity and objectivity as such, as if the history of humanity stepping out of nature could be revoked short of the extinction of humankind itself. The critical content of formulas such as “de-objectification of the world” and “abolition of activity as subjectivity” equals nothing; they merely evoke an undivided whole, a pure immediacy, which is why elsewhere nothing less than the “abolition of society” and the “end of all mediation” is announced. Thus the journey leads from the critique of false mediation to pure immediacy, from society to community, from having to being, from Marx to Buddha.
damn!
this perfectly expresses some of the reservations i've had recently with communisation
One of the meanings of communism is that man is no longer alienated from nature. To take this seriously we have to reconsider civilization itself and in particular we have to take a look at cities, which are the foundation of civilization. Now it seems obvious that we don't want to go full primmie (never go full primmie) yet the question still stands, how do we deal w that which alienates us from nature (cities and civilization) from a communist perspective that takes into account a massive global human population
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Why are cities not considered part of nature? They are made with resources acquired from nature and built using human labor which is itself a part of nature.
what counts as not nature then?
Can not-nature exist?
in a sense no. but it seems to define away the problem if we make everything nature (and thus no real human vs. nature issue/problem).
Humanness is precisely the ability, the freedom, to not be subservient or dominated or determined by nature (though we can never fully escape its determination). But our real freedom is forever delayed, since as Marx put it, humans instead become dominated by other humans (here enters the critics who say human domination of nature can only have as its corollary human domination of humans...interesting perspective but flawed). Humans are at-the-same-time part of nature and outside it. I see cities as not part of nature but part of nature's domination, but a domination of nature that's fundamentally determined by human's own domination by other humans (i.e. class societies. it's no coincidence that "primitive" societies see nature very different to "us"). This makes the question fundamentally social, and not "how should humans relate to nature", but "how should we relate to each other".
We can look to post-civilisation anarchists for at least the illustration of points of departure, if not possible answers based on contemporary conditions.
As I said in other threads, Marx would fit well with post-civvies.
I think ur about exactly right
what does "no longer alienated from nature" mean? We are alienated from nature insofar as we are alienated from ourselves. We relate to nature as pure domination, a domination that reflects our domination (by objects, abstractions, capital). With the end of capital's rule the world will look very different. Space will no longer be organised according to its logic...in this sense cities will probably decline (or at least look very different since they exist precisely because of logistics, centres of labour-power, cheap reproduction, easier management etc.). Yet the problem isn't cities but the logic behind them. Cities aren't imo "the foundation of civilisation" (beyond being purely literal). We are against class societies in general, and class societies aren't always founded/centred upon cities (i.e. feudalism).
As Adorno famously put it "there is no document of civilization that is not also a document of barbarism". The city is one such document. But we can't focus on the document above what made it. Hence those who castigate the city as barbarism (anti-civs) or exult it as civilisation fall into a trap in not only ignoring what produces such "documents", but the two-sidedness of them - as both barbarism and civilisation. (Both sides also tend to have a static binary view of the world contrasting the "pure simplicity" and "harmony" of nature to the virulent and parasitic and brutality of civilisation, or vice vera (Hobbes et al.) (so many problems when the left sees in itself the true or real inheritors of The Enlightenment, of civilisation, against so much capitalist barbarism).
My answer won't be half as intelligent as the others already on here.
How about green technology? Cities today waste a lot of energy and is very inefficient with resources. Many industries stay away from green technology b/c they don't want to spend the money and would rather focus on cheap, dirty fossil fuels.
I would think green technology would reunite man with nature.
Why can't we be alienated from nature?
Reading anything good right now? Any book recommendations? Picked up anything good? And so on.
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I have a nice booklist I wanna go through for the purposes of the national question and communism in the African diasporas (e: context - I live in Jamaica now, and probably will for most of my life; makes sense to attune to the conditions here).
Imperialism and World Economy - Bukharin, Nikolai
Neocolonialism: The Highest Stage of Imperialism - Nkrumah, Kwame
The Wretched of the Earth - Fanon (I've only read Chapter 3 so far)
Black Skin, White Masks - also Fanon
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Rodney, Walter
Both works on Negro Toilers - Padmore, George
The Voice of Coloured Labour - also Padmore
The National Question - Luxemburg, Rosa
Eclectic assortment of CLR James articles
Recently picked up a copy of The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson, and Hegel's The Philosophy of Right and The Philosophy of History. I was going to buy another copy of Theories of Surplus Value part 1 but I think owning two is enough.
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Making of the English Working Class is my favourite history book by a long shot. Which version of The Philosophy of History did you get?
The one translated by J. Sibree. Trying to find Hegel here is impossible. This one is like one of those hardback collections made for bookshelves and it contains both works in a weird bible format, double column, and I think that because it was part of a collection was why I found it. The only other Hegel I found was a paper back of The Philosophy of Right. There's two more bookstores that I have to go look in to, but I'm doubtful. But who knows, maybe I'll get lucky.
I don't know where you live but it's probably on Amazon. You could try that?
Hegel isn't cheap on amazon and I'm not sure if I want to throw away cash on a book will probably just collect dust on my shelf.
They're about 10 bucks each, I don't know what you consider cheap, though. You're the one who knows what's best, I was just trying to help. :)
Romanticism Against the Tide of Modernity by Michael Löwy and Robert Sayre
I'm only halfway though and it has been interesting so far, especially the parts about Marx and Marxists. From the blurb:
Michael Löwy and Robert Sayre formulate a theory that defines romanticism as a cultural protest against modern bourgeois industrial civilisation and work to reveal the unity that underlies the extraordinary diversity of romanticism from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century.
Also: Marx and Engels's "German ideology" Manuscripts Presentation and Analysis of the "Feuerbach chapter" by Terrell Carver and Daniel Blank which contains some points of interest but it's frustrating where the authors get it wrong in the introduction. The presentation of the material is interesting. I think the second volume of the series: A Political History of the Editions of Marx and Engels's "German ideology Manuscripts" might contain better material.
I'm reading Lukács' History and Class Consciousness right now. I don't know what I think about it yet. Based on this article I might need to read his defense of History next because it sounds like he starts hitting the vanguard juice a little hard.
well, right now im reading "the mist in the mirror" wich is really good, a nice victorian era horror story that slowly builds atmosphere, still 200 pages to go but so far it doesnt overstay its welcome. also im almost done with the first novel of the worldwar series, wich i was really suprised with how enjoyable it is.
political wise, i havnt read much in a while, i just dont have the time or opportunity for it sadly. but there are some works i should get into and some others i should continue.
I'm still reading Proudhon's Philosophy of Poverty but I haven't been able to read it for the last few weeks though.
What's your opinion on it so far?
Unfortunately it's been so long I don't have a clear feeling on it at the moment. In general I've found reading Proudhon to be fascinating.
I'm going to start Samir Amin's Global History: A View from the South
I'm currently reading The Great Gatsby and it's quite great, even though I hate some of the characters. Other than that, I'm slowly reading some Marx, I started with the more short and easy to read works, I recently finished The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and will start reading the Critique of the Gotha Program. I hope to eventually tackle Capital but I already struggle to read those small texts. I don't know if it's the french translation or maybe I'm just dense.
In terms of political stuff, I've just been reading essays and articles here and there. I've got the German Ideology and the 1844 Manuscripts waiting on my shelf, and some collected works of Marx + Engels as well and I'll try to get into the GI before classes start again.
Otherwise, finished The Grapes of Wrath a while back which I definitely recommend. Now I've just gotten hooked by The Brothers Karamazov, which is a hell of a lot more time consuming, but still entirely worth it.
I've been working my way through volume one of Capital and various essays by Bordiga available on the internet.
On the literary side of things, I'm reading The Sound and the Fury having just finished Absalom, Absalom. Next up is Light in August and then I will have finished Faulkner's major oeuvre; then it will be onto maybe The Book of Disquiet or Madame Bovary or maybe even Swann's Way. I'll have to see how I'm feeling.
On the school side of things, I will be reading Micheal Cunningham's The Hours for my 20th Cent Lit class and Hamlet for my AP English class.
On the political side of things, I've been reading alot of Dauve. The older communization stuff peaks my interest. And slowly but surely, I'm making it through Nihilist Communism.
All that and some poetry when I can get it in.
Gramsci's Selected Works (most of it is the Prison Notebooks, but there are other articles and notes of his in there), Pierre Bourdieu's Symbolic Power and rereading Marcuse's One-dimensional Man.
I'm re reading cammates "this world we must leave" as well as various essays by Mckenzie Wark. Trying to figure out in my mind the technology queation
Phenomenology of spirit - Hegel
Thus spoke Zarathustra - Cmon
Great dialogues of Plato
Reading Zarathustra right now, also the Dune trilogy.
is the dune trilogy (isn't it like like 6 books?) related to zarathustra or is that just a coincidence?
Had the Dune trilogy for a long ass time, it contains Dune, Dune Messiah and the Children of dune, who i guess are the first three books. Zarathustra i got recently, never thought they could be connected, i mean i guess they both have prophets
political stuff right now:
* Steve Cohen - That's Funny, You Dont Look Anti Semitic
* Endnotes 4: Unity in Separation
* Adam Hanieh - Lineages of Revolt. Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East
* Burning Country. Syrians in Revolution and War - Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami
* Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction - Robert C. Allen
and fiction:
* Snow - Orhan Pamuk
* If This Is a Man - Primo Levi
Coming from a Trotskyish (Orthodox Marxist) background and working my way left has left me completely frustrated of the lack of orgs and parties in the USA that aren't either:
1.) Reformist like the CWI
2.) Super Stalinist like PSL
3.) Inactive/defunct
I am already a member of the IWW, and maybe that should be it. But I feel compelled to join an actual socialist party. I don't really care if it isn't left communist, but it just can't be a liberal shithole or and cult of personality around dead people.
So far, it seems like only some of the Trotskyist parties are worth anything, but a lot of them tend to be reformist leaning (or the seem that way, could be a tactic to appeal to others?).
Are there any worthwhile parties in the USA, even if they aren't completely "correct". ISO? IMT (gross entryism)? SEP?
If only the ICC was fucking huge.
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Maybe this is a remnant of my anarchist period, but I'm not a member of a party and don't plan on joining one any time soon. If I do end up joining the ICC or something I'll honestly see it as a way to socialize with like-minded people, but who knows at this point.
Not bashing on you for wanting to join a party or anything, I just personally don't see much of a point aside from small-scale activism and expanding your social group.
Thats exactly it, I want to do small scale activism. Id love to have a well oiled operation to radicalize people on my campus.
If you're looking to do small scale activism, have you considered joining an anarchist group? They tend to put a lot of focus on that and some hold many similar positions to left communists.
I think thats why I want a Marxist party, because I do get that with the IWW, but many people there take a idealist approach and it doesnt click well with me. Although they are some of the coolest people i have met.
I know the feeling, I'm involved with a local anarchist group and I often bring up my disagreement to some of their more idealist positions, but what I think is; does it really matter for small scale stuff? (Which is primarily what they do and what I get involved for, too.) If you're helping homeless people, attending protests or aiding striking workers - does it really matter if theoretically they take an idealist approach to things? Most scale activism isn't really massively relevant to theory, anyway.
The movement itself that they support is communism regardless what their ideology is, so i do support them and stand in solidarity with them. But i also like like-minded to hang out with that can help those anarchist groups too.
Honestly, once the economy busts in the states, I can see a lot of the marxist parties merging with the SPUSA and make a radical branch of it, partially uniting the left for the common cause of emancipation. Its at that time i think it would be a great time to join the party. Although a lot of us differ on theory, there is only one movement.
The only movements if that of the working class, if I were you I wouldn't put such a focus on parties, they don't make the revolution - it is the actions of the class in their rejection of the material conditions of capitalism, that do. The primary focus should be on being there with the working class in their struggle, not being part of some large party and to aid them when possible.
Thats why im frustrated. Because of the current concept of the communist party. I think I am referring to the class and party in a Bordigist sense. That the class is the party that and the vanguard is the most "conscious" branch of the party, leading people to join the class struggle.
While i agree with the people here arguing that an anarchist group is your best bet, if you really are totally committed to "marxists only" then the ISO is worth looking into. They're explicitly revolutionary, aren't interested in parliament and aren't based in cold war paradigms. They take a state capitalist view of Russia, even arguing that it came into being under Lenin and Trotsky, not Stalin, and don't throw their hat in the ring for the normal trot flavour of the month 'anti-imperialist' dictatorship. The IS tradition is the most 'left-com' and 'libertarian' you can get while still remaining committed to 'leninism', and if inactive groupuscules like the ICC don't appeal to you they're probably the best you will find.
If you're feeling ambitious you could start your own party.
That'd be difficult alone. I wonder if I could start an Org associated with the ICC in my state.
What is the difference between anarchism and leftcommunism?
Why do you think democracy/direct democracy couldn't work? ( I base this on the third rule of this subreddit)
Do you guys support places like Rojava?
Hope You guys can answer these questions for me
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What is the difference between anarchism and leftcommunism?
Left communism and anarchism are both different historical tendencies. Left communism comes from the left wing of the third international and anarchism has it's roots in the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpen proletariat and disenfranchised nobels. Left communism is a more theoretically defined tendency compared to anarchism which is all a giant mish mash that has as many different flavours as there are adjectives. Left communism I think is also the closest to Marx's materialist method in terms of general output whereas anarchism tends to lapse into idealism and general liberal ideas in regards to it's own approach which mostly boils down the "democratic principle". This means that anarchists often think that the problem with society is oppression or hierarchy, that the solution to this is a more democratic model, which is trans-historical in theory and could happen at any point in history, regardless of class. This often leads to an extreme focus on organisational structures because for them, their organisation, or what ever group they've tried to take over or start up, is going to be anarchism within capitalism.
Why do you think democracy/direct democracy couldn't work? ( I base this on the third rule of this subreddit)
It's not that democracy can't work or isn't important, left communists are opposed to the democratic principle. Mentioning democracy without mentioning class is problematic, and often is detrimental to revolutionary movements. Be it couched in social-democratic terms, in the anarchist conception of "revolutionary work", in national liberation movements, or what ever. It says nothing of the mode of production. Ultra-leftism is something else and is beyond the bounds of the narrow definitions of the communist left. And we're not a democracy on this board because we're not going to have a discussion on is or what isn't allowed.
Do you guys support places like Rojava?
I'm more opposed to people just supporting just because and then trying to justify that by some historical reference to Spain. It's stupid and it isn't looking at what is really going on in historical terms. It may or may not be "progressive", but that doesn't make it communist. It's a national liberation movement that is a part of an international imperialist struggle. There is no independent working class movement.
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I think the stakes are quite important.
I think he meant the stakes with regards to what decision you make about your "support" of a state. There is naturally a lot at stake for the people of Rojava and wider Syria.
Anarchism is a moral theory and the communist left tends towards a structural historicism.
We are against not just the Democratic principle but also democracy itself because
A. Democracy implies a "demos" that is a unified people. We are classists not populist.
B. Just because a majority of people think something doesnt make it right, or useful.
C. Democracy tends to divide social life into two distinct spheres, a decision making sphere and an execution sphere that are separated by time and space. This sort of separation tends towards alienated activity ie order givers and order executers
Why do you think democracy/direct democracy couldn't work?
It can work within cohorts (e.g. workers democracy, women's democracy), but you can't get everyone on a whole to practice popular democracy until all lines of exploitation are gone. Democracy is easy in the sense of process and reconciliation of non-antagonistic differences, so it remains appealing, but it's damn near impossible in terms of actually producing a democratic result. For now, direct action is the name of the game.
Do you guys support places like Rojava?
I'm watching carefully with freshly-buttered popcorn. I think there's an internal contradiction between the national liberation forces and the actually socialist forces within the Kurdish liberation movement. To me, that's worth watching. However, I don't see any point in emulating them because 1) they're responding to a certain history, and 2) the overarching framework is one of natlib.
Since revolutions aren't caused by ideologies, does it matter that they're essentially the left-wing of capital calling themselves "socialists"? Should they just be ignored or should we confront them?
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It matters because they have connections in the working class. They co-opt working class movements and lead them away from revolution. I've read that during the miner's strike in the UK Stalinists were actually assaulted by workers for proposing a national ballot, which suggests to me that the working class are capable of opposing Stalinism theirselves.
Also, Stalinism, which includes ML and MLM, isn't an ideology, it's the material expression of counter-revolution.
which suggests to me that the working class are capable of opposing Stalinism theirselves.
So, does it matter? Is it important to publicly denounce them or the working class can tell them to fuck off on their own?
it's the material expression of counter-revolution.
Can you expand a bit on that? I find it interesting.
Is it important to publicly denounce them or the working class can tell them to fuck off on their own?
Why can it not be both?
Can you expand a bit on that? I find it interesting.
Stalinism is founded on the counter-revolution in Russia. Where socialists recognize that the revolution was defeated in the early 1920's, Stalinists maintain that the revolution was won. You'll notice that Stalinists only talk about the Russian Revolution with regard to the Bolshevik insurrection and Civil War; the real movement of the working class was irrelevant.
Anywhere a potential revolution needed stopping, the Stalinists were there. Every now and then you'll find one admit that the workers can't be left to their own and that their movements must be taken over by the Communist Party for any chance of "revolution" to happen.
Well said, I agree.
it's the
materialtheoretical expression of counter-revolution
??
Stalinist theory only exists to defend Stalinistic counter-revolution, but Stalinism isn't a theory, it's the counter-revolution itself. I'm not really sure what you're asking.
the Stalinist counter-revolution doesn't exist anymore. Stalinists still do.
Stalinism acts, and is the embodiment of, counter-revolution itself. But Stalinism as a theory is a theoretical 'comprehension' of that. Stalinism is an ideology in the true sense. A mystification imprinted onto/from materiality.
The more I learn about socialism the less appealing ML seems.
That's because it isn't socialist! ;)
same
They're just as harmful as any other social democrat.
Aren't they more harmful since they pretend to be the "representatives" of the revolutionary working class movement? They co-opt movements in the name of socialism, social democrats do not pretend to be revolutionary of wanting to abolish capitalism.
Hi, wannabe socialist here. Let me start off by saying that I'm not a market socialist personally (I'm not really sure what kind of socialist I am; I believe that workers should be in control of production but I'm not sure what specific form this should take). I understand the ban on tankies and their ilk in this sub; their incredibly warped understanding of the world tends to derail discussions and ruin actual discourse. But why the ban on market socialists? Obviously leftcoms have their disagreements with market socialists, but the same could be said of any other variant of socialism. So why the ban on market socialists specifically?
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probably because of their support for private property, wage labor, production of commodities for exchange value, etc. - things that communists should be opposed to.
their insistence that co-ops and such are somehow not capitalist despite retaining virtually every feature of capitalism (private property, wage labor, production for exchange value) and functioning within the capitalist mode of production is pretty annoying and shows a lack of even the most basic understanding of what socialism/communism is.
It's not socialism is why and that is why we don't allow it a platform. They have plenty of over places to infest on reddit. Nothing about it is socialist. It's just a petty bourgeois reaction to big capital and as such, has no real proletarian content, no liberation from capital, it has nothing to do with Marx or materialism, it ignores or denies basic Marxist propositions, etc etc etc.
Is Richard Wolff considered a "market socialist" ?
Yes, but you can still watch him and be a left com.
yes
Has he written any texts outlining his beliefs? From what I've caught from the few economic updates I watched, the beliefs he puts forward seem fairly mixed and some of it seems watered down to be swallow-able by his audience, but I'm not sure how reflective that is of his actual beliefs.
They probably seem mixed because it seems like he purposely obscures his language to hide his agenda.
No idea but I know he supports coops, mondragon specifically IIRC
Because arguing about coops is obnoxious. Also by definition communism is a world w out money, or markets
Kind of like liberals have liberal feminism, orthodox Marxists may follow Marxist feminism or radical feminism, other Marxists (esp. Maoists) may adhere to the budding trend of proletarian feminism, and anarchists often use their own theorists to build up an anarcha-feminism, do left communists have their own line, or do they borrow from feminists of other tendencies?
Also, how do you view gender? Is it something that is
metaphysical and to be reformed (liberal feminist line, some anfems too);
transhistorically constructed and must be abolished in its own right (radical feminist line, different interpretation from other anfems too), analogous to class;
a product of and mostly dependent on class society (Marxist feminist line);
a product of but, in many ways, autonomous from class society (edit: sorry, proletarian feminists also seek gender abolition, but understand its origin as a class mechanism) (proletarian feminist line);
or something else entirely?
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I don't think that there's a unique left-communist position on feminism or the gender question. There's probably a couple of groups who take their cue from Engels and such, but I would think that a lot would be in opposition to certain tendencies that would collapse the gender issue into one regarding democracy, where varying degrees of oppression gives varying degrees of political representation. That's basically reformist and just reinforces racial and gender roles with no question of over coming them in any revolutionary manner (usually cause they deny class as being anything other than a category of oppression).
I would consider myself a Marxist-feminist.
Also, how do you view gender?
A little bit of this
transhistorically constructed and must be abolished in its own right (radical feminist line, different interpretation from other anfems too), analogous to class;
a little bit of that
a product of and mostly dependent on class society (Marxist feminist line);
Gender is a social construct that should be abolished. It's why I get into arguments with anarchists about gender equality, because equality is conservative while abolition is revolutionary.
equality is conservative while abolition is revolutionary.
That's a great way to put it!
I'm almost entirely in agreement with you on this. Equality is almost entirely antithetical to communism and abolition of gender is really the only radical position. How it arises, how it is maintained, etc. is a somewhat different, though also closely related question, and I largely turn to Marxist Feminists on this topic, but draw from a fairly wide pool of feminist authors in general.
if genders are socially constructed hierarchically then equality is abolition. You can't have men equal to women if a defining feature of man-ness is a status above women; and thus to make equal requires negating man-ness. Similarly with whiteness.
In the book Anarchy Works the author writes about primitive societies where genders were equal but gender itself was by no means abolished. Things like neither gender being more powerful than the other but with both men and women having clearly defined and separate roles in society.
In that book Gelderloos is largely interested in showing that "patriarchy" is not natural and that "gender" is highly malleable. Since we do not yet have a society where gender is abolished in order to learn from or state our case, the best point of departure to analyze and criticize pro-patriarchy assumptions is societies where no gender carries authority over the other (even if "roles" as such still exist).
But indeed, anarcha-feminism has as it's goal the abolition of gender.
I was just giving an example to show that equality is not abolition.
I know, just pointing out that studying "equality" can also be useful (even if it's not abolition).
Whenever I see men mentioning being in support of gender abolition I always wonder about whether they really truly understand the gravity of what they are saying and the change this would cause in their own lives. Idk, maybe I'm just being uncharitable, but people who love to talk the talk but can't handle walking the walk are pretty common.
I'm not sure we as men or communists really understand the gravity of anything we advocate, yolo.
I have no idea what you mean
Well, I imagine there's more than one person like John Stoltenberg in the world.
Whenever I see men mentioning being in support of gender abolition I always wonder about whether they really truly understand the gravity of what they are saying and the change this would cause in their own lives.
Nobody knows how life will change for them, regardless of gender. All we know is what life is like in our material conditions, and that is a class (and thus a gendered) society. We can make very educated speculations, but they're still just stabs in the dark.
I don't think anyone is necessarily demanding the direct abolition of gender when we're talking about the abolition of gender. As gender itself is contigent on the division of labour throughout class society, the abolition comes in the form of the abolition of specialized and gendered divisions of labour- not in some moral imperative to confront gender in particular.
I know in the ultra left the general focus is on the 2nd and 3rd points, that is gender being a result of class society and therefore, similar to how the worker-capitalist dichotomy is abolished in communism, gender must also be abolished. As for a left-communist perspective, I doubt it differs much. Most of the gender stuff in the ultra left relates back to communization theory in some way or another, so I'd recommend reading this article.
There's also gender nihilism which isn't really a political position in of itself but still relates to the ultra left.
I know in the ultra left the general focus is on the 2nd and 3rd points, that is gender being a result of class society and therefore, similar to how the worker-capitalist dichotomy is abolished in communism, gender must also be abolished.
Does the left-communist argue that gender is solely the result of economic classes, or does it also analyze gender as being a unique form of class relationship with it's own dynamics, with a large degree of independence from the bourgeois-proletarian economic relationship?
(serious question)
I can't really give a definitive answer to that personally as I'm not that well read on the subject
Like l-d, I can't make general statements, but I can say that this left communist does
analyze gender as being a unique form of class relationship with it's own dynamics, with a large degree of independence from the bourgeois-proletarian economic relationship?
as reproduction (the basis of sex, the institutionalisation and abstraction of which is gender), along with social production, is a basic human act.
Proleterian feminism
I wonder--do you all regard sexism as something inherentlynecessary to capital?
I very well understand the role the gendered division of labor played in mobilizing the kind of social formation necessary for a particular modern industrial mode of production and I understand the continuing, variable and uneven gender relations existing within capital today after the labor restructuring on the 1970s, but I have trouble with certain comrades who seem to regard capital as being identical to patriarchy--I think that confuses the historical development of capital with the logically-necessary structure of capital.
Anti-sexism is a strong node for possible anti-capitalist mobilization and definitely a contemporary immanent tendency in the communist movement but I also wonder how possible it is for that immanent resistance to give way to transcendence in a radical sense. I fear the overwhelming possibility that such struggles simply set capital on a path towards its restructuring, but without taking it to the limit point of its reproduction.
It's one of the conundrums of being within and against capital. Struggle is obviously defined to a large extent by the concrete terms of existing conditions but there still has to be something of an invariant consciousness that recognizes that capital could conceivably continue beyond base patriarchy. I'm finding it hard to imagine that surplus-value would be impossible to extract in a society that has a measured degree of equality between the social identities within it.
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Imperialism generally describes a stage in capitalist development when free competition between capitalists becomes monopoly capital via the creation of joint-stock companies, trusts syndicates, combines and the merger of banking and industrial capital into finance capital and getting all tied up with the state, first with tariff controls, then the militarization of labour and industry and the taking over of certain industries. The argument goes that the increasing centralization of capital in one country, going hand in hand with state capital trusts, puts an end to competition within each nation state but on the other hand, creates even more competition between nation states for the fight for resources and markets (as certain things are only produced in certain places) because of the increasing organic composition of capital and the need to get rid of superfluous capital (loans to other countries, corporations). The development of this stage of capitalism also goes hand in hand with the development of state capitalism.
I think I suggested a while back that we do a group reading of some texts on imperialism.
I think I suggested a while back that we do a group reading of some texts on imperialism.
Yep. We seem to lack some kind of theory that doesn't reduce the last century to some unitary 'imperialism'. The capitalist system has changed a lot since Lenin's days, and so us using 'imperialism' as he did really doesn't say very much (and leaves these massive changes relatively unexplained). The Open Marxism group have some good stuff that can help us, especially via. international relations and international political economy.
Anyone else have some suggested readings...preferably ones that aren't 100 odd years old
It's probably not a very concrete understanding but I've always viewed imperialism as just the actions of a state to expand it's international political and/or economic power.
Is lenins piece on imperialism still relevant?
I haven't read it yet so I can't say. My understanding, from Stalinists who disagree with my definition of imperialism, is that it only applies to situations where one state extracts value from another. This seems like an inferior example since it excludes too many events as well as leading to contradictory statements by Stalinists; e.g., how is the US invasion of Afghanistan imperialist? I don't see any value being extracted for the supposed American labor aristocracy, and if one doesn't call the US invasion of Afghanistan imperialist then what the hell is it?
It seems to lead to many Stalinists apologizing for Soviet and Russian imperialism by claiming that they aren't exploiting third world workers or because they aren't as powerful as the US.
Someone said that Russia wasn't imperialist because they don't, and this is a direct quote, "have the ability to maintain imperialist infrastructure." Never mind the fact that Russia has the 3rd largest military in the world
Or the fact that the Russian state tries to control important economic areas in the Caucuses and other central Asian countries, as well as trying to impose influence in Eastern Europe. Then there's China and it's massive economic investments in Africa in order to secure raw materials.
The argument is more that imperialism requires the imperialist state to extract value from another or seeks to open up markets for the capitalists of the imperialist state. For eg. WWI was an imperialist war because it developed as a result of tensions leading from market saturation.
Afghanistan is a less clear example of imperialism as it's quite arguable it was driven as a war of revenge as opposed to a thought out imperialist action; However, there are things such as gas pipelines the US has been negotiating with the Taliban for years which fell through prior to the invasion, and the development opportunities in the state for the capitalists, given how poorly developed Afghanistan is. Of course whether or not the imperialist action was a success is largely up in the air.
Same deal with most imperialisms; There's always a significant layer of the capitalist class which benefits from the war effort. Weapons manufacturers, bankers etc. It's rarely a profitable enterprise for the state itself or the "labour aristocracy".
With that said I think looking at imperialism purely from the standpoint of economic matters is a bit reductionist and doesn't take into account the full array of motivations a state may have. For example, does Russian capitalism have vested economic interests in propping up Assad? Maybe in terms of development opportunities once the war is over, but mostly it's a geopolitical issue between Russia and Turkey/US, where they want to maintain their presence in the Med.
Functionally speaking though as actors, the RuFed and USA are two sides of the same coin; Does it matter to Syrian workers whether or not they're getting bombed for an oil pipeline, or as part of a Sunni-Shiite proxy war, or so Russia can maintain it's naval presence? Nah. They're all taking part in some form of imperialism, and it's probably a safe bet that even if it isn't obvious they all do have some sort of vested economic interest in doing what they're doing.
So it's a grey area to a certain extent, I think going back to texts written a century ago, as some do, isn't really the right way to understand modern imperialist dynamics.
It's mostly alright. A lot of it is now just common knowledge really, but then again I haven't read it in like 15 years. What you might not know is that it is a summary of Bukharin's work on the matter Imperialism and World Economy.
Simply put, it's the application of warlordism to a conquered territory that expands to overcome warlords with less access to violence, all for the purpose of monopolising scarce resources, as well as securing and insuring all current owned assets.
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This post (and the blog in general) is pretty heavy on more technical economic arguments, but I highly recommend checking out Roberts' posts, as he's one of the best Marxist economists around... though that isn't really a very competitive field to be fair :P
Key points from this post:
In addition, in this post, Roberts points out that a recession in the US is likely to occur from 2016-2018 (due to the tendency of crises to happen every 10 years or so), which also coincides with what Roberts expects to be a "trough" in the rate of profit in the US economy (the last trough was in 1982 and greatly spurred on the neoliberal period).
So the possibility of an even more devastating global recession, combined with a drop in profits in the US, seems like the next 10 years could potentially yield the conditions for revolution. Thoughts? Am I too optimistic?
Regardless of the development of crisis, you are too optimistic. Why?
Because neither the existing socialist/communist organizations, nor the material conditions of live, have achieved to foster even a minimum of class consciousness in people.
If the proletariat is dominated by the ideology of the ruling class, the outcome of another severe crisis may as well be fascism, not any kind of revolution.
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No. The state can play the role of the capitalist, there is no need for the one paying wages or extracting surplus value to have a human face. Unless you count bureaucrats as capitalists? But I would reason that they're simply a cog in the 'machine' that makes the state, which acts as the capitalist.
I was more thinking of cooperatives in my question, but yeah that answers it
Think about if you broke it down, further, to the individual level - if everyone were an independent contractor, who "own" the product of their labor (before they sell it), negotiate their rates and lengths of contracts, etc., but still sell on the market, still fulfill their needs through the market, etc. Of course this would still be capitalism, no matter the size of the bargaining unit or how equitable the pay within it.
Who would be exploiting who, though? Couldn't you consider the exploiters to be the capitalists?
Theoretically a general coop economy would involve general self exploitation in the coops. In order to compete and post profits workers would have to exploit themselves. This is where a moral understanding of 'exploitation' falls apart btw.
The only necessary class for capitalism to exist is the proletariat. You know the old, "they need us, we don't need them" propaganda? It was right, and history has proven that the capitalist class doesn't need to exist for capitalism to do so.
You of course need people to step in and play the role of the capitalist in the relation of labour to capital. This role can be played by all sorts of people and groups etc etc.
Nationalism and Socialism, Paul Mattick
Against Nationalism, Anarchist Federation
Nation or Class?, ICC
Against Israel, Against Palestine - For Class Struggle, ICT
National Liberation and Nationalism, ICT
The Only Perspective is International Class Struggle, ICT
Every nation-state is imperialist by nature, Tom Wetzel
Why anti-national?, Junge Linke
A nation state is not the solution but rather the problem, Abdullah Öcalan
Kurdistan?, Gilles Dauvé
On Third World Struggles, Ngô Văn
"Leninism" and the cult of personality surrounding him first appeared in the decade after the Russian Revolution, specifically following the two years after he was shot in the neck, an event which prevented him from being as politically active for obvious reasons due to his declining health.
At this time in Russia the counter-revolution was fast on the rise, mostly due to the events of WWI and the screeching halt of the revolutionary wave. These events isolated the Russian working class and it is at this point in history where we first begin to see the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy.
It should be noted that Stalin himself was the first to use the term "Leninism" with any significance in his pamphlet "Foundations of Leninism." He did so in order to crusade against Trotsky within the Russian party, and in order to take control of the Communist International.
Stalin quickly established that Leninism is the theory of Socialism in one country, utterly opposed to Lenin’s internationalism.
Lenin himself was opposed to and spoke out against this notion before he died, stating in clear terms that he was “against bureaucratism in general, and against the organization bureau [which at the time was under Stalin] in particular.”
One of the aims of "Leninism" at the Communist International was to create a false division between Lenin and Trotsky, and Lenin and Luxemburg, therefore uniting with the social democrats against the principles of proletarian internationalism. Evidence for this can clearly be seen in Thesis 8 on Bolshevisation, 5th Congress of the Communist International. Part of it reads:
"Leninism" must be the unique compass for the communist parties throughout the world. Anything that is distanced from "Leninism" is also distanced from marxism."
So this is the point where “Leninism” thus became a betrayal of Lenin himself. In no unclear terms the CI rejected Lenin’s most basic tenants and declared anyone who disagreed with this was against Lenin and not a marxist. But all this is ignoring an even more crucial point to be drawn from these lessons. Was Lenin perfect? No. Was Lenin wrong about things? Yes. It is absolutely essential that we remain critical and point out these mistakes wherever and whenever possible.
What ideas of Lenin’s do you accept? What ideas do you reject? Personally, I see the necessity of a communist vanguard. But I think the revolutionary party and the state must be separated, and the state destroyed. I also think it is the class who should control the weapons and arm itself, not the party. How about everyone else?
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I think it's important to understand that leninism means in regards to the body of work that Lenin left behind, because the same sort of thing happens with other communists. Leninism, or dogmatism, takes the works of Lenin out of their historical contexts which means those who espouse such an ideology can use works from before the revolution to denounce Trotsky, use What is to Be Done as a guide on how to orientate towards the proletariat as a party even though the book was never published again in his lifetime and much of it became irrelevant after the events of 1905 and 1917 and so on. What it does is to reinforce the Plekhanov/Kautsky social-democratic tradition and project it onto the events of October. This occurs with Marx as well, when people take things from say the Manifesto or Marx's actions in 1848, and project them to be eternal truths, disregarding the lessons learned from history and the development of ideas.
I personally don't think that Lenin was all that great or insightful. He's really more useful when he moves towards the real movement and his insistence of proletarian participation and action, rather than party, in the soviets and so on, after the April theses.
As the kids these days say, "Word, yo!"
To be fair, Luxemburg had very valid criticisms of the actions of Lenin himself, to which Lenin basically responded "Rosa, wait until you have to deal with this shit, then we'll talk." And generally, Rosa's proto-autonomism generally handled the response to the rising better than the Bolsheviks, who were -- save for Lenin himself -- terrified that the October Revolution was even happening, independent of their leadership. Neither the German nor Russian socialists saw the revolution coming and weren't very prepared, but the Germans weren't the ones espousing the leadership of a vanguard party.
Any collections of left-communist? Seems like most of this stuff is out of print but can be found in some places online.
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There was supposed to be a selected works of Bordiga coming out but I have no idea if that is still going through or not. There are some out there though, but left communism can be both a wide or narrow subject depending on how you want to define it. It's not like in stalinism where you can read two books and be a stalinist.
Out there in print right now is:
Left Communism Reader: Writings on Capitalism and Revolution
And this Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Worker's Councils
But you could also throw in Marx's 1844 Manuscripts and the Grundrisse, the German Ideology, etc. Stuff that is usually disregarded by stalinists because it wasn't published at the time of Lenin.
We've been discussing trying to get a printing thing set up but I'm sure that if you use anything from the websites with the collections they'll sue you. So right now I'm trying to translate some stuff into English that hasn't been published in English yet as a way to get around that.
Thank you.
but I'm sure that if you use anything from the websites with the collections they'll sue you
This statement is so tragic and fucked up, haha
Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how that works consdiering that a lot of stuff probably wasn't even copy righted to begin with and even if it was, it would probably have expired by now.
Derivatives of public domain works can be copyrighted.
It's like a metaphor for capitalism itself.
who was doing the bordiga?
If there isn't, could we put together a group to assemble one, and attempt to get one into print?
http://www.amazon.com/Non-Leninist-Marxism-Writings-Workers-Councils/dp/0979181364/ref=pd_sim_b_1
This is probably the closest thing to a left-comm anthology around, at least that I've seen. The only other thing i can think of might be "communization and its discontents". Problem is, like you said, a lot of this stuff is out of print, and there's like 12 of us around the world that are into this kind of politic
Oh yeah, there's also things like Endnotes and what not. A left com anthology would be pretty big.
This is coming out soon, The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Volume 1: Economic Writings
I have a selection of epubs I'd be willing to share.
First, here's Debord's Society of Spectacle. The Situationists are arguably Left-Communists: http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4
And here's a bit of reading material. Not only Left-Com but still speaks to it: https://www.mediafire.com/?xptakt89nxcdl91
Contents are:
- Anton Pannekoek - Worker's Councils
- Louis Althusser - Ideology and Ideological State
- Theodor Adorno - Minima Moralia and The Culture Industry
- Herbert Marcuse - One Dimensional Man
- Peter Kropotkin - The Conquest of Bread (Anarcho-Communist, but still.)
- Guy Debord - La Société du Spectacle (In French)
Also, Early Marx and anything by Rosa Luxemburg.
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A system in which all enterprises based on collective labour are nationalised and managed by the state is called state capitalism, and this is quite different from socialism, being one of the historical forms of capitalist past, present and future. Does it differ from the so-called “state socialism”? With the term state capitalism we want to allude to the economic aspect of the process and to the hypothesis that incomes, profits and earnings all go through the state purse. With the term state socialism (always fought by the Marxists and considered in many cases as reactionary even with respect to the liberal bourgeois demands against feudalism) we return to the historical aspect: the substitution of private property with collective property would happen without the need for class struggle nor the revolutionary transfer of power, but with legislative measures issued by the government: in that is the theoretical and political negation of Marxism. There can be no state socialism, both because the state today does not represent the social generality but the dominant class, that is, the capitalist, and because the state tomorrow will represent the proletariat, but as soon as the productive organisation becomes socialist there will no longer be either the proletariat nor the state, but society without classes and without the state.
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Thus, certain tendencies of the Communist Left, such as ‘Bilan’[2], attempted to explain and theorise this situation on the basis of Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation. For ‘Bilan’, capitalist society could no longer fulfil its historical mission because of the essence of the internal contradictions of its mode of production: to continuously and progressively develop the productive forces and productivity of human labour. The rebellion of the productive forces against their private application has become permanent. Capitalism has entered into its final crisis, which is disintegrating it (see ‘Bilan’, No.2 – 1934).
World capitalism has been in decline for 85 years. This is almost as bad as people suggesting that the USSR was in transition for its whole existence.
The writing in communist texts is almost always terrible with the exception of Marx and Engels, but this specimen was particularly scholastic at times. It's also annoying that these texts have to restate things which should be basic knowledge, like this longer digression explaining what productive forces, means of production, etc. are.
Bilan
Bilan really is a source of all kind of idiocies, it's kind of amazing.
on the basis of Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation
I'm surprised the text didn't talk more about how Luxemburg's theory of accumulation underlying the ICC's dogma is wrong.
As for "decadence", it's surprising that anyone can take it seriously at all - it's so obviously stupid that it's barely worth commenting on. The text could have shown more meticulously how it's merely a formula conjured up ad-hoc that serves to avoid an actual investigation of various disparate phenomena, like the conditions for union work, parliamentarism or national liberation.
It's also annoying that these texts have to restate things which should be basic knowledge, like this longer digression explaining what productive forces, means of production, etc. are.
When you have to deal with cretins you have to treat them as such.
I'm surprised the text didn't talk more about how Luxemburg's theory of accumulation underlying the ICC's dogma is wrong.
That might have required a longer exposition, assuming that this was for print media then space would have been a consideration.
As for "decadence", it's surprising that anyone can take it seriously at all - it's so obviously stupid that it's barely worth commenting on. The text could have shown more meticulously how it's merely a formula conjured up ad-hoc that serves to avoid an actual investigation of various disparate phenomena, like the conditions for union work, parliamentarism or national liberation.
The text could have just presented reality as it is and then shown how the theory of decadence doesn't hold up to it. The text does highlight how it is an utterly unmarxist way of thinking. But in regards to it being used as an excuse to not investigate such phenomena, that could be more of a chick and egg situation.
Frankly, these two currents as they exist now are complete jokes. Flirting around the edges of Stalinism and Trotskyism, while claiming with a straight face some sort of synthesis between the German/Dutch left and the Italian (which I am to assume means Damen's splinter). I don't know how they can even speak of the ICP in the same breath as this sometimes.
The text could have just presented reality as it is and then shown how the theory of decadence doesn't hold up to it.
I doubt that the people adhering to decadence theory are interested in reality to begin with. They are the same crackpots that look at the conditions in the United States and speak of "state capitalism" with a straight face.
But in regards to it being used as an excuse to not investigate such phenomena, that could be more of a chick and egg situation.
Funnily enough, the text itself speaks approvingly of a schematisation very similar in substance to decadence theory:
By disregarding the historical particularities of each historical mode of production, they also disregard their particular laws and categories, for example, in the case of the capitalist mode of production, the division into the phase of formal and real subsumption of labour under capital, etc.
Making formal and real subsumption into "phases" which would fundamentally change the communist outlook is what both communisation theorists and Camatte - who is incidentally also quoted in this text - base their nonsense on. Is the circuit of commercial capital a phase too?
I doubt that the people adhering to decadence theory are interested in reality to begin with. They are the same crackpots that look at the conditions in the United States and speak of "state capitalism" with a straight face.
You're probably right in that if you show that that capital arrived fully formed then they'd just refuse to accept it.
Also, back in that thread on that emancipation group (lol), this was looked over
Today’s capitalism is the product of a century of decadence.
lol also try looking for it on twitter. I don't know when this became in vogue.
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Part one can be found here.
Be wary about the translation, as OP has a history of falsification, and already the title of this is inaccurate:
Contenuto originale del programma comunista è l'annullamento della persona singola come soggetto economico, titolare di diritti ed attore della storia umana
Which translates to:
The original content of the communist programme is the sublation of the individual person as an economic subject, rights holder and actor of human history.
Continuing their weird camatte fanfic.
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Good book. He wrote a couple of them on this topic and a really rather thick biography of Marx. I'd be wary about accepting what McLellan says outright. He is as far as I can a "hegelian" first, and tries to make Marx conform to his understanding of Hegel.
If I remember correctly, /u/pzaaa once remarked that in this book he makes Marx seem like a plagiarist.
Pretty accessible book, gives a clear sketch of the intellectual landscape that Marx is borrowing from and reacting to in his early works, plus the origin of terms like alienation, species-being, dialectic, democracy, etc. Found it very useful to help understand Marx's polemics against the Young Hegelians in The German Ideology / Holy Family / On the Jewish Question, etc.
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Modena, Saturday 6 April 2019 Class solidarity
The trial in which the National Coordinator of the SI Cobas is accused is part of the overall attack that the bourgeois regime is carrying against the class movement that has developed for ten years now in the logistics and that the SI Cobas has been able to organise and represent.
Through hard fights - made up of real strikes, not timed, without notice or predefined end date, with pickets to block goods and fight scabs - thousands of workers have obtained important victories, wage and regulatory improvements, going against the tide compared to other workers who have suffered defeats and retreats for years, seeing their living and working conditions worsen.
The aim of the owner is to prevent the extension of this movement of struggle beyond the borders of the logistics sector. This enlargement of the class front could, in fact, lead the workers to rise from the state of resignation in which the regime trade unions (Cgil, Cisl, Uil, Ugl) have led them, breaking the hegemony of these concerted organisations, deployed in defence of the national economy, that is, of the interests of the employers and the State. These regime unions have repeatedly shown that they constitute a fundamental cog in the repressive action against the most combative workers. They are the ones who sabotage the strikes, signing downward agreements with the companies to try to stop the fight, thus offering justification to the police to attack and clear the pickets.
In fact, the repression against the workers in struggle is carried out primarily by the bosses in the workplace, with disciplinary reprimands, suspensions, transfers and other measures that often prelude dismissal, but when these means and the dirty game of concerted unionism are not enough, the bourgeois regime intervenes in the first person, that is, the State, which now at every strike ranks in front of warehouses, factories, construction sites, carabinieri and policemen arranged for war.
Last December the Parliament turned into law the so-called Security Decree aimed at hitting immigrants, who represent a significant part of the working class, but also at attacking the pickets, the possibility of demonstrating, in short, the freedom to strike. A measure therefore against the whole working class, immigrant or not. Of course, this measure of law is not a lightning bolt in the clear sky but a further exacerbation of a repressive process against the entire working class and its expressions of struggle, carried out by the employers and the various governments with continuity in the course of time.
To all this has been added the judiciary that in January condemned delegates and leaders of the SI Cobas, and some supporters, for having participated in a picket at DHL Settala (Milan) in 2015 and now conducts the trial against Aldo Milani. The legislative, executive and judicial powers have a common front in the defence of the bourgeois regime.
The proletariat against this adversary formation can and must count only on its forces. The only solidarity which constitutes a long-term, not ephemeral defence, which is a prerequisite for the passage to the future offensive against capitalism and its political regime, is that of the extension of the workers' struggle and of the strengthening of class unionism, its currents and its organisations.
The solidarity coming from the vague world of the "sincere democrats", from the "personalities" of the cultural, jurisprudential and academic circles must not deceive the workers about the nature of democracy which, in the test of the economic crisis and of the resumption of the proletarian struggle, is revealing, today as yesterday, its true face: that of the dictatorship of capital over the working class.
Instead, it is necessary to work in search of the unity of action of organisations and currents of fighting trade unionism as the main way to defeat the trade union opportunism that dominates today in the USB which, because of their fragmentation and the orientations and methods of struggle of the majority of the current leadership, are not able to defeat the trade unions of the regime.
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This is from Il Comunista, not Programma.
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Thanks
The search function would have also helped you:
The newest issue of Il Partito's party newspaper also contains a text on organic centralism:
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/TheCPart/TCP_012.htm#OC
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It's very amusing to read this keeping in mind what Mouvement Communiste wrote about the Yellow Vests.
To crown fascism as the spokesman for certain layers of the proletariat, perhaps disoriented but combative (!), is what is called erasing with a stroke of the pen the entire Marxist historical record of counterrevolution and rallying the most coarse democratic positions that qualify as “fascist” all the uncontrolled actions of the proletariat.
And in the other text on the Great Alibi that was posted here:
What Bihr describes there, with unfortunately a lot of exaggeration, is a weakening of the dominant ideology reflecting the worsening of social contradictions that can only delight revolutionaries while it frightens conformists and conservatives of all kinds. It is enlightening that Bihr sees in the phenomenon of proletarianisation (without using the term that too reminds us of Marxism) a danger because it causes an attitude of resentment. Resentment towards whom and what, if not towards this capitalist social and political system, towards those who are its masters and towards those who make themselves its ideologues and defenders? If Bihr obviously agrees with his friends among those who feel threatened by this resentment, he is lying when he says that this resentment leads to the extreme right. Undoubtedly, the extreme right has the function of capturing the resentment of the petty-bourgeois layers and even of certain proletarian fractions previously intoxicated by chauvinism and contempt for the most oppressed masses and it is in this sense that it is a precious force for the bourgeoisie even when it is not used as an anti-proletarian shock force; but fundamentally this “resentment” is at the root of the awakening of the proletarian struggle, which is the only real danger for capitalism and its political superstructure (parliamentary democracy).
What is the evident up-to-dateness of these texts if not formidable proof of the invariance of Marxism?
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Wilhelm Eichhoff wrote this pamphlet with Marx’s active assistance. This was the first work on the history of the International Working Men’s Association. Wilhelm Eichhoff conceived it in the summer of 1868, when his brother Albert, a publisher, planned to issue the Workers’ Calender (Arbeiterkalender) for 1869. Wilhelm Eichhoff proposed that the leading item should be devoted to the history of the establishment, spread and activity of the International Working Men’s Association. On June 6, 1868 Wilhelm Eichhoff informed Marx of his intention and asked the latter to send the necessary material and help him in writing the article. On June 27 Marx sent to Berlin many documents of the Association, newspaper cuttings and notes on the activity of the International. The day before Marx wrote to Engels: “...I am writing something for Eichhoff. Tomorrow I shall send it off”. In his reply of June 29, Eichhoff thanked Marx for the material and wrote that he was going to use Marx’s manuscript word for word and supplement and expand it as advised by Marx.
There is every reason to believe that Marx drew up the thesis and plan that determined the work’s structure, general tendency and basic conclusions.
Eichhoff’s work grew into a pamphlet because of the abundance of material sent by Marx. Eichhoff’s letters show that in the course of his work Marx answered his numerous questions, gave advice and made suggestions. Some sections of the pamphlet include documents of the General Council (the Inaugural Address, Rules and Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council) or give their contents. Eichhoff used the Minutes of the Geneva and Lausanne congresses of the International, addresses of the General Council and local sections, Becker’s pamphlet Die Internationale Arbeiterassociation und die Arbeitseinstellung in Genf im Frühjahr 1868, the pamphlet Procès de L'Association Internationale des Travailleurs. Bureau de Paris published in 1868, and extracts from English, German, French and Belgian newspapers on the activity of local sections of the International. A number of pages in the pamphlet contain Marx’s own material which he subsequently used elsewhere.
Thus, the description of the Charleroi events, the information about an incident with the Geneva Congress documents on the French frontier and talks of Minister Rouher with the delegate of the Paris Committee of the International Working Men’s Association were partially included by Marx in the Fourth Annual Report of the General Council.
Marx presumably wrote the section about the political activity of the General Council, the list of periodicals of the Association, etc. From July 12 to 22, 1868 Marx edited the pamphlet and read the proofs. On July 29 a specimen copy of the pamphlet was sent to Marx in London, and the entire edition was printed in August 1868. Copies were also sent to Engels, Liebknecht, Becker, Lessner, Kugelmann, to the General Council, the German Workers’ Educational Society in London, and others.
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I'm reading the communist manifesto and already by page 3 I've noticed what seems to be an unfamiliar reference. Marx mentions "the manufacturing system" as a distinct step between feudalism and 'modern industry.' Here's the quote:
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
s this an established concept, or more of a linguistic device? Is there somewhere else I can read about this step/progression?
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is this an established concept
yes
Is there somewhere else I can read about this step/progression?
chapter 14 of capital "the divison of labour and manufacure"
Thanks!
Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production.
If you want to follow the development of that specifically you can read Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilisation.
This actually confirms the quote, since Smil points out that the manufacturing system not only preceded modern industry as we know it but persisted well into the mid-nineteenth century, even after the development of fossil fuel machinery.
The utilization of a money economy and the mobility of labor and capital established new contractual relations that fostered the growth of migration and banking. Quests for mass output and low unit cost created new large markets whose functioning was predicated on reliable and inexpensive transportation and distribution. And, contrary to common belief, the rising availability of coal-derived heat and mechanical power produced by steam engines was not necessary to initiate these complex industrialization changes. Cottage and workshop manufacturing, based on cheap countryside labor and serving national and even international markets, had been going on for generations before the beginning of coal-energized industrialization (Mendels 1972; Clarkson 1985; Hudson 1990).
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A translation of the first part of the International Communist Party's critique of Antonio Gramsci, with an introduction by Programme Communiste - originally published as a section of a work on the history of the communist left within Il Programma Comunista.
Specific quotes I'm asking about (emphases mine):
Everywhere that revolution was the work of the working class; it was the latter that built the barricades and paid with its lifeblood. Only the Paris workers, in overthrowing the government, had the very definite intention of overthrowing the bourgeois regime. But conscious though they were of the fatal antagonism existing between their own class and the bourgeoisie, still, neither the economic progress of the country nor the intellectual development of the mass of French workers had as yet reached the stage which would have made a social reconstruction possible. In the final analysis, therefore, the fruits of the revolution were reaped by the capitalist class. In the other countries, in Italy, in Germany, in Austria, the workers, from the very outset, did nothing but raise the bourgeoisie to power. But in any country the rule of the bourgeoisie is impossible without national independence. Therefore, the Revolution of 1848 had to bring in its train the unity and autonomy of the nations that had lacked them up to then: Italy, Germany, Hungary. Poland will follow in turn.
Thus, if the Revolution of 1848 was not a socialist revolution, it paved the way, prepared the ground for the latter. Through the impetus given to large-scaled industry in all countries, the bourgeois regime during the last forty-five years has everywhere created a numerous, concentrated and powerful proletariat. It has thus raised, to use the language of the Manifesto, its own grave-diggers. Without restoring autonomy and unity to each nation, it will be impossible to achieve the international union of the proletariat, or the peaceful and intelligent co-operation of these nations toward common aims. Just imagine joint international action by the Italian, Hungarian, German, Polish and Russian workers under the political conditions preceding 1848!
I'll lay out why I posted here, cause it probably looks like I'm trying to troll.
I mostly identify as left-comm, with a few key differences. One of these is national liberation. I see it kinda like a bourgeois revolution.
Seeing my own few personal theoretical differences with this at least vaguely homogenous interpretation of Marx, I assumed the problem was me, and decided to start reading more of him (and for this reason I'd rather not discuss my personal opinions here; I want to develop them more). I got a nice list from a friend (I'll link it at the end, and if you all care you can share your opinions about it), and started at the beginning with one I've already read: the Communist Manifesto. It had a ton of extra prefaces included, and I read this one, and was curious what you all thought about it, like whether you disagreed with Engels here, or maybe interpreted it differently than I did.
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To put it rather bluntly, it's no longer 1848. The revolutions of 1848 meant the finalization of bourgeois liberal nationalist dominance over the feudal aristocracy. This feudal aristocracy no longer exists in any meaningful sense and the bourgeoisie are entrenched around the world.
The time when a national revolution could be progressive is long, long past.
that makes sense, it's seems hard sometimes to tell what are general things and what are specific to the time it was written in. I hope I'll start to pick up on the difference as I progress
One thing to keep in mind is that the uses of things are in many ways socially determined.
For example, a screwdriver can be used to drive screws, but it can also be a backscratcher, a hammer, a wedge, a pointing stick, a weapon, and so on.
In the same way, same thing - a revolution to cement the rule of the bourgeoisie - can have different character and different effects depending on the context.
Not op but I find myself in the same place ideologically as them right now. Why are the national liberation movements of today different? To me it seems the national liberation movements are all about sementing the rule of the local bourgeoisie. In what way is this meaningfully different, or am I wrong about how the national liberation movements of today?
In 1848 National Independence was about creating the conditions in your nation for capitalism to develop, and a bourgeois class to be formed. Current national liberation struggles are local bourgeois vs “western” bourgeois, in competition. They nonrevolutionary to their core. Capital has manifested itself in every corner of the globe over the last 170 years, this is in its nature.
Well, yeah. They are and were about cementing the rule of the bourgeoisie. The rule of the bourgeoisie is already cemented, it wasn't cemented then.
"Self determination" or whatever only exists on the level of the superstructure, and was only relevant as the economy was transitioning to capitalism. In other words, where the superstructure was lagging behind the base.
That's no longer the case.
Critique is when you say stuff and imply that it is inherently true, and the more that you say stuff, the more ruthless it is.
One of these is national liberation. I see it kinda like a bourgeois revolution.
That's because they are, and they have always been considered to be, bourgeois revolutions.
Third, I should like especially to emphasise the question of the bourgeois-democratic movement in backward countries. This is a question that has given rise to certain differences. We have discussed whether it would be right or wrong, in principle and in theory, to state that the Communist International and the Communist parties must support the bourgeois-democratic movement in backward countries. As a result of our discussion, we have arrived at the unanimous decision to speak of the national-revolutionary movement rather than of the “bourgeois-democratic” movement. It is beyond doubt that any national movement can only be a bourgeois-democratic movement, since the overwhelming mass of the population in the backward countries consist of peasants who represent bourgeois-capitalist relationships. It would be utopian to believe that proletarian parties in these backward countries, if indeed they can emerge in them, can pursue communist tactics and a communist policy, without establishing definite relations with the peasant movement and without giving it effective support. However, the objections have been raised that, if we speak of the bourgeois-democratic movement, we shall be obliterating all distinctions between the reformist and the revolutionary movements. Yet that distinction has been very clearly revealed of late in the backward and colonial countries, since the imperialist bourgeoisie is doing everything in its power to implant a reformist movement among the oppressed nations too. There has been a certain rapprochement between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting countries and that of the colonies, so that very often—perhaps even in most cases—the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries, while it does support the national movement, is in full accord with the imperialist bourgeoisie, i.e., joins forces with it against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary classes. This was irrefutably proved in the commission, and we decided that the only correct attitude was to take this distinction into account and, in nearly all cases, substitute the term “national-revolutionary” for the term “bourgeois-democratic”. The significance of this change is that we, as Communists, should and will support bourgeois-liberation movements in the colonies only when they are genuinely revolutionary, and when their exponents do not hinder our work of educating and organising in a revolutionary spirit the peasantry and the masses of the exploited. If these conditions do not exist, the Communists in these countries must combat the reformist bourgeoisie, to whom the heroes of the Second International also belong. Reformist parties already exist in the colonial countries, and in some cases their spokesmen call themselves Social-Democrats and socialists. The distinction I have referred to has been made in all the theses with the result, I think, that our view is now formulated much more precisely.
I'm not very educated on Lenin or the USSR, but it's pretty interesting to hear him talk about countries with very similar class dynamics to his own so candidly
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I'll quote what the International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency have to say. They had easily found statements that are foundational to their organizations:
From the ICC's Basic Positions:
All the nationalist ideologies -- 'national independence', 'the right of nations to self-determination', etc. -- whatever their pretext, ethnic, historical or religious, are a real poison for the workers. By calling on them to take the side of one or another faction of the bourgeoisie, they divide workers and lead them to massacre each other in tr in the interests and wars of their exploiters.
Longer passage from the ICC Platform:
National liberation and the formation of new nations has never been a specific task of the proletariat. If in the nineteenth century revolutionaries gave their support to certain national liberation movements, they did not have any illusions that these were anything but bourgeois movements; neither did they give their support in the name of ‘the rights of nations to self determination’. They supported such movements because in the ascendant phase of capitalism the nation represented the most appropriate framework for the development of capitalism, and the establishment of new nation states, by eliminating the constricting vestiges of pre-capitalist social relations, represented a step forward in the development of the productive forces on a world scale and thus in the maturation of the material conditions for socialism. (see note)
As capitalism entered its period of decline, the nation together with capitalist relations of production as a whole, became too narrow for the development of the productive forces. Today in a situation where even the oldest and most powerful countries are incapable of developing, the juridical constitution of new countries does not lead to any real progress. In a world divided up by the imperialist blocs every ‘national liberation’ struggle, far from representing something progressive, can only be a moment in the continuous conflict between rival imperialist blocs in which the workers and peasants, whether voluntarily or forcibly enlisted, only participate as cannon fodder.
Such struggles in no way ‘weaken imperialism’ because they do not challenge it at its roots: in the capitalist relations of production. If they weaken one imperialist bloc it is only to strengthen another; and the new nations set up in such conflicts must themselves become imperialist, because in the epoch of decadence no country, whether large or small, can avoid engaging in imperialist policies.
In the present epoch a ‘successful’ struggle for ‘national liberation’ can only mean a change in imperialist masters for the country concerned; for the workers, especially in the new ‘socialist’ countries, it means an intensification, a systematisation, a militarisation of exploitation by the statified capital which - because it is an expression of the barbarism of the system - proceeds to transform the ‘liberated’ nation into a concentration camp. Contrary to what some people claim, these struggles do not provide the proletariat of the Third World with a springboard for class struggle. By mobilising the workers behind the national capital in the name of ‘patriotic’ mystifications, these struggles always act as a barrier to the proletarian struggle which is often extremely bitter in such countries. Over the last fifty years history has amply shown, contrary to the assertions of the Communist International, that ‘national liberation’ struggles do not serve as an impetus to the struggle either of the workers in the advanced countries or of the workers in the backward the workers in the backward countries. Neither have anything to gain from such struggles, nor any camp to choose. In these conflicts the only revolutionary slogan against this latter-day version of ‘national defence’ dressed up as so-called ‘national liberation’, is the one revolutionaries took up during World War I: revolutionary defeatism, "turn the imperialist war into a civil war". Any position of ‘unconditional’ or ‘critical’ support for these struggles is, whether intentionally or not, similar to the positions of the ‘social chauvinists’ of the First World War. It is thus totally incompatible with coherent communist activity.
From the Internationalist Communist Tendency's Platform:
The era of history when national liberation was progressive for the capitalist world ended with the First Imperialist war in 1914. The global character of capitalism in the imperialist epoch means that the apparent diversity of social formations in the world is not the reflection of a variety of different modes of production. Thus there is no need for the proletariat to adopt different strategies for revolutionary action in different parts of the globe. Marx's work had already drawn a distinction between the mode of production and the social formations more or less corresponding to it. The historical experience of class society confirms that different social formations, the product of different histories, can exist under the capitalist mode of production but they all nevertheless are dominated by imperialism, which makes use of national, ethnic and cultural differences to maintain its own existence. Just as the social strata and traditions differ in various regions and countries, so does the way in which the bourgeoisie dominates politically. However, in every case the real power which they represent is the same: that of capitalism. Any idea that the national question is still open in some regions of the world and that therefore the proletariat can relegate its own revolutionary strategy and tactics to the background in favour of an alliance with the national bourgeoisie (or worse with one of the imperialist fronts) has to be absolutely rejected. Only when the proletariat unites to defend its own class interests will the basis of all national oppressions be undermined. Revolutionary organisations reject all attempts to prevent class solidarity through ideologies of racial or cultural separateness.
Some more basic statements:
From Wildcat's Capitalism and Its Revolutionary Destruction:
This experience of the working class and dispossessed masses throughout the world has produced world-wide struggle against the effects of the crisis. The necessity for this struggle is the best disproof of the various false nationalist solutions to the crisis.
The struggle continues in the “liberated” countries of the underdeveloped world. National liberation is no solution to the crisis there. In the 19th century some liberation struggles led to the creation of new nation states which played a dynamic role in the development of world capitalism. This is no longer possible. Today, the new rulers may achieve a measure of political independence from the great powers but they can never free their country from the grip of the world economic crisis. For the working class in these countries “liberation” simply means exchanging one set of bosses for another – the new ones as violently opposed to working class struggle as the old ones.
The struggle continues in the countries of the Russian bloc, such as Poland. The so-called socialism in these countries is simply state capitalism. The Russian bloc is not only just as capitalist as countries in the West, it is also just as imperialist. Despite their conflict of interest with the ruling class in the West, the Russian rulers form part of the same class, and are just as much our enemies.
In the West the struggle continues under Labour Party and “Socialist” governments just as much as under conservative ones. Across the world, left-wing governments attack the working class just as much as right-wing ones. The socialism which the left-wing parties claim to stand for is in fact state capitalism. Nationalisation of industry is a state capitalist measure which offers no benefits whatsoever either to the workers employed there or to the working class as a whole.
From Subversion's The Revolutionary Alternative to Left-Wing Politics:
Left wing groups routinely advocate support for weaker, e.g. “third world”, nation states – meaning the governments of nation states, against stronger ones (Iraq in the Gulf War, etc.). This is described as anti-imperialism (!) as though the victory of the weaker country would do more than slightly alter the ranking of states within the world imperialist pecking order. Imperialism is a historical stage of capitalism and opposing it, as opposed to opposing capitalism itself via working class revolution, is meaningless.
The most common form of this “radical” nationalism consists of so-called “national liberation movements”, such as the IRA, who don’t yet have state power. As soon as they do come to power they always crush the working class – that is, of course, the nature of bourgeois state power.
Often the line will be used that, even if one disapproves of nationalism, that nevertheless nations have a right to self-determination, and one must support their rights. A purer example of bourgeois democratic double-talk could not be imagined: Rights are not something that actually exists, but are a bourgeois mystification (see above). The working class should not talk about its rights but about its class interest. Talking about a right to national “self-determination” (as though a geographical grouping of antagonistic classes can be a “self”!) is like saying that workers have a right" to be slaves if they want to, or a “right” to beat themselves over the head with a hammer if they want to. Anyone who supports the “right” to something anti-working class is actually helping to advocate it, whatever their mealy-mouthed language.
Siding with the working class against all capitalist factions necessitates opposing all forms of nationalism whatsoever. Any wobbling on this will lead the working class to defeat yet again.
Damen and his faction at least always rejected it. The ICP now rejcets it, if you read their latest texts on Rojava and Palestine their line is to reject nationalism for class struggle.
The older line that was for national liberation was for national liberation, here are some good texts from the ICP,
The Colonial Question: An Initial Balance‑Sheet
Ireland - Sinn Fein: From the bullet to the ballot?
Theses on the Chinese question
The agonizing transformation of the Palestinian peasants into proletarians
The ICP now rejcets it...
Which ICP?
their line is to reject nationalism for class struggle.
That has always been the position of the ICP you are linking to.
The older line that was for national liberation was for national liberation
Your gross tautological simplification seems to be more in line with Stalinists than with the ICP.
I've been using the MIA versions to date, but I know there are problems with a lot of their translations and I'm looking to get physical copies of as much of his work as I can.
On a semi-related note, is there any good collection of Marx's letters and marginalia in existence?
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I've only used Penguin Books for Marx and I haven't had any issues. I can't make any comparisons as those are the only decent physical versions I could find since I live in a pretty remote part of Canada (and I'm not fond of reading online).
Do any of the Penguin versions have any of Marx's letters or notes in them?
There's one called 'Early Writings' that I haven't gotten yet. I know it has Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts in it but I'm not sure beyond that.
There are several volumes of letters in the MECW and I have seen a selected works of letters from Progress Publishers.
MECW?
With works like the Paris Manuscripts and The German Ideology, how many English translations even exist? I've only ever encountered the Progress Publishers one in MECW.
the Paris Manuscripts
There are at least three.
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There are at least three versions of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Oh, whoops. Didn't catch your meaning. The paperback one I have is by Martin Milligan, but it looks like marxists.org hosts one by Gregor Benton. Still, it stands that much of Marx's and Engels's works only have one readily accessible English translation.
For both there's the Great Books in Philosophy versions, but the publishing group replaced the foot notes by Marx and Engels with their own. For the Paris manuscripts there's a digireads copy that's pretty good.
I have the Great Books versions of both, and, at least for The German Ideology, it's a reprinting of the MECW version but without the endnotes. It does seem to include Marx's and Engels's footnotes, too. I'll have to check out that digireads version you mentioned though.
Bordiga's work is spasmodic in how much of it is translated into English, and even how much of it is attributed to him. Aside from Camatte and Damen however, which other Bordigists that are in English are worth reading? I know of an American fraction of Bordigists (some scanned pamphlets from the 50s of theirs are on libcom) but little else in regards to Italian or foreign Bordigists.
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I knew of 3 of 4 those, all good recommendations. I should've been more specific; I meant individuals, associated with Bordiga, the ICP, or any Bordigist organisation. I've seen other names float around (mostly Italians and Frenchmen) but not sure who they are/what's available.
Damenites are not *bordigists" and Camatte is a weirdo who lives in the woods. There are no such thing as "bordigists". Bordiga was only one person in a party and the works published by that party are products of that party.
Camatte wasn't always a weird hippie and his work Origin and Function of the Party Form was approved of by the ICP.
What works by other members of that party would you recommend, then?
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You're aware that plain html with no javascript is viewable everywhere, readers prefer it, and is hassle free? Hell, just paste the text here if you want me to read it. I don't have time for your crap.
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I agree with this ^
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a good discussion. they talk about the liberal tradition's view of free speech through j.s. mill and bentham a little, then marx's and the marxist one, and they talk about the modern left's censorious attitude towards it by pressuring state use against reactionary speech.
Here is a list of threads in other subreddits about the same content:
Zero Squared #124: Should We Keep Free Speech? on /r/ChapoTrapHouse (created at 2017-09-08 16:20:57 by HardLeft-)
IamabotFAQ-Code-Suggestions-Block
Any ultra-leftist publications that accept submissions? So far I have only found Internationalist Perspective and Not Bored. Any communist publications in general that will take ultraleft writings?
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I dunno how they do submissions but I really love Insurgent Notes, it's founder is Loren Goldner, a Left Communist
Yes, Loren Goldner is fantastic.
If this question is more appropriate for Marxism_101 I can take this there.
I know that postmodernism is controversial on the left; it seems like some tendencies like to incorporate it into their theory and some despise it. But I don't think I've seen left communists really talk about it. What are the left communist views on postmodernism? (Not trying to imply that left communists will all agree.)
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I don't really care about it. I haven't seen anyone really make an argument that post-modern philosophy is especially enlightening or necessary.
I'd say that about everyone would benefit from reading Michel Foucault's analysis of power, since he provides a very useful set of tools to locate forces of power and domination not just in the state apparatus, but as being ingrained in society's "secondary" institutions like hospitals, schools, prisons etc. I'm sure you would be able to use some parts of Foucault's power theory to expand on the concept of alienation, if you want to keep some sort of connection with Marxism (if done with a lot of care, so I would advise against it to all to overenthusiastically equate Marx's alienation with Foucault's notion of power). If you decide you're not interested in alienation, domination, power and other similar kinds of stuff, I'd say you should still give Foucault a go, if only because he's probably one of the most talked about continental philosophers of the last 40 years. I personally also like to read Judith Butler and her work on queer theory, even though it should probably be complemented with more Marxist inspired feminists like Silvia Federici and Sheila Rowbotham.
By the way, both Foucault and Butler would probably reject the PoMo label. In fact, almost everyone does, since PoMo isn't really a coherent body of thought or even really a recognizable academic tradition, but more of a particular historical condition (of late stage capitalism as Frederic Jameson would say!), just like modernism was: Marx was a product of modernism, so were Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, even though it won't immediately cross our minds to call them modernists. There are of course still some eccentric provocateurs who do use the term "postmodernist" to describe themselves, like Baudrillard (he's cool too, especially if you're interested in the situationists, whom Baudrillard heavily borrows from). Others who are usually referred to as being PoMo (like Derrida and Deleuze) however are more accurately referred to as some kind of (post-)structuralist.
Love me some Deleuze
Hear hear
i have read only a book which collected some of foucalt lectures and he seemed to be very much of the view that knowledge is power and that power relations run across the classes making the underlying opposition between the working class and the bourgeoise meaningless. no wonder many leftists who reject class struggle also like him.
How is it possible for power relations to run across the classes when simultaneously an opposition between classes is meaningless? What my guess is, is that Foucault provided a more sophisticated view on the functioning of ideology (not in its Althusserian form, which he didn't accept), wherein power has to, as it were, be incorporated into and made part of all subjects, and cannot only be located in the source of power (as in the state or the bourgeoisie). This certainly problematizes certain parts of (I would say, vulgar) Marxism, but I don't think this means class struggle is to be abandoned. At most it sharpens our analysis.
I am italian, not a native english speaker, what i wanted to say is that from that collection of foucalt' lectures from his tenure at the college francais i read, about how criminality ,mental illness and sexual identity are conceptualized, class antagonism did not seem to factor in. It seemed to be about how power structures construct individuals in this society in general, he came across as not focusing on the class reasons(coming from capitalism) that explain why individuals are objectified. It looked to me like a critique in general of the destructive impact power centers have on people, not a critique of social relations in capitalism, this is why i said I thought class opposition was meaningless to him.
I can see why you interpreted him that way, and it's true that Foucault certainly doesn't focus as much on class as other more Marxist inspired writers. Perhaps this is a good reason to see Foucault as more of a complement on class analysis, as opposed to making him the centerpiece of analysis, as is done by those who completely reject class struggle.
You're English is fine by the way. You write like a native speaker.
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so the concept of human capital is better explained as part of a process of commodification in areas of society that were not capital heavy before?. and how are commodities subject-objects?. is it because they are an object of human labour yet they act like have a social value of their own which is explained with the feticism concept ?
This may be an extremely broad question, but every time I think I have wrapped my head around the subject object, I realize that I haven't. Can you elaborated on Foucault idea on the subject object relation under neoliberalism? And also that of Marx too?
What even is post-modernism?
Postmodernism is such a broad term that it's hard to have an opinion on the whole of it. You may, for example, agree with post-structuralism, but you might disagree with post-realism. That being said, postmodernist commentaries on Marx and Marxism usually have a tendency to be idealist and over-deterministic. Deleuze was especially bad about this, and he did some reprehensible things such as ignoring Marx's inversion of Hegel and almost embracing fatalism. Postmodernists have also at times revised Marx; Marcuse, though not a postmodernist in the traditional sense yet someone who heavily influeneced postmodernist thought, even goes as far as to rule Marx's theory of class obsolete. However, postmodernism, like modernism, encompasses many philosophies and many philosophers, and to rule every one of them as "wrong", or to pull a Chomsky and just totally ignore postmodern philosophy as a whole, is a very bad thing to do.
Its great. Lots of post-modernist thought comes out of the post-68 situationist tradition of left communism.
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could you explain in simple terms your two last sentences about the belief in god among students being the result of philosophical thinking?.. if you have the time obviously. i am awful at math and i am likely just of average intelligence.
i see now, i do not get the equation(?) but you meant that these philosophers promote an ahistorical conception of society with bourgeois liberal relativism as its cornestone?.
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But philosophers are dreaming the bourgeois dream of an eternal and static capitalist society.
Ah, I too read that classic book by Cohen called Why Not Eternal Capitalism?
When morality is discussed the interests of humans are becoming evil.
Not like there are ethicists talking about the interests of people.
As a consequence these philistines have no problem to discuss ethical issues and making human to objects which have to subjugate to the wisdom of philosophers and of course of the state.
There really are no critics of state apparatuses in philosophy. There are also no libertarians anymore.
Search for discussions about abortion in /r/philosophy.
Yes, r/philosophy is indeed representative of academic discourse on applied ethics.
They do it in such a manner that woman become the objects of an abstract formalism. They are not even humans anymore.
Good point. Feminists are not writing on the topic of abortion at all.
In the case of freedom just read the Stanford lexicon of philosophy.
Yes, it's called "lexicon", not "encyclopedia".
Basically Philosophy defines freedom negative to justify the state and a reasonable oppression.
You're right. I mean, nobody ever talks about positive freedom in political philosophy.
Again Philosophers are attacking the interests of the individual.
Yeah, basically all philosophers have gone FULLCOMMUNITARIANISM and abandoned individualism completly.
As a result freedom is a capitalistic concept which is valid only in the case someone is active on the market as employee or capitalist.
Agreed. Even philosophers like Nussbaum don't criticise ableistic assumptions in political philosophy. They all support the status quo.
Almost all other aspects of life are regulated to avoid a war.
Indeed, contemporary philosophy is utterly Hobbesian.
Marx defined freedom as the capability to change the world, which is a different dimension.
Contemporary philosophers don't want to change the world, they merely want to interpet it.
Philosophical thinking results into a neat picking of scientific results.
Yes, philosophers of science are totally spending their time nitpicking science.
Because philosophy doesn't want processes it becomes anti-science.
Process ontology has never been seriously defended by a Western philosopher.
Ideas such as life is simulated in a computer are very popular, even when such a computer would use more energy than the universe is able to provide.
Yeah, that's indeed a very popular idea in philosophy, not just a fringe view of people inspired by Bostrom/Musk.
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So you are proud having read a book instead of using it's ideas?
I see you are a big fan of irony.
It's remind me on those Americans invading subs to state knowing Marx by reading manifesto.
You know what you remind me of? r/atheism posters saying stupid shit like "philosophy is just Christian apologetics because all philosophers are theists" or Christian fundamentalists crying "philosophers are all godless and think that hedonism is correct". I hope you agree with me that the correct reply to people like this is "Read more (contemporary) philosophy before strawmanning an entire field and suggesting that it defends wildly controversial claims as if they were gospel".
Like, how much contemporary philosophy have you read? Be honest. You can have a reading list if you admit that you're just making stuff up.
Hush and return to your bourgeois racist hellhole of /r/philosophy
Bourgeois I'll grant, if only because all default subs are likely to be that. But racist? Please report racist comments so that we can remove them.
Either you don't understand sarcasm or you are deliberately choosing to ignore the actual argument. Most likely, both.
Wow, not even hiding your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. You're giving leftcoms a bad name.
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Oh no, your massive intellect is just too much for us filthy mortals to handle! I thought it takes at least some expertise in a discipline to assess it, but a genius such as yourself only requires a few papers and an internet forum to write off a whole field of inquiry.
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authority as an argument
Where am I claiming authority as an argument? And who cares about what r/philosophy thinks, it's just a goddamn internet forum. And what's so uneducated about quoting your bad arguments to refute them? How about you actually say something in defense of your assessment of philosophy instead of accusing people of being uneducated teenagers?
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I will read the third part, on parliamentarism, tomorrow.
In the age of the nuclear missile, the drone strike, stealth bombers, and a whole host of other violent state-apparatus which have grown in power and violence immensely since the age of Lenin, what is to be done about revolution?
It is genuinely possible for the vanguard party within the state to acquire the means to overthrow the state and capitalism seeing as the power of the state has developed so much?
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It is fairly amusing that someone with the username The_Bordiga is unfamiliar with Bordiga's writings on this subject. Fairly telling of the case that no one actually bothers to read anything anymore.
"The magnificent American Navy, which is today the terror of the world, will be transformed into a pile of scrap metal if the volcano of the Revolution erupts again. The fire will have to break out in all the nations and all the continents, however: in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, but especially in America. Then we shall see what becomes of a nuclear powered super-carrier when the crew hoists the red flag."
Perhaps it's a joke? Much like the actual Bordiga has become today? To be honest, the quote you provided itself is hard to take seriously. There weren't bunker buster nukes and white phosphorus (replace with the hundreds of technologies that have been invented for war since WWI, some listed already by u/The_Bordiga. Point still remains.) in 1917. Bordiga makes it sound like the plot of Battleship Potemkin. The bourgeoisie today would bomb out a commune in a heartbeat if that was their last option. There's also the question of uneven development.
The fire will have to break out in all the nations and all the continents
At the same time? Unlikely. Might as well be preparing for the second coming of Christ if this is really your position.
"Perhaps it's a joke? Much like the actual Bordiga has become today? To be honest, the quote you provided itself is hard to take seriously. There weren't bunker buster nukes and white phosphorus in 1917. Bordiga makes it sound like the plot of Battleship Potemkin. The bourgeoisie today would bomb out a commune in a heartbeat if that was their last option. There's also the question of uneven development.
The fire will have to break out in all the nations and all the continents
At the same time? Unlikely. Might as well be preparing for the second coming of Christ if this is really your position."
White phosphorus was in use during WW1 so yes, it did exist in 1917. A quick google search, which I personally know you are capable of doing, revealed this to me. The bombs that would later inspire bunker buster bombs used in the Desert Storm operation were also used during WW2, keeping in mind Bordiga wrote this text in 1957, and that he explicitly references nuclear powered super-carriers, I think it's fair to say he was aware of the destructive capabilities of the bourgeoisie.
Your bitterness is palpable and embarassing.
Do you and your comrades always look directly past the point people are making for the sake of being "right"?
vanguard party within the state
I don't know exactly what you meant by this but I would be willing to say the majority of people here, myself included, would say that the party should not operate within the confines of bourgeoisie democracy. That is, not participate in electoral politics at all.
That being said, as for the massive array of state machinery being wielded against us, I feel that in the United States an invariant and militant movement is needed that could force either a) the mass desertion of soldiers from the military back home with their equipment, where we would focus on arming the workers or b) the radicalization of the youth that deprives the military of a workforce, although I view this route as hopeless because the state would thus incentivize military even more or even in desperate cases wage war to sustain itself.
I just meant that it is within a country, bad wording on my part though
Thanks for your answer
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Aren't all conditions of deprivation relative to a given historical situation, though? One might have made the same point about the masses living in relative comfort in the early 1900s: compared to the subsistence farming that most of the working poor lived under before and during the early stages of the industrial revolution this was probably the case.
Surely the relevant measure of what constitutes relative comfort and deprivation is inequality: if eight people have as much influence in terms of voting shares and other wealth as a small country's population, this can be seen as a gross indignity even if that small country have universal health insurance etc.
Aren't all conditions of deprivation relative to a given historical situation, though?
I don't think that's true at all. Firstly, the conditions of many workers in First World countries aren't actually that great. It's an absolute lie that they are living in luxury. People in the UK are literally dying due to a lack of food, welfare, etc. Think of all the workers in America drinking posioned water. These are not First World conditions.
Also, I think that's too mechanical. The upheavels of the late 1960s occured during the post war boom. Living standards were increasing, wages were rising. In Australia, home ownership was reaching it's peak level; ye, despite what policy makers hoped, howm ownership did not make workers more conservative. Having that net made workers confident: they could strike, they could protest, if they lost their wages or their job, they wouldn't be left destitute.
💯
Having access to food, housing and education is actually a pretty damned privileged thing, even in "first world" countries. Food deserts are common in this country, we have a surplus of empty houses yet still have a homeless population and our education system is run like a prison system, with many people barred from having higher education or even access to a trade education.
It is genuinely possible for the vanguard party within the state to acquire the means to overthrow the state and capitalism seeing as the power of the state has developed so much?
Not a vanguard, no.
would you say that the conditions for first-world revolution are now unlikely to ever be met?
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Shitty economic conditions do not create revolutionaries, revolutions are a lot more than a general striketm 2.0. The east german uprising, the hungarian revolution(1919), the october revolution, were all about more than economics. 2008 devastated millions of people but little came of it, and the people who did take political action afterwards were not always the ones who got hit by the crisis. Those people were busy trying to find someplace to sleep where their kids wouldn't freeze to death, and looking for jobs.
A couple of words of advice, first of all, the notion that people who aren't you or me can only be communists and revolutionary if you fuck up their life is belittling and ahistorical.
Second of all, don't try to make revolutionary potential into something one-dimensional, the chaotic mix of hope, de-legitmisation of the current order, opportunity, expectation and decay of the state that's necessary for a revolution to happen, and the different ways that one of these factors can compensate for the lack of another, makes it hopeless to give an easy answer to the question of when we can expect a revolution. Anyone who claims they can say when a revolution will or wont happen is a hack. Lenin himself thought some of the older members of the party may not live to see the overthrow of capitalism, he wrote that in the months preceeding the october revolution.
Shitty economic conditions do not create revolutionaries, revolutions are a lot more than a general striketm 2.0.
There are many countries with conditions that are slightly-to-moderately worse than the US (or other major western powers), that have yet to see full-scale revolts break out.
To some degree, this is because the major western powers are always ready to intervene and prevent such revolts. Once the major western powers are sufficiently weakened, maybe that will change.
Many Americans may soon end up unemployed due to automation, cut off from federal social programs, etc. That could turn into something... but we'll have to wait and see.
The revolutions that felled the USSR, the latest great liberal revolutions, put "the masses of the people" up against a superpower with all the nukes and tanks and all that a superpower would have.
The power of the liberal capitalist state, much like the state capitalist state, will un-develop itself, its weaknesses are built into its strength.
I've heard about the term "State-capitalism" but i'm not sure what it means.
Were the USSR and other states socialist or not?
What do leftcoms think about the Trotskyist (degenerated workers state) and anarchist analysis of the USSR?
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Very well put.
Marx made no distinction between socialism and communism? I thought he very overtly described it as a higher stage of socialism which occurred once scarcity had more or less been eliminated. At that point, classes would disappear and the state would naturally whither. Am I getting that wrong?
He wrote this in the Communist Manifesto:
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
What other way is there to interpret that then as I described?
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It sounds like you agree with the interpretation of there being a lower and higher stage characterized by the presence and absence of the state, respectively. You just do not want to call those different stages "socialism" and "communism". So what you are saying is that left communists differentiate themselves by choosing different labels than Lenninists?
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No, that is not what I am saying. Leninists basically applied mental gymnastics to justify the state of the USSR after it was clear that the revolutions in western Europe failed and that the Russian revolution would stay isolated and thus fail.
Genuine question, what should they have done at that point?
If you look at the essay that's taken from, you will see that Bordiga didn't really seem to have a problem with using Socialism as a synonym for the lower stage of Communism and Communism for the higher stage.
You haven't shown why it's so important people say lower and higher stage of Communism instead of Socialism and Communism.
They did, though.
If both parties in the conversation interpret the lower and higher stage of communism in the same way, then arguing over whether or not to call the lower stage socialism and the higher communism is pointlessly arguing over semantics as both stages are part of the socialist or communist mode of production.
The point /u/ehrnio is making is in reference to the Leninist understanding of socialism as the transitional period in which all characteristics of capitalist society are present whilst the "socialist state" builds communism.
Oh, I agree then. I just don't like the way it's often worded by people as if using the term Socialism is bad just because Marx didn't do it.
The Italian Left didn't necessarily use communism and socialism interchangeably, although we do. For example, they still believed that the state would exist in the lower stage of communism (what they sometimes called lower socialism), however value, the commodity-form and private property would have been abolished.
Most Trotskyists insist that the USSR and all nominally communist states were or are proletarian dictatorships. It's hard to take this seriously when the working class has little to no political power in these states. The theory reaches the height of absurdity when it tries to explain China, Vietnam, and North Korea as proletarian dictatorships.
There are other issues with Stalinism, such as the popular front, which was perhaps the most crippling Stalinist policy in history.
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How is it possible that a workers' state is not a dictatorship of the proletariat? The two are synonyms.
Trotsky continued to call the USSR a proletarian dictatorship right up to the day of his death.
concentrated spectacle capitalism through and through
Hey there, new to reddit and leftist forums. I'm glad to find a community where I can speak to like-minded Communists--I've received threats when I tried to post about it on Yik yak, and I can't seem to find anyone interested in creating a revolutionary group near where I live. So basically, I have a fair grasp on Marxism and I'm currently working on Lenin's "The State and Revolution", but I'd like some help as to what to do, where to go from here and what more I need to know to further the cause. Much obliged in advanced!
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I wouldn't put down "The State and the Revolution", it would be one of the first books I would recommend to any new communist. It makes clear so well that there is an enormous theoretical gap between the leftists (so-called "communists", trotskyists, ... ) and Lenin on the question of the revolution, the capitalist state and the definition of communism.
Next, I would recommend The Junius Pamphlet by Luxemburg, because it gives a very clear understanding of the historical period in which the Left of the Second International formed the Third International. It also gives a good impression of the moral outrage, combined with an unparalleled theoretical clarity, that lies at the basis of the communist movement. Finally, and perhaps an odd addition to he things I could suggest to you, read Victor Serge's "Memoirs of a Revolutionary". Not only will you gain insight into the turn-of-the-century political climate of Western Europe and Russia, it gives a good first-hand account of the rise of state capitalism, Stalinist repression, personal struggles with defeat and the role of dramatis personae of that period (Zinoviev, Trotsky, ...).
And, of course, you would only make your life more difficult if you did not at least try to read some introductory texts by the International Communist Tendency, International Communist Current or any other left communist organization. /u/s1ngm1ng/ is clearly influenced by modernizing tendencies, such as communization. The choices on the reading list reflect her/his background. I am not a modernizer, but that shouldn't keep you from trying to form an opinion on the different currents within the left communist milieu.
Don't put down Lenin, but also read Marx, contrary to what many claim, Lenin is a major influence for the Communist Left. Although one must read him with scrutiny, as any theoretician or theoretical work. Should you agree or disagree with him, at least disagree or agree with what he said and did, not what others made him out to be (idealized or vilified).
I suggest you to not think of the Communist Left as one united ideological movement, but rather, as an historical tendency in within the larger workers movement.
Read the major works of Lenin, Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Rühle and Herman Gorter, Mattick (for more context it the US), Bordiga and Damen. These are somewhat the major figures, although there are many more. Also, check out the ICC and the ICT for existing groups of the communist left.
Put down Lenin and pick up Marx. Also, check out this reading list, has pretty much everything you'll need.
I agree with this, and would add that you don't need to be discouraged by the mass of works in the reading list - just pick what seems interesting to you, but be sure to first have a firm grip on Marx before you move on. Understanding Marx's work is central to everything else, because otherwise you'll easily fall into the misrepresentations and misunderstandings that plague Trotskyism, MLs etc. Understanding what doesn't work is already a lot.
+1
Basic Texts of the International Communist Party
http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/WhatDist.htm
http://www.international-communist-party.org/EnglishPublications.htm
Not gonna lie, it is a bit of a personal topic. In my experience with most leftists, people tend to side with unification as they see a "Capitalist Taiwan" against a "Communist China". Because the latter is more progressive, they should unify because "Chinese unity" along with some other regurgitations of "Taiwan always being apart of China". I understand that Left Communists oppose nationalism, but could we say that unifying a bunch of regions could also have nationalist implications?
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"Communist China"
more progressive
Pffft. As if.
I do not in the slightest "support" either "Chinese Unification" or "Taiwanese Independence;" there is no communist or liberatory character to a regrouping of, or cleavage between, bourgeois states, and there never will be. I will not be reduced to a flaccid apologist for this or that regime.
Besides, how much does it really matter what I think? I'm not some puffed-up ML grouplet that feels the need to have Very Official Positions on everything.
Okay....
but could we say that unifying a bunch of regions could also have nationalist implications?
Yes.
chinese unity
It's amazing that anyone can see this as anything other than blatent nationalism
Historically speaking, this is how nationalism actually became a thing: the unification of feudal territories into "nations," then "nation states."
You'd be surprised, Sparts with their "Revolutionary Unification", forgoing internatoinalism in favor of progressive nationalisms
Sparts as in sparticists? I've never heard of Luxembourg or and Luxembourgist support nationalism or natlib before
Yeah sparts as in the Trotskyist organization. One of the reasons I've asked the question here is because of the positions on most of the other parts of the Left.
The modern day Sparts are just a bunch of obnoxious Trots.
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I meant more "people who call themeselves Luxembourgists" which there are plenty of
If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading this more left communist analysis of how china came to be the nation it is today - http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/sorghum-and-steel/
Communist China
Uh huh. Sure.
I put it in quotes to emphasize that these are formulations that people use, not that I support any of them.
All I'm saying is that anyone who calls China "communist" isn't even worth bothering with, really.
Well, it's Communist, not communist. I think it's a useful distinction. We are already constantly differentiating between Liberal parties and liberalism, Conservatives (who are also mostly liberals in essence) and conservatives, etc. anyway.
Exactly. We distinguish between organizations that happen to carry a name, and defining what the term actually means(or should mean). I certainly don't see China as communist but it's slightly easier in conversation to refer to it as "Communist China" when explaining the thinking process.
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Would you rather I preface it constantly with "State Capitalist/Non-Mode of Production" China every time I explain it? When I'm explaining people's perspective I'm just using what terminology they use and how it fits into their reasoning.
OK, sure, but "Communism" really has very little to do with "communism", except historically.
thanks for the insight lol, this isn't /r/communism so everybody here already knows this
People often transition between ideologies and want clarification on what terms actually mean.
https://newbloommag.net/2015/05/19/pro-independence-left-vs-pro-unification/Thought this was a good article on the topic.
I am heavily interested in the history of tibet, and in particular movements that aim to gain Tibetan independence from China. I know its not Taiwan, but would you know of any articles, write-ups, books, firsthand experiences, in the Chinese Liberation of tibet?
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Personal topic as in personal cultural background and familiarity with the topic, and wanting to see it in a different perspective, alright?
I'd figure the only proper leftcomm answer to the question, on either side, is "why should anyone give a shit."
I've read up on a few different Leftcom critiques of Trotsky and Trotskyism(Namely from the ICC and the ICT)
ICC: What distinguishes revolutionaries from Trotskyism? http://en.internationalism.org/ir/139/trotsykism
ICT: Trotsky and the Origins of Trotskyism http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2000-10-01/trotsky-and-the-origins-of-trotskyism
My main question: How do Trotskyists view Left Communism and the critiques it's made of them?
EDIT: I've asked this on another subreddit, but here I'm wondering if there's any former Trots here who can talk about their experiences between Trotskyism and Left Communism.
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A difficult answer as there has never been a unified "left communism".
From the Italian Left perspective, the Left Opposition to Stalin usually identified with Trotsky was broader than those who wound up "Trotskyists". In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Italian left sought to unite the various left oppositions under a united front "from below" - unity of various political tendencies directly in the class struggle.
The real break with Trotskyism was its support - albeit "critical" for Russian imperialism in WW2. Trotsky died before the war settled the hypothysis of the USSR as DeformedDegenerated Workers State. After the war those closest to him - including his wife - all renounced Trotskyism for perspectives closer to Left Communism.
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yes, you're correct. I originally misstated and corrected above.
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The ICC notes that Trotsky could've eventually revised his judgment, which I find interesting.
I thought the break with Trotskyism came earlier with the "French Turn".
The effective political break did occur earlier (1932?), but the view of Trotskyism crossing class lines first came with the French Turn, then definitively with support of USSR in WW2
I'm not a former Trot, but know many, and have most of my time involved in politics. They consider Lenin's eponymous critique to be completely accurate. They use the term ultra-left to describe leftcoms pejoratively. They reject the leftcom rejection of parliamentarism/electoralism, uphold the need for a min and max program, and believe their party is the only vehicle for working class revolution and therefore have no interested in collaboration.
Trots don't uphold the need for a min/max program though. It's to be replaced with the transitional program. At least according to all the trots I know. Everything else seems spot on, though.
Ah, ok my fault. Trotsky I've failed you ;-(
Trotsky I've failed you
Not the worst thing
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Sure seeing a lot of ICP material here recently
n+1 > ICT > ICP >>> ICC
Wait, explain this order please.
n+1: God Tier Left Coms
International Communist Tendency: Also a good Left Communist group
International Communist Party: Pretty good but a bit too cultish about Bordiga.
International Communist Current: A extremely cult-like joke of a Left Communist organization, and a legitimate laughing stock.
N+1 shit is on a whole new level.
Interestingly enough, I have good experiences with the ICC (in my own country) and the ICT (in other countries). To be honest, I think the international left communist milieu is too small to start ranking organisations, especially when in some countries you don't get to choose which organisation you can be a part of.
...especially when in some countries you don't get to choose which organisation you can be a part of.
You make it sound like there is some sort of left communist draft.
If only! ;) Nevertheless, revolutionary theory and organisational experience need a vehicle for preservation and further development. Reddit (or for that matter any physical discussion group) is a great means to get into left communism, or discuss it casually, but it can never replace this necessarily collective work.
And to be honest, I have seen too many people approach left communist positions only to begin swaying on these positions, not because their problems had any theoretical depth to them, but because they thought it was possible to individually hold (or even spread) proletarian positions in a society that bombards you with bourgeois ideology from the bedroom to the workplace and from your workplace back to your home. In this sense, It can help even if you stay in contact with an organisation so you can pose questions and have regular meetings.
Good idea. I like the thought of a communist org membership functioning like professional sports clubs (trades, draft picks, contracts, etc.) Would keep things interesting ;)
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Transcript of full interview can be found here:http://libcom.org/news/more-business-usual-paul-mattick-02032014
Better go and read the book he wrote, much clearer exposition of his ideas than in this interview:Business as usual
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Btw mods, what do you think about adding this website to the sidebar?
http://en.labournet.tv/
very good website, some people related to the german group Wildcat participate I think
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Can't recommend this enough in light of the appallingly low theoretical level in some of the contributions to the BLM thread.
This is an excellent example of an analysis that acknowledges the importance of racism in contemporary capitalism (and therefore to any communist theory or class struggle) without straying an inch from a revolutionary proletarian perspective.
So it a marxist analysis of racism in america, in plain words
No, France.
i liked the article a lot but it was obvious that this anticolonial party that is being criticized is just part of the bourgeois extreme- left. it is an huge problem that immigrant workers(or workers of foreign ancestry) are often drawn to identity politics that,while radical- sounding,criticize the establishment without situating themselves on the terrain of class struggle.
the part about workers of different ancenstries being typecast in the same trades was particularly interesting . i think that also articles which analyse mass incarceration as a way to isolate and to keep under control the lumpen-proletariat and most exploited sectors of the working class which have been impoverished by deindustrialization would be welcome as well.
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The experience of our generation: that capitalism will not die a natural death.
Not only is it inevitable, it happens periodically. Anytime there's a major recession or depression is a collapse of capitalism. If you're wondering if there can be a final collapse which will automatically render all future attempts to concentrate power and money in the hands of a minority ruling class fruitless then no, there will always be a few perverse individuals who will try to seize control back from the people.
As an ideology no. In physical real terms. Yes eventually because the environment won't support capitalism as it is. But again no because it will still be around as an idea. Does that make sense ?
No
Well it depends on how society and the means of production evolve if you haven't watched cgp grey's videos "Humans need not apply" and "Digital Aristotle" , and novara media's "Fully automated luxury communism" ,i sugest you do they're both pretty interesting offering a view on the role of automation and ai's in the economy and society.
But now my oppinion. If modern technology keeps progressing the way it is today in a few decades more and more jobs will be replaced by automation general purpose robots like baxter already , learn new functions and perform them it's slower then a human employee , but it's only the beggining networks of , general purpose robots capable of learning new skills everyday ,can and will replace low skilled workers even if they are a bit slower , robots don't get sick don't need food sleep don't have kids and learn much faster. Stores could have bots and ai's selling clothes and cleaning the store. Restaurants and cafes , waiter robots taking orders sending them to the kitchen were cooking robots would , either help prepare of prepare all of the food. Cleaning robots , factory robots mass producing consumer goods farming robots , in drones making sure the fields aren't threatned by anything while automated tractors plant harvest or spread manure over the fields.
Also millions of tons of food is wasted by producers and supermarkets , because they lack the proper technology to conserve the food produced or simply to keep "aesthetic standards". Plastic metal copper aliminium etc is wasted by the millions of tons in landfills all around the world.
So in general the abbility to mass produce consumer goods and provide services , at a much greater rate of production and efficiency is possible and in a few decades perhaps 20-30 years will be a reallity , and we already have an abundance of wasted resources with better technology these resources could be put to very good use , i also didn't mention rooftop and vertical agricultre , wich are on their infancy but could increase agricultural production within urban centers.
But all of this technology and increased production abundance of goods and less work hours mean little if socialists don't organize and use these technologys to decrease poverty and inequality , and give better opportunitys to people in our home nations and abroad.
Yeah. A social democratic system will most likely replace it. From there we can work towards communism.
Social Democracy is still capitalism.
I know. But it must come before communism.
I know. But it must come before communism.
not really
So you disagree with Marx?
there was no social democracy in Russia before the revolution
the golden age of social democracy didn't get the world any closer to communism
and Marx never claimed that
I didn't mean to imply that there was, in fact, the reason the use failed is because there was no capitalist stage.
Social democracy is the last stage of capitalism. Reformed capitalism must come before revolution.
Marx did that, quite explicitly. Read Marx's work before claiming to know his theory.
imo the russian revolution failed because of the failure of the world revolution generally (in particular the german/italian ones. also italy and germany never had social democratic regimes before their revolutions either, and they were almost successful), leading to the isolation of russia, the destruction of the working class in the civil war etc.
and i think that's clearly wrong considering that social democracy is dead as a doorknob, yet capitalism still lumbers on. plus if we're talking about "stages" in the Stalinist sense, that's also wrong b/c communism doesn't require every single country to undergo capitalist development, just for capitalist social relations to become the dominant world-system, which it arguably did during/after WWI. Marx actually thought that the Russian peasant communes could form the basis of socialism in Russia without the need for the establishment of capitalism, and all the brutality which that process involves.
but i'm kinda curious, why do you think a social democracy 'needs' to be in place before the working class and revolutionaries can push for communism?
The Soviet Union was one of the world's top economic powers, and was quite successful in spreading communist governments worldwide. The problem, is that there was no capitalist stage of Russian history to create a large amount of money for people outside the government, and to create technology, witch would have led to reformed capitalism (social democracy being the most common) to give the people money, power, and influence. This is what would have needed to happen to compensate for the distraction of the working class in the civil war.
I'm confused as to why you think social democracy is dead, as it has influenced the governments of almost all Western European nations. Besides, I don't think social democracy is necessary, just modified capitalism, to spread wealth. Of course capitalism wouldn't need to spread to all nations, but in almost all the nations communism came to, there was no capitalist stage. Some form of wealth sharing must happen in the communist bloc imo.
Social democracy or other forms of modified capitalism must happen (imo) for the people to gain enough power to have a revolution. Of course one can happen straight out of feudalism, but it would have to be subsidized by other communist nations (otherwise there would be massive poverty like the ussr), in theory, it could also happen right out of capitalism, but I doubt there would be enough revolutionary sentiment for that to happen (Slavoj Žižek has some good articles on why. Basically once the working class gets a taste of power, they want it all). It would also require the new government to do wealth spreading.
menshevik confirmed
Tbh I've liked their views more and more lately. But i'm a supporter of left unity, so I'll go with the majority option on that.
Where did Marx say this?
communism has never risen to power in all these self-styled real socialist countries. there were revolutions and uprisings,mainly in central europe,in the 1917\1923 period but they were either crushed or went through a process of exhaustion and internal degeneration,as it happened in russia with soviets being turned in shells as a result of the civil war and the bolshevik party fusing with the state. i hope you reconsider your view that eastern europe falling under the soviet union's orbit after the yalta imperialist carve-up somewhat amounts to the establishment of "socialism". Also,Marx said that working class was intrinsically revolutionary and different from all the other exploited classes in previous modes of production because it was a producing class that,unlike the bourgeoise in feudalism,could not reach a position of economic influence under capitalism and had hence to rely only on class struggle to free itself.
Socialdemocracy was never modified capitalism ,it was just a way to give the workers scraps and better living standards during the post second world war economic boom which came on the wheels of the most deadly war ever destroying an huge amount of capital,both fixed and, most tragically,variable. I fully agree with javarison lamar and i greatly recommend to jesith the articles of the international communist current
Either the working class overthrows capitalism and ushers in communism or a new world war could destroy humanity
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I doubt this will make it to mainstream media; won't why? 🙄
"Marx was devoted to the cause of human freedom. When asked, in a Victorian palour game, to name the vice he most detested, he replied 'Servility'; and as his favourite motto he put down: 'De omnibus dubitandum'-' You must doubt about everything'" (Marx A Very Short Introduction by Peter Singer page 93)
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The vice you excuse most — Gullibility
Wooops…
Of course specific instances of police violence against marginalized groups are oft even in mainstream writing & media discussed, but necessarily abridged and washed irrelevant with careful principles the likes of "you always will have a few bad apples" or "they overstepped" (as if they really overstepped and not simply did what they were there to do).
As mainstream media has to adhere to functions of capital, their analysis is always stinted.
If read this article: http://libcom.org/history/origins-police-david-whitehouse - and I think it's a good piece and recommend it to you, but I'm looking for more theory on police and if you can think of any texts one should read or are at least interesting to consider - well, I'm asking you for that.
And because the justification for police is always crime, I'd be interested in texts and analysis about that.
Thank you.
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Robert Reiner - The Politics of the Police (can't find it online but is mentioned in a interesting post here: https://politeire.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/the-police-the-case-against/)
Mark Neocleous - The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power
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Also: can an admin add this site to the sidebar?
I am (fairly, a few months) new to the Left Communist movement, having come from both Leninist and anarchist tendencies. I am quite confused as to what Left Communism is today and what it stands for, despite having read a variety of historical works by Left Communists (mostly Pannekoek, who is unequivocally my favourite). I have heard council Communism is dead, but has any of it survived? I'm also very unsure of Bordigism as I hear its totalitarian but then this doesn't seem to correlate with Left Communism or Communism at all; he also seems to be an adherent of Leninism, which I have recently fallen out of favour with completely. I find this all to be strange and it tells me little about the movement today...
...so, could anyone please give an overview of what tendencies exist today (e.g. Damenism, Bordigism, Councilism, "synthesist", Communisation Theory, etc.)?
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'Left communism and its ideology' and 'Bordiga versus Pannenkoek' are good introductions, see sidebar
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Michael Heinrich argues that Marx was not after a “Marxism” as an identity-defining “truth.” Rather, he was more interested in the critical business of undermining certainties.
I always saw Marx in this way too. I like this Marx
i like the marx that drunkenly wrestled with bakunin until both fell asleep on the floor.
i like the marx that had 2 baby mamas
Meaningless ad hominem attack. Who cares if Marx had kids with other women? This is essentially the male-equivalent of slut-shaming. The only person who had a right to care about it was his wife and the other women; for us today it should be of no consequence.
meaningless ? sure
attack? no
if people want to engage in sycophantic jesting, why not engage in some unmannerly jibes?
I personally dont care if he knocked up his maid.
Michael Heinrich argues that Marx was not after a “Marxism” as an identity-defining “truth.” Rather, he was more interested in the critical business of undermining certainties.
Not much that's new in this article but it's a succinct collection of arguments in favour of the critical view.
Ok i guess marxism doesn't exist after all.
It really doesn't outside of the ideologies of Marxism-Leninism and its derivatives. Personally I've come to the conclusion recently that it's almost impossible to call oneself a Marxist without being dogmatic. Sure, there are some who understand Marx and that's why they might call themselves Marxists, but it makes better sense to me to forgo the label completely.
Personally I've come to the conclusion recently that it's almost impossible to call oneself a Marxist without being dogmatic.
I had this discussion with a medical professional the other day. If you embrace a diagnosis in the most literal sense, particularly a broad one, you end up constrained within the bounds of this thing, pushed in one direction or another by its internal logic as if that were a universal truth.
It's hard to deny the labels are useful, but for what? Something tangible you can grasp alone at 3am, or a construct you use to communicate with society? I need that diagnosis or I slip through the social cracks in half a second. The label of Marxist, or anything else, is reminiscent enough of that experience that I hesitate for the exact same reason. To a point it's enormously useful. Beyond that it becomes more obfuscating than illuminating.
Don't you often make the case that marxism is a method of investigation, or something to that manner?
Are you ceasing that line of argument?
Personally I tend to agree w an idea mentioned in the article-- Marxism is most anything of Marx and his intellectual inheritance.
Marxism exists in the sense that Kantianism or Cartesianism exist; that is, as a useful descriptor of ones philosophical positions and method. I would second what Vormav said: it's useful to a point as a descriptor of where one is coming from, but in a larger context it's not important or useful. The Stalinists who obsess over the phrase turn it into an ideology (that's why they spend all their time trying to find the truth in Marx's works, failing to realize that the truth is right in front of them) and forget that what Marx was first and foremost was a socialist, and socialism is more important than Marxism.
you believe in truth?
Yes.
How do you define truth?
That which is true, correct, right, just, etc. etc.
Truth is a sum of human relations. There are no objective truths, just agreements.
If you throw solid sodium in water it will cause an explosion. This is an objective truth.
how about the emancipatory potential of the proletariat?
History is full of examples of oppressed people rising up in the name of freedom. This would strike me as an objective truth; fascism rests on the concept that these uprising need to be stopped at all costs.
I was mostly using that as a counter-example to your "there are no objective truths," which I think is a completely ridiculous statement.
Look Socrates, this is a place for communist discussion not abstract epistemological ramblings
I though left-communists liked rambling :(
but actually I am interested in marxists' views on objective truth, and most I have talked to would be wary of what solidblue seems to espouse here.
but i'll take it to the strip club solid said he'd buy me a lap dance.
You believe in agreements?
yes
Unrelated question: Anyone know when The Science of Value will be translated and released?
I suspect it won't because the content has been covered in more recent work that has been translated, I'm only guessing.
What work is that? Intro to the 3 volumes or something else I'm not familiar with?
If I recall, Historical Materialism is slated to release it at some point in the future. Who knows exactly when that is...
Cheers for the heads up
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I'm stupid and I probably missed something, but I have a question, hope someone can answer me.
If labor is done based on use values, and use value is directly used as a consumption, that's all well and good. The general factory or train or whatever the hell is all owned and we have access to whatever is produced. That's fine. Marx describes that to limit the exchange value, that whatever tokenized form labor takes in the process of use, that these are not exchanged.
All of that makes sense to me in the grand scale. Where I get lost is day to day social interraction. Say there's an old lady down the road who needs her yard cleared or mowed, so some other kid does it for her. She can't tokenize that relationship in any way, she can't produce tokens or script to be used for consumption, since there is no exchange. At best she could write a little note that says "little Jimmy raked my leaves, give him some apples or some shit" and the collective food place will recognize this?
So the kid cleaning her yard has no value to his labor outside of just doing the work, and she has no method of getting her yard cleared off without the good-will and mutual aid of the people around her. Or what am I missing here.
Did you ever consider that Jimmy is just a nice kid? Like, there's little to no division of labour, so I imagine communists will have more time to do “acts of kindness ”
Yeah, or the old lady could grant Jimmy some equally small kindness. This is a day to day social interaction as you said, it doesn't need to be turned into anything else. If someone does this a lot and helps people out in need with relatively small things they could be given the things they need assuming that's all they can do.
Yeah, or the old lady could grant Jimmy some equally small kindness.
You're describing trade in a world running on a gift economy.
i have some questions on these two philosophies but didn't wanna post in any of the tank 101 subs. basically, if materialism is the idea that society progresses based on material contradictions & idealism holds that we progress based on our ideas or ideology(?):
1) could someone give me an example of a material analysis vs an idealist one, applied to a specific set of historical events?
2) how do these two schools of though translate into the revolutionary practice of Marxism & anarchism. like how do these ways of looking at history influence the way Marxists and anarchists organize?
3) since yall are Marxist comrades, what is the argument for the materialist position?
4) would it make sense to say that it's a mixture of both that changes our conditions? has anyone seriously advocated this?
just some questions i've had on my mind for some time. I don't know shit about these issues, so if they're dumb questions, plz bear with me. Also, recommendations on introductory works would be great for further exploring these ideas. thanks!!
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it certainly does help! Thank you so much for such a helpful and informative answer.
The best thing you can do is to just read the German Ideology. Even if you only get a few chapters in then you'd be more informed than 90 per cent of "Marxists". You can clearly see the difference between an ideological and materialist take on how we view the hows and whys of historical progress. Idealists will see the struggle of ideas as being the sole or dominant force of change in history, a lot of the time based around a view of history progressing towards Christian monotheism, rather than seeing these as merely the ideological reflections of actual material production.
Thank you so much, added to my list!
how do these two schools of though translate into the revolutionary practice of Marxism & anarchism. like how do these ways of looking at history influence the way Marxists and anarchists organize?
I'll fill in on this one, as a former anarchist I noticed that a good portion of anarchist praxis is based on "consciousness raising" or simply put, education. Because idealism posits that historical progress is marked by the development of ideas the anarchists view the success of anarchism as being based upon the extent to which the working class understand and adopt anarchism. This is most famously embodied in the Lucy Parsons quote:
Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.
Thought proceeds form so it is possible and desirable to form "the new world in the shell of the old" which will somehow be able to transcend capitalism and its social relations. This is most evident in their support for forming communes and co-operatives. Despite the fact that these institutions are still capitalist in form anarchists see them as an alternative to capitalism and as an example of actually existing anarchism.
Many anarchists reject the transitional stage between capitalism and communism and believe that we can move between two modes of production seamlessly. This is because they believe that our material conditions are defined by our consciousness so it is simply enough for the ideological structure in order to transform the entire material base overnight. This is rather new development amongst anarchists however as many of the 'forefathers' of anarchism understood the need for a transitional period, they simply rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat as too authoritarian.
There are other examples, but remember that this is a generalisation. There is such a thing as a materialist anarchist and there are plenty of idealist Marxists out there.
Thank you! I was actually wondering about what you mentioned at the end. iirc, bakunin was a materialist, which makes the dichotomy more complicated
Do you think the DoTP should terrorise it's class ennemies? Do you agree with the actions commited during the Red Terror? Are public execution and torture good revolutionary tactics to instill fear in the bourgeois?
Personally I don't think so, especially since the Red Terror was as much against socialists as it was against bourgeois. I don't think communism is something we should impose on people but I want to know your opinion!
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I'm in full support of crushing the class enemy using any method necessary.
Do you think someone deserve to die, independently of their actions, because they are born bourgeois?
Maybe but no one is "born" bourgeois, although, they're rendered pretty useless and impotent with the destruction of the bourgeois state, but,the bourgeoisie are as different from us as royalty. Communism isn't about the collaboration of classes, it is the dissolution of class society.
If you're born bourgeois, you don't deserve to die. If you refuse to give control of the workplace to the workers when they are demanding it, then you deserve to die.
Yeah sure, or prison, maybe?
During a violent revolution (especially if it's in danger of spiraling into Civil War), killing the enemy is probably more pragmatic than devoting manpower and energy to imprisoning them and making certain they stay imprisoned, isn't it?
It's more pragmatic but there's many things that are more pragmatic that we don't do. It would be pragmatic to kill heavily handicapped babies since they just cost resources to society and don't produce anything but we don't do it, of course. Where do we draw the line?
I see where you're coming from, but I suppose my counterargument would be that while killing handicapped babies might be more economical, not killing handicapped babies won't collapse society, while maintaining a prison system rather than devoting those resources to the struggle might well mean the difference between a successful revolution and a failed one.
Also, of course, handicapped babies are innocent, while this theoretical enemy is (ideally at least) guilty of something.
I don't know how we could do that but they could be productive too. They could do work of some kind that would be useful so that they aren't that much of a burden. There's also the "marketing" (e: marketing isn't really the right word but I don't know any other) aspect of executing every single bourgeois we see, if they have everything to lose, they might fight harder.
Where do we draw the line?
Well, a baby is innocent. The bourgeoisie have not only committed crimes, but are compelled to sin again. One is about helping a baby; the other is about protecting the revolution.
What does refuse even mean? Are they going to militarize every workplace in the world?
They'd refuse to hand over control by calling in the police/army to come and put down the workers. Or by hiring their own gang of thugs to harass/kill workers, like what happened in the late 1800s/early 1900s. If the workers say that they want to run the workplace democratically and the capitalist refuses to hand over control, he is as much a tyrant as a king.
I don't quite understand your second question. Are you saying the capitalists would militarize the workplace or that the workers would?
The capitalists wouldn't militarize their workplace, because they can bring in agents of the State to violently protect their private property rights. The workers would have to militarize their workplace, because otherwise they'll be extinguished immediately.
But this question of terror was about a revolutionary situation, which means these things would happen in more than one place
Should executions of the enemy be publicized?
I won't make the rules but I don't see why it should be hidden away. History forgets that revolutionary terror came from the working class, from the French revolution to the Russian. I should also point out that no matter how benign or pacifist even mild social movements they tend to get disproportionate retaliation in counter revolutions, often blood baths. I like to be on the side that is going to win.
I 100% agree. OP is looking at this the wrong way. Do millions of people every year deserve to continue dying at the hands of the ruling classes because we get squeamish over armed conflict?
I'm talking about terror, not conflict. I don't think terrorising people helps the revolution in anyway. I know that revolution is necessary and that capitalism kills millions more every year.
I should expect the bourgeoisie to feel terror at being stripped of their class position.
I don't think terrorising people helps the revolution in anyway.
Then you don't really understand the concept of terror or terrorism. Here is the dictionary definition: "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."
Pretty much all violent and even some "non-violent" revolutionary actions qualify as terrorism, as do most wars. So it is literally impossible to overthrow the elite without using terror. Now to what extent really depends on a lot of factors, but at a minimum open armed conflict with their jackboots is expected, along with all that this brings. As /u/red-rooster said if it proves necessary to use some of the less savory ways of treating other humans, so be it.
I think I wasn't clear what I meant by terror. I'm not talking of violence in general but of the kind of terror inflicted during the Red Terror, for example.
Obviously the bourgeoisie will and should fear terror as a class, but I don't think mass murdering and torturing their members would do much good, it might even make them want to fight harder.
If someone who was part of the bourgeoisie is captured, for example, they should be given the choice to fight, learn a trade or doing the work they did in the capitalist society (if it's still relevant). They should be integrated in the new socialist society like any other person, not shot on the spot because they were born rich.
That's what I think, anyway. You can tell me if I'm totally wrong, I'm open to debate!
they should be given the choice to fight
I don't think an enemy combatant should be trusted in the revolutionary army. At least, not one with real material interests invested in the opposing forces' victory. Maybe rank and file soldiers would be another story.
Another problem, of course, is that leaving members of the upper class alive creates figures for our opponents to rally around.
Well I guess they could work, that's always useful, war or not.
Another problem, of course, is that leaving members of the upper class alive creates figures for our opponents to rally around.
You can maybe fake their death (propaganda)? Also, if it's a popular revolution, I don't think the bourgeois side would have much support. I don't think they would need figures to rally around since they'd be fighting for their class privilege, for the statu quo. Killing every member of the upper class that we capture might make them fight even harder.
not shot on the spot because they were born rich.
Bourgeoisie != rich. You aren't born into a class (in the Marxist sense), it is simply your relation to the MOP. You can be born to bourgeois parents and decide to take a job as a prole, and to some degree vice-versa.
Isn't the only way to become rich to extract surplus value? If you're born to bourgeois parents, you'll almost certainly inherit their wealth, even if you work as "prole" (which is pretty unlikely to begin with). Does the wealth, created by the extraction of surplus value, that you inherit, make you bourgeois?
Isn't the only way to become rich to extract surplus value?
Robbing a bank is another way to become rich. Running a ponzi scheme, playing the stock market, gambling are three others.
I was excluding crime but playing the stock market is technically getting rich off the labor of others, no? Sure you can get rich by gambling but it's not frequent at all and people who win the lottery, for example, often spend all of it in 5-10 years.
That definition is too broad to hold any sort of real meaning.
No it really isn't. The specific western definition it too narrow to mean anything.
Why are we talking about this? The proletariat isn't some dog that can be leashed, not by us or anyone.
Because some people would oppose the revolution if the proletariat started using violence to achieve their aims.
TIL some people think that self-defense is bad.
I've actually seen anarcho-pacifists argue that defending yourself is the same as attacking someone.
I'm gonna stop calling myself a pacifist just so I'm never confused with those idiots.
I was asking the opinion of other prolétaires? I mean, the majority of people on this sub are workers. I also wanted to know the leftcom view of this, especially since tankies fetishize violence to an extreme degree.
I was referring to the proletariat in the sense of the united proletariat. I suppose I should have said "communist party" instead. We as individual members of the working class do not have control over our fellow workers. I for one am not going to betray the revolution just because I don't like my neighbors tactics.
No, of course not, that would just bring even more violence anyway. But I think discussing this can be interesting, Reddit is a discussion forum, after all.
the revolution is necessary, whether that requires terror or not completely depends on the situation and level/strength of resistance, reaction. but we can be sure some terror will be necessary if only because a revolution is terror for any ruling-class
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Excellent pamphlet detailing how the Bolsheviks destroyed the bottom-up organizations that Russian workers had created during the revolution. Probably saved me from becoming a Leninist. Be sure to share it with your tankie friends!
I think this debate is more interesting than Brinton's book: Factory committees in 1918 - Chris Goodey debates Maurice Brinton
Does such a thing exist? I'm looking for a book/anthology that compiles all the essential texts and covers most of the important topics. I want to learn more about left communism.
If such a thing doesn't exist, what texts would you include? What topics would you cover? If I can't find anything I'll compile them myself and print them off in pamphlet form since I prefer reading a book to reading online most of the time (or at least I'm trying to do more of it).
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There is a left-communism reader but it's more like a random compilation of texts than any other "reader" I've read. You can probably find the texts in this reader on Marxists.org and compile them yourself to save some money because this reader is really just a couple texts smashed together to sell a book.
Surprisingly, /r/communism has a pretty good Left-Com reading list.
Bourrinet has an excellent website which has a lot of good links plus you can find his excellent historical books.
Do all of those readings have an English version? It seems the website is a mix of French and German(?) for me.
There is an English section that you can click on
Title says it all, but I would be particularly interested in a Council Communist author's critique, something that could be referenced would also be a bonus. However, I'm not particularly bothered.
It'd also be interesting to get a discussion going here about the struggle and what its failures and successes were.
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There was something I read earlier this year about the winter of discontent, which was immediately before the Thatcher years. That was a council communist thing. If you're interested I can find a link.
A good source for the Thatcher years themselves could be 'Worker's Playtime'. The back issues are probably on Libcom.
I lived in the UK at the time, and was on strike a lot in the late 80s, as well as having been I loved in a lot of other stuff.
If you have any specific questions I could try and answer them.
There was something I read earlier this year about the winter of discontent, which was immediately before the Thatcher years. That was a council communist thing. If you're interested I can find a link.
That'd be great, if you don't mind!
A good source for the Thatcher years themselves could be 'Worker's Playtime'. The back issues are probably on Libcom.
I'll try browser around and see if I can find it.
If you have any specific questions I could try and answer them.
I need something that I can make reference to in a piece of work, it might sound odd, but would it be possible (at a later date, when I've done a bit more reading) to do a sort of 'formal' interview with you? Even personal anecdotes and opinions from somebody who lived it at the time, would be incredibly useful.
Winter of discontent stuff: https://libcom.org/history/delightful-measures-changed-reflections-1978-79-winter-discontentPlaytime stuff: https://libcom.org/tags/workers-playtime
You can interview me if you really want to. I live in Ankara so 'live' probably won't be possible, but we could do it over Skype.
Thanks for the links!
And that'd be really useful, I'll inbox you at some stage when I'd be ready to do an interview to try and organise it, cheers!
Goldner talks about it in this review http://breaktheirhaughtypower.org/review-the-condition-of-the-working-classes-in-england/ though it's not specifically what you are looking for.
I'll give it a read later, cheers!
I was out with a few of my trot mates and were asking me about this question and I realised that the majority of my study into left-communism has been reading up the various perspectives on what went wrong in Russia as opposed to how left-communist's think the revolution could/will occur and thus I didn't really have a fleshed out answer.
So I was wondering if anyone has a basic explanation for it as well as which reading on the sidebar go into this.
I think it was SolidBlues who had a good comment in /r/socialism regarding this but I couldn't find it.
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I think it was SolidBlues who had a good comment in /r/socialism regarding this but I couldn't find it.
If I remembered what it was I'd find it for you. A few essays spring to mind on the topic though:
Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party by Amadeo Bordiga
In Defense of Dictatorship: Introductory Notes by a dead blog called "Revolutionary Totalitarianism"
Eclipse and Reemergence of the Communist Movement by Gilles Dauve
I'm not 100% sure it was you so that might be why I couldn't find it.
But thanks for the essays!
I'm not sure if I understand your question. Are you asking us what goes on during a revolution or why does a revolution happen?
Sorry, I think my wording was pretty bad. My main question was regarding what goes on during a revolution.
just saw this on the sidebar there. Wow!!
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It's going to be a train wreck. http://media4.giphy.com/media/RHiD0K65NxxLO/giphy.gif
Wasn't Kliman himself involved in some e-drama fairly recently? I don't really know the details but didn't he get into some spat with people on facebook?
Yes plus a few other things. He doesn't know how to internet. I actually said at the time that him doing an ama would be hilarious.
Can I get a recap?
The same way Richard Dawkins doesn't know how to internet?
He blocked a bunch of people, including myself a while back, so there's that.
I'm definitely looking forward to it.
The date has been moved to September 25. I don't know why.
Pretty much any sort of full-length book. I already have Pannekoek's Workers' Councils, so you don't need to include that. And I definitely want a book, I simply can't read articles online because I can't focus on them.
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I'm not sure if any books are in publication, in English anyway. You can try searching for Phillipe Bourrinet's stuff on amazon, some of his stuff is online here https://libcom.org/tags/philippe-bourrinet. He wrote a couple of history books, one for the ICC I think, on Italian left communism. That might be in circulation, but he went back and did a new version when he left that. You can maybe find some things by Dauve and Mattick. You might be better off trying to get hold of a few newspapers. I don't own any physical books by left communists, not in English.
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/3dhl9z/left_communism_reading_guide/
Book-length links are marked with (B).
And I definitely want a book, I simply can't read articles online because I can't focus on them.
Have you considered ebooks? My Kindle Touch can read doc files. I just copy and paste from marxists.org into a Word doc and copy it to my Kindle and read from there. I found it helped me focus.
Also the kindle app for a smart phone or tablet is useful. Or, better yet, Pocket, which allows you to save articles and read them offline on a phone, tablet, or PC. Reading articles on Pocket on my phone is a lot easier than reading them on my computer when they're competing for tab space and attention. I tabbed an article about the LTV for weeks but put it on my phone 2 days ago and finished it last night.
“Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder, by Comrade V.I. Lenin.
That book is awful and full of misrepresentations of the Left argument.
And about as relevant as a bar of soap in the current state of leftism.
Runner-up only to Lenin's other hit single "What is to be Done?".
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While I appreciate the sentiment, I will not hide in the shadows. Nor will I let the opportunities that social media present as a medium to spread the ideas of communism go unutilized.
Yeah this is just really silly. I'm not gonna go the extra length to be super sneaky out of fear. Fear kills.
A revision is already in order. Fear doesn't kill, secret police and counterrevolutionary agents do. Besides, I'm not suggesting to "hide in the shadows", that's fucking ridiculous. What I am saying is why are we giving the bourgeoisie a free database of everything we're doing? Thanks for the criticism though.
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Yeah, and I stand by my statement against online petitions and slacktivism to achieve social or political change, which is the context of that post.
What "opportunities" specifically are you referring to?
Propaganda and coordination of public events with a wider audience.
Are we really supposed to be led to believe that openly calling oneself a Marxist and quoting Bordiga on Facebook will lead to one being kidnapped and tortured by the CIA?
yea cause the feds cant possibly be monitoring reddit or wordpress
You're not mapping personal connections for security services on either one of those. If you are you just don't understand. They can monitor all they want but if there are no unique identifiers (like pictures of your face and friends you post every two seconds). Facebook logs your IP address everytime you interact with it. They require email and mobile verification. Last time I checked neither wordpress or reddit do this, they can be anonymous services if you want them to. But you probably just figured "fuck it", right?
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Totally. There are some great youtube videos on the subject. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YsZoqwRnKE
My fb email is to a bs account, name and images are fake, and I've never done phone verification. They can probably still figure out who I am, and track where I'm going, but they'd just have to follow my credit card to do that anyway. They can see which bars I've been to and where I'm getting gas, I'm not involved with any super serious insurrecto shit anyway. I'm with Zizek on this one, let them listen in, they might learn something. If people don't want to be on FB that's fine, but there are benefits as well as liabilities for commies to be on there. Frankly idk how we're ever going to build mass organizations in today's society without using some form of social media at some point. Does everyone have to close their facebook account when they decide to become Marxists?
Are you or have you ever used an IP address assigned to you by your ISP? If so, Facebook has a log of it. When you use your CC at a bar (something I don't do ever either), sure they know where you are, possibly who your with...but since you use these websites they probably know what kind of phone you have, it's probably backdoored, and they could turn it on and listen.
They know what your sexual preferences are, they know what you masturbate to, they know when you've done it and if you're really unlucky and take no precaution with your webcam they might even have video of it.
Now to add another dimension, imagine this information going to a database employers check when hiring.
Why? What makes it impossible and against internationalism? I'm using this post as http://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/36gcmj/the_question_of_internationalism/cre1bck as I'm aware that left communists can't speak freely there.
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It's not so much that I can't speak freely, it's that I'm banned. What about socialism in one nation is against internationalism? Let's see what the tankie's argument is.
Some people think "socialism in one country" somehow means we only give a shit about our country
Why our country? Would it not count as socialism if it wasn't in tankie's country? It's not the country that the tankie should give a shit about it's the workers of that country, this is what tankie never mentions and clearly doesn't give a shit about.
or that somehow we only want socialism to exist in our country and we'll suppress it elsewhere
Yes it would be strange if 'Socialism in one country' suppressed a revolt in another country, that's never been known to happen.
or something like that
You would think tankie would have a better idea of the arguments against tankies position than this.
This is pretty silly, nobody thinks that, and it can be easily debunked, so let's move on.
This is a non-argument.
Another position basically claims something like:
Translated into non-tankie: 'Allow me to build a strawman'.
socialism is impossible to build in one country, so any revolution should immediately try to expand internationally until all capitalism is eradicated. Failing to do so is either dumb or purposefully counter-revolutionary. I think you can at least have a debate about this, but my opinion is that in many cases this is just arguing for a suicidal foreign policy, and that when socialist states have decided to focus for a while on building things internally they have done so in order to survive (the typical example is the USSR after the failed German Revolution, which they supported very actively).
What does tankie mean by 'build' socialism or 'expand' revolution? What the fuck does tankie mean by 'socialist state'? Isn't the point that socialism is the negation of states? There wouldn't be any need for foreign policy in socialism because their wouldn't be any states to go to war with. Tankie thinks revolution happens because of state measures and good foreign policy rather than the real movement of workers. Tankie says the USSR 1922-1991 supported the German Revolution 1918-19 very actively. What happened was when Lenin died Stalin invented 'Socialism in one country' in 1924, when all communists before then wouldn't dream of such a thing; and because Stalin's Soviet Union was such a successful case of socialism (Maybe this has something to do with 'building socialism') it means 'Socialism in one country' is a better plan. How did 'Socialism in one country' work out for the USSR? Are they doing well?
There's also a debate to be had about to what extent one should interfere in the revolutionary process of another people, I guess.
Tankie is having trouble because tankie doesn't think in terms of the workers movement but in terms of 'my people' and 'those people'.
Karl Marx would be a good person to read if you're learning about socialism, that Kim Jong Un enthusiast won't be much help.
Bravo.
What is your opinion that it is a question of socialism in one country or world wide revolution in one go?
I think it is a false dichotomy.
Yes it would be strange if 'Socialism in one country' suppressed a revolt in another country, that's never been known to happen.
What do you mean, this happened all the time? Isn't the reason we call them tankies because they wanted to suppress the workers revolts in Hungary for instance?
I was being sarcastic.
I blame it on that I was tired, it is sometimes hard to see that over the internet :)
Should have included /s really.
I mean one thing I'd just like to add is that even Saint Stalin couldn't have "socialism in one country" for more than a decade or two before exporting Stalinism to Eastern Europe, China, Africa, etc.
Does this not prove that it is internationalist?
Sure, but at that point it's just a matter of imposing a different method of capitalist organization, not anything proletarian in nature.
But it is theoretically sound to have socialism in one country? You just don't think that the example given was socialism.
No, if anything it's nationalist and imperialist. To take the soviet union as an example, all foreign policy was subsumed under nationalist interests of the Russian state. The comintern was turned into a foreign organ, deals were done with capitalist states to divide up the world, communists were sent back to the countries they ran from to face death and imprisonment, military intervention took place to prevent any real socialist movement, etc.
The real issue isn't if socialism in one country is possible or not. On the surface this would seem to answer in the positive, socialism has to begin in some place doesnt it? But this isn't what this theory was describing. In actuality, this theory was used to describe the capitalist development of Russia in terms of "socialist accumulation". It is the subjugation of communism to the nationalist policy of Russia.
Socialism doesn't exist within national boundaries any more than capitalism does. In fact, the more that capitalism is internationalised with imperialism the more the theory of socialism in one country becomes redundant.
By the time it was announced the international revolution was well and truly dead. All that was left was what to do with Russia Some though that they could create socialism in one country through the appropriation of the peasants and the capitalists with nationalised industry and price controls. This is the position of the trotskyists and stalinists who shared the same ideas.
But others such as those on the communist left viewed it within the historical terms of capitalist accumulation.
So you think that socialism in one country is a theoretical possibility?
Well no, not really. Socialism in one country represents the counter revolution rather than the continuation of the revolution. To begin with, the web of capitalism is so thick and convoluted that a revolution in one particularly location will have an effect down the chain of capital resulting in a wave of activity across this web of capital. This has been a historical fact since 1848. The toppling of a state apparatus and the expropriation of the national capitals would represent a further destabilisation of the world capitalist system. At some point the capitalist mode of production will either fall of stabilise depending on the international situation.
If we are to take socialism to mean what it actually does mean, the negation of capitalism, then it would mean the end of commodity production. Depending on where this occurs, if it does end up confined within the boundaries of a nation state, would result in a great lowering of material culture. Outside commodities won't be coming in and no place on earth is an isolated economic unit anymore, hasn't been for at least the first world war. This would result in the nation having to compete with the capitalist world and produce commodities, dragging it into the world economy. In backward countries at the time, this was the case. The NEP involved much in the way of seeking and taking part in foreign trade and developing it's capitalist industry and production. The other way was to try to accumulate capital internally, which was what the first five year plan involved with the collectivisation of the peasants and the creation of a proletariat. Trade was reduced in this period but hard cash was still sought after and it still continued. Commodity production increased preparing the way for further imperialist expansion which is why the second world war is also called an imperialist war by left communists. Each "socialist" country followed varying degrees of these ways to accumulate capital.
On the other hand, with the revolution occurring in an industrialised and advance capitalist centre would result in an even greater blow to capital in general. The situation would be in a better position to consolidate itself but the same drives will result from it if the revolutionary wave does not continue and succeed and the nation-state will then have to resort in competing with other capitalist powers.
Do any left communists have writings about the lumpenproletariat or does they just follow the regular marxist line? I've read Luxemburg's essay about them (idk if she's considered a leftcom or not), so I'm looking for other leftcoms.
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Not left communism, but the Black Panther Party had a non-damning stance on the lumpen.
"In the late 1960s, Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party came to believe that the lumpenproletariat could have a progressive role. Newton argued that the economic and social system of his time was fundamentally different from that which Marx based his analysis on, saying, "As the ruling circle continue to build their technocracy, more and more of the proletariat will become unemployable, become lumpen, until they have become the popular class, the revolutionary class". This is the class the Black Panther Party sought to organize, he said. Some disregard Newton's interpretation, saying he applied the term to, and sought to organize, the temporarily unemployed, rather than the true lumpen. However, a careful reading of his writings reveals repeated references to the "unemployed" and "unemployable" as those with revolutionary potential."
I don't recall coming across anything that specifically deals with the subject. I think most left communists would consider them to be criminal elements, such as Engels describes
The lumpenproletariat, this scum of the decaying elements of all classes, which establishes headquarters in all the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies. It is an absolutely venal, an absolutely brazen crew. If the French workers, in the course of the Revolution, inscribed on the houses: Mort aux voleurs! (Death to the thieves!) and even shot down many, they did it, not out of enthusiasm for property, but because they rightly considered it necessary to hold that band at arm's length. Every leader of the workers who utilises these gutter-proletarians as guards or supports, proves himself by this action alone a traitor to the movement.
but I'm not sure how useful that is.
What was the work that Luxemburg wrote on the topic?
I'm assuming it's this.
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Can anyone recommend a good history on all these tiny little movements and groups during the Weimar period? Especially the ones early on?
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Here you can find the original version in german (and more)
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Negotiations with the Germans began on 9 December, but it was only on 25 December that the Germans formulated their proposals, which included brigand-like requests for annexation. The Russian delegation could not accept them; the situation was made difficult by the fact that Ukraine had not yet gone to the Bolsheviks’ side, and the Kiev “Rada” signed a separate peace with the Germans on 9 February. However, in Vienna, Berlin, there were political strikes, workers’ movements. The Russians cannot declare war, they interrupt the negotiations by refusing to sign peace; but by announcing to the world that the Russian army will not resist the invader, they appeal to the German proletariat and that of all countries to stand against the imperialist governments and against the war.
We have therefore had a historical example of this method of the non-resistance of the proletarian state to invasion. Let’s get this straight. We do not elevate this example to the level of a general principle, let alone on the basis of a general philanthropic aversion to bloodshed. We would just like to remind you that this historical example did not have an unfavourable conclusion.
It's strong stuff to argue that Trotsky's wacky manoeuvering of "neither war nor peace" at the Brest negotiations "did not have an unfavourable conclusion". But maybe this really just indicates a lack of information on the subject at the time.
This may have in its foundation Lenin not wanting to conduct a revolutionary war, so Trotsky's gaff is more forgiven. That's at least the conclusion given in Carr's books, and the only real reasonable explanation that I can come up with.
This may have in its foundation Lenin not wanting to conduct a revolutionary war, so Trotsky's gaff is more forgiven.
This is likely it, as that paragraph above states "the Russians cannot declare war".
hi comrades, I'm a Stalinist and I honestly want to know why Marxism-Leninism is factually/scientifically incorrect, and what left communism's criticisms are of ML theory. I am serious and I came here to learn. Any answers that can explain how logically (this is my preference of learning, I'm not a big reader and I don't really care who said something, I care about what's being said so links to books = meh, i'd rather someone just explain it) ML is incorrect would be very much appreciated. Thank you
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I'm a Stalinist
books = meh
Hmmm.
I'm a Stalinist
You're most certainly not. You're just some random kid on the internet roleplaying as the ideological component of the counterrevolution. That being said, I welcome that you openly introduce yourself as a Stalinist, since that is precisely what "Marxism-Leninism" is, and what was originally even used as a self-designation. That's a favour that is usually not done.
I honestly want to know why Marxism-Leninism is factually/scientifically incorrect
There recently was a thread on this topic.
The short answer is: Besides not even being coherent to begin with, it contradicts critical-scientific communism everywhere, starting with the name - "Marxism-Leninism" - intended to signify a new development for a new age. That notion in itself is against everything Lenin did when he intended to restore the revolutionary content of critical-scientific communism.
The nonsense is so pervasive in absolutely everything that it's hard to know where to begin, and it's impossible to fully grasp without having read Marx. If you do that, you'll see how stupid it is when Stalin calls for a "political economy" of the USSR which would supposedly be socialist. Then you read those political economies (the science of the bourgeoisie, according to Marx) and you'll see that it's just describing capital, except it places the word "socialist" in front of the categories. The same goes for other aspects, such as "dialectical materialism" - a true Frankenstein's monster compared to Marx criticising philosophy as such lock, stock and barrel.
I am serious and I came here to learn. Any answers that can explain how logically (this is my preference of learning, I'm not a big reader and I don't really care who said something, I care about what's being said so links to books = meh, i'd rather someone just explain it) ML is incorrect would be very much appreciated.
I appreciate your honesty about your aversion to books, which is at least better than the people lying about having read Marx. But you won't get any further if you want people on the internet to spoonfeed you communism.
The same goes for other aspects, such as "dialectical materialism" - a true Frankenstein's monster compared to Marx criticising philosophy as such lock, stock and barrel.
What do you mean ?
I mean that dialectical materialism is contradictory garbage - and you won't find it in Marx - and I mean that there is no such thing as communist philosophy in general. It would be like communist religion, or communist economics.
If people want to see the lack of actual concrete content to stalinism then they can look at the "debates" which lead to the publication of Economic problems of the USSR.
Remark: Surplus product in a socialist society -- the term is embarrassing. Answer: On the contrary, we have to educate the worker that the surplus product is needed by us, there is more responsibility. The worker must understand that he produces not only for himself and his family, but also for creating reserves and strengthening defence etc. Remark: In the Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx did not write about surplus product. Answer: If you want to seek answers for everything in Marx you will get nowhere. You have in front of you a laboratory such as the USSR which has existed now for more than 20 years but you think that Marx ought to be knowing more than you about socialism. Do you not understand that in the Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx was not in a position to foresee! It is necessary to use one's head and not string citations together. New facts are there, there is a new combination of forces -- and if you don't mind -- one has to use one's brains.
Remark: Maybe it is better to use the word 'income'? Molotov: Income is of different kinds. Remark (N.A. Voznesensky--ed.): May be socialist accumulation?
Question: [K.V. Ostrovityanov] In your Remarks on Economic Questions consumer commodities are mentioned, but are the means of production also commodities in our system? If not, then how do we explain the use of cost accounting (khozrashyot -- tr.) in the sectors producing means of production? Answer: Commodities are everything that are freely sold and bought, for example bread and meat etc. Our means of production cannot in essence be judged to be commodities. These are not consumer items that go into the market and which are bought by anyone who wants them. The means of production we allocate ourselves. They are not a commodity in the generally accepted sense, not that commodity which exists under capitalist conditions. There the means of production are commodities. Here the means of production cannot be called commodities.
Our cost accounting is not the same cost accounting which operates in the capitalist enterprises. Cost accounting under capitalism operates in a way that unprofitable (nerentabel'niye--tr.) enterprises are closed down. Our enterprises may be very unprofitable, they may be altogether unprofitable. But the latter are not closed down in our system. They receive subsidies from the State budget. Cost accounting in our system exists for the purposes of accounting, for calculation and for the balance. Cost accounting is used as a check for the enterprises' executives. The means of production only formally figure as commodities in our system. Only the items of consumption fall in the sphere of commodity circulation with us and not the means of production.
Question: How should one understand the category of profit in the USSR? ANSWER: A certain amount of profit is needed by us. Without profit we cannot create reserves, have accumulation, support fulfillment of defence tasks and satisfy social needs. Here we can see that there is labour for one self and labour for society. The word profit itself has become very dirty. It would be good to have some other concept? But what? Perhaps net income?
It should be pretty obvious that what is going on here isn't a debate. It is Stalin, or rather, the committee that speaks in the name of Stalin, trying to straighten out the real problems that people are having at resolving Marx, the capitalist nature of Russia and the Stalin club's assertion that Russia is socialist. It's the laying out of an official dogma, not an actual investigation (just look at the haggling over what to call stuff to avoid calling it by what it is).
And I laughed at this part
There was oppression by a foreign bourgeoisie in China, therefore the national bourgeoisie of China is partially revolutionary; in view of this a coalition with the national bourgeoisie is permissible, in China the communists and the bourgeoisie comprise a bloc.
This is not unnatural. Marx in 1848 also had a coalition with the bourgeoisie, when he was editing the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
What's worth noting here as well is that even when they're talking about supposedly socialist industries, where means of production aren't sold and bought (taking the statement at face value) that it's still all accounted in profit
In our system we have very profitable (rentabel'niye -- tr.), somewhat profitable and totally unprofitable enterprises. During the first years our heavy industry did not produce any profit but started to do so later on.
And failing industries are subsidized by successful ones. All utter nonsense to paint this as the first phase of communist society.
In a more recent commentary on the events
A corollary of the views of the Bukharin school was that commodity-money relations ceased to exist in the socialist economy. In the discussion of January, 1941 it is apparent that Stalin defended the Leninist position that the science of political economy was applicable to non-capitalist societies.
...
The theoretical chasm dividing the two may be illumined by juxtaposing Stalin's arguments to those of Leontyev as expressed in the model Political Economy Short Course of April 1940. Leontyev gave the line of reasoning that in capitalist society production was decided by the law of value which made itself felt through the fluctuation of prices so that through this spontaneously the market production of particular commodities would then rise and fall. The situation in socialist society was different as planning determined the distribution of labour and the means of production in the economy, and not just production but also commodity circulation. Leontyev then argued, and this was a major point of controversy, that in the socialist economy, 'there was no place for the law of value'.
...
By stating that there was no place for the law of value in Socialism, Leontyev placed himself four square on the Hilferding-Bukharin position that the operation of the law of value ended under socialism.
...
In 1941 Stalin defended the view that the law of value had not been overcome as in its absence it was not possible to understand the categories of cost, calculation, distribution on the basis of labour or the setting of prices. Value existed under socialism but it had to be used in a conscious manner. Calculations were required using the law of value to determine distribution according to the principle of labour in a society where different types of labour, both skilled and unskilled, existed. Stalin argued that the Soviet experience revealed that production did not advance by using mechanisms such as collective wages and production communes but by deploying the systems of piece-work for the workers and bonuses for the supervisory staff as well as for the collective farm peasantry. Value categories also required to be used in a conscious manner in the field of price-setting. Stalin noted that when the harvest failed in Russia leading to bread shortages and price rises the state had intervened by throwing bread on to the market which led to a fall in the price of this commodity.
The problem that economists were having is that they were trying to fit capitalism into communism, by adhering to Marx, and the problem that the central committee were having, and presumably also these economists and technicians, the people who actually ran the country, was that the bald faced lie was becoming too difficult to maintain.
So the Stalin Solution was to just abandon Marx.
Stalin now identified the source of commodity production in the Soviet Union as being the existence of two different forms of socialist property, i.e., the state sector which constituted the property of the whole of society and the group property of the cooperative farms. In the state enterprises the means of production and the product of production were national property but in the collective farms, though the means of production such as the machinery and the land were state property, the product of production was the property of the different collective farms as was labour and the seed, whilst land which was nationalised had been turned over to the collective farms for use in perpetuity and was used by them virtually as their own. As a consequence the state disposed of only the product of the state enterprises and not of the product of the collective farms. As in the time of Lenin the peasantry were unwilling to alienate their products except in the form of commodities so that commodity relations were still needed in Soviet society.23 We may note here that the draft political economy textbook of 1951 had depicted the existence of two forms of socialist property as one of the major reasons for the persistence of value categories in the USSR.24 It was the signal contribution of Stalin to have identified the two forms of socialist property as the fundamental basis of the continuation of commodity production.
....
The law of value exercised its influence in the production of consumer goods in connection with cost accounting, profitableness, products and pricing in the socialist enterprises. Stalin stressed that business executives and planners in general did not take the operation of the law of value into account: on one occasion they had proposed that the price of one ton of grain should be fixed at approximately that of a ton of cotton, and the price of grain was taken as that of a ton of baked bread. The Central Committee members were compelled to point out that a ton of bread had to be priced above a ton of grain in order to take care of the additional expense of milling and baking, and that generally the price of cotton was generally higher than that of grain as was also borne out by the prices on the world market. They then intervened to lower grain prices and raise the prices of cotton. Had this not been done then cotton production would have suffered.
It's just unbelievable. This was written by an apologist for Stalinism. All of the categories of capital, all of the effects that its laws have on prices and production, all openly described by these committees.
I was also reading some other documents surrounding this period, one of which is letter to Stalin.
It's pretty lulzy in general
While attending the class for staff propagandists at the Regional Committee of the Y.C.L., I, basing myself on your works, said that the final victory of Socialism is possible only on a world scale. But the leading regional committee workers - Urozhenko, First Secretary of the Regional Committee, and Kazelkov, propaganda instructor - described my statement as a Trotskyist sortie.
...
Are the leading workers of the Regional Committee right in counting me as a Trotskyist? I feel very much hurt and offended over this.
But again it is the same thing, the assertion of dogma. Leninism answers this in the positive, Leninism answers this in the negative, here is a quotation out of context.
And again, the reply wasn't written by Stalin himself, anymore than Exodus was written by Moses. Unless Stalin was in the habit of writing about himself in the third person
On the basis of these premises Stalin stated in "Problems of Leninism" that...
Then at the bottom
(Signed) J. Stalin.
Marxism-Leninism was the name given to Stalinist bueracracy, it has no theoretical backing.
It isn't a name given to bureaucracy.
ok but why? How is Stalin responsible for the term when it was created by Lenin?
And this is why you should read as the term was never used or coined by Lenin.
Why has it no theoretical backing? It has about as much "theoretical backing" as any capitalist ideology that argues for capitalism. This is why the direct result of it is tankies (who shouldn't even be called stalinists because it would be an insult to stalinists) arguing like liberals over who was the most democratic and progressive. And people wonder why Stalin "lapsed" into revisionism when he approved of "Britain's Road to Socialism".
Lenin never used that term ever
hey i highly recommend you checking out this podcost that goes into details of the theoretical backing of leninism. to say there is none is nothing but childish self imposed blindness
Really? It would be less embarrassing if you made this podcast and were just trying to rip off dummies.
okay i checked the link, this isn't someone debunking Stalin, it's just Stalin. I've heard Stalin, I just wanted to learn something new that debunked my ideology. Why is a straight answer so difficult on Reddit? It's not even just you guys, but I am getting annoyed. If you're theory is right, you can at least present it yeah?
You are confusing several terms in your comments. Lenin never talked about Leninism, nor Marxism-Leninism. The term Leninism was popularized by Zinoviev after Lenin died to describe his theory of vanguardism. The term Marxism-Leninism was coined after Lenin died by Stalin to refer to Stalin's politics of two-stage revolution and industrial bureaucratization.
Who cares about terms?
Stalin's politics of two-stage revolution
This wasn't and isn't just Stalin's idea. You're being too generous in suggesting that Stalin ever came up with anything original.
Oh no it was meant to be a rebuttal to the top comment saying ml is just a big meme or whatever. As marxists, as dialectical materialists, we have the tools necessary to analyze leninist arguments and critique them. To attack leninism on any other grounds is folley because, as a continuation of Marxism, ml is built atop the foundation of a critique of idealism and metaphysics. If the best argument one can muster is imagined arguments like it not being a theoretically valid trend then we can and should feel very emboldened in our correctness
Within a dialectical materialist framework we can say, trivially, that 20th century history proved time and again that vanguardist strategies absolutely dwarf anarchist and other strategies in their capacity to actually seize state power, which isnt even to mention spontaneity and economism (which have completely failed) which was the struggle in Russia that elucidated the theory in the first place
Theories of imperialism as a stage of capitalism, the state, and so on are also material claims that require material refutation but I'm not sure people are interested in doing so even as non leninists.
Outside of diamat there is postmodern critiques that arent empty but also by their own nature neglect to offer a strategy for the future which is precisely what makes leninism so important. You could also make moral critiques but that's true of anything
saying ml is just a big meme
It is a big meme. The most popular subs for tankies are ones that post and repost mindbogglingly stupid memes. When you strip off the red flags and portraits of Stalin, what do you have? Nothing. But don't feel singled out. This is the common trait that unites all of you dumbasses from /r/chapotraphouse to /r/communism.
as dialectical materialists
I'd like to see what you think that amounts to.
analyze leninist arguments and critique them
When people say that there are no stupid questions they're obviously wrong. The true definition of a moron is someone who doesn't know how question questions.
o attack leninism on any other grounds is folley because, as a continuation of Marxism, ml is built atop the foundation of a critique of idealism and metaphysics. If the best argument one can muster is imagined arguments like it not being a theoretically valid trend then we can and should feel very emboldened in our correctness
The funny aspect of this is that you then argue empirically.
Theories of imperialism as a stage of capitalism, the state, and so on are also material claims that require material refutation but I'm not sure people are interested in doing so even as non leninists.
Is that just material or dialectical material claims?
Outside of diamat
lol
there is postmodern critiques that arent empty but also by their own nature neglect to offer a strategy for the future which is precisely what makes leninism so important.
What the fuck are you even talking about? Did you get high before writing this post then forget half way through what you were talking about?
You could also make moral critiques but that's true of anything
Very insightful.
Oh no it was meant to be a rebuttal to the top comment saying ml is just a big meme or whatever.
You aren't rebutting anything as of yet.
As marxists, as dialectical materialists
Can you spell out what dialectical materialism would be?
we have the tools necessary to analyze leninist arguments and critique them.
You mean a brain? I'm not so sure about that in your case.
To attack leninism on any other grounds is folley because, as a continuation of Marxism, ml is built atop the foundation of a critique of idealism and metaphysics.
I don't think you understand what idealism and metaphysics are when you reintroduce them both through the backdoor.
If the best argument one can muster is imagined arguments like it not being a theoretically valid trend then we can and should feel very emboldened in our correctness
You argue in thinking things through and examining them - something you haven't demonstrated once yet.
Within a dialectical materialist framework we can say
And within another framework, we can say something different. Do you realise the problem with that?
trivially, that 20th century history proved time and again that vanguardist strategies absolutely dwarf anarchist and other strategies
Now you're arguing empirically. Also, I have no clue why you're talking about anarchism at all.
in their capacity to actually seize state power
A formula which Lenin ridiculed in "State and Revolution" as being the epitome of opportunism.
which isnt even to mention spontaneity and economism (which have completely failed) which was the struggle in Russia that elucidated the theory in the first place
What are you on about regarding spontaneity and economism? How are they relevant here?
Theories of imperialism as a stage of capitalism
Are wrong. Marx describes that the phenomena of that alleged "stage" already in 1858 - a time which is called comparatively idyllic "competitive capitalism" by Lenin and Bukharin.
the state, and so on are also material claims that require material refutation but I'm not sure people are interested in doing so even as non leninists.
I'd like to know what "material refutation" is, haha. Can you write this stuff down with a straight face?
there is postmodern critiques that arent empty
If you knew anything about communism, you wouldn't accept any postmodern nonsense.
but also by their own nature neglect to offer a strategy for the future which is precisely what makes leninism so important.
For fuck's sake.
For fuck's sake.
The tankie strategy for the future:
You can see how the communist parties around the world degenerated.
thanks i'll check it out. What's with the knive-edge comments here? It's theory, it's not that serious
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ML wasn't created by Lenin. It's Stalin's ideology used to describe his own policies (rapid industrialization, socialism in one country, "socialism can coexist with capitalist characteristics like Law of Value and commodity production" take etc.)
Ideologies - in the sense of false consciousness - are not merely the personal product of a single individual, neither are policies.
It's common to like Lenin, but hate ML
It's great to see that your politics are apparently based on what you like and hate.
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Marxism is a science, that cannot be simplified into a right-wrong category.
What kind of stupid science do you take part in?
What kind of stupid science do you take part in?
Apparently one which is open to interpretation:
ML is based on Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism
The wonders of the bourgeois mind.
The many different interpretations of Marxism. It's like book club.
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I don’t agree with your methods of communication.
wait till you have to deal with people who aren't communists
I’m learning that the hard way too.
Did you know that there's a well known communist party out there that has a fraction of it that has as a rule "no criticism" of its members? It has really suffered because of this, and I'm quite sure that this rule didn't originate from the party center. Imagine how this comes out in party papers.
Everyone starts out somewhere, and the process of sifting through the nonsense floating around can be hard, so there's no need to make it harder by contributing to it:
It is an inevitable manifestation, and one rooted in the process of development, that people from what have hitherto been the ruling class also join the militant proletariat and supply it with educative elements. We have already said so clearly in the Manifesto. But in this context there are two observations to be made:
Firstly, if these people are to be of use to the proletarian movement, they must introduce genuinely educative elements. However, in the case of the vast majority of German bourgeois converts, this is not the case. Neither the Zukunft nor the Neue Gesellschaft has contributed anything that might have advanced the movement by a single step. Here we find a complete lack of genuinely educative matter, either factual or theoretical. In place of it, attempts to reconcile superficially assimilated socialist ideas with the most diverse theoretical viewpoints which these gentlemen have introduced from the university or elsewhere, and of which each is more muddled than the last thanks to the process of decay taking place in what remains of German philosophy today. Instead of first making a thorough study of the new science, each man chose to adapt it to the viewpoint he had brought with him, not hesitating to produce his own brand of science and straightaway assert his right to teach it. Hence there are, amongst these gentlemen, almost as many viewpoints as there are heads; instead of elucidating anything, they have only made confusion worse — by good fortune, almost exclusively amongst themselves. The party can well dispense with educative elements such as these for whom it is axiomatic to teach what they have not learnt.
https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm
hey comrade, fellow ML here. didnt want to reply to any one of these dastardly comments below. I want to give some insight into ML criticism coming from a former left-communist perspective (i was an ancom less than a year ago.)
Today i am an ML (ofc) & I have read Stalins works as well, and am still looking into fully understanding and unraveling the many intricate twists and turns of the USSR. That said, I wanted to tell you that the word "Stalinist" is something only left coms. use agaist us ML's. As much as I appreciate Stalins work, he was only a Leninist. There's really no need to classify yourself as a "stalinist," since Stalin only really clarified Lenin's theory. It's also very critical to read as a marxist-leninst, if you are interested please PM bc i have many suggestions (and handy pdf's.)
From what I have read from other users on r/leftcommunism, and from my own experience--the main criticisms of ML really stem from an incomprehension of imperialism's toll on socialist/workers states, an an overall view that basically says "this workers revolution didn't go exactly how I wanted it." It's being hyper-critical of a state attempting to fight its way out of the roadblocks it already must face. Being mindful, yes, even as ML's we criticize the bureaucracy that formed--Leninism itself is against bureaucracy, as he mentioned in his work What is to be Done? Left communists tend to think that ML's are unable to self-criticize--but this is something again, Lenin mentions the importance of self criticism in his work, Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. Self-criticism is apart of the doctrine, and were not ML's if we dont recognize that. We understand the shortcoming of the USSR, but that doesnt mean we condemn the whole damn thing. This was the first time in history that the working-class seized power in a pretty *Fucking* huge country. Bolsheviks steered without precedent, and managed to accomplish so much. Revolutionary women, in particular Alexandra Kollentai, pushed and won woman's suffrage. In reality, the only ones that shouldve took power, in the end, did--and while it was not perfect, they still managed to function as a workers state for alot longer than any so called "left communist" uprisings"--of which, there have really been none (and to left-coms reading this, no, the Zapatistas don't really adopt left-communist ideology.) Every one can find solid, scientific ground with Marxism-Leninism; from Cuban revolutionaries to today's Sudanese Communist Party--to, literally anywhere on earth that has had some form of revolutionary insurrection. Im sure these are things you already know (OP).
As for some of these claims that ML has no scientific or theoretical backing--oh man. Seriously? ML brings out all the guns of Marxism, arming material theory--not just ideology. To them, I recommend yall read Lenin, or at least go out and talk with any local ML's. All we do is analyze things from a material perspective, we analyze tangible things and actually learn from history--not just scold it (lmao.) We want revolution, and yes, that means we want power. We learn from history, (materialllyyy *emphasis*) and we adapt to it. That's what ML is all about.
Now as i've mentioned a dozen times, I am coming from a perspective that most of you have. But there were so many contradictions against my left-communist ideology that eventually it fell apart--it's an ideology that cannot stand on its own. Eventually, I ran out of left com excuses for why the USSR "failed" (it was overthrown btw)--eventually I found that under the circumstances we are under now, there can be no "left-communist" revolution; we don't live in a world where things are that easy.
Anyways comrade, I hope this clears things up for you to some extent. Again, please feel free to PM me if you wanna talk.
Is this copypasta?
lol so it's not copypasta?
I want to give some insight into ML criticism coming from a former left-communist perspective (i was an ancom less than a year ago.)
And five months previously you were calling yourself an anarchist and now you're this. Something tells me that you're about as educated in any of your chosen identities as any other youtube consuming moron.
I have read Stalins works
If that's the level we're working with here then you're obviously at a severe disadvantage.
am still looking into fully understanding and unraveling the many intricate twists and turns of the USSR
This unraveling probably won't involve you actually learning what capitalism is. There's a big book about, you might have heard of it.
That said, I wanted to tell you that the word "Stalinist" is something only left coms. use agaist us ML's.
No it isn't. Stalinism was used by Stalinists in the 30s-50s to refer to themselves.
As much as I appreciate Stalins work, he was only a Leninist.
Then we proceed to the question: what is a Leninist? Is that distinct from a Marxist?
There's really no need to classify yourself as a "stalinist," since Stalin only really clarified Lenin's theory.
Maybe you should read Lenin. If you're read Stalin then it will be easy to see where Stalin just flat out contradicts Lenin, rather than "clarifies" the already clear Lenin. And I'm really not sure what you think "Lenin's theory" is.
It's also very critical to read as a marxist-leninst
Pray tell, what have you been reading that has made you into a moron? Or were you just born this way?
the main criticisms of ML really stem from an incomprehension of imperialism's toll on socialist/workers states, an an overall view that basically says "this workers revolution didn't go exactly how I wanted it."
You sound like you were a pretty shitty "left-communist". The party that you must have been in, to qualify as a member of the communist left, must have been really terrible.
It's being hyper-critical of a state attempting to fight its way out of the roadblocks it already must face. Being mindful, yes, even as ML's we criticize the bureaucracy that formed--Leninism itself is against bureaucracy, as he mentioned in his work What is to be Done? Left communists tend to think that ML's are unable to self-criticize--but this is something again, Lenin mentions the importance of self criticism in his work, Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. Self-criticism is apart of the doctrine, and were not ML's if we dont recognize that. We understand the shortcoming of the USSR, but that doesnt mean we condemn the whole damn thing.
This is why I think this is copypasta. You start off this whole thing by complaining about people being critical, then you say that people should be critical. You have the logic of a young earth creationist.
Your whole post is just making excuses to abandon Marx, you know. You make this asinine, half assed point, about imperialism and worker states, which you neither clarify or develop into an argument, and it has no relation to the rest of the post. It says nothing of the counter revolutionary turn, the defeat of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the capitalist nature of Russia. And then you write even dumber shit like this
In reality, the only ones that shouldve took power, in the end, did--and while it was not perfect, they still managed to function as a workers state for alot longer than any so called "left communist" uprisings"--of which, there have really been none (and to left-coms reading this, no, the Zapatistas don't really adopt left-communist ideology.)
lol what "left-coms" are these? Are you inadvertently revealing what you used to think, and by extension, how fucking stupid and ignorant you are?
As for some of these claims that ML has no scientific or theoretical backing--oh man. Seriously?
Yes, you haven't made one argument at all. Just statements. You actually wrote that being "hyper critical" is bad. Being a Stalinist entails thinking that stalin is (either 100% or some varying degree of) correct, and that the USSR was socialist. And that socialist, more like "socialist", is so poorly defined that it becomes a question of semantics. Very profound theoretical content you have.
To them, I recommend yall read Lenin
Maybe you should read Lenin. But of course the parts that you don't like can be ignored because they muddy the Stalinist, I mean, Leninist, theory, right?
All we do is analyze things from a material perspective, we analyze tangible things and actually learn from history--not just scold it (lmao.)
I'm not really sure how you scold history.
We want revolution, and yes, that means we want power. We learn from history, (materialllyyy emphasis) and we adapt to it. That's what ML is all about.
This is armed theory lol
I am coming from a perspective that most of you have
God forbid. You're the type of dumbass we want to drive away into the arms of other tankies.
my left-communist ideology
lol
that eventually it fell apart
This is more about your ideology.
there can be no "left-communist" revolution
I'm still confused over what you're referring to. Do you get all of your information from memes on the internet? You should be careful, you might turn into one.
I hope this clears things up for you to some extent
lol
please feel free to PM me if you wanna talk.
Why not make it public so that we can laugh at you?
/u/dr_marx is right, this really reads like a copypasta. Especially with all the random italicisation which you added for god knows what reason.
didnt want to reply to any one of these dastardly comments below.
That's what you should have done though.
I want to give some insight into ML criticism coming from a former left-communist perspective (i was an ancom less than a year ago.)
You should consider that it is sometimes better to keep quiet about an issue you lack knowledge of. Here is a great visualisation of your situation, your own section on the curve is even marked red so you can't miss it!
To clarify: You never were a left communist, and anarcho communism has nothing to do with left communism at all - see this thread for reference.
Today i am an ML (ofc)
Of course!
& I have read Stalins works as well
And you could read them with a straight face? They didn't raise tons of questions?
and am still looking into fully understanding and unraveling the many intricate twists and turns of the USSR.
Good luck understanding such "twists and turns" as abandoning revolution or allying with the Nazis.
That said, I wanted to tell you that the word "Stalinist" is something only left coms. use agaist us ML's.
That's not true - it was initially used as a proud self-description.
As much as I appreciate Stalins work, he was only a Leninist.
Lenin didn't think he was pulling out new tricks, he considered himself to be restoring the original content of communism.
There's really no need to classify yourself as a "stalinist," since Stalin only really clarified Lenin's theory.
Clarifying as in abandoning - multiple examples of this have already been brought up in this thread.
From what I have read from other users on r/leftcommunism, and from my own experience--the main criticisms of ML really stem from an incomprehension of imperialism's toll on socialist/workers states, an an overall view that basically says "this workers revolution didn't go exactly how I wanted it." It's being hyper-critical of a state attempting to fight its way out of the roadblocks it already must face.
Should have told the workers of Petrograd and Lenin to be less critical of Kerensky due to German imperialism's toll on the Russian state! Perhaps the Tsar ought to have waved red flags as well, then he would have been safe according to this logic. I see people claim the same nonsense about Venezuela nowadays - it just shows that you don't understand imperialism at all.
Being mindful, yes, even as ML's we criticize the bureaucracy that formed
I'm not sure what's up with this obsession with bureaucracy. What happened to class analysis?
Leninism itself is against bureaucracy, as he mentioned in his work What is to be Done?
Your language here reveals your idiotic way of considering politics. This is the opposite of a scientific standpoint. You're talking about an ideology (perhaps you should read on what communists had to say on that topic!) and choices. The communist attitude vis-à-vis bureaucracy follows from an analysis of what bureaucracy is. Have a look at Marx's Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, for starters.
Left communists tend to think that ML's are unable to self-criticize--but this is something again, Lenin mentions the importance of self criticism in his work, Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
"Tend to think"! Has anyone here made the criticism you claim? Do you think there are disagreements with an Infantile Disorder?
Self-criticism is apart of the doctrine, and were not ML's if we dont recognize that.
Self-flagellation is also part of certain Catholic sects. But these don't just "recognise" that, but go through with it.
We understand the shortcoming of the USSR, but that doesnt mean we condemn the whole damn thing.
"The USSR was 60% good, 40% bad." - Is that what you want to say here?
This was the first time in history that the working-class seized power in a pretty Fucking huge country.
"Russia is a pretty fucking huge country" - now that we've established that, what is its relevance?
Bolsheviks steered without precedent, and managed to accomplish so much.
"So much". Your whole post is full of this indeterminacy. Are you afraid of saying anything concrete because you will fall flat? Is it because you haven't even opened a history book?
Revolutionary women, in particular Alexandra Kollentai, pushed and won woman's suffrage.
Her name was Kollontai. So is this the entire extent of the revolution?
In reality, the only ones that shouldve took power, in the end, did--and while it was not perfect, they still managed to function as a workers state
I'm not sure what this is even supposed to mean. Who should take power?
for alot longer than any so called "left communist" uprisings"--of which, there have really been none (and to left-coms reading this, no, the Zapatistas don't really adopt left-communist ideology.)
You're clearly one of the imbeciles obsessed with trying to find examples of their favourite ideology "working" to justify it. Let's read what Marx had to say about this:
Whereas the still immature communism seeks an historical proof for itself – a proof in the realm of what already exists – among disconnected historical phenomena opposed to private property, tearing single phases from the historical process and focusing attention on them as proofs of its historical pedigree (a hobby-horse ridden hard especially by Cabet, Villegardelle, etc.). By so doing it simply makes clear that by far the greater part of this process contradicts its own claim, and that, if it has ever existed, precisely its being in the past refutes its pretension to reality.
Nobody here tries to claim the Zapatistas, and your idea of "left communist uprisings" shows how little you understand of communism.
Every one can find solid, scientific ground with Marxism-Leninism
About as much scientific ground as in Scientology or in the Flat Earth Society.
from Cuban revolutionaries to today's Sudanese Communist Party--to, literally anywhere on earth that has had some form of revolutionary insurrection.
LOL
As for some of these claims that ML has no scientific or theoretical backing--oh man. Seriously? ML brings out all the guns of Marxism, arming material theory--not just ideology.
Material theory! The opposite presumably is then ideal material.
To them, I recommend yall read Lenin
I recommend you the same.
or at least go out and talk with any local ML's.
I'd rather have a chat with my local Jehova's Witnesses the next time they pay a visit.
All we do is analyze things from a material perspective, we analyze tangible things
Tangible things! What does dialectical materialism have to say about plants?
and actually learn from history--not just scold it (lmao.)
I'm not sure if eternally wanting to repeat past failures counts as learning.
We want revolution, and yes, that means we want power.
I'm glad your petty bourgeois power fantasies will never be fulfilled. I recommend you watch the next Marvel movie instead.
We learn from history, (materialllyyy emphasis) and we adapt to it.
It might come as a surprise, but adding "materially" (preferably with many Ls and Ys) in any sentence doesn't change its meaning.
Now as i've mentioned a dozen times, I am coming from a perspective that most of you have.
You clearly don't.
But there were so many contradictions against my left-communist ideology that eventually it fell apart--it's an ideology that cannot stand on its own.
Ideology, like Stalinism, is always contradictory. Whatever you believed had absolutely nothing to do with left communism, and your grappling will just continue with whatever the fuck you now profess to believe.
Eventually, I ran out of left com excuses for why the USSR "failed" (it was overthrown btw)--eventually I found that under the circumstances we are under now, there can be no "left-communist" revolution; we don't live in a world where things are that easy.
Wow, YouTube and Reddit taught you well! Perhaps you should leave your basement every now and then.
Anyways comrade, I hope this clears things up for you to some extent.
Crystal clear.
Again, please feel free to PM me if you wanna talk.
Why don't you make it public instead?
I'm not sure what's up with this obsession with bureaucracy. What happened to class analysis?
Maybe they're confusing some trot sect's criticism of the USSR.
Ah yes, the pedantic and nit-picky criticism that the USSR failed at ending commodity production. Truly taking issue with the fact that your “worker’s state” was capitalist is just being mad that “it didn’t go exactly how I wanted it”, this small shortcoming should just be overlooked because imperialism.
Tankies, rather than Stalinists proper in the historical term, don't seem to understand that it doesn't matter what it was as long as the dictatorship of the proletariat is secure. Historical stalinists understood well enough that by calling Russia socialist then they would be distorting and confusing the whole marxist doctrine. Today's batch of half wits are so historically illiterate that they can't piece all of this freely information available, can't even read Stalin and notice things such as
Absolutely mistaken, therefore, are those comrades who allege that, since socialist society has not abolished commodity forms of production, we are bound to have the reappearance of all the economic categories characteristic of capitalism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. These comrades confuse commodity production with capitalist production, and believe that once there is commodity production there must also be capitalist production. They do not realize that our commodity production radically differs from commodity production under capitalism.
Further, I think that we must also discard certain other concepts taken from Marx's Capital -- where Marx was concerned with an analysis of capitalism -- and artificially applied to our socialist relations. I am referring to such concepts, among others, as "necessary" and "surplus" labour, "necessary" and "surplus" product, "necessary" and "surplus" time. Marx analyzed capitalism in order to elucidate the source of exploitation of the working class -- surplus value -- and to arm the working class, which was bereft of means of production, with an intellectual weapon for the overthrow of capitalism. It is natural that Marx used concepts (categories) which fully corresponded to capitalist relations. But it is strange, to say the least, to use these concepts now, when the working class is not only not bereft of power and means of production, but, on the contrary, is in possession of the power and controls the means of production. Talk of labour power being a commodity, and of "hiring" of workers sounds rather absurd now, under our system: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself and sells its labour power to itself. It is just as strange to speak now of "necessary" and "surplus" labour: as though, under our conditions, the labour contributed by the workers to society for the extension of production, the promotion of education and public health, the organization of defence, etc., is not just as necessary to the working class, now in power, as the labour expended to supply the personal needs of the worker and his family.
It should be remarked that in his Critique of the Gotha Program, where it is no longer capitalism that he is investigating, but, among other things, the first phase of communist society, Marx recognizes labour contributed to society for extension of production, for education and public health, for administrative expenses, for building up reserves, etc., to be just as necessary as the labour expended to supply the consumption requirements of the working class.
Which is a long about way of telling the rest of the bureaucracy "Марксу запрещено"
Stalin wrote that in 1952 and two years later this book comes out. Where under the section "Socialist Mode of Production" it has as its opening sentence
Commodity production is made necessary in socialist society by the existence of two basic forms of socialist production—State and collective farm.
It goes on like this, describing the same categories of capital and merely adding "socialist" to it. You have to be completely gullible, stupid or just flat out lying if you don't see the connection here. It gets worse with Political Economy by Leontiev, an even more up front example, and yet there is a direct line from this to Stalin's pamphlet. In fact I'm sure that those who should know better do know better, but they're so entrenched in their edgy liberalism that they just can't about face. Hence the comparisons and whataboutisms in regards to gulags, health care, rights and so on, like they were comparing Denmark with Argentina.
Marxism is a scientific tool, where as Leninism is a political tool. Saying "Why Marxist-Lenism is Incorrect" is difficult when addressing a political tool, because (unless it contradicts with Marxism as a science), then one is reliant on normative claims. Leftcomms vary in opinion of Lenin's political ideology. Bordigists (Italian Left), for example, could also be Leninists. Where as Council Comms (Dutch/German Left), are largely anti-vanguard, anti-democratic centralism, etc etc... (both are leftcomms)
This question is like if a Modernist Liberal asked a Post-Modern Frankfurt Marxist why Liberalism is philosophically flawed. The Marxist could stand to be consistent even if they agreed with some or the fundamental assertions of liberalism. I hope that clears things up.
P.s; please don't introduce yourself in public as a stalinist. It gives Socialists a very bad name.
Marxism is a scientific tool
Is physics a scientific tool as well?
where as Leninism is a political tool
What is a political tool? What is Leninism?
Saying "Why Marxist-Lenism is Incorrect" is difficult
Why?
when addressing a political tool,
Perhaps your arbitrary categorisation stands in the way.
because (unless it contradicts with Marxism as a science),
So is Marxism a science or a scientific tool, now?
then one is reliant on normative claims.
Back to the philosophy faculty!
Bordigists (Italian Left), for example, could also be Leninists.
Could? Could not? They are not "Bordigist" if they call themselves that.
Where as Council Comms (Dutch/German Left), are largely anti-vanguard, anti-democratic centralism, etc etc...
Largely?
This question is like if a Modernist Liberal asked a Post-Modern Frankfurt Marxist why Liberalism is philosophically flawed. The Marxist could stand to be consistent even if they agreed with some or the fundamental assertions of liberalism.
A "communist" agreeing with liberalism is not a communist.
I hope that clears things up.
You aren't clearing anything up here, you're just spouting nonsense.
P.s; please don't introduce yourself in public as a stalinist. It gives Socialists a very bad name.
Why do you care so much about how an idiot introduces themselves in public? In fact, isn't it better if they openly avow themselves for what they are, instead of grafting their gibberish onto communism?
Have you just stepped out of a philosophy101 class?
I hope that clears things up.
Clear a mud.
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who is the author?
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Why is that important?
Why wouldn't it be? Get outta here with this self-righteous nonsense.
Hi so I read Capitalist Realism by Mark Fischer and was really fascinated by some of the things he said about the expansion of bureacracy in modern capitalism. However, he doesn't really go in to too much depth on it, so I was wondering if anyone could recommend a more comprehensive work.
Edit: Didn't think I would need to specify given the subreddit, but I am indeed looking for Marxist texts
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thanks doc
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Graeber isn't good. He isn't even a Marxist.
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They're using it sarcastically, comparing the storming of the Bastille to the actions of modern day students, saying they just want to get laid more
General knowledge:
I recently found this (https://theforgenews.org/2019/01/05/the-rez-and-the-reds-how-communists-fail-indigenous-nations/) article that argues that "communists" consistently fail indigenous people, as they, just as liberals, don't attempt to solve the settler-colonialist problems. It condemns every socialist state "both actually existing and merely wished for", as well as the DoTP for still being settler-colonialist and comes to the conclusion, that the only way to solve it, is through independent indigenous states.
As far as I can gather, the "communists" in question seem to be Stalinists/Marxist-Leninists. Is there left-communist analysis/theory and a general position on the matter of indigenous populations?
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Abolition of the state doesn't leave a lot of room for ethno states. The article linked is written from a very clear nationalist perspective, makes frequent arguments on the basis of ownership and private property, and as it stated in the closing line the author is not interested in engaging with communists.
The settler colonialist problem described here presumes that indigenous people are outside of the proletariat, and treats race and class as interchangeable. This is a clear conflict with class as defined by relation to production.
I know this doesn't really state a theory or position like you asked, but this is my response in reading the linked text.
Thank you.
The settler colonialist problem described here presumes that indigenous people are outside of the proletariat
Well many indigenous people as far as i know are in the process of becoming proletarians rather than being already here as many of them are poor peasants but a good chunk of them are proletarians by now so it is certainly false that they are outside of the proletariat. And some of the indigenous people are bourgeois of course.
and treats race and class as interchangeable. This is a clear conflict with class as defined by relation to production.
yes, this is identity politics nonsense .
I know this doesn't really state a theory or position like you asked,
I think that most of the indigenous people who have not been proletarianized yet should be treated as peasants as that is their relation to production. Many of those who did become proletarians recently should be regarded as migrant workers. I do not think there is a need for a specific theory. For those recently proletarized workers who have migrated then there is the marxist position on racism as a tool to divide the international working class.
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Might I also quote Bordiga from Fundamental Theses of the Party where he clearly sees the linkage between white people and imperialism,
I don't think Bordiga is saying that white people have an intrinsic tendency towards imperialism, if that's what you're implying.
You're also forgetting the context of the quote. He's saying what should have happened during the revolutionary wave that began with the institution of soviet power in Russia.
Bordiga also follows on by saying this:
In the European area the strategy of anti-feudal blocs with the left-bourgeois movements is entirely closed and is replaced by the strategy of armed proletarian struggle for power. But in the backward countries, on the terrain of armed struggle, the emerging proletarian communist parties could not scorn participating in insurrections by other anti-feudal social elements either against the local despotic rulers or against the white colonial masters.
Is this still relevant today? Direct colonial control has been largely replaced with economic relations of dependency, so I don't know see how it would be. You could maybe argue this in the case of Palestine, but then again what Bordiga thought of as "national liberation" probably differs to your conception of it.
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So you think Canada is a colonial overlord in the same way that France was the colonial overlord of such nations as Morocco and Algeria in the 1950's?
It's interesting to me that you crypto-Maoist types are never consistent in this logic. What of Mexico, a country in which there are literally dozens of indigenous ethnicities who don't speak Spanish, don't identify as Mexican in a national sense, and who exist in an exploited and neglected state in comparison to the Spanish speaking Mexican nationals?
If you were consistent in your logic it would have to be admitted that a country like Mexico is a far more significant colonial overlord than either the US or Canada. And Mexico is hardly the only Latin American country in which this same situation exists.
Like all crypto-Maoists you fail to understand that although ethnic culture, language, and identity are the ingredients from which a nationality is made, they do not in and of themselves constitute a nationality. This is true of virtually every Native-American particular ethnicity in North America, so it's pure nonsense to talk about Canada being a colonial overlord for the same reason it is to speak of Mexico as being one.
It's honestly pretty humorous to see Bordiga appropriated for these Maoist canards.
What does decolonisation even entail exactly? I hear it thrown around all the time but no one has ever presented a consistent definition. What is its relation to communism?
I did not mean to imply that it is intrinsic or natural
Clearly you do, otherwise you would word yourself differently. For some reason, you also always abstract class away, and talk about "people", as if developed countries were no class societies.
decolonization
A theory devised by and for academics, whose followers argue for the creation of ethnostates and deportation whenever pressed to specify what they actually want.
As the second quote says, the forms of struggle will look different depending on where in the world you are and what the specific conditions are.
This is a banal commonplace.
I'm wondering when you'll eventually drop the pretense of being a left communist and start proudly being a stalinist.
But class never develops as a [...] gender-less mass.
Why you bring up gender when that clearly was not the topic is anyone's guess.
Engels talked about how colonialism has made the workers in countries like England less militant and unable to form an actual workers party, while they instead "gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies".
I wonder if you haven't read the letter, or if you're just unable to understand what Engels is saying. Hint: He is not providing a precursor to sociological theories that deny that workers in First World countries have revolutionary potential. He's not even saying what you're putting in his mouth here. Since you seem to like quotes ripped out of context, I can provide you with one as well. Maybe think about it for a moment: "It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim." And please, don't hit me with the quote about the aim of the English bourgeoisie being to have a bourgeois proletariat, now.
With regard to that quote from Factors of Race and Nation, I don't know how you think it supports what you try to argue here.
I don't think we disagree about any of what you replied with, except maybe the "linkage between white people and imperialism" bit. All ethnicities are obviously equally capable of participating in and benefiting from imperialism.
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And as Engels, wrote this has effected the consciousness of the working-class in countries like England.
Nowhere in the letter you linked does Engels say this.
Characterizing imperialism this way seems to distract from the fact that it is an indispensable part of the nation state. If we are to decide that only certain countries form the "driving countries in imperialism" and that the states which oppose them are absolved of their lesser acts of imperialism, then all this amounts to an argument for a nationalism of the oppressed and against communism.
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Thanks. This looks quite interesting.
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It implies that the "cultural hegemony" of the "indigenous" bourgeois is somehow better for the "indigenous" workers, so yes it is pandering to nationalism and de facto denies class divisions. All these cultural hegemony theories are engaged in suprastructural culture battles and further divide the workers. Those theories turn the insight showing that the class who owns the means of production also dominates ideologically in an academic field which tries to prove that subjectively defined oppressed ethnic/national can free themselves by gaining cultural hegemony while conveniently ignoring the bourgeois/proletariat class antagonism among those very same groups as well as oscuring the wage labour exploitation of workers belonging to "hegemonic" national groups as they are lumped in with the oppressors. It is a form of popular\left-wing nationalism basically.
Sorry if this is asked a lot or if I'm really misinterpreting something here (which is probably the case) but I'm a little confused about this one section from the manifesto.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
- Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
- Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
- Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
- Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
- Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
- Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
- Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
Marx and Engels here seem to be discussing dictatorships of proletariat in different countries and the steps that they need to take to move forward towards communism (at least that's what it seems to me, I may be wrong). I can't help but feel that this passage could be used by MLs to justify national liberation movements, particularly the aspect of referring to nations and "different countries". I know that leftcoms are not fond of national liberation movements and I was wondering what your position on this passage was, I know I'm missing something I just don't know what. Do Marx and Engels mean that this is all happening to all countries of the world more or less simultaneously? Are they referring to a global DotP? What I'm looking for are more Marx/Engels quotes that elaborate on this in some way.
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As /u/dr_marx already remarked, the ten demands listed here were not arbitrarily drawn up by Marx and Engels, but were taken out of the labour movement by the Communist League. As such they are an expression of the time, as both authors would later make explicit in the 1872 preface to the work. They neither describe communist society, nor the dictatorship of the proletariat.
As with regard to the passages about "nations" and "different countries", I don't think there is a real relation to national liberation. What Marx and Engels are getting at is that different facets of the same universal problem of private property present themselves to the proletariat in different countries. The aim is the same though. Marx talks about this in an interview with the New York World, for example.
As a last point:
I can't help but feel that this passage could be used by MLs to justify national liberation movements, particularly the aspect of referring to nations and "different countries". I know that leftcoms are not fond of national liberation movements and I was wondering what your position on this passage was, I know I'm missing something I just don't know what.
Try not to read texts by evaluating their usefulness for this or that political position, but try to approach them on their own terms. Otherwise it's likely that their message goes over your head.
I agree with the last part, and thank you for the advice. I do have a problem with separating texts like these from my preconceived notions and the things I hear beforehand.
I do have a problem with separating texts like these from my preconceived notions and the things I hear beforehand.
It's very understandable with Marx, as there is so much nonsense floating around. A huge part of the process of understanding communism is clearing one's mind of those distortions.
I know that leftcoms are not fond of national liberation movements
national liberation movements had at one time a purpose, which would be compatible with the steps advanced here.
This particular section of the manifesto stems more from the communist league than Marx and Engels. Engels would later write about sections of the manifesto becoming obsolete and this is one of them. It does not represent the dotp. You are correct in trying to place these demands in the context of national liberation.
Thank you for responding. I have three questions based on this, and apologies again if I've missed something important. What was the purpose of national liberation (or advocating for it) during this time and why is that purpose no longer valid? and Does the DotP necessarily have to be a worldwide phenomena to be legitimate?
Does the DotP necessarily have to be a worldwide phenomena to be legitimate?
Engels famously names the Paris Commune as an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Was that a worldwide phenomenon? And what does "legitimate" even mean?
By use of "legitimate" I was thinking of the distinction between something that is genuinely a dictatorship of the proletariat and something like a national liberation movement that, more or less to my understanding, is that in name only. And it was ignorant of me not to know about the Paris commune, I do need to read more there is no doubt.
By use of "legitimate" I was thinking of the distinction between something that is genuinely a dictatorship of the proletariat and something like a national liberation movement that, more or less to my understanding, is that in name only.
Does anyone but weird internet Stalinists talk about past national liberation movements in that way?
And it was ignorant of me not to know about the Paris commune, I do need to read more there is no doubt.
The passage I had in mind is in Engels' afterword to Marx's Civil War in France, in case you want to look into it.
Frankly, I haven’t done any real reading of leftcom literature - Bordiga, Mattick, etc. etc. Only essays and some excerpts. I have a very broad idea of what it means to be a left communist. From what I’ve gathered though, it seems like there’s a universal disdain for electoral movements, that, while no less a slave to capital than any other modern political party or movement, would at least temporarily relieve proletarians in some way, whether it be single-payer, a minimum wage increase, yada yada.
Why?
I’m interested in left communism and I find myself always agreeing or being intrigued by things you guys say - for instance, I thought this article was great: https://libcom.org/library/militancy-ojtr. But I don’t get the logic behind outright rejecting reforms that can be brought about through bourgeois framework. There are millions of working people who would absolutely benefit from this. I also think it’s fair to say that such reforms would work to eventually lay bare the realization that private property is what’s “holding the proletariat back.”
If I’m entirely misinterpreting this, sorry. Like I said I really don’t have a great idea what I’m talking about in regards to leftcom stuff lol, so if someone wants to help me out that’d be sweet.
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Frankly, I haven’t done any real reading of leftcom literature - Bordiga, Mattick, etc. etc.
There's no need to read anyone but Marx, as long as you read what he actually writes. It is probably helpful to add that many of the texts that are being attributed to the person Bordiga are actually protocols of meetings of the International Communist Party, and are as such collective works. Also, Paul Mattick was a council communist.
I have a very broad idea of what it means to be a left communist.
It's not helpful to think of it in such a way. Besides, the fact that you have a "broad idea" of left communism means that you lack insight into its necessity. Only in such a case can the communist programme appear arbitrary to you. The chapter about "Freedom and Necessity" in Engels' Anti-Dühring is partly relevant here.
From what I’ve gathered though, it seems like there’s a universal disdain for electoral movements, that, while no less a slave to capital than any other modern political party or movement, would at least temporarily relieve proletarians in some way, whether it be single-payer, a minimum wage increase, yada yada.
If they're no less slave to capital than any other political party, how do you propose such policies to come about? Besides, what does "slave to capital" mean to you?
Class struggle is what is at the centre of communism - actual hand-to-hand conflict. The policies you list are an attempt of the petty bourgeoisie to save itself from its inevitable downfall, and to pacify the proletariat, as I explained to another person in this thread with regard to healthcare. Proper class politics avoid class collaboration. To give an example, here is a communist position on the question of housing:
A specific aspect of this question is housing. The labour movement has to deal with this question essentially in terms of capital/wage relations: if wages are not enough to pay the rent then workers must fight for a wage increase. As far as the workers’ struggle is concerned, the question of rent levels is a matter between the capitalists and the landed proprietors: faced with battles to increase wages it will be the capitalists who insist on a reduction of that slice of the surplus value extorted from the working class which is expropriated by the landlords.
Similar, for example, to the conjectures made during the recent struggles inside the SDA, where it was proposed that, if the employer remained intransigent, a general strike of the entire category would be called in solidarity with those struggles. Alongside one group of workers a much broader part of the working class rallied: it is one of the best practical realisations of the principle of class unity that a trade union can possibly offer. Thus the result of intransigence on the part of the SDA, at the back of which is the Italian Post Office, i.e. the bourgeois state, is that the other multinational companies in the sector will also have to pay.
The organised labour movement fights to protect wage levels, rather than fighting to reduce rents; and neither does it struggle against the high cost of living. Certainly it doesn’t fight against interclass movements of this kind but it doesn’t go about organising them, directing all of its energy into the struggle to win wage increases, wages for the unemployed, and a reduction in the working day.
As for the movements fighting for housing they cannot be characterised as proletarian because they organise, as a matter of principle, on the basis of a need which transcends class, and which is of concern not only to workers, whether employed or not, but to the ruined petty bourgeoisie, students and the lumpenproletariat.
Just as the SI Cobas rightly states in its conference document that it is wrong to demand an "income for all", to which it opposes the demand for a wage for unemployed workers, so it is not justified to fight for "housing for all".
If there are proletarians within the housing movements, it is the union which must organise them and lead a fight against evictions and for the allocation of housing for workers. Tenants should not be organised within an inter-classist framework but by the union, as proletarians. Similar to what has to happen with the unemployed. Only an organisational formula such as this can ensure a class movement on this front as well; and it is certainly totally inadequate to append the adjective "proletarian" to movements which, to all intents and purposes, are not organised on a class basis.
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/TheCPart/TCP_002.htm#FirstCongress
I’m interested in left communism and I find myself always agreeing or being intrigued by things you guys say
Random people on the internet are not a good source for the ideas of the communist left. You have to look into actual party positions, because on online forums you will just be met with a lot of dweebs calling themselves "leftcoms" arguing the most asinine things possible.
But I don’t get the logic behind outright rejecting reforms that can be brought about through bourgeois framework.
The reforms you talk about always appeal to society at large, and are not class based. They don't advance the labour movement one inch.
There are millions of working people who would absolutely benefit from this.
"Working people", or the proletariat? Also, millions of "working people" benefit from all kinds of policies. You should read the chapter on socialist and communist literature in the Manifesto - in fact, read the whole thing if you haven't already.
I also think it’s fair to say that such reforms would work to eventually lay bare the realization that private property is what’s “holding the proletariat back.”
How is that "fair to say"? What do you think of the state of the labour movement in countries which have single-payer healthcare or high minimum wages?
The labour movement inherently moves towards the abolition of private property, by its very nature. It is not a demand that it is conscious of at the start. Overcoming on a strict class basis the problems and the limited forms of association that the proletariat generates in its struggle against the bourgeoisie brings about this "realisation".
You've already answered your own question.
From what I’ve gathered though, it seems like there’s a universal disdain for electoral movements, that, while no less a slave to capital than any other modern political party or movement, would at least temporarily relieve proletarians in some way, whether it be single-payer, a minimum wage increase, yada yada. Why?
Frankly, I haven’t done any real reading of leftcom literature
Funny how in previous comments you've left, you've told people to read more. Hypocritical much?
And the idea of rejecting reformism isn't unique to the Communist Left, Marx and Engels spent their entire lives combatting reformists.
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Marx didn’t fully theorize ‘reformism’ because what leftcoms would consider today ‘reforms’, like the reduction of working hours, he considered to be bound up with the political organization of the workers movement.
You obviously don't even know what "reformism" means if you equate the reduction of the working day with it. You seem to think that this reduction can come about through a vote - Marx on the other hand in Capital goes to great pains to present the actual background; he devotes an entire chapter to it. It's amazing how you talk straight out of your ass with such confidence. One does not often encounter this level of hubris.
Besides, which "leftcoms" are you even talking about? Who exactly, and who do they represent?
Dismissing single payer healthcare campaigns on the basis of a crude economism isn’t really in the spirit of Marx at all.
The quote you produce here does not support what you argue at all. You have no clue about Marx, and you should stop invoking him for your arguments. It just makes you look like an idiot. "Single payer healthcare" (I'm going to ignore the "campaign" here, since that is an entire topic for itself) is a petty bourgeois demand appealing to society at large. It is not class based. Class struggle is not about arguing with the bourgeoisie on the best public policy. If health is a problem that the labour movement faces, it can fight for higher wages for example, thereby staying firmly on class grounds. Everything else is just what Marx and Engels call "bourgeois socialism" and "critical-utopian socialism" in the Manifesto - it stems from a desire for reconciliation between classes, from a fear of the destructive potential of the proletariat. A looming threat of disintegration of bourgeois society, "barbarism", draws no one from the woodwork. Such an outlook in the end is nothing but reproaching the bourgeoisie for not doing its "job" well enough, and attempting to pitch to it how it could subdue the proletariat more effectively to capital.
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The next two articles are ’Eight Theses on Russia’, being the concluding part of the party text ‘Dialogue with Stalin’, 1953, and ’Marxism and Russia, 40 Years of Organic Evaluation of International, Social and Historical Developments in Russia’, 1957.
These two texts are important because they show that the evaluation of the economic, social and political structure of Russia as capitalist and imperialist isn’t the result of an impromptu analysis by some individual, but is instead the result of the work of the Communist Marxist Party. The party maintains the revolutionary course in an impersonal capacity; a work which involves a constant sorting and arranging of the tragic and hostile facts of contemporary reality to ensure a correct interpretation. The party of the proletarian revolution can trace itself back in a continuous line through forty years of counter-revolutionary victory, during which time it has aimed to forge the main criteria and perspectives for the world revolution of the future. This doesn’t mean making intellectualist comments about past events, the work isn’t ’historiographical’; instead we draw conclusions, which are genuinely in accord with 100 years of Marxism, about the conditions and characteristics of the future proletarian assault on the citadels of the bourgeois world. The two texts which follow essentially demonstrate two things. The course of the Russian revolution, including its degeneration and its shipwreck on counterrevolutionary shores, was perfectly comprehensible to the Marxist party and can be explained using the classic key of Marxist interpretation. Moreover, the fact that this interpretation remains entirely vindicated as the one, invariable theory of the revolutionary proletariat makes it the front line in the battle against all those who wish to bring Marxism ’up to date’ and to ’improve’ it; against all those distorters of the Marxist doctrine who base their pretensions of ’going beyond Marx’ precisely on the alleged ’novelty’ or ’inexplicability’ of the Russian phenomenon.
This is our scientific forecast: the future world capitalist crisis, which will involve the so-called ’socialist world’ also, will along with the objective conditions necessary for a revolutionary revival also give rise to this indispensible subjective condition: the dismantling in the minds and hearts of proletarians throughout the world, of the myth of Socialism in Russia. This defeatist myth, which immobilizes proletarian energies everywhere, is the cornerstone of the belief in the thousand and one ’national socialisms’ and the thousand and one ’roads to socialism’ that form the basis for the present day dominion of the opportunists over the proletarian movement. The collapse of the myth: ’Russia’, as of the myth: ’China’, and all analogous falsifications, is the condition for the return of the proletariat to the one global road to Socialism, traced out in the Bolshevik October – and fully confirmed precisely because of its defeat. The collapse of the myth is also the condition of victory for the one and only Communist Party which has kept to that historic road through 50 years of buffeting by counterrevolutionary storms.
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This website is
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The problem isn't that fascists are being attacked for their so-called speech, it's that the violence is being (almost exclusively) performed by an isolated group of self-proclaimed street militants with a single-minded goal that doesn't tie into real class struggle. Adam's just reproducing the underlying problem by framing the issue as a matter of "optics" that "the left" has to hone to gain relevance. His unconditional defense of free speech is effectively liberal, and an impediment to struggle - regardless of whether it's on "tactical" or "moral" grounds.
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Here is a list of threads in other subreddits about the same content:
Outside and Against the Existing Trade Unions / Towards the Rebirth of the Working Class Trade Union on /r/leftcommunism (created at 2016-11-23 16:33:09 by None)
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I'm writing a definition essay for my college English class on the origins and various definitions of the word socialism, what would the leftcom definition of the word be?
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Left-communists are just marxists so we don't differentiate between socialism and communism.
As Marx and Engels said in The German Ideology,
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
While not a theoretical distinction, in the preface to "The Communist Manifesto," Engels does say this:
Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, [See Charles Owen and François Fourier] both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the “educated" classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian communism of Cabet in France, and of Weitling in Germany. Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.
...which has led to myself and others increasingly phasing out the term "socialism" altogether as this tendency has only gotten worse.
Abolishing commodity production. Don't listen to anyone who tells you it's when co-ops replace traditional business structures.
"The riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."
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There isn't much to say about it from a communist perspective. It was a reaction against western supported dictatorship in the country which was taken over by theocrats. The revolution is a great example of opportunist left alliances though (the Tudeh party and others supporting the Ayatollah regime then all being killed in mass political executions). Mansoor Hekmat was not a left communist but he wrote a lot about the Iranian revolution (he founded the Worker-Communist Party of Iran).
Chris Harman's The prophet and the proletariat comes to mind. deals with the rise of 'islamism' generally in the era but has a chapter on Iran
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Abstract
Anton Pannekoek (1873–60) was both an influential Marxist and an innovative astronomer. This paper will analyze the various innovative methods that he developed to represent the visual aspect of the Milky Way and the statistical distribution of stars in the galaxy through a framework of epistemic virtues. Doing so will not only emphasize the unique aspects of his astronomical research, but also reveal its connections to his left radical brand of Marxism. A crucial feature of Pannekoek’s astronomical method was the active role ascribed to astronomers. They were expected to use their intuitive ability to organize data according to the appearance of the Milky Way, even as they had to avoid the influence of personal experience and theoretical presuppositions about the shape of the system. With this method, Pannekoek produced results that went against the Kapteyn Universe and instead made him the first astronomer in the Netherlands to find supporting evidence for Harlow Shapley's extended galaxy. After exploring Pannekoek’s Marxist philosophy, it is argued that both his astronomical method and his interpretation of historical materialism can be seen as strategies developed to make optical use of his particular conception of the human mind.
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best ones come from the communist left itself. I am reading council stuff right now, and they were pretty critical of the "centralised party" left coms. If you are interested.
what works?
LeftCom theory can be fairly broad, so it might help to be specific about a particular tendency your looking for a critique of.
Sorry yeah, I meant like the Italian leftcom, Bordiga type
Gilles Dauvé's Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement.
Cheers mate
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Damen didn't consider himself a Bordigist. In fact, Damen used the term "Bordigist" as an insult.
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Or "situationism" for the situationists. At least it seems to me that in their Questionnaire they rejected the term.
Would appreciate some recommended articles/links.
The only stuff I can from the left are from MLMs.
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You mean with the recent bombings or just the overall civil war?
EDIT: btw I can't be the only one that is appalled by some of the communist and anarchists apologism for this war and the recent bombings. It wasn't that long ago it was just pretty common sense for any anti-capitalist or internationalist to not take sides in inter imperialist wars. Shit even liberals opposed the Iraq war. I'm guessing rojava has something to do with it.
With your edit, are you talking about how some "communists" are calling for support with Assad?
No, I'm talking about some communists but mostly anarchists seem to support US intervention in Syria. Previously it was because the US was helping PYD but now some people seem to support the bombings as well.
Interesting, I haven't seen much apologia from the anarchists but perhaps it's because I'm not looking. Thanks.
I guess generally people oppose it, but some things from the r/anarchism thread caught my eye. With 36 upvotes:
I feel really disconnected from other leftists who put anti-imperialism above every other aspect of Assads regime. Apparently if I hate Assad, I'm an imperialist apologist. This shit's frustrating.
But I'm also referring to some things I have seen previously from some leftists when it comes to the war in Syria.
Yeah, I understand. I've seen some strange rhetoric from other 'leftists' as well.
Regarding either one would be very helpful. I'm especially confused because of the different groups involved that I don't know anything about. PYD, YPG, which are supposedly 'left wing'? I don't even know what that means in this context or how accurate a description that is. So they're 'left wing', but a lot of MLM are supporting Asad and criticizing PYD/YPG. And YPG is left wing but receives funding from USA? But USA anarchists are supporting YPG? Asad I see is a "Ba-athist", which is like a nationalist/Pan-Arab ideology with the state playing a strong role in social welfare? So I'm lost, and I'm hesitant to read the big outlets because they appear to be fiercely pro-USA bombings, while RT is pro-Asad, which I guess makes sense given the respective outlets' countries economic interests, but it leaves me confused.
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2014-10-31/the-bloodbath-in-syria-class-war-or-ethnic-war
https://libcom.org/library/rojava-reality-rhetoric-gilles-dauvé-tl
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2015-12-05/british-parliament-votes-to-bomb-in-syria
These are mainly about the civil war though. I haven't seen that many articles about about the bombings of Syria yet from the left
They're not communist but The War Nerd podcast has had some very good coverage, calling bullshit on various narratives around the Syrian war.
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Their positions on Brest-Litovsk and national self-determination are really interesting. I think the peace may have been the correct option, though.
It's funny how much Bukharin's positions degenerated after the revolution failed to materialise in the rest of the world.
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Was really enjoying the intro until I saw "the movement toward class-consciousness".
You can find a response to the dislike of "class consciousness" here
Why not just post here directly?
I would welcome elaboration, for, as long abused and misconstrued as that term has been throughout its history, I haven't really found anything to replace a working class, conscious of its own interests in opposition to the interests of the ruling class, and the ruling class' organization of property and production, to actually make a revolution.
The problem with the idea that we need to "move toward class consciousness" is the assumption that the working class isn't conscious to begin with. It implies a problem needing to be fixed among the working class, in terms of an intellectual deficit, and that the only people to be tasked with correcting this deficit are the left among the working class or, worse, petty bourgeois intellectuals who have self-appointed this task.
Workers have consciousness. Class consciousness, even. We understand where we are and what our role is in capitalism; that is, we're exploited. Being a class in itself, which we are as a default, means consciousness is achieved already and there's no where for it to be raised or move toward. Every single time you hear a member of the working class complaining about their jobs, their boss, their shitty health insurance; worrying over an impending foreclosure, being kicked out for non-payment of rent, so on and so forth, is an instance of consciousness.
What we need to move to is a class for itself. But that comes from dialogue. Not "education." Working out, as a class, alternatives. It doesn't imply the "teacher" and "student" dichotomy that "educating" or "moving toward consciousness" implies. If any consciousness raising needs to take place, it needs to take place among the left with the understanding that it's not us who lead the revolution but the working class as a whole.
Largely because reddit is a platform not conducive to discussion which should be fairly evident from the lack of discussion present on reddit.
And yet, we're having this discussion nonetheless.
I'm not sure anyone thinks the working class is unconscious, at least not all of them all at one time. The assertion that the working class is not class conscious merely posits that workers do not recognise themselves as such. I have many a co-worker who is awaiting their 'big break' so that they can finally 'make it.' They, of course, do not realise their position in society is not one that enables terribly much social mobility. Additionally, there is a problem, or rather problems that need to be corrected amongst the working class. Racism, sexism, bigotry of all kinds flourish to greater and lesser degrees in the working class. However, I don't see anything in the article that implies or states that the left is the way to creating class consciousness. Indeed, if you read the rest of the articles, I'm sure you will find that our position is that class consciousness in a general sense will arise only from working class struggle.
Okay, but this isn't to do with consciousness or the related idea of "consciousness raising." The idea that there is some playa of consciousness is inherently condescending because it implies someone knows less than you and is in a position to be taught something by someone self-appointed.
If there is "consciousness," like I said, it starts with the proletariat's default position, as a class in itself. Any recognition of alienation, whether or not the worker says that it's alienation or is even familiar with the concept, is a form of consciousness as a member of the class. You're conflating aspirationalism with the ignorance of class. In fact, in a way, the "waiting to make it" is itself consciousness and awareness of being apart of the working class. Which just makes the concept redundant and not really worth pursuing in analysis, unless your aim is to place yourself above someone else in order to "teach" them.
And so instances where co-workers complain about 'line-cutting,' for instance, is also evidence of class consciousness?
I don't know if "line cutting" is supposed to mean something other than what I think it does? (Cutting in line, or whatever, at the lunch room?) If so, then of course not. That's not in relation to their condition of exploitation. If not, then you'll have to expand more on what you mean here.
Workers are, by and large, more than capable of recognising the problems and challenges they face given that they are facing them, but what solutions are they proposing?
Solutions come from the working class itself when it turns into a mode of becoming a class for itself. It's not the socialist's job to propose solutions or try to direct the worker's movement. Another note here is that there's a difference between "class consciousness" and a class for itself. If I'm bullied at school, I understand the conditions in which I stand. I'm thinking, complaining and cognizant of my condition in itself. When I choose to fight back, I'm acting for myself. But at no point did my consciousness lack because of my lack of fighting back or my not knowing what I could do to stop the bullying, even if it ended up with my conclusion that "maybe I should just switch schools." The same concept applies here: by being a class in itself, consciousness is achieved by default. Being a class for itself is just the class being ready to organize on the premise of their own liberation after suffering abuse.
Most of my co-workers, when they make similar complaints to what you have listed, merely state that they need to 'find a better job.' But we, as Marxists, know that there is no such better job except the ones we fight for.
The line "But we, as Marxists" is part of this problem. That by virtue of being Marxists, it assumes that we actually know all the ins and outs of the capitalist system, and that we need to be self-appointed teachers to those who experience alienation.
Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.
You're trying very hard to place us in to a position that we do not hold. We are not trying to 'educate' the working class (I am working to help high school students with classes and such but I don't think that qualifies?), we are trying to help the working class. We want to form organisations that solve immediate problems facing the working class using the resources we have access to.
No one can do that except for the working class itself.
When Marx talks about the "most advanced parts of the working class," he talks about it in a period of actual revolutionary upheaval. The context there is important. He was writing a polemic, not theorizing. For the communists, the "most advanced" were the ones who were aiming for complete overthrow, in contrast to the radical democrats who just wanted to inch toward reforms. That says little to nothing about consciousness as a concept. It's limited solely to what parts of the working class have turned from a class in itself to a class for itself; in other words, it's a comment on actions taken, not what someone understands about the world or their position in it.
"Class-for-itself" is identical to class consciousness.
As I pointed out above, it's not.
True, but just because you can, and perhaps sometimes will, use a tool not meant for a specific job, does not mean that said tool is the best tool for that job.
This is ridiculous. You're painting a broad brush of the platform and neglecting the fact that there are many sub communities on reddit that are conducive to discussion. The platform isn't the issue; it's how the sub is structured. /r/leftcommunism is fine for discussion.
I don't care if you call what I'm doing class conscious activity or fascism, I will not be drawn in to a debate about words.
That's exactly what this debate is about. It's not simply a matter of "words," though. The concept of "class consciousness" is an infection on the left starting with Kautsky. It, in part, informs the condescension and classism within the left that ultimately repels the working class from wanting to work with the left in the first place.
'line-cutting' refers to the racist myth that we're all waiting in line to get our chance at the top but certain groups of people (minorities) cut in line through things like affirmative action. Essentially I am pointing out that the working class can be racist, at times, in parts, and that such racism does not constitute class consciousness, but does arise as a response to working class conditions.
This isn't a class condition, though. A lot of people have this idea. It's in the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, as well. It's a social issue, not an issue with the working class only. Small business managers will skip on applicants in response to the myth that they're defying some imaginary quota system.
And even despite this, it still has nothing to do with the idea of consciousness or that we, the righteous socialists, need to "move" the working class to "consciousness." I don't know if you're misunderstanding what I'm saying or not. Here's another way to put it (with thanks to Anne Jaclard from the MHI): in classical Marxism, the working class are subjects of history and revolutionary potential. The left nowadays, especially with the ideas that we have about "consciousness," either "raising" or "moving" the working class to consciousness ourselves, treats them as objects. We rob the working class of their agency in these theories. Racism is an unfortunate fact which is amplified by the alienation the working class experiences. But the solution isn't to sit and lecture the working class on it. The solution is to ask them to be partners in developing ideas, theories and action. That is not "moving" anyone toward consciousness, but it is the left treating the working class as partners, not objects for us to mold. In other words, it's not saying that we have a set of affairs in which we must establish, contrary to the reality of our circumstances. You keeps saying that "we" have the solutions and that the working class poses no solution; but that's wrong. We are not gatekeepers of solutions, perfect societies. We critique capitalism and we desire working class liberation in order to liberate the entirety of humanity, but we have no road map, either. It's really fucking off-putting when you go to someone and say that you have all the answers, therefore listen to me. You don't know jack shit. And neither does any other communist. Revolution, if it happens, will happen from material circumstances. The choice that socialists have is to continue on with the same utopian crap we've been doing for the last century, continue to have no support from the working class and be locked out of any potential venue in which to provide support, or we -- especially the petty bourgeois socialists among us -- can instead choose to stop behaving like a bunch of spoiled children about how the working class isn't "proposing any solutions." And instead work with the working class, work for the working class and not try to lead or rule over them.
You've failed to point out any solutions that the working class proposes. My point is that the 'solutions' they propose do not lead towards better conditions for the working class as a whole, at least not all the time as you seem to think they do.
I never said I think all the solutions that the working class propose work toward bettering our conditions. For as righteous and knowledgeable as you purport yourself to be, on the basis of being a Marxist, you really don't understand what I'm saying, do you?
I think that's a very good alibi for not doing anything to help improve the living standards of the working class.
This is the problem with utopians. The idea that history revolves around sects of political movements and not that it revolves around class struggle. We in the working class do what we can. And yet, none of this is even on topic. We're talking about "consciousness" and the objection to the concept. You're now wanting to get into how lazy or useless the working class is in their own liberation, and so need socialist saviors to teach them about their own oppression and liberation. Which is exactly the issue I'm attacking. I'm a worker foremost, and a socialist second. I didn't need some fucking socialist know-it-all to lead me to the conclusion that the system is fucked, that it falls mostly on my class and needs to be overthrown. Neither does anyone else in the working class. Socialists can either come to us as a class and propose to work on theory with us, action and all of that, but when it comes to matters of "moving us" or "raising" our consciousness, they can fuck off with all of that. It doesn't help and only makes you out to be an opportunistic dweeb incapable of anything other than being a self-important jerk.
My efforts speak to the contrary, unless you want to challenge the notion that helping minority students in school does not constitute helping the working class?
Oh? Are we just a flea hop away from revolution because we have socialists as teachers in the education system? Come on. You, in your previous post, just said that you weren't trying to 'educate' the working class and now you're trying to run down credentials about how you're trying to do that, and ignoring my point that the only organizations which can actually bring about change for the working class, are from the workers themselves. How many newspapers you've sold to people on behalf of your party doesn't make a difference in any worker's lives.
"Class consciousness"? Ugh.
https://libcom.org/library/communization-abolition-gender
(BTW, is this the right sub for this? Is it the most active one?)
In the first few paragraphs, the author says "... the unfolding contradictions of capitalism annihilated the conditions which other forms of revolution required." What is meant by that? What were these conditions and how were they annihilated? Are the other forms of revolution just revolution not as communization? They say a few paragraphs later that "capital no longer organizes a unity among proletarians," which seems to have something to do with it. But I'm still unsure about the statement overall.
My other questions are about this passage:
It is no historical accident that the end of the former cycle of struggles coincided with a revolt against the primacy of the Worker – a revolt in which feminism played a major role. To re-imagine a workers’ movement that would not demote women, blacks, and homosexuals to a subordinate position is to think a workers’ movement that lacks precisely the unifying/excluding trait that once allowed it to move at all. With the benefit of hindsight, it is increasingly clear that if the working class (as a class of all those without direct access to means of production) was destined to become the majority of society, the workers’ movement was unlikely to organize a clear majority from it.
I'm assuming from the author's name that she's a woman of color, so is the message here that a worker's movement that respects these other groups can't exist, BUT, we should be ok with that? Is communization the movement to replace the failed worker's movement? And what about the last sentence? Is that because, like it says, so many workers are women, people of color, gay, etc.?
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... the unfolding contradictions of capitalism annihilated the conditions which other forms of revolution required."
the conception of the revolution as workers taking over a factory and running it themselves is premised on workers in a factory. As work has changed, and the way proletarians relate to it and to each other during it, so will any vision of a future society without it [work] and how to get there. The horizon of the transition to communism which begins with robbing the capitalists of their workplaces. Todays vision is rather its absence; no vision, no conception of a future beyond capitalism. With our vision blocked by a totalising capitalism that seems to have dispensed with class, the "regaining" of vision is the same thing as destroying the blockage: capitalism. Becoming communist now is the only antidote; we cannot lay claim to any vision towards which we will progress, aspire, or transition to.
So as particular type of capitalist society died so did the forms of consciousness it implied, and thus also a certain type of theory derived therefrom. Socialists can no more step out of their own time and its conditioning than any other. Communisation therefore is the communist question formed in the present era [the historicity of communisation/communism is disputed somewhat cf. Endnotes journal 1 for a debate], the thinking of revolution in our conditions today.
With your other question: the locus of the workers movement was the factory, in which stood the worker. This worker was primarily white and male. The historicity of the conception of revolution just outlined is also that of this subject, who was to undertake it, i.e. those that worked in the workplaces to be taken over as the act of the revolution. The taking of state power, and the consciousness that would operate it, was derived from a supposed organic link to this workplace and the class within. This figure of the worker came to an end as capitalism transformed in the 1960s/70s, and thus also the workers movement and politics associated with it. 'the worker' is no longer the male industrial labourer, but...everyone?? the image has fractured in our time, which is also the problem in composing a 'communist subject', or finding the proletariat [at least in the west]. It is everywhere and nowhere.
I'd suggest having a look at Endnotes 1 since it explains what's being referred to in this article and the issues associated with it
This figure of the worker came to an end as capitalism transformed in the 1960s/70s, and thus also the workers movement and politics associated with it. 'the worker' is no longer the male industrial labourer, but...everyone?? the image has fractured in our time, which is also the problem in composing a 'communist subject', or finding the proletariat [at least in the west]. It is everywhere and nowhere.
Yeah one of the major themes of Endnotes and Dauve that i've seen is just taking on the task of reforming the idea of the proletariat to adapt to the changing form of late capitalism. Placing a new role on the part of surplus populations, abjected social groups, student movements, etc as a new pocket of radicalized individuals(whose interests are embedded in socialism) as opposed to thinking of the revolutionary agent as exclusively those who sell their labor power for a wage.
This is of course contentious, and a lot of hardline left-coms here are going to object, but i'd respond by pointing out their inability to reanalyze the shifting paradigm of where social antagonisms are themselves most present. The classic conception of labor/capital struggle is still, in my opinion, the driving force behind the movement of communism, and always will be, however as cultural capital increasingly becomes more autonomous and distinguished from financial capital, so will the multiplicity of social antagonisms, and therefore a need to expand the conception of the revolutionary class itself.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
hardline left-comsBordigists
ftfy
That sounds interesting. Essentially they are trying to break away from the conceptions of the old workers movement and analyse how the changing form of capitalism has impacted on the communist struggle?
Yeah. And also trying to redefine a lot of shit in the process. Fundamental things, like what work and social relations of labor even mean to the groups u/Communizer mentioned in this day and age: the long-term unemployed, migrants, self-"employed", students, people with massive amounts of debt, people with ridiculous criminal records, etc.
wew
Thanks! Hopefully I'll get a copy of endnotes soon
Wait, I thought it's all online (?)
I think so but I have a hard time reading shit on my phone/computer
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
It would help having the whole context of what you are quoting, can you link it?
My bad, I just assumed everybody had read it lmao
Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask about council communism, but nevertheless, in the post-revolution society, where all decision making according to theory would be left to workers' councils of factories and other workplaces, how would the non-working people (disabled, elderly,farmers etc.) participate in democracy? Would there be some other institutions with equivalent political power? In that case, why have workers' councils in the first place if the will of all people could be expressed solely through some district or city councils? Thanks.
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Worker councils, in the form that council communists advocate, are only really possible within the framework of capitalism. Communism abolishes class distinctions and wage labour and consequently the working class.
So, to answer your question, there would be no 'working people', workplaces and worker councils in the way that there are today or have been in the past.
in the post-revolution society, where all decision making according to theory would be left to workers' councils of factories and other workplaces, how would the non-working people (disabled, elderly,farmers etc.) participate in democracy?
Workers councils are only revolutionary vectors. They wouldn't exist post-revolution.
workers councils were district / city councils that were open to the whole working class
Most council communists are anti-democracy. The decisions made should be based off what is better for everyone; A utilitarian approach so to speak.
Council communists still think of their approach as democratic: "For the working class, parliamentary democracy is a sham democracy, whereas council representation is real democracy: the direct rule of the workers over their own affairs." - Pannekoek
Anti bourgeois democracy. Not democracy in general. The councils that arise out of uprisings are themselves democraric, so it doesn't make any sense to say we oppose democracy as a concept.
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"All governmental positions taken in the present society are there to maintain the status quo of property relations." As are trade unions.
they are there to back up the working class and so are part of the class struggle. therefore are a useful place to be to build revolutionary struggle.
No. Trade unions aren't there necessarily to back up the working class. The teade union movement from its inception has been class collaborationist, and there's a lot of fluidity between unions and owners of capital. The ones that are better are more exceptions to the rule.
They can't be vectors of revolutionary struggle, though. Unions exist to live on, and they require capitalism for this. Working class liberation requires a destruction of the system. Many of the revolutinary actions of the working class when unionism was at its height were hindered by the union.
If you ask anyone who has actually worked with trade unions (i'm not one of them) they renounce them as part of capitalist bueraucracy. Were are you coming from here?
Q: "Were are you coming from here?"
A: Marx
Q: "If you ask anyone who has actually worked with trade unions (i'm not one of them)"
A: Right, I have. From Australia, Canada, France, US. From what I've actually experienced is that there are unions who still fight for the class.
Australia is dominated by a union bureaucracy. You could even call it a labour aristocracy if you were going to go by the way Pannekoek used it.
Trade unions can be used to win higher wages but they are not revolutionary.
No one said they were revolutionary.
Are you trying to end exploitation or negotiate a new rate of it?
End exploitation through organising where the battle begins? Pretty consistent with Marx?
What alternative is there? Study circles? Grad school?
You're not able to organize along revolutionary demands?
Pretty consistent with Marx?
Marx lived over 100 years ago.
What alternative is there? Study circles? Grad school?
Making revolutionary demands.
It appears that you think they are:
therefore are a useful place to be to build revolutionary struggle.
End exploitation through organising where the battle begins?
But we want a classless society. And not some weird proletarian state
A: Right, I have. From Australia, Canada, France, US. From what I've actually experienced is that there are unions who still fight for the class.
It sounds like you're ingrained with trade union consciousness. Trade unions are the bastions of the labor aristocracy and serve as nothing more than a dead weight to revolutionary struggle. They have in the majority of all countries become integrated into the bourgeois state.
After the Nightmare of the Election in the USA and the Dissection of its Corpse
After the nightmare of the election in the USA and the dissection of its corpse - It is obvious to Marxist theory, and backed by abundant historical evidence, that whenever any of the political actors takes their turn in power they become the most impotent person on Earth, unable to deviate from the prescribed and catastrophic trajectory of US capitalism by even a fraction of a degree.
Democracy, or rather its periodic orgiastic electoral rites, which have survived it and replaced it for more than a century, is now a mystifying word, empty of meaning, but highly useful for distracting workers from their real problems.
Anti-fascism and anti-populism are both forms of fascism and populism.
The only real historical alternative is between us - the communist party and the trade union movement - and the whole damn lot of them together: today, there is only one party of the bourgeoisie.
We understand the recurrence of the term “post-democracy” as a sign of the times, but it is clear to us that the bourgeoisie will continue obsessively to apply its media apparatus, projecting fake oppositions and simulating social struggle, so it can avoid the real class struggle.
Either the people who made this website were able to predict the future with amazing accuracy or this website needs bringing into the 21st century. I haven't seen a website this bad since 1992.
You have shit taste in website design. Not looking like facebook or twitter doesn't make a website design bad.
Yes, because I like my websites to look like they were made this century I have a shit taste in web design.
Youtube had much better design before the 2010s. Web design has degressed.
Yes, because I like my websites to look like they were made this century
Why?
[deleted]
They never said anything about the content.
exactly, you see a webpage with decades of revolutionary experiences and work behind it and all you can is complain in regards to how it looks?
Surely that says something about the content if there is nothing in there to critique? For the record, I agree with most of what is being written there, but funnily enough I still find the website to be horrendous.
I am not a member of either of these organizations, but I would appreciate if you all could comment what you perceive to be the key differences between major leftcom organizations, for example the ICT and ICC laid out in an easily-readable format (like for beginners). Please outline any topic or ideological difference you see relevant. Thank you!
(This has probably been asked before, but I haven't yet found a central place where it has been clearly outlined.)
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Very brief organizational differences. * ICT is federalist, almost to anarchist, with separate organizations in each country. Run on "dialectical" centralism. Intervention in the working class is against unions and organizing party organs in workplaces. Is anti-national revolutions. * ICC is based on national sections. Runs by Democratic Centralism. Intervention in the working class is anti-union and agitates for independent action. Is anti-National revolution. * ICP (Communist Program) Is unitary. Runs on Democratic Centralism. Intervention in the working class is anti-union and agitates for independent action. Is more pro national revolution. * ICP (Proletarian) is unitary, structure is ?. Intervention in the working class is anti-union and agitates for independent action. Is more pro national revolution than any of these groups. * ICP (Communist Left) Is unitary. Organic Centralist. Intervention in working class is through "United Front from Below", working in unions not integrated into the state, and/or "outside and against state unions", Anti-nationalist.
There are three ICPs? This is even more confusing than I thought.
there's actually a couple more.
From what I understand, the ICP(s?) believe that activity comes from the party's practice in the working class, so each is an example.
The ICC has spawned several "fractions" over the years which essentially operated as the ICC, eventually finding their own way. Internationalist Perspective, Fraction of the International Communist Left, International Communist Group (ICG) all started off as mini-new continuation ICCs.
Both organisations are basically irrelevant to the struggles of the wider working class, they both have major problems, and most of the theory they've produced since the late `80s is disputed/controversial/bad. The ICT is essentially an older fraction of the ICC if I'm not mistaken. Their position on the unions is more ambiguous than the ICC's, who are plainly against the unions.
so are there any good communist parties?
Parties, no. Small groups? There are a few decent ones in almost every country.
edit: I was wrong in my first paragraph.
I don't think I could tell you much about their specific positions, about what they split over. But you could search for icp icc ict on revleft or libcom; they have discussed it quite a bit.
The Italian Communist Left - exiled members of the "Bordigist" wing of the Communist Party of Italy - organized with local militants in especially France, Belgium during the 1920s through 1944.
As the Italian Fascist regime collapsed and Allied troops invaded the Communist Party of Italy local federations started to revive. With no center the older leadership reverted back to the Organic "Bordigist" Programme and methods. Bordiga was in Napoli and attempted to pull the disparate locals in the South together in a revived Communist Party on the pre-Gramsci "Left" programme.
In the still fascist North of Italy, Damen and his circle, in contact with the exiles in France and Belgium, formed their own party, the Internationalist Communist Party (PCInt). This was a contraversial move but eventually the PCInt merged with the groups around Bordiga in the south.
A part of the French groups had (through isolation under Vichy and German/occupation) become their own grouping in the south of France - GCF French Left Communists. They were focused in Provance, especially Marsailles. They diverged from the rest of the international Communist Left roughly when PCInt was formed.
GCF attempted to integrate German/Dutch left theory with Italian. They believed that Korea War in 1950 was the beginning of WW3 and decided to scatter across the world. One GCF militant, Marc Chirik, left for Venezuela and eventually initiated the ICC based on the theory of the GCF.
As above, the PCInt and Bordiga's groups merged and were fairly influential in the post war strike waves. As things started settle down the differences between the hasty marraige started to show. In 1952 the Damen and Bordiga wings split - although on political not on regional lines.
Damen and the PCInt kept the paper Battaglia Comunista and are the basis of the ICT.
Bordiga's wing became the ICP and kept the magazine Communist Programme.
This was very informative. Thank you.
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This text has been formatted into a printable pamphlet here:https://subversionpress.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/where-are-we-in-the-crisis/
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I've been using this as a resource ever since I found it on /r/communization ! Do you plan on updating it further as you come across more texts/topics to include?
Yeah I've been constantly updating it as time passes. Thanks for using my list as a resource! Really appreciated.
/u/prolific13, here, you may find this of interest
Very nice list, thank you.
Noice
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This is a great piece written by Korsch on the emergence of Marxist theory from German Idealism, and the relationship between class struggle and the general development of the body of ideas. Korsch also goes into some detail about the deviations of the Second International to supplement their reformist positions.
This part especially stuck out to me, and seems more relevant today than ever:
the fluid methodology of Marx’s materialist dialectic freezes into a number of theoretical formulations about the causal interconnection of historical phenomena in different areas of society – in other words it became something that could best be described as a general systematic sociology. The former school treated Marx’s materialist principle as merely a subjective basis for reflective judgement in Kant’s sense, while the latter dogmatically regarded the teachings of Marxist ‘sociology’ primarily as an economic system, or even a geographical and biological one. All these deformations and a row of other less important ones were inflicted on Marxism by its epigones in the second phase of its development, and they can be summarised in one all-inclusive formulation: a unified general theory of social revolution was changed into criticisms of the bourgeois economic order, of the bourgeois State, of the bourgeois system of education, of bourgeois religion, art, science and culture. These criticisms no longer necessarily develop by their very nature into revolutionary practices they can equally well develop, into all kinds of attempts at reform, which fundamentally remain within the limits of bourgeois society and the bourgeois State, and in actual practice usually did so. This distortion of the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism itself – into a purely theoretical critique that no longer leads to practical revolutionary action, or does so only haphazardly
[The emphasis is mine.]
It is of course one of the seminal texts of the German communist left and perhaps one of the most important texts on the nature of marxism - maybe only surpassed by (the early) Luckacs' History and Class Consciousness.
However, if you allow me, I have always felt the text becomes problematic at certain key points, especially when pinpointing the extent (or depth) of the revisionism of the Second International parties. Korsch correctly points out the problems that any good marxist would have with the politics and the ideas of the social democrats of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, however, it is perhaps to much to categorically dismiss the experience of the Second International as 'lost' to history. If you read the 'anti-critique' that Korsch wrote as a reply to critics, it becomes clear that Korsch seems to suggest that in the end, only Marx and Engels were 'truly' marxists. It is clear that for the councillists like Korsch this reveals some important yet latent assumptions about the question of organisation.
It is clear that the Second International had clear revisionist tendencies from early on, however these parties did important work in demanding reforms in favour of the working class and some of its intellectuals developed important yet undeveloped parts of marxist theory - e.g. Kautsky's work on marxism and the question of ethics.
However, even if the Second International ended in a historical disaster, the experiences that revolutionaries have gained from their activities in the social democratic parties have helped shape our contemporary understanding of revolutionary politics. Korsch and the councillists tend to ignore this experience. It might seem difficult to swallow, but remember that councillists like Korsch started to reject collective work and the party form not many years later, precisely because they could not grasp that revolutionary politics also necessarily contains the historical experience of the organisation of the class and its revolutionary minorities in and outside the revolutionary waves. For them, the whole question of organisation is irrelevant as it is problematic, because like Korsch's analysis of the Second International, it reflects an 'impure', mixed experience, an 'error', that is only relevant as a totally negative category with regards to the 'pure' marxist theory of history and revolutionary politics, as it first was expounded in the theories of Marx and Engels. However, for revolutionary politics, the experience of the Second International or any revolutionary organisation cannot be easily dismissed, it must be understood and ruthlessly criticized, as revolutionary organisation is an important (maybe the most important) part of revolutionary politics - as Italian communist left has always held.
I hope I have made myself clear, but accept that I might have been a little vague.
Don't worry, everything you said is pretty much crystal clear.
...maybe only surpassed by (the early) Luckacs' History and Class Consciousness.
I've heard pretty mixed things about Luckacs' work, but if you recommend it I'll stick it on the ol' reading list.
I have always felt the text becomes problematic at certain key points, especially when pinpointing the extent (or depth) of the revisionism of the Second International parties.
You have an interesting point here, but I don't know how much depth he could have gone into given the (relatively) small size of the text. Do you recommend anything more detailed (reading wise)?
Korsch correctly points out the problems that any good marxist would have with the politics and the ideas of the social democrats of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, however, it is perhaps to much to categorically dismiss the experience of the Second International as 'lost' to history.
I agree with you there, it does seem a bit much to paint the whole Second International with the same brush based off a generalised view of the more well known theorists. On the other hand...
however these parties did important work in demanding reforms in favour of the working class
Korsch did live a lot closer to the period of the SecInt (when he became more prominent atleast), so I think this critique was more applicable back in the 20's and 30's when reforms were a lot more integral for the working class than today.
...councillists like Korsch started to reject collective work and the party form not many years later...
Not too sure what you mean by 'collective work', but I would argue that (many? some?) councilists did not reject the party as a whole, but rather specific formations and functions that are traditionally used.
... precisely because they could not grasp that revolutionary politics also necessarily contains the historical experience of the organisation of the class and its revolutionary minorities in and outside the revolutionary waves.
I completely agree that this is a major shortcoming of councilism.
for revolutionary politics, the experience of the Second International or any revolutionary organisation cannot be easily dismissed, it must be understood and ruthlessly criticized, as revolutionary organisation is an important (maybe the most important) part of revolutionary politics...
Again, I very much agree with you. It must be looked at within its historical period in order to fully understand its failures and wrongdoings (much like philosophy, as Korsch points out in the essay).
I must admit that I have only read parts of Luckacs his work, but History and Class Consciousness is solid, precisely because it even more than Korsch poses the question of theory in relation to struggle. To be honest, it also spoke to me on a level that is rare; I felt like I could immediately grasp the problems at hand, which is strange as the book is rather difficult (although I couldn't speak for any English translation) but it suggests its lively theoretical clarity. Especially the essay 'Class Consciousness' from the book might interest you, because it relates to your quotation and the underlying problematic of the theoretical nature of opportunism:
'We see here the source of every kind of opportunism which begins always with effects and not causes, parts and not the whole, symptoms and not the thing itself. It does not regard the particular interest and the struggle to achieve it as a means of education for the final battle whose outcome depends on closing the gap between the psychological consciousness and the imputed one. Instead it regards the particular as a valuable achievement in itself or at least as a step along the path towards the ultimate goal. In a word, opportunism mistakes the actual, psychological state of consciousness of proletarians for the class consciousness of the proletariat.'
Cheers for the rec! That looks exactly like what I'm after.
Hopefully this question isn't flawed from its premise due to my lack of understanding of communism, but how exactly does the vanguard construct the class party of the proletariat? What will this look like?
And a bit more broad of a question, but who exactly constitutes the vanguard? I understand that it is the most studied and class conscious of the proletariat, and it will be them that construct the class party to dictate and organize working class organizations for the dotp. Yet the class party can only exist when the class itself exists through class conflict. But how will this all start? Is my understanding flawed? Is asking this utopian to answer?
Fuck this is a lot to wrap my head around.
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I don't think this is a utopian question - in fact it's probably the most central and divisive question in the history of the communist movement. Here is the view of the ICT, which I think mostly fits with the necessities spawned by the 20th century revolutions. Hopefully it answers some of your questions. The FAQ on that page is good as well.
For us the real alternative to unions is the ‘self-organisation of the struggle’, which has to start spontaneously from the working class, outside of and against the unions, to choose for themselves the most effective forms of mobilisation, which of necessity go beyond compatibility with the system.
[...]
The overthrow of capitalism is only possible through a revolution, i.e. the conquest of political power by the proletariat, outside and against all bourgeois pseudo-democratic channels (elections, reforms, etc ...) mechanisms which are specially designed to avoid any radical change in society. The forum of our "democracy", the bodies of power of the revolution, will instead be the workers’ councils, mass meetings in which delegates will be entrusted with specific mandates and will be recallable at any time. But these organizations will never become real bodies of proletarian power, without the approval of a clear programme aimed at the abolition of exploitation and, therefore, the elimination of classes, for a society of "freely associated producers" who work for the human needs. This programme does not fall from the sky, but is articulated by that section of the working class which tries to grasp the lessons of past struggles, regrouping themselves at an international level to form a party that fights within the workers’ councils against capitalism for socialism. This is not a party of government that would replace the class, but a party of agitation and political leadership on the basis of that programme. Only if the most advanced sectors of the proletariat recognise themselves in the political leadership of the party will we be on the road to the revolutionary socialist transformation.
[...]
We are for the party, but we are not the party or its only embryo. Our task is to participate in its construction, intervening in all the struggles of the class, trying to link its immediate demands to the historical programme; communism.
This is one of the most important questions of our time. The class party can only exist within class struggle. It exists in the spaces between class conflict, without which it will wither and expire.
From the ICP perspective:http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/65Naples.htm
I've heard leftcoms described as anti-leninist marxists but I've also heard that Bordiga described himself as a Leninist. What's the view of most modern leftcoms of Lenin and Leninism?
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Strong leader and interesting philosopher, terrible at being socialist.
interesting philosopher
only in so far as to how terrible of a "philosopher" he was
What specifically do you think was so terrible about his philosophy?
Why do people keep using the word philosophy? He was a mediocre theoretician, and only that because of his law training. Give "Lenin as Philosopher" a read from the side bar.
Lenin gets a lot of flak, and in some cases rightly so. The earlier and later parts of his career and problematic but at the outbreak of the war and the events leading up to October revealed Lenin to be a central figure, arguing for the end of the war, no support for the provisional government and for the replacement of it by the soviets,often against the majority of the party which followed bland Menshevik positions (around Kamenev and Stalin) and pretty much everyone else.
Here are a few threads after doing a search:
/r/leftcommunism/comments/4uttww/few_questions_regarding_lenin_leninists_bordiga/
/r/leftcommunism/comments/2qawj8/lenins_place_in_left_communism/
/r/leftcommunism/comments/193c7v/hello_comrades_i_dont_know_much_about_lenin_but/
/r/leftcommunism/comments/1bw5pj/why_is_marxismleninism_incorrect/
A great politician, a mediocre theorist.
A hero of the revolution, just not a socialist revolution.
The Russian revolution definitely was the social revolution.
Agreed. More like a liberal revolution reminiscent of the French Revolution.
What? No, it was a communist revolution.
A communist revolution that never achieved communism is not a communist revolution. Lenin enacted the liberal New Economic Policy in the end.
lol what? It was certainly a communist a revolution. How it ended doesn't matter, unless you're viewing history in strictly narrow nationalist terms.
Communism or the foundations of communism were never established. So how can one say the revolution had a communist nature?
The very nature of the October revolution was the proletariat being fed up and taking up arms for social revolution. Socialism is after all the real social movement against the grain of capitalism. How it ended doesn't take away what it was in essence.
The very nature of the October revolution was the proletariat being fed up and taking up arms for social revolution.
Very true.
Socialism is after all the real social movement against the grain of capitalism.
Not exactly. Fascism is a movement against capitalism and it does not create socialism, but more power for the capitalists.
How it ended doesn't take away what it was in essence.
I suppose. But at what point does history over rule the essence of it? Nazis wanted the essence of socialism and history tells us they were fascist.
From what I've heard, leftcoms consider 1917 'proper' proletarian revolution, but that doesn't entail support for Lenin. It's not like one guy ever could have been the impetus behind revolution, or behind its failure, for that matter. The proletariat was fed up regardless of his leadership.
I personally see Lenin as an effective organizer and revolutionary in his words and views. Feeling out what went wrong post 1917 is much more complicated. Stalin not only consolidated the state power but also corrupted the ideas of not only Marx but Lenin at the same time. Lenin had some views that weren't classically Marxist pre- revolution but a few years from the revolution he, and the bolsheviks started conforming to classical marxism including a worker council state. However, we all know how that ended up. I agree with most of Lenin's views but Stalin's version of Lenin's views? Absolutely not.
Decent, but hardly perfect leader. He denied critical aspects of Marxism.
Yeah a lot of Classical Marxism was ignored by Lenin.
It wasn't ignored, it just wasn't available to him. And what was he was one of the first people to actually have a "back to Marx" thing going on.
Yeah, I've been liking the mensheviks more lately as a result.
Most people I know are aware of my communist leanings, but I am constantly misconstrued as a Stalinoid or a Tankie, and criticisms of Stalinist states are directed at me from time to time. How can I succinctly describe what a Left Communist is juxtaposed to a Stalinist? How can I succinctly explain State Capitalist theory in order to dispel the "communist" myth surrounding the USSR, PRC, SRV, DPRK, etc.?
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Why can't you just describe the difference?
Actually, if you want to explain it contemporaneously, then you just need to explain that you are for an invariant Marxism in contrast to all of the opportunists who think that it has to be updated or that it's no longer relevant, that you detest to conceal your aims like the trots here. Have a read of this and this.
In regards to the capitalist nature of Russia, you can read Why Russia isn't socialist and An Analysis of Russian Economy by Dunayevskaya.
I should probably say for the sake of the thread that I know of the things I want to describe in my post well enough to give someone some things to read that they could reach the same understanding, but I can never do it succinctly enough for the sake of quick discussion, so I am constantly written off as a Stalinoid.
Does that mean Left Communism is opposed to the Frankfurt School, Zizekism and Neo/Post-Marxism unambiguously, then? I've often found I enjoyed both Left Communism and the former to a degree.
Does that mean Left Communism is opposed to the Frankfurt School, Zizekism and Neo/Post-Marxism unambiguously, then? I've often found I enjoyed both Left Communism and the former to a degree.
It depends. The whole marxism thing is just a critique of everything and there's nothing wrong with liking those who continue that tradition, even if only partially. The whole making your point succinct is I think more based upon experience. I don't have an issue with putting my position across but I've been doing it for over 20 years.
Take a look at this. There have the base of doing fundamental criticism of capitalism and linked popular capitalistic concepts like freedom and democracy. Some older translated texts are found on here.
The basic concept is very philosophical and Marxist, by describing the world as it is and not as it should be. They are not without courage when they are even attacking well known leftist values all the time.
When it comes to Leninism they have made a awesome critique already 1988 which is available here "70 Jahre Sowjetunion"
The problem of explaining capitalism without getting butthurt by the ever repeating stupid response of the evil of communism can be partially solved by doing criticism against everything. At the same time criticizing capitalism is a destruction of the materialistic foundation of the people. It's becoming therefore a personal attack even if it's not intended. This a fundamental reason for the success of democracy. People don't vote for leftist, when they have the suspicion a party or candidate could destroy their materialistic foundation.
They need translators. I would be awesome when this genuine German magazine could find a publisher in the US.
Chomsky can be meh at time but his article Soviet Union vs Socialism and with another article he wrote called "Governments in the Future" hits the nail on the head for me at least. You should point out how in both modern day corporations and in the Soviet Union orders are transmitted downward and you basically have no say in how the enterprise is run and how the surplus is distributed. No one in their right mind would called the Tennessee Valley Authority in the US socialist. You could point out that the USSR was one giant Tennessee Valley Authority complete with Taylorism and other bourgeois methods of labor organization.
I've found it pretty simple. First, point out that the only thing which changed in these states was the swapping out of a multitude of private capitalists for the creation of a sole capitalist: the state. Second, point out that communism is in fact stateless. And third--I've thrown this at tankies a few times--note that Stalinist states had virtually every feature of capitalism: money, commodity production, wage labor, and most importantly, extraction of surplus value from a notably still present working class, and so on.
soviet control= socialism, Lenin subordinated the soviets to the council of peoples commissars, an organ of his party, leftcoms oppose this subordination, indeed- my position is that the state should be destroyed, and the existing state of affairs immediately after [dictatorship of the proletariat] then be instantly subordinated to whatever dual power element [a necessity for successful revolution], be it soviets, neighbourhood sections, agricultural collectives, village communes etc.
SLOGAN VERSION: lenin was a hypocrite. Leninism betrayed socialism. lenin said all power to the soviets and then destroyed them, thus we would destroy all Leninists for being covert reactionaries.
I don't feel like i've really helped though.
leftcoms oppose this subordination
Not really.
This has cleared so little fog.
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I really like this. I think one of the main reasons I went from being a Liberal to a Communist is that I feel the Democratic party in the U.S. is bloated and too focused on knee jerk reactions to situations based on fear. In fact both the Republican and Democratic parties seem so focused on fear and amping of police state like security in face of such fears.
A lot of these issues are caused by lack of education, capitalistic healthcare and even education (public schools are a joke compared to private ones) which leads to untrained, unhealthy, uneducated people committing crimes. I know Marx said High Capitalism is probably necessary before Communism and frankly with how bloated and corrupt our Capitalist society has become I think we're at the point were shifting from High Capitalism to either Communism or Democratic Socialism is here.
Anyways I like my guns, I think the U.S. should be a free country in the sense that the government shouldn't pry into our lives and care about policing too much (to live in a Free country one must give up security). Let us enjoy our rights and leave the Government to focus on creating a classless, free society that can't vanquish crime not with bullets and spying but with education and opportunity.
Sorry for ranting and I want to point out I'm not trying to sound "euphoric" or anything. It's rare I can speak openly and positively about firearms in a "left" political ideology.
The reason they're focused on those knee jerk reactions is because they're only focused on winning elections at any cost rather than running an actual platform.
they're only focused on winning elections at any cost rather than running an actual platform.
Which is why I'm a huge proponent of Left Wing Communism. Let educated people working under a single party that's working for the greater good elect their leaders instead of this free for all in a country that hardly even votes on anything to begin with. I like the concept of republican democracy, it's really nice but it doesn't work when only a few select groups vote on anything.
Anyways realistically speaking I support democratic Socialist. I'm probably gonna vote for Jill Stein (even though it wont do anything). While I like Leftist communism I still gotta be realistic and take what I have so democratic socialism it is.
I have been talking to someone I know who is curious about the communist worldview, but I never get a chance to really give a summised, summary succinct way of elucidating why we have a problem with capitalism, how we come to that conclusion, what remedies we suggest, etc. I understand some of the people here hold much better understanding, so, those of you who I am implicitly referring to, could you formulate a short hand introduction that explains the communist (real communist, i.e. left communist) political viewpoint?
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The problem that we have with capitalism mostly revolves around the fact that it is alienated society and as an economy has the tendency towards crisis of a most peculiar kind; it comes into crisis when it is at it's most efficient and prosperous.
How we remedy this problem is to negate property, which as a by way will abolish class. The process of the abolition of property is something that occurs under capitalism already, but it is unable to overcome it completely. Even the previous "socialist" states were unable to do so.
How we do this is to get the proletariat into a position of political power, ie the dictatorship of the proletariat, and begin a process of dismantling property by expropriating and communalising it. The only class that has it's interest, or the ability, to do this is the proletarian class, the class that owns no property and has to sell it's ability to labour in order to live. "Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks".
Thank you very much, this has been useful.
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As above, this has been very useful; if more replies come in hopefully I can create a definitive sort of "beginners" guide to communism in the 21st century. I have already used "The Principles of Communism" by Engels, but that in itself requires a little background knowledge and some explanation for the most basic of beginners. It is a very difficult stage, the early ones, because it is possible to convince someone and for them to become a "tankie"; I don't think that'll happen but it happened to me at first, before I read more and researched more. Left Communism is still a minority in real life, as we all know.
To be clear, Endnotes was republishing Kosmoprolet's work there for the purpose of sticking their head out in the communisation discussion while they work on Volume 5.
In short, capitalism as a structure perpetuates a hierarchical society where some people implicitly have more power over others, regardless of how much work anyone does. It's based on the exploitation of those without property by those with property (make sure to clarify what specifically "property" refers to). As well, it's based on a model of constant, endless growth and expansion, which is impossible and inevitably runs into problems when our productive capability exceeds demand - overproduction.
I found this to be a well-written and not too long article outlining and explaining some of the major problems with capitalism to people who are newcomers to anti-capitalist ideology. One of my biggest problems with not only why capitalism shouldn't work, but objectively doesn't work, is overproduction, which this article sums up nicely. Overproduction, aside from maybe unemployment/underemployment, is to me the most nonsensical problem ever.
One of my biggest problems with not only why capitalism shouldn't work, but objectively doesn't work, is overproduction, which this article sums up nicely. Overproduction, aside from maybe unemployment/underemployment, is to me the most nonsensical problem ever.
I think we're more value theory crisis people than that. Overproduction isn't as descriptive.
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I'd contend that it's inevitable. "Socialism or Barbarism", as Engels put it, yes?
From what I have heard, Engels did not write it and it's actually a bit of a mystery. This is one example of someone trying to track down the phrase. Makes me think of how we really take the internet for granted nowadays (although one wouldn't have that in prison today either).
I need to prepare some material for a pamphlet. So maybe we can have a sort discussion on the limitations of trade unions and then fashion that into a pdf?
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One thing is to correctly recognize the limits of trade unionism - in itself it doesn’t go a step beyond capitalism - but I disagree with most leftcoms who:
a) suppose that it can never provide a starting point, however partial, for working class radicalization
b) basically asume that unions are formed, and its leaders elected, externally to the working class, dropped by some kind of UFO...It’s not as if the majority of rank and file workers are revolutionaries being constantly betrayed by "deus ex" class-collaborationist representatives: most of the time they share the same politics, i.e., diplomatic wrist wrestling from above, semi-passivity from below (low risk bargaining), and -of course- numerous shades of embracing capitalism in general. Sometimes the “common worker” might be even less “advanced” than union officials. The bottom line is that class collaboration is a problem of the workers themselves.
Agree with Goldner here: << We disagree with those left communist currents which reject work within and around trade unions as solely the terrain of the “left wing of capital”. Where possible, we favor work within trade unions while always maintaining an extra-union perspective, looking to transform isolated “class-in-itself” struggles into class-wide movements involving other workers and the unemployed, on the model of the e.g. 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite strike or the 2004 Buenos Aires subway strike. We at the same time reject the perspective of “capturing the unions” for revolution, as advocated by (some) Trotskyists. We aim to supercede unions by class-wide organizations. >>
What does 'work within the trade unions' mean here?
More Loren Goldner: << LG: I think the ICC and IP (to a lesser extent) are victims of what I consider to be a highly abstract approach to how class struggle develops. (…) in my conversations with them, I have rarely, if ever, seen an awareness of the very uneven and fragmentary development of class struggle and class consciousness. (…) when I had discussions in Paris with the ICC in 1982, I said “Look at the economic development that’s happening in South Korea”, and they said “That’s impossible. This is the era of capitalist decadence”. Now, I should also point out that not all left communists have this attitude towards trade unions. If you consider the Bordigists part of the left communist tradition, the Bordigists are for work in trade unions. But it’s certainly true that anybody who comes from the German-Dutch council communist tradition and most of the modern left communist currents in Europe and elsewhere, do reject working in unions. So I reject that kind of abstract judgement of unions, but at the same time I reject the general Trotskyist view that the unions can be captured for revolution. Therefore I think that the correct strategy and tactics involves being in unions where they exist but not being unionist. For example, I look at struggles in which people in unions attempt to link up, form alliances with people outside the unions and broaden the struggle in that way. And I think that by itself is a strategy that undermines union bureaucracy. >>
Unions are peacekeepers. They exist to manage class conflict and prevent escalation. We only have to look at the history of trade unions to see why we are critical of them. The most revolutionary actions of the working class has always been carried out outside of or in opposition to existing trade unions whereas trade unions have been the first to call for calm and restraint.
We can point to examples of militancy from the trade unions (the recent events in France attest to this) but we should not confuse militancy with revolution. The unions in France are currently making demands of the government but they are not calling for an end to wage labour and the abolition of capitalism. As the capitalist crisis deepens we can expect unions to make more and more radical sounding demands as the strain of living in late stage capitalism makes it harder for even unionised workers to survive but we will never see them leading the charge when it comes to the abolition of the present state of things.
Workers need to throw off the yoke of the trade unions and fight for themselves on their own terms.
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Not a left communist but here is a situationist critique of counterculture from Contradiction. http://www.bopsecrets.org/PH/hippies.htm
Thanks!
I'm assuming you mean the 1960s counterculture?
Yes.
This can be expanded to your opinions on Che, the Cuban revolution, etc.
Do left communists typically view Fidel Castro in the same vein as Stalin or Mao? Or is it different, and if so, in what ways?
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Fidel Castro led a nationalist revolution that had nothing to do with socialism. While gains have no doubt been made for the Cuban people, and I wouldn't rank him nearly as negatively as I would Stalin and Mao, he did create an oppressive capitalist regime that persecutes actual communists, including exiling Che Guevara's grandson.
Also the Castro regime's intervention in Angola helped put down any proletarian radicalism that opposed the petty-bourgeois programmes they were wanting to implement.
Better than nothing. He improved the economy, desegregated the country, ended illiteracy, gave aid to foreign nations and rebels. This does not excuse his labor camps for gay people tho, and his single party state in general.
First off: please don't lynch me for my username; I'm generally aware of the Left Communist position re: the Bolsheviks, USSR, Lenin, Infantile Disorder, etc. etc..
I consider consider myself broadly "some kind of communist, of the Marxist variety". Due to various obligations, school, life, medical issues etc, I haven't been able to do the amount of research and reading I would like to be able to confidently arrive at a "tendency" I agree with. I'm more curious about the ideological path any of you followed.
I'll sketch out roughly, my "path":
Lived with relatively apolitical petty bourgeois (dentist) parents who voted Republican because taxes. Most of this time I never really had a political thought.
Back half of high school was my edgy Dawkins/Hitchens militant atheist phase. Thought religion caused all the problems in the world. (Idealist much?)
Beginning of college in 08. Watched Obama on TV. Voted Obama, became some kind of liberal. Became very concerned with climate change and the future of humanity on Earth.
Had health issues that took me in and out of college, had ample time to read for leisure. Eventually read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This was basically the starting point of me shedding liberalism and becoming radicalized, which led to:
Anarchism. I think as a kid of well off parents, I had never really had to experience the class nature our society, and was much more concerned with imperialism and environmental destruction, which at that point I solely saw embodied in the US state, and all states for that matter. Also, I think latent anti-communist and anti-soviet propaganda still lived with me. I'm not saying I approve of the USSR but at that point, "socialism", "communism", or even studying the USSR seemed pointless in my mind. Those were all dead things and systems. I was afraid to accept that any kind of revolution would be authoritarian in the sense that the bourgeoisie would be expropriated and crushed by force. "You can't force anarchism on people, bro"
Weird detour into Anarcho-Primitivism. Read Derrick Jensen, came to see industrial civilization as inherently unsustainable and evil. In hindsight I can see I slipped into some pomo bullshit of like, rejecting the scientific method and weird stuff you'll run into with Primitivism.
After hanging around in /r/anarchism mostly, I became pretty dissatisfied with the prevalence of "Anarcho-Special-Snowflake-ism". Meaning that people would just grab the black flag, and put whatever other color and pattern and sprinkle random bits of different ideologies, as well as a lot of straight up anti-rational thought. It really just seemed like a bit too much performative nonsense for my taste.
Socialism. Found the more systematic and scientific discussions on /r/socialism made a heck of a lot more sense to me. Finally actually read some Marx, and learned more about how capitalism actually functions in the real world. I would now strongly consider myself in the broadest terms, a Marxist. That is, I am confident in Marx's diagnosis of the ills of capitalist society, its inherent contradictions, and tendency to crisis. Also, at this point I began to study more history in general and the experience of "actually existing socialisms" to see what valuable lessons could be learned.
So What is to Be Done? (I kid, I kid). Still reading and researching as time allows. Not going to join a party or anything, at the very least until I get some other shit in my life sorted.
I would love to hear if any of you have similar stories, or specific books you read, theoretical realizations you made, that brought you to Left Communism!
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I use to be an anarchist until I started researching Marxism. Up until that point I held a lot of misguided opinion on Marxism, having only really learned about it from other anarchists. I was already feeling dissatisfied with anarchism but when I started reading up on Marxism I found myself agreeing with almost everything I read. I quickly became an "anarchist who defended Marx" then an "anarchist influenced by Marx" before dropping the anarchist label altogether and throwing my hat in with Marxism.
I wouldn't say I necessarily consider myself a left communist. I'm first and foremost a communist and a Marxist. I don't believe that we should limit ourselves to a specific set of beliefs or tactics. Having said that a lot of my personal beliefs (at the moment) align most closely with the communist left.
Probably my earliest influence though was reading George Orwell's 1984, especially the section from Emmanuel Goldstein's book. It basically explained the materialist concept of history in simple terms. Though I didn't immediately understand it or adopted it, I absorbed that information and it influenced me ever since.
I use to be an anarchist until I started researching Marxism. Up until that point I held a lot of misguided opinion on Marxism, having only really learned about it from other anarchists. I was already feeling dissatisfied with anarchism but when I started reading up on Marxism I found myself agreeing with almost everything I read.
Swap the word 'Marxism' for 'anarchism' and 'anarchism' for Marxism' and you have me lol.
Which is ironic considering you were one of the people that led me towards left communism in the first place!
Solid, what type of anarchism do you identify with?
I'm way too early in my study of it to say I identify with any particular tendency.
Do you reject Marxism?
That kind of depends on what one defines Marxism to be.
As defined by Left-Communism.
When I called myself a left communist I called Marxism simply a method of analyzing history and society (or something like that, I don't remember exactly). I don't know if that was really the left communist definition of Marxism though.
In general, what turned you towards anarchism and away from left-communism or marxism?
I guess when I finally started reading anarchist work I found something completely different from what I thought I would find. Anarchism I think is much more flexible and much more consistent in its critique of the world. I also began to feel like Marxism as a concept was inherently dogmatic; all Marxists, from Stalinists to left communists, spend the majority of their time arguing about whose views most closely resemble Marx's or about what Marx meant about such-and-such.
Most people here are brought up to be vague "socialists". I only really started being a communist when I became long term unemployed for a while and started to read Marx. Then I got involved in a bunch of different groups, parties and trade unions and realised that the communist left's critiques of them are correct. I had to go through this political experience to come to these positions. As corny as it sounds, you can say that with armed with Marxism I went back into the labour movement and found that the existing parties didn't hold up.
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Thank you for your interesting answer! Did the CPA ever have an important role in Australian politics? Also, is/was there an important communist movement?
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That's quite a dreary picture you're painting here, damn. Where did your social democracy come from? Was the ALP ever an actual social democrat party that instituted reforms?
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Only as far as capitalist countries go it's been a fairly nice place to be for the last hundred years or so
Yes, that's why I was asking the question, it seems like quite a good country with relatively strong social programs (that are probably being gutted as we're speaking). I'd like to visit there some day in the near future.
Now even their left wing openly denounces even the word socialism.
Mainstream politics in the 21st century in a nutshell.
We don't even have many fascists
Wasn't there some protests against refugees by various far-rights groups recently? I thought I had seen something about that on /r/socialism.
There are examples of actual socialists, actual social democrats too, only their efforts never really came to much.
Is there a reason why there never was a strong socialist movement there? Is it the same way in New-Zealand (assuming you know anything about NZ, of course)?
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The sob story here is a personal one; I'm expected to get ~4 blood tests a year and couldn't pay for even one.
You don't have universal healthcare? That really sucks, we haven't been touched too much by neoliberalism (yet) where I live so our healthcare is still okay but that's one thing I find scary, not being able to pay for healthcare if I eventually need it.
Immigration is by far our worst point there.
Did they close those quasi-concentration camps on islands that the government used?
Actual fascists get the shit beaten out of them by much stronger antifa groups every time they pop up, however. Small victories.
Always good to hear!
Australian 'blue collar' culture is still a point of pride for many.
What is that culture?
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The camps are here to stay and will still be in use even if the ALP wins the next election.
Isn't there some protest in the country against them? I mean, it's really horrible.
I think you were the one who read that Adelaide factory account I posted.
Yes, that was me.
Many local folklore heroes are what they call bushrangers, people in the ~1800s who took "fuck the police" as far as it would go.
That would make good movies. Instead of killing indians like in american westerns, they'd kill pigs! A much more positive message if you ask me.
Anti-authority sentiment in that sense lingers on, particularly in crowds that'd get described as blue-collar.
It's strange socialism never was that big there, then, with that kind of sentiment being relatively widespread.
You were French, I think I remember, or at least lived somewhere where French was the first language.
I live in Québec and I indeed speak french. I'm not french from France, though.
This is a lot of interest in some thinly populated distant place; hopefully I've conveyed something of worth in all that.
I find the country interesting! Thank you for taking the time to answer my numerous questions. :)
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You must be the third person from Québec I've had a lengthy chat with recently.
That's strange lol.
Anything interesting you know of I'd never get to hear otherwise?
The current leader of the Parti Québecois (our nationalist party, it used to be left-wing nationalism but now it's just good old center-right neoliberalism with a touch of xenophobia) changed his first name from Pierre-Carl to Pierre-Karl because he was a big fan of Karl Marx. He's a billionaire, the head of his father's media empire and anti-unions, now. I don't really know what to talk about. What's the kind of thing you're curious about?
How does it vary from the rest of Canada?
Much more left-wing, like you say. Even though the party currently in power (The Liberal Party, like in Australia) is neoliberal, it's like a soft version of neoliberalism and literally every party that gets more than 1% of votes is socially progressive. We don't have social conservatives, it seems. There's a big homosexual community in Montreal, they even have their own district (Le Village, the town) and it's one of the most fun place in the city, if you ask me.
In federal elections, we're usually the province that tips the balance to the left. In 2011, Québec was responsible for the massive increase in votes for the NDP, a social-democratic party while the rest of Canada voted massively Conservative. In 2015, we helped put the liberals in power with their leftish platform, since the NDP went too much to the right, trying to gain votes in the rest of Canada. It's strange, federally, the province always votes for the left but, provincially, it votes for the right.
I don't think the far-left ever played much of a role in our poltics, with maybe the exception of the FLQ, a nationalist terrorist group who was also Marxist-Leninist. The provincial government asked Trudeau (the father of the Trudeau we have in power today), the PM, to send in the army and declare martial law. There were hundreds of arrests and the FLQ was repressed. 6 years later the Parti Québecois was elected and we had a refendum about Québec's independence which resulted in us staying in Canada.
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That sounds really interesting, I'll look around for those books/pamphlets. Thank you!
It's literally this song that made me ask this question, lol.
I don't know what each party national party specifically did but with the treaty came an end of that sham tactic of the popular front in favour of a co-operation towards peace. As far as I'm aware the molotov-ribbentrop pact was a secret until after the war so I'm not sure if there was any real understanding of what was going on at the time in the rank and file?
The Pact itself was public, as was the very dramatic volte face by the Soviet government and thus the official communist parties.
The pact did have secret protocols, including economic trade and cooperation between the respective state security services. It is quite possible the German economy would have faltered and the military would not have the fuel to conquer France without the secret protocols; the Nazis had not thought a general war would begin and lacked strategic reserves of many raw materials, including oil.
As far as I'm aware the molotov-ribbentrop pact was a secret until after the war
The clause about partitioning Poland was secret, but not the non-aggression part.
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When in 1933 Hitler suppressed all socialist and communist literature in Germany, Lenin’s pamphlet was allowed publication and distribution.
Is this true? I don't find it hard to believe but I can't find this happening references anywhere else (maybe it's easy- I am just a rubbish historian)
Is this true?
that is a thing i wondered as well and what i found lets me assume that its probally impossible to verify. i've see extensive lists of banned books during the nazi reign and to rühles credit "leftwing communism" is not on there:
http://verbrannte-und-verbannte.de/publication the most extensive list i've found, and yes it is in german for obvious reasons. 389 pages full with banned books.
all of rühles works were banned though.
On the other hand, it doesn't look like any work directly by Lenin is on the list. It looks like a general ban on works by and about Lenin was definitely in the list in 1938, as was Rühle. I think that the answer to this question need a good history of how the policies of book banning were enacted in Nazi Germany, since that site seems especially to built on that 1938 list (as do most listings one can find online). The German-language Wikipedia article on the bannings seems pretty good and one of its source is this write-up (again, in German) for an exhibit by the SPD-affiliated Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (also one that uses a different Rühle, Gerd, a Nazi supporter, as a primary source). For example, I didn't know that the first people to be targeted were 12 authors for having an "ungerman spirit" (my translation) in a list of 12 Theses addressed to German students (for example, making demands that "Jewish writers" write in Hebrew and not German):
Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Glaeser, Arthur Holitscher, Alfred Kerr, Egon Erwin Kisch, Emil Ludwig, Heinrich Mann, Ernst Ottwalt, Theodor Plivier, Erich Maria Remarque, Kurt Tucholsky (with all his pseudonyms) and Arnold Zweig. (14)
Basing myself on further reading in that collection of essays, Goebbels held a speech during that campaign of book burning, the "Feuerrede" ("fire speech") and issued the "Feuersprüche" (in this case, fire slogans, with an additional sense of verdict or judgement), which began: "Against class struggle and materialism, for the community of the Volk (Volksgemeinschaft) and an idealistic lifestyle! I consign the writings of Marx and Kautsky to the flames." (19) There were also attacks on union libraries (23), but the conclusion of the first essay is that the initial book burnings and attacks in 1933 were more of a violent demonstrative mobilization and spectacle instead of legal banning everywhere. (20)
It's an SPD-backed source, so that should be taken into account, but there is no mention of this Lenin exception and they wouldn't be averse to mentioning it. Definitely needs more research, of course.
Hi all :)
I hope that this isn't a dumb question or anything but I was wondering if someone can provide me a link to some reading material specifically in regards to a Marxist analysis of the rise of fascism? Or if maybe someone can summarize?
From what I understand left communists see anti fascism as liberal idealism and are often critical of anarchist anti fascist movements (correct me if I'm wrong). I've also noticed that fascism tends to rise up during periods of economic crisis, so I'm wondering if it has something to do with that.
Thanks a lot!
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We are against fascism, as well as being against the liberal Democratic bourgeois state. We don't team up w one faction to fight the other. Read dauve's piece "when insurections die"
This is the text that /u/spiritof56 mentions. It's probably a good place to start for you. It mostly outlines how fascism is a reaction to communism (as in the movement).
I consider the analysis of fascism through the lens of Adorno's concept of negative dialectics, that is, of fascism as a negative Aufheben of the class struggle, to be quite enlightening. It's 4am here and I'm too tired right now, so I'm afraid I can't offer much more right now - I think my post history has something about it a few weeks ago. I'll try to remember to post some further reading tomorrow.
lol you can't just throw negative dialectic and negative aufheben around all willy nilly to someone who probably won't understand those terms.
This is a pretty good point. I'll try to summarise it, then -
Ask this in /r/CriticalTheory :)
Not clear what are you looking for: a marxist analysis of the rise fascism or an explanation of the left-communist critique of anti-fascism? They're not the same but obviously interrelated
Both I guess. I've got some material now though to go through today.
Perhaps Sohn-Rethel, Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism - pdf.
other interesting reads aside from what's been alredy posted:
/r/HistoryofIdeas are doing a series of weekly AMAs hosted by users. Anyone interested in hosting one on left-communism with me? I'll link to it when its up so everyone can participate.
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lol how is that hack mascapital doing one on "marxian economics"?
We'll hack 'em out then. Get your critical questions and answers ready!
I wonder how he integrates 'marxian economics' into the dialectical science of Lysenkoism.
I'm down
Thanks, it won't be up for a couple of weeks but I'll keep you updated.
Not sure i can contribute but sure
Yeah I'd be interested
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Here's a libgen link. It's kinda crappy but I think there's everything
nice
Thanks comrade
You've probably already found these but the marxists.org page for Paul Mattick has these three excerpts from the book:
Marxism and Bourgeois Economics - this one's incomplete and only includes the section on Value and Price.
Couldn't find the whole text as a pdf but I'd be interested if anyone else can find it.
New to this, just curious how you would define it?
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A tendency within communism that developed out of a split in the Third International and criticizes the Bolsheviks. Left Communists reject national liberation, participation in parliament, and frontism and see all former and current "socialist states" as state capitalist. Left Communism also emphasizes the working class as the only group that can build communism and "lead" the revolution.
It's communism without the dead dictators.
But seriously, it is a set of theories that started with the left opposition of the mainstream right communist like Stalin, Mao, and sometimes Lenin or more specifically Leninist. Left Communism isn't about the people, it's about the class. It has two main schools of thought, the Italian Left and the German and Dutch Left.
Instead of worshiping some bearded guy, being a left communist entails a lot of things. Like the denial of National Liberation as being a positive thing, and support of the working class' emancipation in its entirety. There is a lot you can learn from articles online about more specific issues and ideas of left communism.
It was explained to me this way, "Left Communism is where anarchist [and tankies] go when they grow up."
ba006fbdc120468f234cf68323fa3ec24a3f929831c190d5eef9327416df1923a10e51c354a37991a8e7477b1f2d057827b31ad6358b88520a534d99e7f6745a
The Dutch/German left is sometimes called "council communism"; their method of organization centered around the participatory model provided by the workers councils of the various early 20th century revolutions, of which the Russian soviets, in their early form, are only the most famous example. They were closer to what we'd call "libertarian" as well, but there were obvious exceptions. While some shunned parties, the Communist Workers Party of Germany was a large anti-parliamentary party, and at times was larger than the official Moscow backed Communists in membership, so anti-partyism wasn't a hard rule.
The Italian Left were much more about the Party as the method of organization. In some ways, they're closer to Lenin on theory, though they pretty much criticize everything Lenin did after the October Revolution. That is the gist of the difference, though I doubt you'd find anyone at present who sides 100 percent with either strain. I'm somewhere in between, and most left coms I've known are as well.
How authoritarian is left communism?
It really depends who you ask. It isnt anti-authoritarian per se, but it is anti authority in that it encourages democracy in a communist society but it also sees a function that a vanguard can be by existing within the proletariat as the most academic and class conscious of the party, encourages them.
Very authoritarian. We don't believe in democracy, and do believe in class dictatorship, in a very literal sense
Been quite a long while, somewhere around 2 years since I stepped back on my engaged with Marxism/communism. Surprised to see some users I didn't consider very knowledgeable years ago be, well, quite more knowledgeable than most socialists now.
I don't consider myself a "Marxist", terribly loaded label with just bad misunderstanding as baggage, and I don't really consider myself a "communist" either due to my own inactivity in any social movement or work. I consider calling someone a communist a bit of a badge of honor of service towards humanity, but though I do not consider myself worthy of this label I am sympathetic to it and continue to best understand and argue for its case as much as I can.
Anyway, keep up the good content, I'll try to take part in discussions and post content as much as I find myself capable considering my late focus on Hegel's philosophy in-itself outside the Marxist relation and critique. I consider this sub (according to its posters and content) the closest to Marx's philosophical spirit inasmuch as Marx has a philosophy ;)
Cheers
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[deleted]
the PoS (what an acronym) is a long term project for me. Sounds about as fun as crunching broken glass, but I suppose once the scaffolding's in place it'll happen. It always does.
Honestly, when I first read Phenomenology I was expecting it to be far worse. People hyped it up as being this dense (which was fairly accurate) and unreadable (which it certainly wasn't) text that you can't make any sense out of. Granted, there certainly are parts that were rushed or incomplete, but at the end of the day PoS was a really fun read for me.
The big moment of trepidation for me is the when. I put off Capital for about a year while reading all sorts of things, many of them completely unrelated, and I imagine I got much more out of it for having that background. Trotsky or Tolstoy, it all came back one way or another.
Hegel seems more or less the same, only there I picture the long line of dead Germans that came before him. Kant sticks out the most. I'm reading a book called Enlightenment Interrupted at the moment which is about as clear an overview of the whole mess as I could've asked for. That may well be sufficient.
It's inevitable at this point, I think. I'm feeling that same peculiar need to engage with the core material directly that I had with Marx, and I hardly regret that experiment.
What would you call yourself if not a communist?
I don't call myself anything. I have positions, I argue them as forcefully as I can when required. Makes it much easier to talk to people about them, though it rarely gets past their own ignorance and pyschological biases.
I think I'm motivated by the same things Marx was motivated by. Great sympathy for humanity, and the belief that the world we have created isn't worthy of being called human insofar as humans have the capacity and possibility to do and be so much more.
You realise you've been talking with me in this sub for the last month right?
Nope. Not until I looked at the comments today.
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This thread from two years ago covers your question.(http://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/1jjcaj/marxisthumanism_as_a_left_communist_tendency/) It also covers why theres a link on the sidebar to the marxist humanist initiative website (under misc.) Maybe do a search for any other mentions on reddit?
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looks like it, gross.
Dauve and his group are notoriously terrible when it comes to subjects such as these.
Discussion from a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/mrpbx/alice_in_monsterland_by_gilles_dauve_the/ apparently it was co-authered with some anarchists, looks like he was trying to talk about sexuality and family relations under capitalism and took it too far, unless it's some kind of reductio or satire but I doubt it.
Here's the other piece: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-for-a-world-without-morality
You can just email troploin and ask them.
I'm creeped out enough.
not surprised at all
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XPost Subreddit Link: /r/socialism
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3y35g7/anarchocapitalism_is_impossible_c4ss/
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Scott Nappalos of the IWW critiques Leninists' favorite way of dominating organizing.
Eh just skimming through it and it appears to be just another anarchist critique along the lines of prefiguration;the part is the embryonic form of the future state. That's pretty idealist, places a huge emphasis on the role of the party, etc.
Proving once again that if we are to make a social scientific movement, we must do what the scientists did: they focused knowledge generation around the practice, perspectives and debates of individual scientists in collective pursuit of a genuine understanding of reality as is, instead of using bits and pieces of reality to justify the practice of the gatekeepers of knowledge. Proving once again the practical idealism of ML(M). Proving once again the intellectual power of workers, the ones who keep the entire system turning.
I thought it would be worthwhile if we had one of these threads and interpret this tragedy from a leftcom perspective.
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I posted this on /r/socialism:
It is indeed very tragic, but it shouldn't be forgotten that this is an almost daily reality for people in the Middle East at the hands of western governments. How many civilians have been killed by drones just this month? this year? Not only that but bigots love to bitch about Muslims supposedly trying to take over Europe or America, but it's western governments that have involved themselves in Middle Eastern affairs for over 100 years.
This is a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the victim's families, but this really should be viewed in the larger context of the effects of capitalism and imperialism on the world.
Welcome to the age of bourgeois barbarism in its state, semi-state and non state varieties. All the tensions in society are bubbling to the surface after years of semi-submersion
in what sense is ISIS bourgeois?
Maybe it's about the decomposition of bourgeois society where nothing about it is no longer progressive or revolutionary, such as nationalism, and the idea that ISIS is a trans national thing?
They're pro wage labor, money, and economic exchamge
It should be pretty obvious that ISIS or another jihadist group is behind these attacks, no? I'm not even sure what benefit these attacks could possibly give them though. It's not like they can possibly stand a chance against France or any other western country. The only thing I can think of is that because these attacks increase xenophobic fervor against local Muslims, ISIS hopes that would in turn recruit more Muslims to the caliphate.
I don't know if it's obvious but it seems that ISIL has claimed responsibility.
That's certainly part of it. With the news that it appears one of the suicide bombers was in possession of a Syrian passport that passed through Greece as a refugee, this will (or, more accurately, is) going to dramatically complicate the refugee situation, while stirring up extremely large amounts of hatred towards Islam (in one of the more anti-Islamic countries in western Europe). This will undoubtedly create a situation that can be used to paint the west as (more) anti-Islam than it already was, which is a good recruiting tool.
Could ISIS stand a chance against France or other western countries? The Taliban still exists, and Al-Qaeda managed to keep Bin Laden safe for a decade after 9/11, and so on. Western countries are clearly capable of winning any kind of open battle with ISIS, but there won't be an open battle. Western countries, in habit, do not seem to have the political will to deal with groups like the Taliban or ISIS. The more airstrikes, and actual boots on the ground the west in general ineffectively sends against ISIS, the more recruiting power and legitimacy ISIS will have. It's clearly counter-productive, but the political structure makes it very likely that there will at least be some kind of escalation. The President of France claiming that ISIS has declared war on France (a strange statement, from a country already bombing ISIS) points to this.
Things like this always makes me both hopeful and depressed. On one hand, you see people from other Western Countries showing Solidarity with the French. This shows that we do have the potential to put aside our differences and work together. On the other hand, you see people who engage in blind hatred towards Arabs and Muslims; they fail to analyze the conditions that drove them to extremism, and instead of helping to alleviate the materialist conditions, they blindly attack them; this will just make it worse.
On one hand, you see people from other Western Countries showing Solidarity with the French
That's actually my least favorite part of all of this. People are turning this into an attack on France, an attack on French values. This shit has nothing to do with France, or the west, or any nation. It's just violence that is symptomatic of where we as a world are right now, and the only way to respond to this attack is to stop the violence. Solidarity with your nation, or with any nation, is a reactionary response, and it's only going to justify further colonialist violence towards the Islamic world, which is how we got here in the first place.
We need to stop the violence, and the best place to start would be to stop the imperialism and racism that makes this form of violence possible in the first place. And that means cutting all of the rhetoric about "values" and nations.
an attack on France, an attack on French values.
but that's exactly what it was. The attack was symbolic, hence who was actually killed didn't really matter. The victims weren't chosen as individuals but as expressions of France. Moralism on that fact gets us no where. Analysis of the symbols does, after all the attacks were targeted in a relatively rich, young, intellectual, white area. The terrorists have proven in action who's 'France' is the object of attack. It wasn't carried out in the banlieues. Of course like all ideologies these French/western values are a necessary illusion of their own material inadequacies and absence. This break – between what is said/thought and what is – that ideology attempts to mystify in the endless calls for the rallying of the citizenry or the re-assertion of 'the values', is obvious insofar as these terrorists are often French citizens...but are also ideologically neither 'French' nor 'citizen'. This is an attack on 'French values' in a double sense, in the symbolic act of violence and the material basis of those that act. Both express how illusory these values really are - a real absence that clears the ground for home-grown terrorism independent of a western countries 'cultural integration policy' - and that's exactly why the response is to re-state them, and re-profess to them. The response is the wests own symbolic violence and an attempt to re-mystify and cover up a material basis that must be necessarily ignored.
It's just violence that is symptomatic of where we as a world are right now, and the only way to respond to this attack is to stop the violence.
contentless moralism.
Earlier on Sunday, leaders of the world's 20 major economies (G20) pledged a renewed fight against ISIL, but offered few details on how the strategy would change.
Although the G20 usually focuses on economic issues, the President of host country Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged world leaders to prioritise the battle against ISIL, saying Friday's assaults in Paris proved that the time for words was now over.
The response to this has been what is usually expected. Can't say that I'm happy about all the French flags I'm seeing, or even all of the Lebanon flags. Nationalism is still nationalism. I was surprised by Poland rejecting refugee quotas even though they weren't that large.
My post won’t be popular, but I tend to have conspiratorial views about these overly hyped attacks.
I see these staged attacks as an excuse for the ruling class to strip away civil liberties to reduce revolutionary potential of the working class. Pointing the finger at Muslims benefits the ruling class, too, because it fragments the proletariat.
Hell, even if they weren't staged the rest of this is true.
They're not staged
(I know, but point is it hardly matters whether they were)
Generally expected and staged are different, not in consequence, but in how you are perceived
Why is it unfathomable that the enemy class would stage these tragedies to reduce our revolutionary potential?
I do not doubt their ruthlessness, i doubt their ability to stage something like this
to reduce our revolutionary potential?
so if you think there'd been no terror attacks on the west, not 'islamism' etc. 'we'd' have a revolutionary potential? These attacks came in a historic lull in the class-struggle, not the height.
I didn't say that. I believe they're constantly chipping away at the working class's revolutionary potential by removing funding to public schools, locking down cities after weekly "mass shootings," now they're trying to take the internet away.
I don't think any of those things relate to the proletariats revolutionary potential.
We'll agree to disagree then. Dumbing down the public and keeping a close eye on them for suspicious activity would reduce it, I feel.
well if we look at previous revolutionary moments, they were pretty independent from the stuff you mentioned. Even more so considering state schools are not door-ways to revolution, but the opposite. They create obedient state subjects with a particular truth architecture in their minds. Bourgeois education isn't neutral.
the ruling-class isn't to omnipotent. also they strip away civil liberties independently, with often considerable support from the populace even outside of these 'times of terror'. Also 'stripping away' civil liberties is just about removing their de jure efficacy...for those who stand opposed to the state have always known little 'civil liberty' exists, even more so in periods of high class struggle - after all just look at the last big massacre in Paris.
So this essay by Loren Goldner talks about how Bordiga didn't believe that the USSR was capitalist but that they were building capitalism but never achieved it (until presumably when the Iron Curtain fell). If one were to accept this view, would it be correct to say that the USSR was a modern day example of mercantilism rather than capitalism?
So I guess the bigger question is, what was mercantilism and how does it compare to what happened in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea in the 20th century?
Second question that I just though of: are there any similarities between what the USSR did in Eastern Europe and what France did in Western Europe during the Napoleonic era?
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Bordiga didn't believe that the USSR was capitalist but that they were building capitalism but never achieved it
I'm not sure if that was the case. From reading Bordiga I get the impression that he categorically understood the USSR to have been capitalist, at least from the 50s onwards when he began to take the topic up. And I don't think mercantilism and capitalism are mutually exclusive (mercantilismo in Italian is almost synonymous with capitalism I might be thinking of mercantile and commodity).
But I think that this should more than anything raise the question of uneven development, and the agrarian question is interesting considering that Russia is the most urbanised country in the world.
Actually the whole agrarian question and productive powers thing was only one of many ways in which Bordiga tackled the question of capitalism in Russia.
Is there any comparison with Napoleon spreading capitalism through Western Europe and Stalin spreading capitalism through Eastern Europe?
I have no idea. I'm not hugely familiar with the Napoleonic wars. I think what could be said was that Napoleon helped to bring the bourgeoisie up in the political order with the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in many places, which probably helped, but I don't think it would be correct that he introduced capitalism to the German states as such.
It's possible to view the capitalism of he USSR as necessarily centralised in order to gather the small capitals existential into the big capital necessary for heavy industry. In this view state capitalism is the necessary early state of capitalist production moving from pre-capitalist conditions through primitive accumulation. This characteristic of state intervention has been seen in almost all other developed countries who came late to the table (pretty much all except Britain and the Netherlands) such as Germany under Bismarck, Japan under Meiji , South Korea under Park and so on. Yes, to some extent this can be seen as equivalent to say the French absolutist monarchy projecting French interests abroad through military force and other means. https://libcom.org/library/what-was-the-ussr-aufheben-1
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I would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on the issue, only touched in here, but expressed by Endnotes:
In Endnotes 1 and 2 we tried to dismantle the twin traps set for us at the end of the last century: tendencies either (1) to stray from an analysis of capital’s self-undermining dynamic, in order to better focus on class struggles occurring outside of the workplace, or else (2) to preserve an analysis of crisis tendencies, but solely in order to cling to the notion that the workers’ movement is the only truly revolutionary form of class struggle.
(...) It is imperative to abandon three theses of Marxism, drawn up in the course of the workers’ movement: (1) that wage-labour is the primary mode of survival within capitalist societies, into which all proletarians are integrated over time, (2) that all wage-labourers are themselves tendentially integrated into industrial (or really subsumed) work processes, that homogenise them, and bring them together as the collective worker, and (3) that class consciousness is thus the only true or real consciousness of proletarians’ situations, in capitalist societies. None of these theses have held true, historically.
If so, what brought you to that tradition/position?
I'm currently reading through a variety of Left Communists, from the different traditions (Dutch, Italian, German etc.) to try and broaden my understanding and better clarify my own beliefs in accordance to those of groups in the past and present. I was curious to see what you all might have to say and if you could even create a compelling case for your particular stance, that might reveal an aspect of the tradition that I had yet to cover in my studies.
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Definitely. Had been thinking about "tradition" the other day. Took me a while to get past the idea that it was somehow a fundamentally conservative concept. But what I discovered was that there are certain things that work best pure and simply. For example slogans, strategies, tactics, etc. In the end you save time/effort/sanity borrowing these things from "tradition".
Do you follow any particular Left Communist tradition? Or are you undecided?
I think the various traditions or persons in left-communism each have something important to take from. Probably because they're not sects with violently antagonistic doctrines like certain other 'Marxists' are, but they are just communists figuring out the way.
Sylvia Pankhurst might be worth looking into outside of the groups you're studying, she's an interesting case and she wrote a hell of a lot but most of it isn't readily available. It is also worth looking into her for historical reasons, you can discover some of the pitfalls in practice as well as ideas to take on.
Communisation is pretty interesting as well, but as red-rooster pointed out to me recently a lot of their ideas can also be found in the pre-existing left-communist traditions, it would be better getting to know those first.
Funny, I was just looking into works of Sylvia Pankhurst to try reading earlier today, do you have any recommendations to get me started?
I've also read a few things on Communisation, it's something I've found very interesting but more difficult than most, so I'll likely read more on it once I've read more on the earlier traditions and theories.
I'm not sure that the distinction that some socialists make of private and personal property is at all useful. It seems to me that personal property is still private, but then the question is whether or not the only private property that needs to be abolished is private property in the means of production.
I feel like using private property to refer to the means of production only serves to confuse people, and if one is worried about their personal possessions than the problem of alienation is far from solved. It seems far more useful to me to say generally that all private property needs to be abolished.
I don't feel that that precludes certain objects being used more or less exclusively by a single person either as certain objects, such as a cell phone, lend themselves to me far more useful in the hands of a single person than owned communally, but they would still not "own" it in the common sense of the word.
Thoughts?
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It may be better to say it is alienated property that needs to be abolished. Private property is not just a form of ownership, it becomes a relation, it is alienated and moves into the commodities, into money, into capital, and into ourselves, relations between human and human become the relation of private property to private property. The abolition of private property over the means of labour is what abolishes all alienated relations. How we relate to our possessions and to others won't be a transformation from private to communal but from inhuman to human - Who needs this phone? In whose hands can this be most useful? Would it be better that it belong to the community? Whatever is determined to be the answer to these questions, the point is that it is asked and answered by those involved in the society of producers, not determined by private property itself. He has a helpful discussion in his 'Comments on James Mill' http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/index.htm He contrasts alienated private property with 'truly human and social property' (He uses this phrase in 'Estranged Labour' not in the comments on Mill)
Let me know if I'm on the right lines here.
Edit: I've just been reading over the Comments on Mill, he does use the term 'human personal property' there.
This makes a lot of sense, thanks!
Socialism means social ownership of means of production. As far as socialism is concerned whether you take away all the personal possessions of everyone or not makes as much difference as making everyone drive on the other side of road (like the British). The remedy for alienation is socialism not taking away iPhones.
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
Marx seems to be saying that the only property that exists in bourgeois property. Am I wrong?
The only property that matters if bourgeois property, which is economic property. I think this part was more predictive than most, with the complete degradation of the artisan classes. It would seem that only place where people say that communists want to abolish your toothbrush type of property is in the US. Sometimes it's reduced to a reduction of choice of toothbrush. Anyway, means of consumption aren't property.
Oh okay, I see what you mean. Thanks.
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lol well that was a damp squib.
he needs book sales duh
soo, what did people think?
So this is finally happening?
Still listed there on the sidebar so I assume so
MSFD2 stickied an "advertisement" letting people know about it also.
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3lqp3q/andrew_kliman_will_be_joining_rsocialism_for_an/
Active apparently https://www.reddit.com/user/Andrew_Kliman
Are you planning on talking to him about anything?
Not sure exactly what you mean, but not really Insuppose. Just wanted to give it some attention as its in /r/socialism
The thread for asking questions is up:
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3m1jrs/andrew_klimans_ama_friday_september_25_2015/
I'm aware of Engels quote in his letter to Babel that Bakunin, and others, tried to make Marx and Engels responsible for everything that happened in Germany, but the particular claim that Marx sought a state ruled by an intellectual minority (or a state ruled by Marx himself) seems to be completely nonexistent in anything I've ever read by Marx.
Was Bakunin imagining this? or was he just making it all up?
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Imo, Bakunin was suspicious of Marx's conception of a Socialist economy as organized around a "rational plan", seeing that a plan relies on "planners" - and Bakunin feared scientists and technicians would become a hierarchical authority (as opposed to a natural authority) to which workers would be subordinated to under a "plan". Bakunin also strongly disliked the phrase "Scientific Socialism" so there's that (he may have misunderstood what it means, but it is also possible that some people in the IWA misused that phrase in order to uphold bureaucratic Lassalleanism for example).
In a way Bakunin was very very hostile to prototypical forms of high modernist ideology, and i think there is fair ground for saying that Marxism as a movement/philosophy has traditionally been influenced by high-modernist thinking (the 2nd International specially was high-modernist as fuck, and the roots of that are in Marx and Engels themselves), and Bakunin ended up seeing a lot of stuff that Marx never explicitly or consciously argued for as a logical implication of Marx's thought.
Bakunin also strongly disliked the phrase "Scientific Socialism"
In Marx's own words, scientific socialism "was only used in opposition to utopian socialism, which wants to attach the people to new delusions, instead of limiting its science to the knowledge of the social movement made by the people itself." But you're right, I think a lot of people misuse the term.
Bakunin ended up seeing a lot of stuff that Marx never argued for as a logical implication of Marx's thought.
I do think it's interesting how Bakunin seemed to foretell the future with regard to the actions of people proclaiming to fly the banner of Marxism (such as the USSR and the Second/Third International). I'm just don't understand why Bakunin pushed the thought that they were actually Marx and Engels' ideas.
I do think it's interesting how Bakunin seemed to foretell the future with regard to the actions of people proclaiming to fly the banner of Marxism (such as the USSR and the Second/Third International). I'm just don't understand why Bakunin pushed the thought that they were actually Marx and Engels' ideas.
It gets weirder when you realize that many of the people in the 2nd International pushing the "Socialism is state-ownership" and other flawed lines were people who had personally met and learned with Marx and Engels (Kautsky, Bernstein, etc) or even part of Marx's family (Lafargue). I end up thinking that the 2nd International no matter how misguided wasn't as far from the tradition that Marx and Engels directly built in their lifetimes as left-communists tend to argue, and Bakunin was really onto something; otherwise we'd have to argue that Marx and Engels were so bad at conveying their thought in public that everyone who listened went the opposite direction.
I think a lot of the mistakes from all sides come down to the Communist Manifesto. It was the most popular manuscript written by Marx in his lifetime and it still is, and it has a section detailing a programme of State monopoly as being the essential for bringing about communism, and it's obvious that most readers would interprete that as a desire for a bureaucratic State planned economy. Very few people paid due attention to the later editions that repudiated that programme and argued "the working class cannot simply seize ready-made state machinery", and that edition only came a long time after the debate with Bakunin began, so no wonder the entire "Marxist" movement was misguided.
And to be frank, Marx did really revise his views on the State a lot after the Paris Commune, and his "overall" thought on the State became kind of ambiguous after that. Bakunin and James Guillaume accused Marx of changing his mind on the State to views closer to their own "Federalist" views after the Commune (but never quite admitting to do so), and from their perspective it made sense to think so: For Bakunin it made perfect sense to see the programme delineated in the Manifesto to be the bureaucratic programme he despised, and it also made sense to see the text in "Civil War in France" as a rejection of that "Statist" programme made with some bad faith.
otherwise we'd have to argue that Marx and Engels were so bad at conveying their thought in public that everyone who listened went the opposite direction.
I've read something somewhere that Kautsky had, after Engels died, taken one of his letters and changed the words to make it appear that Engels supported something he didn't. I can't remember where I read that though.
and it has a section detailing a programme of State monopoly as being the essential for bringing about communism, and it's obvious that most readers would interprete that as a desire for a bureaucratic State planned economy.
Literally had an IMT shill quote the Manifesto to prove that state ownership was socialism.
And to be frank, Marx did really revise his views on the State a lot after the Paris Commune
Well, Marx did write in 1844:
Wherever there are political parties each party will attribute every defect of society to the fact that its rival is at the helm of the state instead of itself. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians look for the causes of evil not in the nature of the state but in a specific form of the state which they would like to replace with another form of the state.
Which seems very anti-state. Unless he changed his views twice it seems he was always apprehensive about the state.
I think it's more about Bakunin having his own set of ideas in opposition to Marx. Bakunin styled himself as a materialist but he always had this this weird idealist strain and a preference for conspiratorial societies. I think that Bakunin misunderstood Marx on the question of the state, see Marx's marginal notes on Bakunin's criticism, and possibly how Marx himself ran the iwa. Re the state, Bakunin thought that you could just pronounce the end of the state and that would be it, which he did in a failed coup resulting in the "abolished state" just moving in with bayonets. Bakunin also thought that states created classes, rather than classes creating states. I'm combination of all this Bakunin diverged from Marx on what classes in capitalist society are revolutionary adding another whole host of issues to the idea of a unitary class organisation as a means of revolution.
Bakunin also thought that states created classes, rather than classes creating states.
This is how Marx and Engel's saw Bakunin, and some anarchists do argue in those terms, but i don't think it really is it. What Bakunin argued instead was that the state acts with some degree of independency and self-interest, or that the "bureaucracy" or "state-class" is a class by itself. As such, any revolution that establishes institutions that can be recognized as a "state" and put the entire ecoomy under control of this "state" would inevitably give political and economic power to a bureaucratic ruling class, and not to the proletariat.
As /u/SolidBlues argued, "do classes create states or states create classes" is a chicken and the egg problem. Imo those chicken and the egg discussions are meaningless, "state" and "classes" are two aspects of the same whole (regardless of which one came "first" or is the dominant moment), and the process of a social revolution is the smashing of the state and the seizure of the means of production by the proletariat.
Regardless of what we chose call a revolution ("DotP", "anarchy", etc) the real question is what sort of institutions the proletariat creates when it acts as a class for itself, and i think us Anarchists and Left-Communists should agree that the proletariat would not allow it's organizations be subordinated to any sovereign authority but would rather organize worker's councils autonomously with out the need for a bureaucratic-military machinery imposed over them.
I guess this could mean that the state and the bourgeoisie have non-antagonistic contradictions. Kinda like a northwest vector and southwest vector in a situation where generally going west is the goal.
Marx's marginal notes on Bakunin's criticism
Is this the Conspectus on Statism and Anarchy or something else?
Bakunin also thought that states created classes, rather than classes creating states.
I actually had an anarchist tell me this; only the existence of a state could allow humanity to be divided into classes. Sounded an awful like like a chicken and egg argument: only the existence of a chicken could produce an egg that a chicken came out of, which seems to beg the question how a chicken (state) came to exist in the first place.
Doesn't Marx say that the Communists need to lead the proletariat towards revolution? I recall reading this some where's, but don't know if it's Marx or Lenin.
I'm not aware of Marx ever saying that. If I'm not mistaken Marx said something along the lines of: "the liberation of the working class must be the act of the working class themselves."
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Just to put it in context it's important not to forget that World War Two American imperialism was the author of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it's Soviet counterpart the author of millions of corpses in famines and gulags.
On the question of the PKK, the problem isn't that they are not sufficiently communist. It's because they are reactionary nationalists.
But see, this is what I don't get: the Kurds are fighting the fight for all of us by holding back the most fierce islamo-fascists of our time... are these the people we want to be criticizing for their lack of true left-communist conviction?
As long as they get the job done, I'll be rooting for them just as I would have supported the Allied and Soviet war effort against Germany 75 years ago. I get that in both cases it's imperialist blocks squaring off against each other. Maybe I'm missing the point here, but not taking in to account what is on the line in Rojava kinda reeks of relativism.
But see, this is what I don't get: the Kurds are fighting the fight for all of us by holding back the most fierce islamo-fascists of our time... are these the people we want to be criticizing for their lack of true left-communist conviction?
I don't think anyone here is upset that Kurdish guerrillas don't read enough Pannekoek, or that they're shooting up lots of islamists for that matter. The criticism is related to the national question. It's just like the ultraleft criticism of anti-fascism. The movement loses its communist substance if there is any there at all.
I get that in both cases it's imperialist blocks squaring off against each other. Maybe I'm missing the point here, but not taking in to account what is on the line in Rojava kinda reeks of relativism.
What do you mean by relativism ?
I wasn't aware of an ultraleft critique of anti-fascism, I might have to read up on that.
Relativism in the sense of equating two very different forms of imperialist movements.
https://libcom.org/library/fascism-anti-fascism-gilles-dauve-jean-barrot
http://endnotes.org.uk/en/gilles-dauv-when-insurrections-die
Expand on why you think German, soviet or American imperialisms are so different
Thanks for the links! Writing up an answer to your question is way out of my league. Suffice to say that the genocidal Volksgemeinschaft-characteristic of German fascism has little to do with other forms of imperialism in my mind. Looking at left movements that over-emphasize anti-fascism I can probably agree that they mostly lack revolutionary potential, even if they may claim otherwise.
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This article doesn't really mention it but China has recently been going through a massive economic crisis, despite all of the money and power of the state being directed against it. I wonder how all of these pale imitations of social democrats will explain away this.
I was going through /r/communism and saw an old post that talked about Marx saying
They argued that it proved the point that Marx didn't think that point of revolutions is to abolish the law of value instantaneously and that it was a prediction of how central planning in actually existing socialist states worked.
I'm wondering what the left-com response would be since as someone who's still working through Marx I don't really have a response nor do I really understand what he (Marx) is saying.
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If they are using this as a justification of what Stalin said, that the law of value operates in their, not even stalinist, "socialism", then they can't read.
He just talks about how a future society will organize labour: It will still be measured how long tasks take and so on, because it is important for planning purposes. He describes this in Capital Volume One with the example of Robinson Crusoe, stating that communist society will essentially function just like Robinson Crusoe, only as a society not as an individual.
Well I would argue that even if marx did mean that the law of value would continue on post - rev, he wrote this in the 1860s when capitalism was still in ascendancy and still "progressive" in some sense. Since however capitalism seems to be in the epoch of decay and seems to have risen production to such a point where Communism and thus the abolition of value is now on the table in a way that just wasn't possible in either 1860, 1917 or even in 1968, then socialism as industrialization ( ie building up production, wage labor, state enterprise etc) is objectively a retrograde concept and political aim.
Marx isn't talking about the law of value here, in this instance. He is talking about the mundane task of measuring the worth of something, which would be in the socially necessary labour time. Since as there is no commodity production, there is no law of value.
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A critique of Hillel Ticktin's theory.
I forgot about this.
This is sooooo good
Non-mode is some dumbass shit. Even the Cliffites can shit on it...http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.ca/2012/04/ambiguities-of-hillel-ticken.html
I know from the sidebar that there are many texts about the Russian Revolution, and some about Russia/USSSR under Lenin, but are there any good left communist analysis of the country during Stalin and/or Khrushchev?
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Pannekoek's State Capitalism and Dictatorship
Bordiga's The Spirit of Horsepower
The bulk of this article is pre-Stalin, but it's an excellent article and it gets there.
Left communists in general hold the view that the Russian Revolution was not proletarian (or communist) post-1926-1928ish. Some might point to Kronstadt or Maknho and make the argument for maybe as early as 1920.
More accurately we hold that the Russian Revolution itself was proletarian and revolutionary but that the merger of the state with the bolshevicks was fundamentally bourgeois. Admittedly there probably wasn't a lot of choice for the bolshevicks but necessity doesn't erase the inherent Nature of a mode of production
Splitting hairs but yeah
Mostly horrible.
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Yay
You should read some of the comments on reddit and on the libcom fb page. They sound like tankies.
"omfg an inspiring movement, quick let's explain why it doesn't perfectly fit criteria that's been crudely cut-and-pasted from the late 19th/early 20th century (and therefore isn't the true path)!!1!"
"These endless stuck-in-the-1930s pieces of Marxobabble on Rojava are starting to be a real bore Libcom."
"Another impressively ignorant piece of trash produced by Western Anarchists who desperately desire to be alone. "
"It seems as if some would rather put their own personal rigid ideology above public health and basic human needs. On the same reddit page there is a Zapatista response to an American anarchist that says just that, and that is very relevant to this critique."
Honestly, I think Dauve's critique wasn't even that severe. It almost seems like he was going easy on them because he comes across as somewhat sympathetic to the cause. All of which just makes the angry anarcho-tankie reaction even more odd to me.
anarcho-tankie
That's one of the funniest things i've read all week, i'm definitely reusing that
It's what happens when national liberation becomes a corner stone of one's politics, apparently.
tankies
uh huh?
I am a pretty huge supporter of the Rojawa revolution, but even I have to admit that this article has some pretty good points.
Supporter in what way?
Actively worked together with PYD to bring money to YPG/YPJ among other things.
Eep! I hope you have good OPSEC. I would be careful discussing this if I were you.
Nah, it's not dangerous at all. In Sweden it's not illegal or anything, we even have our own PYD branches.
I should have asked, why are you supporting them?
Because I believe in a free Kurdistan. This revolution is only the first, because every revolution has to happen twice as history tells.
What does a free Kurdistan mean? Why does every revolution have to happen twice? What is an example in history of the same revolution occurring again?
What does a free Kurdistan mean?
A selfgoverning Kurdistan like that in Rojawa.
Why does every revolution have to happen twice?
Because for a revolution to be finalized it has to first revolt against the dominant class and then revolt against the entire form of production.
Can be seen in the case of both the french and russian revolution.
To quote Zizeks foreword to Revolution at the Gates which is a collection of texts written by Lenin in 1917.
This gap - a repetition of the gap between 1789 and 1793 in the French Revolution - is the very space of Lenin's unique intervention: the fundamental lesson of revolutionary materialism is that revolution must strike twice, and for essential reasons. The gap is not simply the gap between form and content: what the "first revolution" misses is not the content, but the form itself - it remains stuck in the old form, thinking that freedom and justice can be accomplished if we simply put the existing state apparatus and its democratic mechanisms to use. What if the "good" party wins the free elections and "legally" implements socialist transformation? (The clearest expression of this illusion, bordering on the ridiculous, is Karl Kautsky's thesis, formulated in the 1920s, that the logical political form of the first stage of socialism, of the passage from capitalism to socialism, is the parliamentary coalition of bourgeois and proletarian parties.) Here there is a perfect parallel with the era of early modernity, in which opposition to the Church ideological hegemony first articulated itself in the very form of another religious ideology, as a heresy: along the same lines, the partisans of the "first revolution" want to subvert capitalist domination in the very political form of capitalist democracy. This is the Hegelian "negation of negation": first the old order is negated within its own ideologico-political form; then this form itself has to be negated. Those who oscillate, those who are afraid to take the second step of overcoming this form itself, are those who (to repeat Robespierre) want a "revolution without revolution" - and Lenin displays all the strength of his "hermeneutics of suspicion" in discerning the different forms of this retreat.
I find it a little perplexing that someone who is presumably pro-communist would advocate an explicitly anti-communist movement such as national liberation. Why? All I can think is that you believe that the next step is anti-capitalist revolution. However, every single movement for national liberation in history, every single one, has not lead to an anti-capitalist revolution. We know this because everywhere is capitalist.
Your belief that the first revolt then the second against the form of production has borne no fruit. Russia failed (at least, from a communist perspective). France failed. They all failed. It's not logical to maintain a necessary 2-phase revolution if all it's ever resulted in is failure. Maybe a 2-phase revolution belief isn't the correct way to conduct a revolution.
As to Zizek, all I see is a wall of rhetoric.
France failed
Are you saying that the french revolution was not a revolution against the feudal form of production and that it was not a success? Because then you should just read some Marx.
I think that's a pretty major flaw in your argumentation.
If I was claiming that, it would not be a major flaw in my argument. It would simply mean that an aspect of what I said was incorrect.
But that wasn't what I was claiming. To the extent that the French revolution, or a subset of the revolutionaries involved, wanted to achieve a communist revolution, they failed. It would have been great if they didn't fail and if the revolution could have flowed into a world revolution. That didn't happen. The bourgeoisie won that revolution. But it wasn't a necessary conclusion. It is possible that the working class could have won and ended capitalism before capitalism ended the feudal order.
To the extent that the French revolution, or a subset of the revolutionaries involved, wanted to achieve a communist revolution, they failed
There was never a communist tendency in the french revolution. There could be no revolution against capitalism when capitalism wasn't even the dominant form of production. The french revolution was from the start a revolution against the feudal mode of production, and ended as a revolution against the feudal mode of production.
And your whole argument fails because of this simple factual error; you claim that historically there has been no revolution that has on a national level changed the mode of production. That is factually wrong. Look at England 1642 or France 1789. You should study your dialectical materialism.
Again, no. I was not in the slightest bit suggesting that there has been no revolution that changes the mode of production. Where did I say that? Don't make a response to an argument that the other person has not made. It's disingenuous.
I said there has been no successful communist revolution.
I said there has been no successful communist revolution.
But then what is your alternative?
I don't think ledpup is really proposing anything here, all that's being said is that there has been no successful communist revolution. If this was the case then we would have communism. But we don't, of course. Maybe I'm just too optimistic, but I don't think there really needs to be an alternative to anything, and even if there was an alternative current, it wouldn't matter. Communism is an organic social movement, it isn't something that's manufactured by a political party or something along those lines.
Are you a supporter of national-liberation? What politics would you say you hold?
Yes, but national liberation has to be aware of how class solidarity does neither start nor end within the nation.
I'm an autonomist leninist probably, but I don't put much emphasis on titles.
This article has sturred up so much pro-natlib buttanger
I hope you have all gotten the collected works of Marx or some other great books for your Christmas. I would like to point out that reading a real book is much better for you than reading an article on a screen, so I would encourage you in your learning to read print.
Also, in other news, we've had a good year with trolling tankies. They have subtly changed their arguments in the face of our relentless criticism and now instead of arguing outright that socialism is both the dotp and the lowest phase of communism, they more often than not just argue that is a "transition to communism". The remnants of their old arguments are still present on their garbage 101 reddit:
Socialism: An umbrella term used to describe social ownership of the means of production. Social ownership can include common ownership, state ownership or collective ownership. "Socialism" can also refer to an intermediate and transitional form of society between capitalism and communism featuring a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (sometimes referred to as "lower" or "the first phase of" communism).
I've also noticed that whenever an argument comes up in regards to the culpability of Stalin and the deaths in the USSR, they have taken to cherry picking Getty, of all people, who places Stalin right in the centre of it, and miss quote a sample number in regards to NKVD executions.
Also, and I can hardly believe this myself, keep an eye out for that Marx quote that Mascapital found of Marx talking about labour being a measurement of value post capital from Capital Vol 3 and using it to say that the law of value would exist post capitalism. Having to point out that none of them have read, or at the very least, understood the little that they have read, always makes me lol. Remember to read real books.
Merry Christmas, shitbags.
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I'd just like to take this moment to thank everyone here at this subreddit for a great year. You've made my last year super entertaining by generating endless hours of tankie outrage (as well as pissing off the weirdos at /r/anarcho_capitalism and other places). This place has become a lot more active lately and although the level of shitposting continues to rise, we still get some consistently good content.
Anyway, I've noticed some trends among tankies as well. They seem to switch from proudly talking about being 'Marxists' to now attacking actual Marxist arguments by saying "ha oh wow you must think Marx is some sort of god or something." It's a pretty funny to see how much they're backpedaling and I think I expressed it pretty well in this comment.
Hope all you have a happy new years and whatever, so prepare yourself for another year of the left making fools of themselves, fawning over the DPRK or some new social democrat or whatever.
My uncle, who introduced me to Marxism, sent me a card with the inscription "Merry Marxmas" and a gift card to Powell's books... I know what I must do.
Hug your uncle
Some juicy holiday tankie tears are flowing in the debate a communist sub reddit right now. muh sectarianism
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I liked that article on MEGA. I found it hard to find much information on it but that periodical they have on it looks interesting.
Yes it looks promising. I think if nothing else it's good to get Marx from somewhere other than Moscow and their publishers Lawrence&Wishart.
Literally went to /r/socialism and was just cringed away from that shit
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This is a great topic, thanks for sharing. Can't wait to read it when I get off work.
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Good news. Seattle continues to be a beacon of working class struggle going all the way back to the general strike in 1919.
I think a few points should be made here however. Number one is that "direct action" only gets the goods when workers act out on their home turf. Direct action can't "get the goods" in parliament, inside the unions, etc., because workers have no chance in "away games", on the home turf of the bourgeoisie.
The institutions I just listed all have an essential purpose, that is propping up the capitalist state. Capitalism hasn't been in a position to implement real reforms since before WWI.
Workers can no longer appeal to the capitalist state to make their lives better, because the bourgeoisie in this period of crisis has no intention of doing that. It's austerity all the way. If this became some generalized social campaign which saw the involvement of politicians and union bureaucrats no amount of "direct action" could bring the goods back to the home field of the workers. In these times the state loves to tie people up to it and its involvements, rendering them unable to defend class positions. But workers must defend their positions and encourage them to spread. Today this is the only way forward.
Given that searching for a group has come to naught I was thinking instead that those of us in New York tired of the status quo should organise ourselves. This ain't my first call to arms, nor will it be my last but I do have faith in at least some of my comrades out here.
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I'm far, far from NYC. But a left communist group (that's not just a political cult) in the US would be cool.
Yeah def, I hope something does get done tho. And that we don't have SEP levels of unwarranted self importance.
It might be more worthwhile trying to set up correspondence group or something like that. You are probably best looking for an IWW branch and seeing if you can find any decent communists there.
That's probably a good idea in addition to what I'm doing here. Any avenue I can use.
I'm in the IWW in NYC. We have meetings the first Sunday of every month in Long Island City. PM me if you're interested.
Hey, haven't seen you around. Could you give us what your opinion of the IWW is and any problems that you've seen? You can send it to me via PM if you don't want it public.
Well I've only been in the IWW for five months or so. Through it I've met some really awesome people, many of whom do organizing outside the union as well. As far as criticisms, it's a little behind the times as far as technology is concerned, but this is something we're very aware of, and I work in the tech industry, so I'm actively helping to fix that. So yeah, I'm really glad to be a part of it, and the people I've met through it are awesome.
correspondence group
could you describe what you mean by this?
Could you not just work with Anarchists?
define work with. I doubt very much that any left-comm is going to join up with any platformist group. the closest we'd probably get to working together is in the IWW (which can and does happen). Political organizations should be unified theoretically and in terms of praxis.
I doubt very much that any left-comm is going to join up with any platformist group
There are Platformists in the USA?
yeah they exist here and there. Pretty sure 4 star was platformist and I know theres a new group being formed in my city
Huh, interesting.
NEFAC back in my day was big (late 90s early 00s). Northeast US, Quebec, Ontario. They were explicitly platformists. They had everyone from anarchists to Trotskyists.
didnt know nefac was platformist, though it makes sense. Definitely didnt know they had trots in it though, that part seems wierd, like what the hell is a trot doing in a platformist group
Deep entryism.
Sorry. Maybe not directly in NEFAC or the other federated groups. I can't say that for sure. But were groups like the New Socialists (which I think were Trotskyist) in Toronto which worked closely with NEFAC and OCAP and other anarchist groups. This was like 15 years ago.
I could work with Anarchists, but they might be a bit hostile to working with both a Marxist and an anti-Identitarian.
anti-Identitarian.
What does this mean, and why do I think it explains why you have a big red -47 next to your name.
So you were the one, nah I dunno what you've downvoted me for and don't care.
Basically I see identity politics as a modern nationalism, a handy way for the bourgeois to divvy us up into neat little packages to be consumed at their leisure. Where nationalism is not that useful, especially in regards to multi-ethnic states without much of a national consciousness like the US, we have identity instead. This says that I, as a Black, Latino, Bisexual Human are different from you (in general) a straight, white, human and should be enemies, it allows them to keep the working class divided on things we can't really control.
EDIT: Also the fact that bourgeois and petit-bourgeois academic socialists have latched onto it bothers me. I'm working classist at the end of the day, my loyalty is first and foremost to the class I am a part of.
Identities didn't get imposed by bourgeoisie ideology or propaganda in the ways in which you seem to be suggesting.
I may agree what has become "identity politics" has been a deployed by liberal ideologues. But that needs to be separated from the far more complicated and contradictory histories of identity formations, new social movements in the 60s to earlier which very much has working class roots.
Identities didn't get imposed by bourgeoisie ideology or propaganda in the ways in which you seem to be suggesting.
Neither was nationalism. I agree that identity is innate but it is an innately conservative, even reactionary thing. It devolves us again into tribalism when instead we need to be promoting one humanity, free of commodification, free of wage slavery and free of worry.
Nationalism also has working class roots and is also innately reactionary. Anything that causes us to think of ourselves as different can be used by the bourgeois. I suspect we might start seeing identity-states as an evolution of the bourgeois nation-state.
identity is innate
I'm not saying that at all.. no no no...
I feel like I don't have time to flush out my point. Hopefully I have more time later today..
Definitely I'd love to further this debate. And identitarians and their detractors (folks like me) tend to have a lot more common ground.
Tho I will say it is telling that those most for identitarianism would not themselves be considered proletariat, or themselves have never experienced poverty.
I mean, I'm pretty sure this means your terrible and I encourage you to stay the fuck away from Anarchists, but what does this mean in terms of action?
I dunno how I'm terrible for not wanting to be seen as different from you because of my skin colour or sexuality or other things I can't really control.
I don't buy into that 60s liberal tosh that different groups are always antagonistic. But that line of thinking has permeated Anarchist thought. With education and socialisation we can overcome most any problem.
I dunno how I'm terrible for not wanting to be seen as different from you because of my skin colour or sexuality or other things I can't really control.
Because the conclusion from Anti-Identitarians is 'Stop whining about being shit upon by cis/men/white people and focus on the real issue, class!'
Have you ever read that pamphlet, "Queer liberation is class struggle" the Black Orchid Collective? If not you should give it a red over and tell me what you think
http://theoryandanail.tumblr.com/post/13936043356/new-pamphlet-queer-liberation-is-class-struggle
In any case a critique of identity politics can be far more than old style workerism
I won't promise to read it, as I rarely read anything, but I will keep it open.
Because the conclusion from Anti-Identitarians is 'Stop whining about being shit upon by cis/men/white people and focus on the real issue, class!'
More accurately, stop whining about your invented 'oppression' stemming from the fact you've drank the Kool-Aid of the ultimate victimization cult. Stop being a race- and identity-baiting tosser. Stop interjecting your anti-working class attitudes and deliberately sabotaging any attempt at unitary left politics with the postmodernist shite you learned at your overpriced liberal arts college (paid for by your trust fund, of course). Fair enough?
wow
Not at all, but class does bleed heavily into it. A poor Black man is one of the working masses, Barack Obama is an oppressor. By levelling all people into Oppressed and Not-Oppressed regardless of class affiliation you confound the issue and cause rifts within the working class.
That isn't to say we shouldn't battle our demons but to place the same importance on a member of the bourgeois as you do a member of the proletariat is antithetical to communist movements.
Yes, Class is incredibly important, but saying that black bourgoise aren't oppressed misses the point of privilege theory and identity politics. The point being that black people are far less likely to be part of a privileged class than white people, and that this form of oppression exists (To at least some degree) separately to class, and would not disappear once we overthrow the bourgeoisie.
So what, we need to fight to ensure that minorities are better represented among the "priveleged classes"? Moreover, we still need to fight for this after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie? But if the bourgeoisie is overthrown....then what is this "priveleged class" that minorities are underrepresented in?
Moreover, we still need to fight for this after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie? But if the bourgeoisie is overthrown....then what is this "priveleged class" that minorities are underrepresented in?
This is exactly the problem I see, people like you, who think that oppression disappears as soon as Capitalism does.
The problem I see is that oppression to you apparently means having a hard time joining the ruling class, something totally divorced from the problems facing working-class members of minorities.
If that's what you took from what I said I see no point in continuing this discourse.
Yes, Class is incredibly important, but saying that black bourgoise aren't oppressed misses the point of privilege theory and identity politics.
The fact that you openly admit that your politics support a section of the ruling class - meaning you're outwardly hostile to the working class (of all races, ethnicities, etc.) by definition - should be enough to automatically discredit your position.
That's where education and socialisation comes in. And no absolutely not are any bourgeois oppressed like the working masses are. I don't see Obama (as an example) struggling to find food to eat, or worrying that he'll be homeless. Poverty transcends race and gender and all those things. Though they can be tied to it. Creating a society without class distinctions will eliminate the need for those other distinctions.
Privilege theory was created by bourgeois academics so they could justify their positions within academia. It's based off Marxist analysis but misses the point of historical materialism entirely.
To give a materialist and dialectical response, I'd say that blacks are oppressed because material conditions allowed it to happen, by withering away those conditions we wither away the need for oppression. Capitalist society, like all stratified society, gets its power and productivity from a permanent underclass. You take away the underclass? You take away the need for differentiation, we become people. That doesn't immediately destroy the attitudes of course, humans will be human, but you can start. We need working class solidarity before we can tackle the big problems.
It's not that Obama isn't struggling to find food to eat. These people are talking about literally one of the most powerful human beings on the planet, a multi-millionaire who's been the official representative of US imperialism, Wall Street and corporate America for the last half decade. That's their "oppressed victim," who needs to be championed and defended against the dangerous, reactionary mob of racist, sexist workers that make up the bulk of the world's population.
And privilege theory was in no way based on anything resembling a Marxist analysis. It's postmodernism gone wild, deliberately fashioned to support ruling class (Democratic Party) political objectives.
Couldn't have put it better myself...
The point being that black people are far less likely to be part of a privileged class than white people
Privilege and intersectionality have validity. But in liberal ideology it becomes a tool to say we can create better world if we have equal representation between various identity categories from the boardroom to the ghetto.
The real problem is Marxists theory hasn't come to terms with the divisions and stratification in the working class.
Wow, -47. I haven't down voted anyone that consistently.
I got into the hundreds on a few people. (3 negative, one positive).
(Your on +9)
I've always seen myself as a weird chimera Marxist-Anarchist.
I would love to join, I'm unfortunately in Australia. However, I am curious what you group intends to do?
Mainly organising within NYC right now, disseminating information to workers, helping out the working class and pulling them to our side while raising class consciousness.
Maybe even creating an electoral bloc. I don't rule out parlimentarianism as a tactic along with revolution, it's only the utilisation of one without another that leads to failure.
I'd suggest creating a network of giving food, and using abandoned buildings as shelters for the homeless/disadvantaged, if you can. Create a sense of solidarity with the greatest victims of capitalism along with the working class, you know? Also, I'd use this to cure the ignorance that the ruling class use to divide the people (Racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism/misogyny etc.).
I, personally, don't agree with parliamentarianism, but if that's what your group collectively decides, then that's your choice (Hurray for self-management!).
But, then again, these are just suggestions.
I'd suggest creating a network of giving food, and using abandoned buildings as shelters for the homeless/disadvantaged, if you can. Create a sense of solidarity with the greatest victims of capitalism along with the working class, you know? Also, I'd use this to cure the ignorance that the ruling class use to divide the people (Racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism/misogyny etc.).
That's the plan, as someone who's been homeless helping those with nothing is a sore spot for me.
I, personally, don't agree with parliamentarianism, but if that's what your group collectively decides, then that's your choice (Hurray for self-management!).
Parlimentarianism is a means to an end, not the end itself. Using all available tactics to bring down the capitalist class.
That sounds great. I wish you the best of luck!
Parlimentarianism is a means to an end, not the end itself. Using all available tactics to bring down the capitalist class.
I don't rule out parlimentarianism as a tactic along with revolution, it's only the utilisation of one without another that leads to failure.
I think this ignores how and when electoral politics occur. Historically it has occurred at times when the workers' movement has been strong, which indicates (but doesn't at all prove, though I think it's likely) that it has functioned as a "peaceful" outlet of the strength of the movement, as a sort of lid blowing off steam. I don't think electoral politics is very useful, definitely not at times when the movement is weak, such as now. I don't see the use of it at this moment tbh, esp. not in a country such as the U.S, with a two-party system (though you might aim at local politics?). And it definitely doesn't have much to do with left communism.
You may fit in very well with Unity and Struggle, there are a few comrades in NYC IIRC.
especially in regards to Sawant
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The biggest mistake of social-democracy is to not recognize the periodization of capital. SD was once possible and perhaps even progressive ... until either 1914 or 1929 depending on your view. Now however not only is it impossible to obtain but it is actually counter-revolutionary and holds back the tide of workers forment.
In terms of critique of Sawant, well I figure her and SA's positions do that for themselves, with the whole concept of the "Transitional Demands" being a basically blatent attempt at social-democracy with a pseudo-revolutionary face
Sawant doesn't seem to self-identify as a social democrat. Or even a democratic socialist.
The interviews I've seen with here she claims revolutionary socialist/communist.
There was a man that claimed he was Caesar locked in the Bastille, but that doesn't mean he was Caesar.
The CWI is a self-proclaimed 'democratic socialist' party
Sawant is a Trotskyite.
the CWI and other centrists are basically social democrats, if u compare the program of any european socdem sect with the cwi you'll think you're seeing double
thats not much of a critique
she's advocating for worker takeover of the boeing plant. that, my friends, is unfuckwittable.
because nationalization == communism?
pardon?
i mean thats their politic, that nationalization + communist party in power= communism, never mind the fact that that means enshrining the proletarian condition instead of the destruction of it
that whole "destruction" of class lanuage really confuses things. it's possible to be exciting and descriptive when we talk about post-cap productivity.
Yes, well we can talk about that all we want, but communism is the action of the working class. There's no way the proletariat is going to revolt to nationalize the Fortune 500 (which is what the CWI advocates), because that would just mean shifting its misery to the state.
I dont really think it confuses anything, in fact I think it actually helps clear things up. Wage-laborers instinctively understand that wage-labor is bullshit and that given a chance theyd love to escape it
nationalisation does not do away with the class relations of capitalism. i mean, like there's a lot to do with the specific historical place that the proletariat holds and its relation to the means of production that mean that if it is emancipated then it automatically becomes de-classed. it is not as if that you can have a proletariat without capitalism unlike say peasantry. nationalisation just prolongs this class of people that have to sell their wages which if we refer back to my other post here, is a division of the labour movement with socialism that is so fundamental to social-democracy.
You're missing the point, which is that the CWI is a social democratic party that does not want communism. They are just a racket that desperately wants to preserve their name and recruit new members.
oh i see. i havent read too far into it but i very much like what i see.
She supports the statification of capital (nationalisation), which is not communist.
It should be noted that she's effectively attempting basic reformism, likely due to the ultraleft's inability to make any meaningful change in the US. Revolution is pretty difficult to fire when the entire population has been convinced to support a system inherently built against their self-interest.
The main problem with social democracy is that it allows the accumulation of capital by a few people. Money equals power and these people use their power to move the system to unregulated capitalism. This is happening even in places like Norway and Sweden.
The main problem with social-democracy is it's conception of the party and the working class, which is often expressed as "the labour movement" and "socialism" (or the vanguard party, or marxism, of what ever you would like). Even if the accumulation of capital was spread out across everyone then it would still be capitalism, and thus, one could not call that socialism.
I came across this Pannekoek piece and I was wondering what you thought of it. It really doesn't seem to sit right with me when it says things like
By presenting a translation of this short text, I hope to emphasize the Social Democratic inheritance of Pannekoek and the continuities of council communism with radical readings of Karl Kautsky.
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This intro is longer than this extremely boiler plate text is lol
There is much merit in Pannekoek’s objection to Kautsky that one has not determined very much at all if the determination is that the masses are unpredictable. Yet it was clear that Pannekoek’s own formulas didn’t hold up in the light: the masses by no means tend towards radicalism in all cases, and there has been no guarantee that they would rise against war.
lol Pannekoek is right in saying that the masses act spontaneously, but Pannekeok is wrong in saying that the masses act spontaneously.
It would be wrong to construe this as simply a close personal friendship: Kautsky and Pannekoek shared a political outlook about the world. Both were representatives of the last great generation of scientific socialism.
This reads like fan fiction.
This was not ‘scientific’ in the sense of a vulgar determinism in which one keeps vigil for the final set of statistics that make revolution inevitable, but scientific in that it posited hypotheses and demanded proofs, one had to show their working when they claimed to solve the formula of social change. An amusing article in the SPD’s satirical magazine Der Wahre Jacob in 1912 aptly illustrated their affinity in approach, even when their conclusions differed. In an imaginary debate about fashion, Kautsky writes a beautiful chapter about the “genesis of trousers” in the emergence of humanity, ending with the proposition that had Adam had trousers, he may not have bitten into the fatal apple. Pannekoek, who had witnessed the conversations with Kautsky, reproaches Kautsky for having overestimated the role of trousers as a Marxist
This makes me want to blow my fucking brains out. They even write after this
Yet Kautsky’s case against embracing spontaneous mass actions as a tactical principle is simple: they are completely unpredictable and hence nothing can be said about what is to be done when they arise in advance, the party can only ensure that it is not caught off guard by them, by building up its own understanding of state and society and power.
I know that I rag on about people with autism being attracted to communism but it is really true.
Of course they're so focused on reviving kautsky that they can't see that the common thing between them might be the labor movement itself rather than Lord kautsky being the world spirit of communism.
This asinine attempt at revising kautsky ignores the whole problem with kautsky in the first place, one that these people want to ignore. Lars Lih makes a big deal about people translating individual words in Lenin's Renegade Kautsky, but Lenin clearly has an issue with people like Kautsky who have "a verbal recognition of Marxism" but end up being opportunists.
This sort of stupid behavior is an excuse for opportunists, which is probably why these dullards don't seem to understand this issue.
In regards to the text itself, it is so fucking bland that to attribute it to the influence of Kautsky would be an insult to Pannekoek (and Kautsky). It is so boiler plate that I question why they chose this one specifically for their attempt at reconciling Kautksy with council communism. It is a miserable attempt at presenting Kautsky as a central figure.
This intro is longer than this extremely boiler plate text is lol
Got to make sure people read the proper dogma into it.
By presenting a translation of this short text, I hope to emphasize the Social Democratic inheritance of Pannekoek and the continuities of council communism with radical readings of Karl Kautsky.
They "hope to emphasise", haha. How about reading what Kautsky actually wrote, instead of following the instruction to read him "radically"? Just about everything about this preface is utterly stupid. It's an extremely transparent endeavour of individualistic canonisation.
Lars Lih makes a big deal about people translating individual words in Lenin's Renegade Kautsky, but Lenin clearly has an issue with people like Kautsky who have "a verbal recognition of Marxism" but end up being opportunists.
The whole neo-Kautskyism affair with its spokespeople like Mike Macnair and Lars Lih is just morons trying to forge an universal key to parasitically attach themselves to all sorts of causes except that of the communist party. Notice their avoidance of the word "communism", too.
This same blog hosted a translation of a single chapter of the ICP's "Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today" and attributed it to the individual Bordiga. Not only is the translation utter garbage, but they did this in order to pin on Bordiga the opinion that Bukharin's ideas would have been the solution to the Russian question - when the very same text the chapter is taken from contradicts this. This means that the snowflakes responsible for this bullshit did not read on, simply were too stupid to understand what they were reading, or ignored those passages, as they would have prevented carving out a niche by trying to present Bukharin's insights as particularly timely. This goes as far as these degenerates sending that chapter to MIA, which now hosts it in its Bordiga section, as if it were an isolated text. Now you'll have more people repeating this superficial knowledge, with some even attempting to create a "Bukharinism". No corpse of any communist is safe from being robbed by modern retards - particularly if they were a Bolshevik. When do we get Kamenevism? Surely there must be some grifter out there who will come up with that soon enough.
This same blog hosted a translation of a single chapter of the ICP's "Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today" and attributed it to the individual Bordiga. Not only is the translation utter garbage, they did this in order to pin on Bordiga the opinion that Bukharin's ideas would have been the solution to the Russian question - when the very same text the chapter is taken from contradicts this.
lol they can't even get the title right, "The solution of Bukharin" lol fuck sake. Recently the people behind it were bitching about bad translations but the people they have don't seem to even understand communism, let alone have any linguistic skills. It's more machine translated than anything I've read in a while.
This means that the people responsible for this bullshit did not read on, simply were too stupid to understand what they were reading, or ignored those passages, as they would have prevented carving out a niche by trying to present Bukharin's insights as particularly timely.
It's barely one chapter of a book but they've gone on to make a whole theory out of it.
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A child*. 14 is a healthy age for sex.
Why is it that all Germans are such degenerates?
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How much adderall did you have to take to type this out?
Why is it that you are so obsessed with this subreddit that you feel the need to comment in it with three different accounts? Did you get bored of your Nintendo dildos?
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Meanwhile, while these unions were scrapping over two jobs, the Portland docks, like every other nominally union port in this country, are full of non-union workers.
The sailors, who sail the cargo ships that are at the core of sea freight operations, are overwhelmingly non-union. Most of them sail for ships owned by companies in first world countries like Norway, Denmark, Greece, Great Britain, Japan or the US, but the vessels are registered in tiny non-sea-faring states like the Marianas Islands, Panama, Liberia, the Marshal Islands or Cyprus, for union evasion reasons (there was a time, as recently as the 1960s, when these sailors sailed under the flag of the state the ship was based in and these sailors were union members).
On the other side of the docks, los troqueros (“the truckers”) who haul the sea freight, are also almost all non-union. This work was once done by Teamster drivers who were employees of the trucking lines, however in the 1970s they were laid off, and replaced by non-union owner-operators, who get paid by the trip and have to buy their own trucks and pay for diesel and repairs out of pocket.
Neither the ILWU nor the IBEW (or even the Teamsters or the Seafarers International Union) have much interest in organizing los troqueros or the sailors – but these unions bickered over already organized work.
[...]
Meanwhile, depending on the city you’re talking about, 90 to 95% of construction workers are non-union.
Do these unions organize the non-union workers? By and large, no, they do not.
[...]
We’re in a situation where only 6% of the private sector labor force in the US is union, and that percentage is shrinking every day.
Perhaps we need to build a whole new labor movement among the 94% — and, among other things, build industry-wide unions, where everybody in a given industry is in one wall-to-wall union, with no stupid jurisdictional beefs.
Thanks for sharing this. Fits pretty well with what I laid out here.
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I'm always struck at how much things haven't changed when I read things like this. All of this still happens today, albeit on a much more pathetic form.
A regime of terror has recently established itself in our parties; a kind of sport which consists in intervening, punishing and annihilating, and all of it conducted with great gusto, as though it were precisely the ideal of party life.
The heroes of these brilliant operations even seem convinced that they themselves constitute a proof of revolutionary capacity and energy. I, on the contrary, maintain that real revolutionaries, the best revolutionaries are, in general, those comrades who are the victims of these extraordinary measures, and who patiently put up with them so as not to destroy the party. I consider that this squandering of energy, this sport, this struggle within the party has nothing to do with the revolutionary work we should be carrying out. The day will come when we shall strike down and destroy capitalism; it is in on that terrain that the party will give evidence of its revolutionary power. We do not want anarchy in the party, but neither do we want a regime of continuous reprisals, which is the very negation of party unity and cohesion
Who hasn't experienced this in a party? And the section on fractions - the DSA is nothing but fractions
The birth of a fraction shows that something has gone wrong in the party. To remedy the ill, it is necessary to seek out the historical causes which gave rise to it, that gave rise to the fraction and that prompted it to take shape. The causes lie in the ideological and political errors of the party. The fractions are not the sickness, but merely the symptom, and if you want to treat a sick organism, you have to try to discover the causes of the sickness, not combat the symptoms. Besides, in the majority of cases, what one was faced with was groups of comrades who were not in fact making any attempt to create an organization or anything of the kind, but rather seeking to express currents of opinion and tendencies within the normal, regular and collective activity of the party. The resort to faction-hunting, muck-raking campaigns, police surveillance and the sowing of mistrust between comrades – a method which in fact constitutes the worst factionalism developing in the higher echelons of the party – has only made our movement’s situation worse and pushed all considered and objective criticism towards the path of factionalism.
And this part on left bourgeois governments
There is another scheme of perspective which must be fought against and which confronts us when we turn our attention from the purely economic analysis to that of the social and political forces. It is generally accepted that we must consider the fact that a left petty-bourgeois party is in power as a political situation favorable to our preparation and to our struggle. This wrong perspective is first of all a contradiction of the first because it most frequently happens in the state of economic crisis favorable to us that the bourgeoisie organizes a right government for a reactionary offensive, which means that objective conditions become unfavorable to us. To get to a Marxist solution of the problem these commonplaces must be abandoned.
Generally speaking, it is not true that the existence of a left bourgeois government will be favorable to us: the contrary may be the case. Historical examples have shown us how absurd it would be to imagine that in order to lighten our task a so-called middle class government with a liberal program would make its appearance, a government which would enable us to organize an effective and united struggle against a weakened State apparatus.
The whole thing is just an extraordinary clear exposition and it's remarkable that he had to stoop to such low levels when speaking to the supposed leaders of the communist movement.
The whole thing is just an extraordinary clear exposition and it's remarkable that he had to stoop to such low levels when speaking to the supposed leaders of the communist movement.
Reading the protocols of Comintern congresses in general gives the impression that only the Russian, Hungarian and Italian delegates had an independent position - the rest comes across as awfully clueless.
Another interesting section is him laying blame on the comintern itself rather than the national sections
People tell us: the international leadership derives from the hegemony of the Russian party, which is justified by the fact that it made the revolution and harbors the International’s headquarters. That is why it is necessary to accord determinant importance to decisions prompted by the Russian party, which is our leader. But then the problem arises of how the Russian party resolves international questions. This is a question we all have every right to pose.
Since the most recent events, since the last discussion, this fulcrum of the whole system is no longer sufficiently stable. In the latest discussion in the Russian party, we have seen comrades who claim to have an identical knowledge of Leninism, and who unquestionably have an identical right to speak in the name of the Bolshevik revolutionary tradition, each using quotations from Lenin against the other in argument and each interpreting Russian experience in his own favor. Without going into the substance of the discussion, it is just this undeniable fact which I want to establish here.
And the roots of opportunism
And now I will come on to fractions. I take the view that to raise the problem of fractions as a moral problem, from the point of view of a penal code is not the correct line of action. Is there any example in history of a comrade forming a fraction for his own amusement? Such a thing has never happened. Is there a historical example of opportunism insinuating itself into the party through a fraction, of the organization of fractions serving as the basis for a defeatist mobilization of the working class and of the revolutionary party being saved thanks to the intervention of the fraction-killers? No. Experience has shown that opportunism always infiltrates our ranks under the guise of unity. It is in its interest to influence the largest possible mass, and it is therefore behind the screen of unity that it puts forward its most deceitful proposals. Moreover, the history of fractions goes to show that if fractions do no honour to the Parties in which they have been formed, they do honour to those who formed them. The history of fractions is the history of Lenin; it is the history not of attacks against the existence of parties, but of their crystallisation and of their defence against opportunist influences; it is not a history of attacks against their existence.
When does a group become the representative of bourgeois influences within a proletarian party? In general, such groups have found a fertile ground among union officials, or among party members of parliament, that is, among comrades who, with reference to questions of party strategy and tactics, behaved as the spokesmen of class collaboration, of the alliance with other political and social line-ups.
When we entered the field on the ideological ground against the syndicalist errors, we were able to wring large layers of workers from the influx of syndicalist and anarchist elements. Now these concepts emerge again at the surface. Why? The internal party regime, its excessive Machiavellism, participated in giving a bad impression to the working class, and made the resurgence of those theories possible, and of the prejudice that the political party is in itself something dirty, and that only the economical struggle can save the proletarian class. Who, in this situation, will decide in the last instance on international problems? One can no longer answer: the Bolshevik Old Guard, for this reply leads in practice to no solutions. Thus the fulcrum of the entire system resists objective investigation.
The left here comes across as completely reasonable and it's funny how people are quick to avoid admitting mistakes, such as the outbursts from the French section. Already, Lenin's pamphlet has already been forgotten.
Another interesting section is him laying blame on the comintern itself rather than the national sections
This is particularly remarkable - it shows his consequent internationalism.
I haven't finished the whole thing yet so doing spoil it for me, but I'm going to assume that this is developed over the coming days.
I suspect these reports by Bordiga in the Comintern will be interesting to many people, since they touch upon central positions of communism in an extraordinarily clear manner.
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This party, in the Second Imperialist War 1939-45, should also have supported the rupture of politics and action of war between all the states. A Marxist could, however, preserve the right, without fearing that the usual libertarian ideologists would accuse him of sympathising with a tyrant, to make calculations and investigate the consequences of Hitler’s victory over London and of an English collapse. This same Marxist will retain the right, while demonstrating that Stalin’s regime has not, for at least twenty years, been a proletarian regime, to consider the useful revolutionary consequences that would result from the – unfortunately unlikely – collapse of American power, in a possible third war of states and armies.
Reminds me of Engels:
The workers' party, which in all questions at issue between reaction and bourgeoisie stands outside the actual conflict, enjoys the advantage of being able to treat such questions quite cold-bloodedly and impartially. It alone can treat them scientifically, historically, as though they were already in the past, anatomically, as though they were already corpses.
It's of course not a case of reaction here, but one of intrabourgeois conflict, but you get the gist.
I wonder how soon it will be reposted unto that abomination that is called libcom
I don't see how it's slanderous. Bordiga's glib dismissiveness about Nazi crimes is evident from this text alone ("mountains of exercises in atrocity-mongering")
quelle horreur, the tone implied by the language used, is enough to condemn him, even though that doesn't appear in the original text
There are more threads in the Libcom forums which repeat similar follies. It's ridiculous.
Libcom seems more interested in upholding every liberal distortion of marxism possible.
On a sidenote, that comment in the footnote is weird as well:
This is the only place in the text where Bordiga uses the adjective germanico (lit. “Germanic”) rather than tedesco (German). While this may be merely a stylistic variation to avoid repetition, the distinction is preserved in the translation, since there are indications that Bordiga was referring to a broader category than just the working classes of East and West Germany. In his Dialogue with Bordiga, Jacques Camatte interprets Bordiga’s analysis as also applying to Austria and unnamed countries “under German influence” [Translator’s note].
Germany is "Germania" in Italian. It's not particularly surprising to use that adjective instead of "tedesco". Looks like an instance of Camattian "creativity".
ah yes, camatte, the arbiter of the party thesis of the icp. it's stupid on many levels to single this out. I've realized that I've commented on this before.
Where they get their translation from I don't know. Probably plucked straight out of their ass. Frankly, even if we accepted their translation, it still isn't a "glib dismissiveness" because it is clearly talking about the industry built around writing about the holocaust and other atrocities. Irony seems to be somewhat lost on these people.
Given the title of this, I would have expected this to go into more detail regarding the Brest treaty.
At the time of the Brest-Litovsk peace between Bolshevik Russia and the still Kaiserist Germany, in March 1918, lively arguments arose in the proletarian and revolutionary camp. Did the Russian proletarian class, having overthrown feudalism and capitalism, had to come to peace at any price and end the war; that is, did it have to turn the revolutionary victory to a “holy war”, proclaimed to overthrow the German imperial power, and to advance the social revolution throughout Europe? It is strange that, while the Marxist communists, the extreme wing of the European and Italian socialist movement, approved and understood the Leninist politics of war and the acceptance of the conditions imposed at Brest “without even discussing them”, anarchists and revolutionary trade unionists, even those who had been against the bourgeois war and interventionism since 1914-15, were enthusiastic about the term and the idea of the “proletarian holy war”.
This doesn't really do the issue justice - after all, Bukharin or Radek weren't anarchists or trade unionists. I guess there might not have been a lot of material on the matter back then. The point about the term "holy war" itself being stupid is accurate though.
It also would have been interesting if the point made about the army would have been developed more, but maybe another text deals with that.
I guess there probably wasn't a lot of material on the matter back then.
I'm not so sure about that. I think that the ICP just accepted the collective decision of the party and decided that it wasn't worth going into what-ifs, and was more concerned with how it connected with Marxism. Still, you'd think that such a huge disaster in the communist movement would have merited, at least, its own article.
It also would have been interesting if the point made about the army would have been developed more, but maybe another text deals with that.
That's the view of historians in general, that the Russian army had disintegrated at this point. But it ignores on the whole the ability of the Germans to conduct a war on this front and their fighting capacity, let alone the idea of fraternization and so on.
I think that the ICP just accepted the collective decision of the party and decided that it wasn't worth going into what-ifs, and was more concerned with how it connected with Marxism.
That makes sense.
Still, you'd think that such a huge disaster in the communist movement would have merited, at least, its own article.
Maybe there's another article by them dealing with the issue outside of the Thread of Time series.
That's the view of historians in general, that the Russian army had disintegrated at this point. But it ignores on the whole the ability of the Germans to conduct a war on this front and their fighting capacity, let alone the idea of fraternization and so on.
I should have been more specific. I meant general aspects, such as the relation of the army to the state, which is only touched upon here.
I meant general aspects, such as the relation of the army to the state, which is only touched upon here
This might be fertile grounds for further examination. I'm not sure if the ICP texts go into it. As far as I'm aware it has only lightly, in the case of Marx and Engels, been touched upon, or half touched upon by the likes of Bukharin.
In the usual argument about the state, the mistake is constantly made against which Engels warned and which we have in passing indicated above, namely, it is constantly forgotten that the abolition of the state means also the abolition of democracy; that the withering away of the state means the withering away of democracy.
At first sight this assertion seems exceedingly strange and incomprehensible; indeed, someone may even suspect us of expecting the advent of a system of society in which the principle of subordination of the minority to the majority will not be observed--for democracy means the recognition of this very principle.
No, democracy is not identical with the subordination of the minority to the majority. Democracy is a state which recognizes the subordination of the minority to the majority, i.e., an organization for the systematic use of force by one class against another, by one section of the population against another.
We set ourselves the ultimate aim of abolishing the state, i.e., all organized and systematic violence, all use of violence against people in general. We do not expect the advent of a system of society in which the principle of subordination of the minority to the majority will not be observed. In striving for socialism, however, we are convinced that it will develop into communism and, therefore, that the need for violence against people in general, for the subordination of one man to another, and of one section of the population to another, will vanish altogether since people will become accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social life without violence and without subordination.
In order to emphasize this element of habit, Engels speaks of a new generation, "reared in new, free social conditions", which will "be able to discard the entire lumber of the state"--of any state, including the democratic-republican state.
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In a country as primitive as America, which has developed in a purely bourgeois fashion without any feudal past, but has unwittingly taken over from England a whole store of ideology from feudal times, such as the English common law, religion, and sectarianism, and where the exigencies of practical labor and the concentrating of capital have produced a contempt for all theory, which is only now disappearing in the educated circles of scholars — in such a country the people must become conscious of their own social interests by making blunder upon blunder. Nor will that be spared the workers; the confusion of the trade unions, socialists, Knights of Labor, etc., will persist for some time to come, and they will learn only by their own mistakes. But the main thing is that they have started moving, that things are going ahead generally, that the spell is broken; and they will go fast, too, faster than anywhere else, even though on a singular road, which seems, from the theoretical standpoint, to be an almost insane road.
Watch this quote be abused by morons.
I think most of the morons online have abandoned quoting anything.
I was mainly thinking of the neo-Kaut/Trot/Chapotard/stupidpol crowd.
While reading I found this line in the provisional rules:
"They declare that this International Association and all societies and individuals adhering to it will acknowledge truth, justice, and morality, as the basis of their conduct toward each other, and toward all men, without regard to colour, creed, or nationality;
They hold it a duty of a man to claim the rights of a man and a citizen, not only for himself, but for every man who does his duty. No rights without duties, no duties without rights; "
The ICP claims that this document is a "unitary and invariant body of party theses."
Is it incorrect to say it's wrong to base a party on "truth, justice, and morality? Same with bourgeois "rights" and "duties?" If so, how should this statement be treated, just as pure corruption from petty-bourgeois socialists? What is the meaning of this in relation to the international communist movement?
Or, more importantly, am I just looking at this the wrong way, and hence bathing myself complete idiocy by asking these questions? Am I thinking about this too hard? Too little?
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Marx addresses this in a letter to Engels here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/letters/64_11_04-abs.htm
I saw that it was impossible to make anything out of the stuff. In order to justify the extremely strange way in which I intended to present the "sentiment" already "voted for", I wrote an Address to the Working Classes (which was not in the original plan: a sort of review of the adventures of the working classes since 1845); on the pretext that everything material was included in the address and that we ought not to repeat the same things three times over, I altered the whole preamble, threw out the declaration of principles, and finally replaced the 40 rules with 10. Insofar as international politics come into the address, I speak of countries, not of nationalities, and denounce Russia, not the lesser nations. My proposals were all accepted by the subcommittee. Only I was obliged to insert two phrases about "duty" and "right" into the preamble to the statutes, ditto "truth, morality, and justice", but these are placed in such a way that they can do no harm.
As for why the ICP counts the text among its invariant party theses, I can only speculate, and it may be worth asking them for clarification directly, but I assume they consider the general principles laid out in the Provisional Rules to be invariant, not necessarily the specific language used in the preamble.
That's a good idea in regards to contacting them directly; perhaps I will email them or something of the sort. Thanks for sending the letter, it makes much more sense to me now.
The ICP is obviously aware of that letter, referencing it in multiple texts, such as this one from 1949:
Among the hundred quotations that could be given, here is one: in a letter to Engels, Marx, who envied having escaped a meeting where many philosophers, philanthropists and humanitarians of this kind were present, reported to him that, designated to write the final address, he had not been able to avoid placing the usual words of Freedom, Humanity, Justice, Civilisation, Thought, etc… He adds, to apologise: I was careful to put them in passages where, meaning absolutely nothing, they could not do anything wrong.
When the ICP in that text write:
We are not mystics and we admit that a Marxist is obliged, by party duty, to say or write nonsense. However, there are two conditions: the first is that he does not believe it; the second is that he does not try to make others believe it.
Then it's precisely such occurences that they have in mind - not framing political differences as philosophical, or similar manoeuvres.
There's also a document by the IWMA itself that comments on the phrase of "equal rights and duties" in another context:
There are other distortions of the text. The first consideration of the Rules is framed thus: ‘The struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means ... a struggle ... for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule.’
The Paris translation mentions the ‘equal rights and duties’, in other words, the general phrase which exists in nearly all the democratic manifestoes of the past hundred years, and which means something quite different to different classes; but it leaves out the concrete phrase, ‘the abolition of all class rule’.
This letter by Marx is also relevant:
The compromise with the Lassalleans has led to compromise with other half-way elements too; in Berlin (e.g., Most) with Dühring and his “admirers,” but also with a whole gang of half-mature students and super-wise doctors who want to give socialism a “higher ideal” orientation, that is to say, to replace its materialistic basis (which demands serious objective study from anyone who tries to use it) by modern mythology with its goddesses of Justice, Freedom, Equality and Fraternity.
As for your confusion as to why the ICP claims the document is "invariant", despite it containing a questionable sentence: probably both because they expect people to have a critical attitude which does not equate invariance with dogma, and because they know what the origin of that sentence is.
Will read these. Thanks!
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We would rather you not to answer questions wrongly.
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The first part of a series of articles released 1948 in the journal Prometeo.
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The way that Bourrinet shits his politics all over this is pretty disgusting.
It would be much more interesting without his obnoxious remarks, yeah.
If he kept to himself then I wouldn't be questioning some of those "quotes" and comments
It doesn't help that he is not consistent in his use of quotation marks either - sometimes they seem to be direct quotes, in other instances he seems to use them for emphasis. Plus the random italicisation and boldfacing.
An English translation of several chapters of Philippe Bourrinet’s book “Un siècle de gauche communiste ‘italienne’ (1915-2015) – Dictionnaire biographique d’un courant internationaliste“, which aim at tracing back the history of the International Communist Party. Bourrinet intersperses his own commentary into the presentation, not all of which we agree with.
Hello r/leftcommunism,
I recently read The Myth of Lenin’s “Concept of The Party” and Anatomy of the Micro-Sect by Hal Draper. In short, I found them very thought-provoking and good context of the evolution of Lenin's thought.
What I am looking for is similar writings on party-building, especially critiques of the "vanguard" model based off What is to be Done? and widely emulated by the New Communist Movement and today groups like the PSL. I'd also be interested in any other sorts of writings on party-building from a left communist or Bordigist perspective or whatever. I also found this blog post interesting so stuff similar to that would be appreciated as well.
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Thank you for the recommendations. Any specific passages from Marx you have min mind?
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thanks
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My man ross goes savage AF
In his introduction to The Communist Manifesto - A Modern Edition, E. Hobsbawm writes that "Marx wrote the Manifesto less as a Marxian economist than as a communist Ricardian". What does he mean by this?
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I think it refers to the idea that Marx simply adopted Ricardo's labor theory of value rather than creating his own. Although the Althusserian idea of the difference between young and old Marx is kind of nonsense, there is a difference in that the young Marx seems to see labor in capitalism is the same sort of labor that humans have been doing for all of history, but just in an alienated and exploitative way. Ricardian socialism would want the liberation of labor and a change to a more equitable mode of distribution. This would be in line Ricardo's conception of labor. Moishe Postone criticizes most of Orthodox Marxism as "Ricardian Hegelianism" for partially this reason and I would assume this author is doing the same. In contrast, starting around the time of the Grundrisse, Marx sees labor as the type of work specific to capitalism, argues for its abolition rather than its liberation/realization, and wants to fundamentally change the mode of production rather than simply changing the inequitable mode of distribution. This would be a more Marxian picture of communism, and it's not really present in the Manifesto
Thank you! This really helped.
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I agree that I probably am reading the second international onto Marx. I've never been much of a fan of the manifesto, and I'm probably not as charitable with it. For Postone at least, he doesn't spend too much time criticizing the young Marx, just sort of mentions off hand that his early work transhistoricizes labor, but spends most of the time critiquing the Marxists. Although I don't think to be anti-labor is to be anti-Marxist. Obviously I don't mean we shouldn't support the struggles of labor or that the working class isn't the force that will bring about communism. What I do tend to agree with is the idea that labor is the form of work unique to capitalism just as value is the form of wealth unique to it. The working class is revolutionary because its struggle points to an alternative to capitalism, but no that it is the revolutionary subject of history Also, I agree that Marxist Economics is an oxymoron, but I'm not sure where that was brought up
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The last time I read the Manifesto was roughly 3 months ago. It's not that a dislike it -- there's quite a bit that I like, but I'm not as big a fan as others seem to be. I understand it's importance as a historical document and in the development of Marxism, but I don't like things like the call for a progressive income tax and the like. It's alright, I just don't think it's as substantial or interesting as a lot of other things
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But that's exactly my point. It's a document laying out the demands of the workers struggle at a certain point in time. It's not irrelevant or outdated and I'm sure it's an incredibly significant document to many contemporary Marxists. It's just that for my (admittedly recent and severely underdeveloped) study of Marxism, the manifesto was not that important. I don't mean to suggest it should be done away with, it's just lacking in some areas for my taste. Who knows. After I get a better grasp on everything, I might come back to it and really come to appreciate the manifesto
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it is more of a historical document to be honest.
even marx and engels criticised the ten planks of the manifesto.
still a great read tho
I recently came into contact with some people who I guess you would say are anti-Germans, or affiliated with that movement to some extent. They promoted a very pro-Allies narrative about the Second World War, including to the extent of supporting the bombings of places like Hamburg and Dresden. I don't really know enough about World War Two to challenge them, so I was wondering if there is any reading on the subject that might be recommended from people here?
I'm not just looking for theoretical Marxist literature, by the way - any historical literature on the Second World War that you might recommend would be useful.
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I'm reading the first of Richard J. Evans' (not that Rich Evans) Third Reich Trilogy, which is supposedly the new definitive account of the conditions in Germany pre-war and the rise, tenure, and end of the Nazi Party. So the advertising and /r/askhistorians seem to suggest. A third of the way in it's an easy recommendation.
All three .epubs are on libgen too, which makes it even easier.
https://libcom.org/library/world-war-ii-reading-guide
Haven't read any of it, but hopefully at least some of it will be helpful.
Thanks, I'll get started on a few of the articles at least. At a glance most of it looks pretty acceptable.
Old thread, but, I'm of the opinion that Martin Axelrad's Auschwitz or The Great Alibi is correct regarding the Holocaust and capitalism's link to it (I wrote an essay on the Holocaust for History once and it helped compliment the evidence I already had regarding capitalism, Nazism and the extermination of the Jews). The wikipedia article on it is wrong, as well; it doesn't ever deny the Holocaust. Who ever authored that article is of the opinion that denying the Holocaust happened purely as a result of Nazi ideology means you deny it happened, which is bourgeois history.
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Damn, I wish I paid more attention in French class.
Any English translation? Google Chrome's translation was shotty at best. I feel like I got the gist but some of the nuance was lost.
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"As opposed to the ideology of the strategy, the proletarians can only rely on their own autonomous capacity to act and think, boosted by the rapid spread of their struggle worldwide."
Why exactly does the "autonomous capacity to act and think" not include strategic acting and thinking? Sorry, but this is garbage. It sounds like the author is just fishing for excuses to not do anything.
It's a critique of organizational and strategic formalism, not a proposition for inaction.
🔥
Coming into communism I had no idea that there were all these different tendencies that emerged historically, and generally considered communist thought to be monolithic. For instance it took me the longest time to figure out that Marxism-Leninism was an ideology developed by the USSR and not just a logical continuation of Marx's ideas, or that "Marxism" itself arose from the Second International's limited access to Marx's works. I've only managed to discern these histories through lurking in comments, and even then there are still huge gaps in my understandings, such as how all the various anarchisms developed. I'm wondering if there are any good, comprehensive histories that show the historical movements/influences behind the development of major leftist ideologies?
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The first introductory chapter (pp. 23-77) of Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically is really good at this. Like a crash course in the development of post-Marx communist thought, centred around how the various strands approached Marx's Capital.
Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out!
thanks
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3 articles from the 1930s by International Communist Left (aka "Bordigist") magazine Bilan.
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/SpainBil.htm
Precisely the three articles that lead me to make this post. Going back over them again, I had the impression they barely scratch the surface of what happened. What they do discuss, they critique, and I understand they were only ever just like an urgently distributed leaflet, but they say nothing much about the actual collectives themselves. On the other hand, I've been swamped by lengthy anarchist accounts which in many cases are overly optimistic. The writings about the areas where collectivisation faced difficulties are for sure discussed less.
OK. Here's one book
Yeah, Seidman is pretty good on the topic.
I'm trying...
Preesh
The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution By Burnett Bolloten
Lessons of the collectives - Victor Albahttps://libcom.org/library/lessons-collectives-victor-alba
Agrarian Collectives during the Spanish Civil War - Michael Seidman
This blog is a good resourcehttps://poumista.wordpress.com
When Insurrections Die - Dauve
I've been finding a lot of conflicting information on this. Ignoring the anti-democratic tendencies of organic centralism, practically speaking the differences seem to be mostly semantical. The general consensus even in ultra-left circles seems to be mostly negative.
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Not a very clear question. Organic Centralism is an approach to organizing the party. Leninist Vanguardism is a party's approach to the working class.
A good discussion from a "Bordigist" perspective of the differences between Leninist Democratic Centralism and Organic Centralism can be found here
"The rank-and-file’s obedience to the centre’s orders is no longer guaranteed by observing the articles of a statute or a code, but by making sure the orders are in line with the party’s common patrimony. The party hierarchy no longer has to be elected by the rank-and-file, nor nominated from above, because the sole criterion for selection remains that of capacity to carry out the party organ’s various functions. The fact that one individual happens to be at the centre rather than another won’t change the party’s political line or its tactics: it may affect the centre’s effectiveness to a greater or lesser degree, but the appointment of the comrades most suited to the various roles still remains something that is ‘natural and spontaneous’, with no need for a particular form of ratification. The party hierarchy thus becomes an organic rather than a political hierarchy. The party is composed of various organs and roles, which in order to function require actual people; but these people are no longer asked whether they are Mensheviks or Bolsheviks, whether they belong to the right or left of the party. They are asked only if they are able to fill the role required of them by the party, however high or low it may figure in the hierarchical order. And, as a consequence, it is no longer crucial to know which individual is giving the orders, but only to insist that the orders don’t conflict with the party’s traditional line upheld by all of its members, that they don’t depart from it, and that the orders are timely and relevant. That is to say, the requirement is that whoever carries out the ‘central’ function performs it to the best of their ability in conformity with the party line. And the internal life of the party no longer manifests as a constant battle between divergent currents, that is, as a political struggle to dominate the organisation’s central power and impose a particular tactical line on it. Given that we don’t argue about our doctrine, programme or core tactics, it means that internal relations assume the form of a joint, shared work which all party members participate in, the common aim being, on the basis of their shared patrimony, to seek the best solutions to the various problems that arise."
So, how does selection occur? Lottery?
volunteer, members ask you, talents and aptitudes
The wiki on Bordigism says the selection would take place through professionals selecting people for the roles. Is there any measure of controversy between how selection takes place?
And would it be fair to characterize this as a sort of technocratic vanguardism?
Sounds like wikipedia is offering personal opinions rather than quoting.
"The latter are not asked: are you workers? What is your trade? Are you a mechanic, a tinsmith, a carpenter? They are as likely to be factory workers as students, or even sons of nobles; they will reply; I’m a revolutionary, that’s my trade. Only Stalinist cretinism could interpret the phrase to mean revolutionary in a career sense, of being on the party payroll. " - Croaking about Praxis, 1953
So there's no professional members in organic centralism.
Controversy?
"The Left, therefore, views the appearance within the party of dissent and fractions as the symptom, as the outer manifestation of a sickness that has infected the party organ. Consequently it is a matter not so much of fighting the symptoms but of finding the causes of the illness, which are always to be found in some wrongly conducted aspect of the party’s collective work and its central functions. The party’s activity is veering away from the historical line on which it is based; the organisation’s assimilation of the theoretical, programmatic and tactical foundations is inadequate: consequently different evaluations and fractions may arise. That is the Left’s thesis. Or, the party is going though a degenerative process caused by opportunism and the formation of fractions is the party organ’s healthy reaction to the deviation." - here
I'm not sure of what a "technocratic vanguardism" means to you. It doesn't sound like what I see in the ICP's writings.
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Good book!
I feel like this was posted here recently
Nah I checked and some of Cyril Smith's other works were posted here but not this one.
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Of course, the reality is that the whole idea of the ‘socialist camp’, and of the ‘anti-imperialist bloc’ as an extension of that, dramatically collapsed after 1991 - after the fall of the Soviet Union and the market turn in China. Once that had gone, all sorts of people who were ‘talking Soviet’ - in the Congress Party in India, in the African National Congress, in the nationalist parties in the ‘third world’ - suddenly stopped doing so and instead started talking liberal. A very dramatic phenomenon and one which the generation of leaders who grew up in the 60s have not really come to grips with yet. What it demonstrates is that the ‘socialist’ form of nationalism was a product of the USSR, and that there is no natural, inherent connection between the nationalism of oppressed countries and the movement of the working class. It was simply the case that the apparent success of ‘socialism in a single country’ had the consequence that for many nationalists in many countries it looked like a good option.
Hello, this is kind of a vague question, more intended to instigate discussion. I’ve been noticing the inability of the (anti-capitalist) left to take significant action, and the limited power that the working class exert in its struggles. That’s not only the case in the US and Europe, where I presume most of you are more familiar with, but also in many countries in the global south, including Brazil (where I’m from), and the rest of Latin America.
I noticed that a lot of american and european socialists tend to think that revolutionary activity in the "third world" is something strong and widespread, but that is simply wrong. The majority of leftist groups here are either a) incorporated into the state apparatus, and thus, are subordinating their social bases (if they even exist) to the state (and of course to the bourgeoisie); or b) with their activities limited to activism in college campuses and showing up in protests, being only one flag among social democrats, governists, reformists and other popular front supporters and “left unity” callers (and that meaning, of course, the deradicalization of workers movements). Recently, a parliamentary coup took place here in Brazil, and we are not seeing a protagonism of the workers’ organizations in the retaliation protests that are happening, and therefore the workers interests are not being proposed as an alternative to the neoliberal attack that is happening, and to the super-exploitation of the labour force and pauperization that will follow it. The left’s tendency to adhere to the “lesser-evil-ism” is a clear sign of a completely defensive and stagnating attitude of those groups.
So, finally the questions: What are your thoughts about it? What do you think that is causing this decline of the impact of the workers’ activity in social changes? Is this the consequence of the productive restructuring of capitalism we’ve seeing in the last decades? Is it a crisis of the old forms of political organization and tactics that both the left and the workers continue to use? What’s the left communist take on how political activity should be handled in the capitalism we see today (and if you could recommend me some texts, I’ll be grateful)?
Sorry for the long (and maybe badly written) text wall. I’ve been thinking about it in the last few days, and I finally got the time to write this down. I hope that it triggers some interesting discussions.
TL;DR: What is wrong with today's left?
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I think part of the problem is, as you point to, the estrangement of Latin Americans and people in the US. Most Americans don't have a clue what their elite is doing to South America in collaboration with the South American elite but the communist movements on both sides are equally important to the other, even if the 'third world' were full of revolutionary activity the American left shouldn't see this as an excuse to sit around and talk about 'solidarity'. I was reading something recently about an American 'neoliberal' mining project in Brazil that is devastating the environment and destroying and marginalising huge sections of the people there. With projects like that happening all over Latin America there is little that the traditional left has in its arsenal to combat it, they usually wait to pick up the pieces when 'neoliberalism' inevitably falls apart.
Is it a crisis of the old forms of political organization and tactics that both the left and the workers continue to use? What’s the left communist take on how political activity should be handled in the capitalism we see today (and if you could recommend me some texts, I’ll be grateful)?
I think it would help to form associations which openly reject the political left, ask the questions you are asking here, and instead seek more immediate answers in practice, use these associations as the basis for creating social relations that aren't based on money, commodity, value etc. This can only be a product of real struggles, not just 'leftist political struggles', not just combinations of workers in the traditional form but everyone that suffers in society. Obviously there is more to it that just that, I don't want to sound like a crude autonomist here but it's important to emphasise the need to break with the old forms.
I suggest this essay:
http://libcom.org/library/1-capitalism-communism
From this pamphlet:
http://libcom.org/library/eclipse-re-emergence-communist-movement
With projects like that happening all over Latin America there is little that the traditional left has in its arsenal to combat it, they usually wait to pick up the pieces when 'neoliberalism' inevitably falls apart.
Yes, this is very true. And the worse is that a wave of revolutionary and mass movements have risen in Latin America in response to the consequences of neoliberalism and other new forms of imperialism in the last decades. They were not always protagonized by the old industrial proletariat, but were able to shake the latin american bourgeois democracies. Unfortunately, these movements were eventually tamed, or were unable to directly confront capital. I think this is a clear sign that we live in transitional times between revolutionary periods, a period of the restructuring of revolutionary tactics, in the same measure that capitalism had its own restructuring.
I think it would help to form associations which openly reject the political left
I tend to agree with you there. More and more history shows the detachment between the political left and the proletariat - in the sense, of course, of those who do not own property, not only the old taylorist\fordist industrial workers, that were always characterized as the protagonists of revolutionary struggle. In the next revolutionary wave, I think this contradiction will be solved by either the dissolution of the political left - as you put it - or with a radical change on the organization of it. But who knows, this is just futurology. Thanks for the recommendations, I’ll read them.
I think you're in the wrong place even though I actually agree with most of what you said. The kind of leftists you're talking about are more aligned to /r/socialism
Oh, I'm aware of this. Just didn't want to hear the same "sectarianism" thing there over and over again. I'm just looking for some non-/r/socialism insights, more specifically, a left-communist perspective.
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I liked Nihilist Communism, but to be honest if you aren't an activist or ex-activist still "recovering", I don't see a point in reading it.
So what's the point of it? Is it some kind of self-help book for post-Trotskyists?
I was never a Trot, and I'd put it in less dickish terms, but pretty much.
I was a trotskyist militant for 3 years and it helped me a lot. There are some vulgar materialist and workerist elements of the book, but nothing which i would specially recommend for anyone who is not (ex)militant
What exactly makes it workerist? The authors are clear that they do not put working class culture on a pedestal and instead want to destroy working class culture.
In what ways did it help you in particular?
I'm curious because I too spent almost two years militating for a Trot org.
Could it be considered a "preventative measure" for those people who have yet to become activists?
(i haven't read it but)
if someone would like to describe where it differs with left communism (or, better yet, the modern ultraleft), i would most appreciate it.
so far, i've seen it used to support some basic positions i agree with, with regards to orthodox marxism and/or leninism, so i'd be interested in hearing where it actually differs with us.
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Strongly agree with this critique of Chino's popular essay Bloom and Contend.
I commonly see people trying to criticise Maoists on /r/socialism making the same mistakes as Chino: confining Maoism to Chinese history, assuming the PRC was a copy of the USSR, using liberal anti-communist categories like "totalitarianism", falling into determinism about the outcome of these revolutions, overlooking genuine communist class forces, and adopting the bourgeois "great man" theory of history, among other errors.
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This organisation is fucking brilliant, I need to get into contact.
Absurd how much of the Left doesn't analyse class composition or conduct inquiries, mostly they just apply whichever historical "thread" they come from and only respond to the class movement in retrospect.
I'm not a big fan of autonomists.
I never was either cause I associated them with the Italian "social centres" and Toni Negri, i.e. people who think the working class no longer exists (or alternatively isn't the revolutionary subject), that the law of value doesn't apply, and mostly wasted time carrying out such subversive activities as.... guerrilla gardening.
But this summer I've been studying the earlier operaistas and I'm not fully convinced but I really appreciate the ideas of class composition and the workers' inquiry.
What is your main beef with them?
I don't think that the autonomist of today have much to do with the autonomists of the past. The modern type just seem to me to be rehashing old ideas only in more convoluted and vague language and acting like by doing so is treading new ground.
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Found this article very readable and fascinating. The authors, as autonomists, start from the assumption that history really is "the history of class struggle". Therefore, their starting point is not this or that economic trend in the capitalist economy, but the autonomous movement of the working class, its technical and political composition. The composition of capital, its forms of economic and political organisation, are only analysed as something acting in response to the proletariat's movement.
One of the main points that comes with this perspective is that the working class's political organisation depends on its technical composition. They therefore see councilism and Bolshevism as two sides of the same coin, as the political forms of organisation of a highly skilled section of the early 20th century productive workforce that identifies with their work, in one case seeking further control over it and on the other needing to bridge a gap with the unskilled mass. Lots of food for thought.
Basically I agree with what you said.
Differences of councilism and Leninism are about having diametrically oposite answers to the wrong question, question of form of worker's revolution while the question of content is by councilist just left for working class to decide or by Leninists left to party to decide, according to certain conditions. Gilles Dauve explained it very good in Eclipse and Re-Emergence of Communist Movement.
Our examination of the problem of "organization" and of the content of socialism has led us to affirm the existence of a revolutionary dynamic under capitalism. Produced by capitalism, the revolutionary movement assumes new forms in a new situation. Socialism is not merely the management of society by the workers, but the termination of the historical cycle of capital by the proletariat. The proletariat does not only seize the world; it also concludes the movement of capitalism and exchange. This is what distinguishes Marx from all utopian and reformist thinkers; socialism is produced by the objective dynamics which created capital and spread it all over the planet. Marx insists on the content of the movement. Lenin and the ultra-left insisted on its forms: form of organization, form of management of society, while they forgot the content of the revolutionary movement. This, too, was a historical product. The situation of the period prevented revolutionary struggles from having a communist content. Leninism expressed the impossibility of revolution in his time. Councilism expressed its necessity, but without seeing exactly where its possibility lies. Marx's ideas on the party were abandoned. It was the time of the large reformist organizations, then of the communist parties (which quickly or immediately sank into another form of reformism). The revolutionary movement was not strong enough. Everywhere, in Germany, in Italy, in France, in Great Britain, the beginning of the twenties was marked by the control of the masses by "workers'" leaders. Reacting against this situation, ultra-leftists were driven to the point where they feared to become the new bureaucrats. Instead of understanding the Leninist parties as a product of proletarian defeat, they refused any party, and like Lenin let the Marxist conception of the party remain in oblivion. As for the content of socialism, all social movements, except in Spain for a short time, tried to administer capitalism and not to overthrow it. In such conditions the ultra-left could not make a profound critique of Leninism. They could only take the opposite view, and oppose other forms to Leninism, without seeing the content of revolution. This was all the more natural as that content did not clearly appear. (We must nevertheless remember that the ultra-left provided a remarkable critique of some aspects of capitalism - unionism and "workers'" parties). These are the reasons why the ultra-left movement only replaced the Leninist fetishism of the party and class-consciousness with the fetishism of workers' councils. The critique of both Leninism and ultra-leftism is now possible because the development of capitalism gives us an idea of the real content of the revolutionary movement. By holding on to the ultra-left ideas we presented (fear of creating the party, and workers' management), we would turn them into mere ideology. When these ideas first appeared around 1920, they expressed a real revolutionary struggle, and even their "mistakes" played a positive and progressive role in the struggles against social democracy and Leninism. Their limits were the expression of the activity of thousands of revolutionary workers. But things have changed a great deal since 1920. A new revolutionary workers' minority is in a slow process of formation, as was revealed by the 1968 events in France, and by other struggles in several countries.
Very interesting, thanks for posting. I must read this in full!
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I need to read Camatte. Definitely disagree with his primitivism and negation of the class struggle, but it's true that capitalism destroys the human community, and communism should seize on the sense of dissatisfaction created by that alienation, lest reactionary movements recuperate it.
Gilles Dauvé makes a similar point in When Insurrections Die:
Counter-revolution inevitably triumphs on the terrain of revolution. Through its “people’s community” National Socialism would claim to have eliminated the parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy against which the proletariat revolted after 1917. But the conservative revolution also took over old anti-capitalist tendencies (the return to nature, the flight from cities…) that the workers’ parties, even the extremist ones, had misestimated by their refusal to integrate the a-classist and communitarian dimension of the proletariat, and their inability to think of the future as anything but an extension of heavy industry. In the first half of the 19th century, these themes were at the centre of the socialist movement’s preoccupations, before Marxism abandoned them in the name of progress and science, and they survived only in anarchism and in sects.
This text has been formatted into a printable pamphlet here:https://subversionpress.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-shade-of-swords/
I've been called a sectarian multiple times for my criticism of Bolshevism. How should I respond?
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Well, most people have no idea what being a sectarian means. It does not mean "anyone who disagrees with me", which is often how it is used. A sectarian is someone who upholds a position which requires the m to abandon the critical method (which is Marxism; "a critique of all that is existing"), to support things that are a leap of faith or dogma, such as tankies saying that socialism and communism are different (yet the same) things, where the law of value operates and a political economy exists in socialism just because Stalin said so. This is pretty much the essence of utopianism, where political sects form about specific ideas and leaders. So in the future, just tell them to go fuck themselves. They're obviously just immature shills for whatever ideological tendency they're supporting that month and are upset that you don't agree with their utopian bullshit.
I usually just tell them to stop being so infantile.
sectarian = heresy for those cultists, so i mean like who cares what they call u, theyre totaly impotent
Bolshevism
OK grandma
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Individualism as usually described is pretty problematic when raised to a political level. There's nothing revolutionary in being an individual and maybe it's a bit backwards when we're trying to get people to recognise the whole class struggle thing.
Nonviolence doesn't really exist, since it's mostly an ideology of submission to the state, which is an extremely violent institution.
I guess you could call it liberal, given its respect for property and free speech, but calling everything "liberal" isn't really useful, IMO.
edit - oh, and "individualism" is used in many different ways, but I guess in some ways individualism can contribute to liberation - an insistence on breaking with the routine ways capital reproduces itself, for example. Other times, it's part of a reactionary ideology, i.e. Ayn Rand.
pacifism
Liberalism.
individualism
What do you even mean by that?
Individualism as in hedonism or not wanting to be exactly like everyone else.
hedonism
How do you define hedonism?
not wanting to be exactly like everyone else.
There's nothing wrong with that lol.
Those are very separate things
İt is liberal.
Violence is a necessary part of communist revolution.
I was thinking about asking this yesterday! It's so common for me to see left coms denouncing violence so I was wondering if they're pacifists.
It's so common for me to see left coms denouncing violence
Where and in what context?
Hmm probably especially when you're trying to distance y'alls selves from the "revolutionary" violence of other Marxists, I guess.
Like who? We did come up with the term of "revolutionary totalitarianism".
ML's etc.
I'm not familiar with that term.
You seem to be confusing leftcoms with others. Violence is the only way to achieve revolution.
I legit have never seen leftcoms on Reddit advocating violence. But hey I'm just a lurker.
Leftcoms make up a minority. That's probably why.
Left communism does not imply pacifism. We do support the use of violence in certain situations.
What kind of situations?
Revolutionary.
During an armed revolution and fighting fascists.
left coms usually mean this regarding foreign affairs. so i guess they would not like seeing you harming facists in other coutries
we reject pacifism, but why depends on what you mean by the term. if you mean pacifism in the sense of liberal opposition to war, we reject it because we oppose war from a class struggle perspective (revolutionary defeatism). if you mean pacifism in the sense of non-violence as a means and tactic, we reject it, not because we glorify violence but because class struggle should be fought with the means necessary at a given time, be it violent or not.
Violence isn't necessarily wanted or welcomed but is an unfortunate inevitability in revolution. The Bourgeoisie will not let their power go away peacefully. If I could overthrow capitalism without a single shot or punch, I would do it in a heartbeat.
I belive in democratic socialism, so i lend towards pacifism. But i now thats an unpopular opinion.
Im also for individuality, wich mean you can feel unique and think of yourself as different from the rest but at the same time as a "part of" i think socialism/communism is the only way in wich you can have it for real, individualism on the other hand i see it as in "everyone for themself" wich is just evil.
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Yeah its ashame they don't. However,Varne is a frequent guest on at least two other podcasts possibly more. Those two podcasts being from alpha to omega and zero squared.
I happen to know one of the SR guys, they have a ton of episodes recorded but unreleased because they've had trouble finding people to do the audio editing. They apparently have found someone now, so expect more from them soon!
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It is the biography of a man who never quite fitted in; a defiant thinker and revolutionary who was never astride of the times; a perennial outsider in a century that was also “lost.” Through extensive interviews, a thorough survey of Mattick’s writings and an exhaustive perusal of his correspondence, Marxism in a Lost Century pieces together the compelling account of an intellectually and politically principled man who was rarely at home in the world.
Mattick was a resilient council communist at a time when the left had become broadly dominated by struggles between the 3rd and 4th Internationals and the rise of the New Left; a falling-rate-of-profit crisis theorist at the height of Keynesianism and the rising popularity of monopoly capital and world systems theory; a German émigré residing in the United States at a time when nativist suspicions abounded; a committed left radical who was active as an anti-Communist political pall settled over Cold War America; a Marxist who retained a resolute faith in the proletariat at a time when many left intellectuals had begun to write the working class off as a force of history, and a well-read autodidact with limited formal education who was never fully embraced by left academics.
Crossposted from /r/HistoryofIdeas.
Great book.
Indeed it is. A bit light on the theory side, but Mattick was right in the thick of it in the German Revolution and the workers' movement in the US during the Depression, so it makes for very interesting historical reading at least
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The working class.
I don't think it really means anything to say we support the working class in the Syrian war when the class isn't acting as a force in any way.
It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good, there's an incredible amount of that in communist circles sadly
It's not a football match.
Rojava/The YPG
Why should communists support a section of the bourgeoisie?
They support socialist ideals.
loooool
(absurd idealism)
Do they not?
I don't care about socialist ideals, I care about socialist content.
are waging an anarchist revolution against Islamic state
have a socialist economy
are upholding socialist ideals
utilise a form.of federative direct.democracy
push for gender equality
I agree with the LeftCom critique of the 20th century communist regimes, but saying that Rojava is not socialist in any way is just nonsense. What the hell do you want in a community for it to be actually socialist? Full fucking communism?
It's not about whether or not the group has radical stances on things, or even if individual members are hardcore Marxists or Anarchists, but as /u/notaflyingpotato said it's about the content of the group. If we look objectively at what they're doing, we can see that they are simply waging a war, which is not a movement of the working class in reaction to their conditions under Capitalism. They are fighting over territorial control in favour of their local Bourgeoisie (private property still exists in Rojava under their regime, so much for Socialism) against other people doing the same thing.
Their actions are extremely reminiscent of Maoist groups, which is ironic because that is where they came from 20 - 30 years ago before they "changed their ideals".
absurdist levels of idealism right here
content of the group
Which 'group' are you referring to? The YPG? The YPJ? The PYD? TEV-DEM? SDF? Or the numerous communist/leftist orgs (IFB, MLKP, TKP/ML, BÖG, CR, TKEP)?
I don't think you can group Rojava into one entity when discussing the conflict. Also, with the lack of industrialization in the region, there really wasn't a "working-class/proletariat" in the Marxist sense, so that isn't a great argument. We definitely need to be critical of EVERY revolution, no matter how invested we feel towards it, but I think it's premature to write-off the Rojava Revolution as a Socialist one. They're doing all this with the Syrian Govt, Turkish Govt, ISIS and every other Islamist and opposition group breathing down their neck. It's not as black and white as 'Bourgeoisie vs Proletariat'.
true but russia and china also didnt have a "working-class/proletariat" in the Marxist sense either for the most part. Peasants made up the bulk in both instances though more so in china. Both weren't industrialized enough to have a substantial proletariat.
TL;DR?
Rojava's not perfect, nothing is at all and I never expected them to, but they're better than nothing and I like them.
Should stick this in the sidebar.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/
You should give this a read.
Links to Infantile Disorder on r/leftcommunism
What
Are you for real? lmao
Found the Leninist. You're in /r/leftcommunism btw
I look to the struggle of the class as a class. Is there any there?
Rojava
Id say one should be hesitant to support or dismiss the northern syrian kurds just yet. its too early to say what they'll do once the war comes to a close and provides them a opportunity to focus on other things.
i don't support any of the factions. when the working class is not acting as a force and is used as cannon fodder in a war driven by competing bourgeois factions the duty of communists is to embrace proletarian internationalism by condemning the war and highlighting the real nature of nationalist bourgeois movements like the rojava
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It's good to see more stuff from Bulan being translated. Also good solid article on why anti fascism is ass
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Forcing people out of family homes would be terrible
Also, if you put in place measures to prevent this such as letting people keep objects of deceased family members but not money, there would be a lot of people transferring their wealth into non-money things. Seems like an acceleration of commodity fetishism to me.
Furthermore, you can have capitalism without inheritance. This would bolster ideological justification of the system because it could masquerade better as a "meritocracy".
There are a few viable solutions to these problems.
First of all, we have to make a distinction between personal and private property. Personal being used for the satisfaction of the owner themselves. Private being used to generate a profit and capital. There would obviously be a factor of prohibiting inheriting a certain amount of square footage.
As for people finding loopholes in the system, I think there's ways to stop that too. For one, I don't think that a communist government would consider a jewelry collection worth 50 million dollars that your mother bought a few years before her death as inheritable. That would be way too obvious. Another way to prevent people from exploiting the system would be to keep them from selling inherited stuff. The moment you start selling what you've inherited, it's no longer a sentimental heirloom.
The problem of capitalism is rooted ultimately in the realm of production, not in any distributive or redistributive mechanism.
What about material items that may incidentally have some monetary value, but are kept primarily because of sentimental value?
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By Devrim, who posts here sometimes I think :https://libcom.org/library/street-protests-class-power
Thanks :)
Thanks :)
Oh sorry I didn't see someone had already posted that.
There was a Turkish section of the ICC, who ended up departing to work outside of the group, but I can't remember their name. If you do a bit of looking around you might be able to find them, I imagine they might have something useful for you?
I'm a little confused when people say that a class party must be "an organ of the proletariat" or "the most advanced wing of the proletariat". How is this distinguished from a group trying to control the proletariat from the outside? When do communist workers organizing a class party become a Leninist vangaurd party?
I'm interested in the Bordigaist class party but the distinction between that and a party trying to externally "build socialism" has always been confusing to me. Is it just whether the members are a part of the proletariat or not? Thanks in advance.
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I think that the "Bordigist" answer would be to look at their program.
As in a class party would be more about education and agitation while a vanguard would be about leading the revolution? Or something like that?
No, it's more according to what is in their actual program. Well I don't know the details. I'm only hazarding a guess here, but from my impressions, the Bordigists were obsessed with programs and the invariance of Marxism so if your program wasn't communist then your party wasn't communist. As to the connection of the party to the class, that really as far as I can tell amounted to having party people in working class organisations. Not just a question of having workers in your party. This isn't to say that they were trying to take control of these organisations either, they had the position that people had to be won over to their side so they weren't sectarian, and did their best to bring arguments between members to the front so that they could be dealt with. Also to discipline in the party, Bordiga thought it was a dumb thing to try to enforce in an organisation that is in essence purely voluntary.
I think if you read Theses on the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution then you might get a clearer picture.
6.The most important task of a genuine communist party is to keep always in closest touch with the broadest masses of the proletariat. In order to do that, communists can and should also be active in associations which, though they are not party organisations, have large proletarian groups among their members, such as the associations of war invalids in various countries, the "Hands off Russia" committees in England, proletarian tenants' leagues, etc. The Russian example of the so-called "non- parties" workers' and peasants' conferences is particularly important. These conferences are organised in practically every town, in every working-class district, and also in the countryside. The broadest masses of even the backward workers take part in the elections to these conferences. The most pressing questions are placed on the agenda -- food supplies, housing, the military situation, schools, the current political tasks, etc. The communists exercise a most active influence on these "non-party" conferences, and with the greatest success for the party.
Communists consider it their most important task to carry on the work of organisation and instruction in a systematic fashion within these wider workers' organisations. But in order to do this successfully, in order to prevent the enemies of the revolutionary proletariat from taking possession of these broad workers' organisations, the advanced communist workers must have their own independent tightly-knit communist party, which acts always in an organised way and which is able, at every turn of events and whatever form the movement takes, to look after the general interests of communism.
7.Communists do not by any means shun mass workers' organisations which have a non-party character, even when these are of an outright reactionary character (yellow or Christian unions, etc.); they do not shrink from taking part in them and using them. Within these organisations the Communist Party constantly carries on its propaganda and indefatigably persuades the workers that the idea of non-partisanship as a principle is deliberately encouraged among the workers by the bourgeoisie and their lackeys in order to divert them from organised struggle for socialism.
Thanks I'll check that out.
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The title is a little misleading considering that the article is about anarchists and the CNT.
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Hmmm, maybe I'll buy it... Or I could just read the other languages.
Wait, is this just the same thing as the obituary that is already in English that Damen wrote or is the biography that came later?
I think the book consists of both the obituary and previously untranslated letters and texts
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xpost from /r/communization:
Some thoughts:
I actually found this critique of communisation, in particular its lack of racial politics and minimal effort around gendered violence, to be refreshing. And, like any good critique, it includes
withpoints of departure: compulsory heterosexuality and the merger of racialisation/gendering. As a proponent of communisation (whatever that means), I see this as a gap to construct a political bridge, perhaps fomenting new theoretical endeavors.In particular, considering the aforementioned merger, it seems as if capital has a way of using otherwise trivial differences between human bodies to satisfy the needs of its relation to labour. This could lead to an alternative unification of the extra-economic divisions and politics, or perhaps a twist on Marxist humanism. Only time will tell if/where such inquiry leads us.
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I'm just a not very into their vulgar anti-theïsm at the end ("No gods, no masters, no states, no bosses") and their use of the notion of "islamofascism" seems quite ahistorical and superficial
That counts as "vulgar anti-theism" now? What's up with lefties suddenly thinking religion is cool and good? Is it an American thing? Am I old-fashioned? As far as I know the critique of religion is the starting point of marxism.
the problem is precisely with those who see religion as a good vs. bad issue
The ideology of alienation isn't nice, fun or pretty. A communist group saying "no gods, no masters" should not be controversial.
how does that relate to your moralism?
also there is no "the ideology of alienation"
Don't you think capitalism is bad? What about commodity fetishism, the reversal of means and ends, or corporatism? Aren't you also a moral agent? Just because something isn't the root of the problem but its ideological justification does that mean it's not bad?
I don't like this use of the term 'islamofacism' either. It's something that comes from the right.
islamofascism means nothing, hence why it's the favourite of those voids such as henri-levy and hitchens....the typical ex-soft-left who become campions of western civilisation and the Enlightenment in the service of the state. These terrorists are definately not fascists.
quite contentless tbh
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I had no idea of the history behind this. Is this originally a French article?
No it's originally in English, was published in Études de Marxologie, which was a French publication edited by Maximilien Rubel but also had texts in English and German
It's an interesting text, because it reminds me on German Ideology and Marx his objective to explain alienation. The critique on capitalism isn't about the huge series of crises but on impotence of the people to control their lives and being damaged by a political system.
Most of the so called leftist don't get this part and so Bakunin.
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The political class as represented by its Democrats and Republicans has done nothing attack workers and the poor at every opportunity. They act only for the sake of facilitating the accumulation of capital and repressing the workforce that makes capitalism possible.
This is a sentiment which is starting to become quite common when it comes to the two major Australian parties. Labor and Liberal: same spoonful of shit, only one of them has the audacity to serve it up with a smile. There's nothing quite as ostentatious as Trump/Sanders here, only a sea of dreary men in suits.
The spreading contempt for both both and the broader political system is an encouraging sign. The upcoming election isn't. It could be called any day now, though they're expected to wait until the end of winter. I haven't really kept up with it. Demoralising, as this article put it, is right. Our third 'major' party, the Greens, has spent the last year or so marketing itself as a safe left alternative. Of course.
Though there's often a tacit suggestion not to bother voting in these American articles, it's much harder in other places. I'll get a rather large fine if I sleep through election day, and only today I turned pale at having to hand over $4 for some curry leaves. Spoil the vote if you like, just be sure to show up. That's the implicit message here.
This article contains one inaccuracy, Sanders does use the word worker, not as often as he should, but he still does.
I've read a few post on here critiquing anti-fascist, and with the recent debate going on in r/Anarchism with one of the antifa's from the KKK rally in Anaheim being called out on his sexism and racism, I'd like to see what Left Communist main concerns are with anti-fascist.
Edit: I found this thread
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From a polemic from a Bordigist perspective:
"If we are asking the workers to desert the anti-fascist movements it isn’t because we deny the necessity of responding to the cowardly violence of fascism, but because we believe that the latter’s real power resides not in its thuggish ‘squads’ but in the real and continuous protection which democracy and the alliance of all the bourgeois fractions are prepared to give it. The proletariat doesn’t have the option of “choosing” between democracy and fascism because they are the same thing: fascism is the unscrupulous and extra-legal armed wing of democracy, and democracy is the “velvet glove” of fascism."
http://international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/CL25_26.htm#Antifascism
See Gilles Dauve's When Insurrections Die.
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No problem at all. I appreciate it actually.
This is a fairly minor (and surely unimportant) point, but 'When Insurrections Die' is actually the much more recent text by Dauve.
'Fascism/Anti-Fascism' was written way back in the 1970's. Dauve claims that he wrote 'When Insurrections Die' as an updated an re-conceived version of 'Fascism/Antifascism'.
Yeah, I was wondering about that the next day. That's what you get for glancing at submission dates at 3am like that's going to be worth anything. Thanks for the clarification.
I thought that the left communist opposition to anti-fascism was more concerned about "Anti-fascist fronts" like in Spain or during WWII, where "communists" openly collaborate with liberals? On the more individual level, I don't see anything wrong with beating up some fascists in the streets.
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Do you have some reading about those left communist partisans? That sounds interesting.
if not armed a social struggle while armed
What do you mean by that? Maybe I'm just tired but I can't seem to understand.
Yeah, I was worried that was poorly phrased.
Basically saying it seems in my reading that the partisans were fighting some armed groups but not alligning politically with others, eg align with CP to fight fascists. etc.
Antifa in its most radical, class-focused manifestations is good. It is often necessary. Neither I nor any leftcom would stop, say, Revfront of Sweden or Balaclavas in Poland from doing what they do against Nazis, especially considering their class actions. However, antifa is insufficient; antifa for its own sake will never contribute to the overthrow of capital. It must be one tool the communist uses against all forms of class collaboration.
Well, I don't really have any critiques. It is just a way to get fascists out of the streets, keep them from harming minorities. I feel like it is more of a solidarity action rather than a set belief.
Then again, I am biased and am an antifa.
EDIT: I was confusing anti-fascism as a front of political achievement and the direct action group of antifa. So take what I said with a grain of salt.
Weekly Worker (ugh) interviewed German marxist academic Freerk Huisken a while back and I thought he gave some good critiques of antifa, in particular:
Then again, let us not downplay the problem. There really exists a relatively strong and well organised neo-Nazi movement in Germany. What is wrong with the way the left deals with it?
It declares the neo-Nazis to be its main enemy. That is a political error – not least because really existing bourgeois rule does everything it can of its own accord to eliminate the neo-Nazis as political competition. Therefore, German Antifa act as auxiliaries of the government.
It seems that you do not care too much for the term ‘democracy’, whether you are referring to bourgeois democracy or the “true democracy” that Antifa advocates. But didn’t Marx regard the battle of democracy as an essential element of the class struggle? What is wrong with “true democracy” – ie, the democratic dictatorship of the majority?
Antifa’s talk of “true democracy” has nothing to do with the dictatorship of the proletariat. In general, Antifa does not want to abolish existing power relations. They merely want rule over the people to involve greater participation within the framework of existing class relations. It does not even occur to them that they effectively want to give antagonistic interests more power in equal measure.
The “democratic dictatorship of the majority” that you are talking about seems to be neither here nor there. As with your replacing of ‘proletariat’ with ‘majority’, I read your paradoxical “democratic dictatorship” as an audience-friendly compromise term. Since “dictatorship” sounds nasty, you prefix it with “democratic”. And because the “proletariat” has allegedly been overcome, you speak of abstract “majorities”, whoever may be part of it and whatever ideas and interests they may have.
Marx and Engels did not have such views even when they still thought they could gain something from democracy. What they had in mind was a class-conscious proletariat that might abolish capitalism through the vote. Such revolutionary consciousness does not automatically arise with one’s class position – unfortunately!
Idk how it goes in Germany, but that doesn't seem like it applies to the US. Here the state doesn't give a shit about white supremacists as long as they aren't a threat.
White supremacists and fascism are different things.
My first concern is that anti-fascism has no coherent vision for the world it wants to construct. Although I have no qualms with antagonizing fascism, there does not appear to be a way to eliminate it altogether forever. So what do antifas plan to do with society as the fascists are being fought? No clear answer is present.
Secondly, even if all of "the fascists" can be done away with somehow, what next? Again, I don't think anti-fascism has any real answer here. Not to say there aren't anti-fascists with actual plans for the political-economic organization of society, but as a group it has no common trajectory in that sense. This criticism could be leveled against nearly all leftists, but at least left communism attempts to find/argue out a set of positions.
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You can do it for free with duolingo. You can just submit a text to have it peer translated.
While I agree with the idea of doing it on the cheap, there is a reason why academics and scholars take translation really seriously. Bad, lazy or non-nuanced translations almost always do more harm than good.
I can understand the need for a good translation, and I would love for it to happen, I just don't expect this to materialise.
Oh me neither, which is a shame because I'd really love a "Bordiga collected works" type of book.
Also, how many years has this been going on for now? I would love to own a copy of this in english but at the expense of a hundred bucks and never knowing if it will arrive is to ask a tall order.
I would love to finally have a paper copy of Bordiga's works.
We hear this thrown around a lot, the dictatorship of the proletariat, but what does that really entail? From my understanding, the DOTP would happen in a capitalist society and is a necessary step to further the communist movement, but what does the DOTP look like? Is it state capitalism? I assume that it would very much so be capitalist (don't know for how long) as the means of production would be privately owned by the proletariat (communally owned?).
It's a shame that our lord and savior Karl didn't elaborate too much on it.
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We're talking about class dictatorships here. This means that the proletariat has obtained political power, and the form that this takes is the soviet/commune. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie finds it's perfect form, or so it is usually thought, in the bourgeois republic. The difference between the two is that once the proletariat is raised to a position of political power, it has to undo itself, unlike the bourgeoisie which consolidated itself as a class.
The whole state-capitalism is a red herring and a historical throwback to social-democracy. The idea is that capitalism progresses to the point of centralisation, and all that would be left to do would be to remove the head. It's based on Bismarck's Germany and the prevalence of this idea in Russia is probably explained by the lack of development in Russia at the time.
The dotp as state-capitalism is too much of a simplification and doesn't accurately explain what a transformation in the mode of production would mean from capitalism to communism.
once the proletariat is raised to a position of political power, it has to undo itself
What does this mean?
It must abolish itself as a class, otherwise there is no way to get to a classless, stateless society. So political power is used to end wage labor, property, money and the State, all at once.
Class is destroyed in revolution.
Class is a relation to means of production, and the proletariat only exists in relation to capital. If you abolish capital, then you abolish must also abolish the proletariat as a class.
Especially when the country is undeveloped and needs to go through the process of capitalist accumulation? (Like Russia and China did)
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Your question makes it sound like revolutions are planned and that unless we can count on the participation of revolutionaries in other countries we shouldn't go ahead with our planned revolution in our country. Revolutions simply don't work like that.
You're right in suggesting that the success of the revolution is dependent on how successful the revolution is at spreading to other countries but that is not something that can be determined in advance.
Every social revolution was an international revolution.
What are examples of social revolutions?
The revolutions of 1848, the revolutionary waves of the 1860s-1870s, the revolutionary wave of 1917-1921, the revolutionary period of the 1970s.
I imagine they means things like the Renaissance, the enlightenment, the romantic movement, the industrial revolution, and the wave of liberal revolutions that followed the American and French. Times when the way people think changed dramatically in a relatively short time. I apologies for my eurocentrism I've just learned way more about that in school.
I disagree though, we'll sort of. Social revolutions usually effect more than one country, but remain regional, the Enlightenment changed the way many people, even the poor, in Europe thought, but it had little of any effect on people in places like China or sub sharan Africa.
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Yep, that's a really good one.
I'm not, I'm a communist and we're talking about the communist revolution. Bourgeois revolutions took on a national form in terms of the political aspect.
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and your talking about "the" communist revolution, there as of yet has never been anything close to global communist social revolution.
I believe the revolutionary wave mentioned in this video is an example of what RR is talking about. It was pretty large.
For the most part a fairly small portion of the population adopted a Marxist, or in some way communist, mode of thought, instigated a political or armed revolution, and then, only after they controlled at least part of the state, introduced the rest of their population to this way of thinking.
I don't think you understand what communism is if you think that communism is a mode of thought that must be adopted by the working class.
The Russian revolution began in Saint Petersburg as a small scale social revolution, proletarian citizens heard the ideas being exposed by people like Lenin and adopted a similar way of thinking.
That's not how the Russian Revolution started...
...they were not communist but they were times when large groups of people changed they way they thought in a short time, which is what a communist social revolution would have to achieve.
Communism is not about "changing the way you think", we're not idealists. Communism is materialist, as Marx said: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."
Social revolutions are based on ideas, ideas don't manifest in peoples heads once the material conditions for their arrival are achieved, they spread from person to person like a germ.
Once again, I don't think you understand the first thing about communism or how material conditions create revolutions.
wasn't 1848 a bourgie revolution? It seems to me both bourgeois and proletarian social revolutions are international in form but only the latter in content
I would say that it was the end of the bourgeois revolutions and the beginning of an independent proletarian movement, more of the latter than the former depending on where. The point I'm trying to make is that unlike the bourgeois revolutions which were localised, took effect in different places often centuries apart and in part were in fact due to an expansion of capital and accumulation into new territories, proletarian revolutions were rather more international and took place closer to each other in time frame with geographical location being secondary because of the international ties that capitalism has created.
International, but generally not global, at least not all at one time. Social revolutions have tended to start in one, or a small number, of regions and spread outward as either locals hear about what is happening or representatives from the original area spread their ideas.
Any future revolution would spread quicker because of our increased level of global communication, but it would still start somewhere and take time to spread.
That's not really true. Revolutionary movements didn't "spread" from one single location, and they've been global ever since capital became global.
I think this is mostly a semantic misunderstanding.
Of course there are always really existing revolutionary movements even in the most reactionary states. But the mobilized confrontation by the revolutionary class typically begins in a relative locality. Often they do not even begin with the intention of social transformation.
Rather the process of escalation leads to more forces, revolutionary and reactionary, becoming actively involved. For example, when the workers at the Pulitov plant in Petrograd laid down tools in February 1917, they did so in part of a battle of manuever, a sort of game of chess, that was typical of Russian working glass groups. They did not imagine that the chain of events would lead to the establishment of dual power, the abdication of the Tsar and the partial defeat of the Tsarist apparatus.
Obviously the chain of events don't stop there. But events such as this can serve convince fence-sitters to take action, radicalize moderates, and give revolutionaries strategic "ground" from which to further agitation. Other European revolutions took some level of inspiration from the February and Bolshevik revolutions, with varying levels of success.
I have no doubts that the USSR was not socialist, but after the revolution in Germany was put down, what should Lenin have done?
edit: Please don't /solely/ point out that the Bolsheviks had already betrayed the working class at that point by placing themselves outside the proletariat or whatever; I understand that might be true, but let's imagine a left communist party (even though one couldn't really exist at that point) had taken power over the Bolsheviks or something.
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I would have not killed workers in an effort to maintain my power.
Anything else?
"All power to the Soviets" would have been more than just a populist slogan. Lenin criticized Kerensky for forming a government above the worker's councils, and then he did the same; I would have not formed a power over the working class, I would have not taken power for myself.
I'd resign from the party and join the ranks of the proletariat in revolt against the party. I'd also try to see Feodor Chaliapin perform live, phenomenal voice.
But what if you were literally in charge of the Bolsheviks?
Then I'd definitely be able to see him perform live.
To me, the decisive moment was Kronstadt. All of the regressive measures had been justified as emergency measures to secure victory in the civil war. After Kronstadt it was clear there was no going back.
By 1921, the civil war was mostly won. I negotiate with the mutiniers, and work to accommodate theit very reasonable demands. Timetables established to the restoration of full soviet democracy for all socialist parties, as well as sorting out economic issues. It is no silver bullet, but Bolshevik centralization must be halted.
Kronstadt was only an episode in a period of discontent, usually marking the start of the counter revolution. But just before then there were huge strikes in Moscow which were kicked off primarily by the declining economic condition, but were also directed against the tightening control of the political reigns by the bolshevik party, the cheka, ration privileges, etc. The strikes were put down by the red army and workers were forced to return to work at gun point.
Quoting Ante Ciliga's The Kronstadt Revolt
Everyone now agrees that during the winter of 1920 to 1921 the Russian revolution was passing through an extremely critical phase. The offensive against Poland had ended in defeat at Warsaw, the social revolution had not broken out in the West, the Russian revolution had become isolated, famine and disorganisation had seized the entire country. The peril of bourgeois restoration knocked at the door of the revolution. At this moment of crisis the different classes and parties which existed within the revolutionary camp each presented their solution for its resolution.
The Soviet Government and the higher circles in the Communist Party applied their own solution of increasing the power of the bureaucracy. The attribution of powers to the Executive Committees which had hitherto been vested in the soviets, the replacement of the dictatorship of the class by the dictatorship of the party, the shift of authority even within the party from its members to its cadres, the replacement of the double power of the bureaucracy and the workers in the factory by the sole power of the former—to do all this was to "save the Revolution!" It was at this moment that Bukharin put forward his plea for a "proletarian Bonapartism". By placing restrictions on itself the proletariat would, according to him, facilitate the struggle against the bourgeois counter-revolution. Here was manifested already the enormous quasi-messianic self-importance of the Communist Bureaucracy.
The Ninth and Tenth Congresses of the Communist Party, as well as the intervening year passed beneath the auspices of this new policy. Lenin rigidly carried it through, Trotsky sang its praises. The Bureaucracy prevented the bourgeois restoration ... by eliminating the proletarian character of the revolution. The formation of the Workers' Opposition within the party, which was supported not only by the proletarian faction in the party itself but also by the great mass of unorganised workers, the general strike of the Petrograd workers a short time before the Kronstadt revolt and finally the insurrection itself, all expressed the aspirations of the masses who felt, more or less clearly, that a 'third party' was about to destroy their Conquests. The movement of poor peasants led by Makhno in the Ukraine was the outcome of similar resistance in similar circumstances. If the struggles of 1920-1921 are examined in the light of the historical material now available, one is struck by the way that these scattered masses, starved and enfeebled by economic disorganisation, nevertheless had the strength to formulate for themselves with such precision their social and political position, and at the same time to defend themselves against the bureaucracy and against the bourgeoisie.
The movement of poor peasants led by Makhno in the Ukraine was the outcome of similar resistance in similar circumstances.
Would you consider that, in this case, the peasants were revolutionary?
Only by tailing the proletariat but otherwise no. I don't think that the article is suggesting that, only that those peasants were a reaction to the same phenomenon.
If you don't mind, could you explain me why peasants, especially poor landless peasants, aren't a revolutionary class?
Landless peasant is sort of an oxymoron, I think. Anyway, a landless peasant is an unstable position to be in, so they are either transitioning into the proletariat or they are searching for land so as to stop being a landless peasant. The peasantry was a revolutionary class in the development of capitalism but they are not a class that has in it's interest in the over throwing of capitalism. Capitalism is the revolution that solves the agrarian problem and we can look at this historically. The more successful landowners became the capitalist farmers, the agribusiness, which is what happened in Russia (the private plots while a small number accounted for a large percentage of soviet agricultural trade), the rest were converted into proletarians through either being pushed out of business or through direct expropriation (primitive accumulation) which is what happened in Russia or in the UK with enclosure acts.
I don't think that anyone really thought of the "poor landless peasant" as being a revolutionary class at the time either, that seems to be more of a recent development that the peasantry can be a revolutionary class on their own in capitalism. It was always presented as an alliance, and was a problem that was to be solved later.
I would say it is more Makhno was a shit head than anything else. For example there were cases where the units had to ban their officers from giving orders while drunk, as Makhno ran that show like a semi feudal fief.
Modern anarchism: "No Gods, no masters . . . except Makhno!!!!!"
Generally speaking, playing historical "what if" games aren't my thing. That being said I doubt there was little else that could have been done by the bolshevicks.
The thing is when you have to take the process of capitalist accumulation (which for other countries took centuries) and cram it all into 1 to 2 decades things are going to get really nasty really fast. In this respect it doesn't matter if it was stalin or trotsky or Lenin himself reanimated in charge the whole process is gonna look roughly the same
I like to think that I'm a bit more optimistic than that. The international situation hadn't played itself out yet at that point, and the international policies of the Bolsheviks certainly didn't help.
Well sure individual policies could have been changed but Russia was still structurally fucked, outside at the very least a European wide proletarian revolution. You can't just go from feudalism to communism with out either massive international support or primitive accumulation
So they did the best with what they had?
More or less. it's just the best they could do was a regime of brutal capitalist accumulation
So Stalinists are basically right when they say that Stalin did what was best with the conditions of Russia at the time?
I mean they think that it was socialism so no they're fundamentally wrong. The thing is that it's material conditions that make socialism, not ideology
even though one couldn't really exist at that point
That's not entirely true and doesn't really reflect on the nature of what the bolshevik party, a mass party, was. There were in fact many left opposition groups in Russia, both within and outside the party. The centre of the party, which was composed of the troika, was only a small fraction. Miasnikov's Workers’ Group of the Russian Communist Party (B), for instance, almost won a majority in both the soviets and the party. It was also the first group to be suppressed by the new no factions rule. They became an underground group after that and were suspected to have been involved in many of the strikes that happened in 1923. The ICC wrote a couple of articles about it beginning here
Become a Menshevik?
I mean, the Bolsheviks after the insurrection sucked but why would you become a nationalist reactionary?
Explain please.
I'm not really sure what you want me to explain.
How were the Mensheviks nationalist reactionaries
Well all nationalists are reactionary. How I came to say the Mensheviks were nationalists is just something I've gathered, I don't have examples of proof. I did come across a nazi who praised the Mensheviks once but I realize that isn't much of an argument.
all criticism against the leadership of the RCP whether from the right or the left, is Menshevism
Do you not believe that material conditions create individuals? I mean, sure, you can say that your 2016, time traveling, self would be the good guy in history. It means nothing though.
If I were Lenin, I would have done the same thing. Not because 2016 me believes it's the right thing, but, rather, because I would have no choice. If the soviets don't seize power from a centralized authority, they don't get it. It's not about what Lenin did wrong; it's about what the working class was not able to do.
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Workers turning into communists.
Workers don't turn into communists to bring communism. Communism is brought into the world by the working class.
If the working class is bringing communism into being then they are communists.
Most? Some?
How can this goal be accomplished?
Just some, at first. How it is to be accomplished is another matter; it relies upon a combination of objective and subjective conditions.
Objective: are workers moving in a direction which rejects parliament, trade unions and other capitalist institutions?
Subjective: has the revolutionary party formed?
Subjective: has the revolutionary party formed?
That's not subjective. The subjective conditions is how the proletariat sees their condition in present society; when they can no longer stand to live in it, that is when the subjective conditions have been reached.
Must the subjective conditions be met before the objective conditions start to be met?
Is the point at which they can no longer stand to live in their conditions essentially unpredictable/random?
Must the subjective conditions be met before the objective conditions start to be met?
The subjective conditions lead the proletariat to actually rebelling against present society. The objective conditions reflect their chance of success.
Is the point at which they can no longer stand to live in their conditions essentially unpredictable/random?
Perhaps. My understanding is that Lenin didn't expect the Russian Revolution to happen. I remember reading about Gramsci criticizing the Italian communists for theorizing about the use of worker's councils in a revolution while the workers were already organizing themselves into worker's councils. As much as "Leninists" like to talk about leading the proletariat, even with their best efforts they are hopelessly behind them in all revolutionary situations.
Very interesting. Bordiga didn't like Gramsci, did he?
I think they feuded but eventually reconciled, I'm not really sure.
Do you have some reading to recommend about the subjective/objective conditions? I've never heard the term before so I'm curious.
this isn't a "prerequisite for a revolution" but the revolution itself
Class consciousness.
Will this naturally develop? Are communists needed?
It's "naturally" caused by the contradictions of capitalism. Revolutions don't happen because of ideologies but the communists can, for example, help organize, they can fight or they can give advice to other workers. They do not "make" the revolution, the workers do.
Interesting, because I've seen people such as /u/red-rooster say: The working class know they're being exploited, they know their conditions are unjust, they know some of their jobs are pointless etc. I saw quite an attack on the whole "communists need to educate the proles" idea from RR and I'm wondering if that conflicts with what you're saying or if I'm misinterpreting either of you.
I think you're misinterpreting me. I strongly agree with /u/red-rooster that the whole "those dumb proles don't know shit" thing is bullshit. It's usually tankies who say that kind of thing, anyway. What did I write that made you think that I thought that?
Tbh I'm staring at your comment and mine and I have no idea why I replied like I did. I'm really tired at the moment. Starting again:
Okay, so it's "naturally" caused by the contradictions of capitalism. But the contradictions of capitalism are true right now, aren't they? So it's not caused straight away. Something has to change. But that can't be just the conditions of the working class, because as others have said ITT, bad conditions can easily lead to a fascist uprising as well. So I still don't understand what can cause class consciousness.
The process of revolution creates a class consciousness. Only a minority really needs to "begin" the revolution, especially in our modern era of a highly developed capitalism. The Paris Commune as it went out only became more revolutionary as the bourgeois class were gradually pushed out, and it's this attack and defense, in a singular class body, that really creates a full class consciousness of us against them, including all nationalism and other appeals to class collaboration.
Okay, so it's "naturally" caused by the contradictions of capitalism. But the contradictions of capitalism are true right now, aren't they?
Yes but they can amplify in a crisis, for example, which, in the right conditions, is the spark that can ignite a revolution.
Something has to change. But that can't be just the conditions of the working class, because as others have said ITT, bad conditions can easily lead to a fascist uprising as well. So I still don't understand what can cause class consciousness.
Yes, others in the thread explained it better than I can. Workers need to be organized and united to be successful, not just unhappy. I actually learned about objective and subjective conditions in the thread, I'm still learning.
There's a place for a body of people who understand Marxism within revolution and in times of social peace, but I don't think that this body of people is going to be the leadership of the proletariat. It's more a symbiotic relationship between the class and the party. But for revolution to happen, I don't think that working class people have to understand the nuances of the Marxist critique of capitalism, and especially don't need to be lectured on it by "socialist" who also don't understand it. There's an impossibility in the idea that everyone has to fully understand Marx and capital in order for there to be revolution, and it's historically inaccurate.
There are no conditions left to be met for communism to emerge. What must happen is stop recreating capitalist social relations and start producing communist ones
People promoting accelerationist positions are going to banned.
Just curious about what that is.
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Ok yeah that makes sense. Like trying to get Trump elected.
Education. I welcome criticism, but the more that I contemplate why there isn't greater unrest, and revolutionary action, the only response I can conclude is that people lack the ability to analyze their own situation, its causes, and solutions, and so they just sit and orbit capitalism. The only escape from this orbit is through education. Once people are shown that there is an alternative course, and why it's the proper course, then they will start to gravitate toward it. All efforts by the capitalists are to repress this education. To their detriment, the natural trajectory from there is fascism, because capitalism is not eternal, and literally cannot function for much longer.
The full effect of capitalism is not felt by everyone in the first world. Since rich countries generally exploit the poorer countries for cheap labour, wages in 1st world countries are relatively high, and people feel like the world isn't so bad. If sweat shops were present extensively in the 1st world countries (as they may have been in say, the 19th century) revolution would be much more likely.
Hmm... that still was the case 48 years ago, yet 1968 is more than just a year to us.
That isn't why wages are higher in the first world.
If sweat shops were present extensively in the 1st world countries (as they may have been in say, the 19th century) revolution would be much more likely.
Also nope.
Can you explain why wages are higher in the 1st world?
running out of bread and circuses.
Poorer living conditions. Life in most of the world is at least tolerable, and most average people who are just trying to feed their families feel like they can't gamble that on the chance of a better life, in a lot of ways, including rising up in revolution.
Many peoples lives are only just barely tolerable, but many are convinced that if they continue down their current path things will get better.
Revolutions generally only occur when living conditions become intolerable, when life in the system is so terribly dangerous, or hopeless, that people feel like things are so bad they couldn't possibly get worse, even if they got rounded up and shot by counter revolutionaries.
Basically people have just enough comfort in their life, and their worried they'll lose that in addition to their chains.
This is not to say revolution can not occur until things get worse, just that it's much harder to convince people it's worth risking their lives trying to over through the governing if they have a comfortable, or at least tolerable, life.
During the Great Depression, when living conditions were as worse as they could be, the world turned to fascism not socialism. It's incredibly vulgar for you to try to turn the subjective conditions for revolution (that the proletariat must decide that they can't stand another day in present society) into the objective conditions (working class unity, strength and ability of the working class) decrying "tolerable" living conditions. If your objectivism was justified, we'd be seeing proletarian revolutions all throughout the third world and the first world would have had a revolution in Marx's time.
Is socialism a "lower-stage" of communism? From what I read, Marx and Engels use both term interchangeably. The "transformation" from capitalism to socialism goes, correct me if I'm wrong, like this:
Capitalism ----> Revolution ----> DotP (which is not socialism) ----> Socialism/Communism
What I'm not sure about is wether or not, after the DotP, there is stages in the "evolution" of communism.
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DotP isn't a stage, it just means that the proletariat have state power and suppress the bourgeoisie. There's a lower and higher phase of communism, but they don't differ in their social relations of production. The only difference is that in the higher phase of communism the level of production is high enough that all of people's needs are met without needing to ration anything (either through labor vouchers, lottery, or something else).
in the higher phase of communism the level of production is high enough that all of people's needs are met without needing to ration anything
If our society were to somehow become communist tomorrow, would a lower stage of communism even be necessary, then? We have the ability to feed, clothe, and house 12 billion people already.
It was relevant when Marx wrote about it, but you're right; it's not really relevant at all, anymore.
Perhaps someone could make an argument that there might be a drop in production during the revolution, due to any potential social turmoil and there might be a period of rationing or using labour certificates while it is raised back up.
I don't know. I think we'd be able to afford to freely give out the necessities of life while some consumer goods might be something rationed
That makes sense.
If our society were to somehow become communist tomorrow, would a lower stage of communism even be necessary, then? We have the ability to feed, clothe, and house 12 billion people already.
It might not be relevant in terms of producing said resources but distributing them according to communist principles might take more time as we rearrange the economy to accommodate the new mode of production. Then there is the fact that most countries are no longer self-sufficient and rely on imports to survive, until enough countries ignite in revolution or a single country is able to build up its productive capabilities to produce everything they need for themselves (an impossible task in my opinion), then they would not be able to transition to the lower stage.
An argument can be made that productive forces will be destroyed in the world civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
DotP isn't a stage, it just means that the proletariat have state power and suppress the bourgeoisie.
How is it not a stage? It's quite different from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie but it's not socialism either.
Otherwise, thanks for the answer, it's exactly what I was looking for!
It's not a stage because it isn't a mode of production. It just means the proletariat have state power and has little to do with economics
Revolution is a stage and it's not a mode of production. Should the DotP be included in the "revolution" stage?
The DotP is the revolution itself.
The problem w that sort of schema is that it totaly ignores how far capitalism has come. That sort of plan may have been well and good in 1848 but now we live in an epoch where capitalism has given us the productive capacity to create communism here and now. This is not to say the process of transforming current capitalist social relations into communist social relations won't take time (decades even) but rather that, there is no transitional era between capitalism and the direct process of creating communist relationships
Marx wrote that "[b]etween capitalist and communist society lies the period of revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.". The dictatorship of the proletariat is when the proletariat has attained political power. This allows the class to begin transforming the mode of production from capitalism to communism. You can't transform capitalism to communism without political power, and if you attain political power without transforming the mode of production means that there is no revolution.
why is the b in [ ]s
The original text had a capitalized B because it was the start of a sentence.
I see. Where did he write this?
In the Critique of the Gotha Programme.
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I only skimmed the essay, can we get a tl;dr about why it matters that Chomsky's contributions to linguistics and their application to the US military matter to anything, like even a little bit?
Be the change...
" Was the young anarchist tailoring his theories to meet the requirements of his military sponsors - forcing us, perhaps, to question the sincerity of his anarcho-syndicalist commitments? Or did he believe he was taking the money - refusing to let this influence his scientific results - in order to secure the best possible position from which to promote the anarchist cause?"
I can only read the blurb over there, the link to the complete article doesn't work. Or is it just me?
i think this is it
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Someone needs to tell this person the cold war has ended. Red scare is a thing of the past, at most people will call you names for being a communist.
This is a repost. I still think the implication that openly calling oneself a Marxist and quoting Bordiga on Facebook would lead to one being kidnapped and tortured by the CIA to be bullshit. While a lot of things could probably lead to this happening, those two I do not believe are among them.
This kind of thing I honestly think is better served on /r/communism where there is a need to create a sense of fear in order to strengthen the Stalinist cult. As left communism isn't a cult, I don't see why this is posted here.
Wait, wait, wait.... You mean I don't need this shrine of Bordiga??
is better served on /r/communism where there is a need to create a sense of fear in order to strengthen the Stalinist cult.
God it's hilarious to actually see this, talking to people from r/communism and MLs in r/socialism, it's like they are being raided by 4chan/voat/reactionary subreddit of the month etc every other day. It's also always MLs who make those whiny meta threads asking if we are under attack or why other subs pick on us or whatever.
It's almost like they are all angry teenagers with a fear of being without control and the 'outside'.
I think the point was that advocating imminent lawless action and the overthrow of the government can get you put to death based on American law. I tend to agree it's not an issue to take lightly.
That wasn't the point at all or else the author would have said that. Instead the author is trying to generate fear that even something as little as calling oneself a Marxist or a socialist, which thousands of people in the US are open about including many people who are very much in the public eye, which one is perfectly in their technical legal right to do, will lead to technically illegal action by the state against you.
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What you’re doing is illegal. Very illegal. And you’re a terrorist.
Being a Marxist isn't illegal.
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On public forums, anti-capitalists and Marxists are very careful to say that they want a peaceful transition to a socialist world.
I imagine international law has us covered (right/obligation to rebel against tyrannical legal instruments and all). Not that it means anything in practice, though...
Putting the red in red herring. I expect this shit from Prison Planet, not a communist board. Than again you probably defend moderators so you're not actually communist.
Facebook does indeed commit felonies, but I think the blog was implying the U.S. government thinks you guys are, when you're no threat to anybody. It's like Jason Unruhe said, a half-ass Christian militia could wipe out the entirety of first-world socialism.
You're pampered and ignorant to how things actually work. I operate a real left-wing militia against internet moderators. Assuming you can pull your head out of your ass long enough to listen instead of yucky it up, you'll learn that actually everything moderators do is illegal. And let's say the government WANTED to charge me with something heinous like terrorism... how could they? How am I enough of a legal person to prosecute if I'm not person enough to be protected lawfully from bans and post deletion?
If I'm person enough to be held liable, than every single moderator needs to be in jail for committing harassment, defacement, and discrimination against my person.
If I'm NOT a person online, sure they can ban me... but than it's their liability when I say "hey guys, let's join ISIS and rape some children huurhuurhuur!" Remember that when and if you decide to press the ban button too. I won't hesitate to link the FBI to this or any other group. Have done it before. Have reverse encrypted mod's posts to find their addresses and shit and paid a few of them a very intimidating visit.
We carry guns and we work alongside police and feds and say take care of moderators or we will. Because even without the personhood vs non-personhood argument, you still have a criminal class predicated on fraud, embezzlement, money laundery, and tax-evasion. Enough grounds to detain and shoot at.
And yes, I openly state on Twitter Marx was practically Nostradamus, Stalin was a great man, and all the murders of communism were justified. To be fair, nowhere did any of this amount to anti-government sympathies. Quite the opposite in fact. Very pro-state, cooperating with the state, taking the American constitution literally of a well regulated militia.
As the title says. If you do vote, who do you vote for, and what country do you live in?
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I don't vote. The only "socialist" parties that partake in parliament are usually composed of careerists or social-democrats, or both.
Don't do it.
In my opinion, so long as there is a state, the owners of capital within these borders, both serving as an insurance policy for their acquired resources, will only allow for superficial change.
When you vote, you move one "right" (or slightly more) at a time. That isn't real emancipation, but negotiation with a mafia which utilises violence to maintain a state (of course, as a side-effect of having to protect what it claims to be its own resources, including the people who reside within the designated borders, from other mafias/states which surround it).
To vote is to participate in accordance with their will's dissemination of illusory freedom.
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I have a slight problem with these kinds of documents, not because i disagree with the content but because of how unclear they are, because an ever so slightly lazy reading would make me think this is a stalinist document(save for the paragraph at the end obviously.)
I thought the problem was that it did not separate itself from stalinism, but as i'm writing this comment i realize i saw class war as an internet war, funny what the internet does to you. I should get out more
Yes, I can see your point. I was more interested in it being an example of the bordigaists invariant marxism.
8: It is not surprising that the Stalinists and those akin to them, together with their parties in the West today demand precisely the reverse-not only in terms of the “institutional” and also political-legal objectives, but even in terms of the “structural” which is to say socio-economic objectives.
Do you know of any documents listing the Stalinist demands they refer to? This was written in 1953, so I can imagine if I strain myself in the effort, but I've never had cause to look for these things myself.
And have today's ML parties greatly changed their demands? There's a bit of an anachronistic feel from a lot of communist parties, but I know Canada's, for instance, still seems mildly relevant. Or relevant enough that I heard a bit about it without even paying attention to their recent election.
Do you know of any documents listing the Stalinist demands they refer to?
I'm not exactly sure as to what they were referring to specifically. It's a little difficult to find the programs and manifestos of the stalinist CPs from those times. But, if I was to was point you in some direction you could have a look at the cominform and it's purpose, and also The British Road to Socialism.
And have today's ML parties greatly changed their demands?
All of the old Stalinist parties have become regular social-democracies (often renaming themselves "Democratic Party of..." like the Italian CP), if they haven't completely dissolved. They've probably moved further in the direction of which this document has mentioned, with the CPUSA just being a supporter of the democrats in the US.
I have some time to do some reading so was wondering if people had any suggestions. Books, articles, anything that's good. (Doesn't have to be directly/overtly related to left communism)
(as a secondary q, what's the best stuff on the Israel-Palestine situation (beyond aufheben text)?)
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Been a particularly busy month for me with family and personal things but I've squeezed a few things in.
Some time soon I'm going to be going over Nihilist Communism whenever I get a chance. Possibly as well, some Debord/Situationist Intl. stuff.
I'm surprised that Afed had that up on it's site. It's also funny because they act like the stereotypes of Leninism that they caricature.
Really wanted to go over nihilist communism as well, seems pretty highly rated
I don't think it's that interesting. It's basically a mix of councilism and workerism. Nor do I think it's that bad either. A lot of it is sort of obvious.
Leninism or Communism?
This is one of those works that I wish was longer.
I just realized that Leninism or Communism? is the same as this text on libcom.
Whew! One less link in the reading queue.
I'm actually kind of grateful because the cover and back of my copy of Leninism or Communism? is so dope.
I just realized that Leninism or Communism? is the same as this text on libcom.
Oh awesome. I wanted to post it to /r/socialism and /r/CommunismWorldwide but I didn't really want to post a PDF. (Upon a Reddit search it was already posted to /r/socialism. It was also posted to /r/communism.)
I'm actually kind of grateful because the cover and back of my copy of Leninism or Communism? is so dope.
Oh that is fantastic. I like the Lenin-beating-someone-over-the-head-with-a-book cover as well.
Oh that is fantastic. I like the Lenin-beating-someone-over-the-head-with-a-book cover as well.
Yeah, the back cover is cool as well.
Lenin's actually stabbing the tiger on the front. Hitting it over the head with a book though would have been a cool way to visualize the point of the pamphlet that Lenin was a disciple of Kautsky's injecting socialist consciousness [or "socialism"] into the working class nonsense.
Yeah, the back cover is cool as well.
Leninism or Communism?
what's the difference between this and 'Leninism and the Ultra-left' in his Eclipse and re-emergence... book?
I'd have to read that part of Eclipse again but as far as I remember Leninism or Communism? seems to be more specifically about pairing Second International and Kautsky's thinking with Lenin.
Well I'm a bit busy but in my spare time I've been working through Slavoj Zizek's Absolute Recoil, which so far has been an excellent read and comes highly recommended by me for anyone interested in contemporary continental philosophy.
I'm busy but I'm working on Niconachean Ethics by Aristotle, which when examined with a critical eye gives a good picture of morality, with adjustments for classism.
finished Through the looking glass, started reading "The industrial development of Poland"
Nothing but technical manuals for work.
Moshe Machover is always good on Israel-Palestine:
http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1026/zionism-quest-for-legitimacy/#12
http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/990/palestineisrael-belling-the-cat/
I'm currently splitting my reading between books for my English Literature coursework, for which I'm currently reading Talking It Over by Julian Barnes and Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare.
For my personal reading I've been reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, while having some distinctly different ideas and thoughts to Orwell, I think it's interesting as an insight to the historical attempts at achieving Socialism. It also helps to debunk a few of the myths about Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism in general.
I'm also slowly making my way through Capital but I'm making slow progress, due to a lack of time.
Silvia Federici's Revolution at Point Zero, which is a collection of essays from the 1970s onward. So far it has focused on the relationship of the sexual division of labor, the waged and the unwaged, and the rethinking of the proletarian as simply the negated of capitalist society rather than wage-earners.
Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically, which I've only just started reading (in PDF form), but so far it emphasizes the subjectivity of the negated.
It's only coincidence I'm reading both, but they have quite a lot in common.
I'm reading Mark Shipway's essay Council Communism and he mentions that the council form has: "arisen repeatedly in different periods and various circumstances during highpoints of the class struggle." He cites Russia in 1905 and 1917, Germany in 1918 and Poland in 1980 as examples but I was wondering if there have been any other examples since then of workers spontaneously adopting the council form during the course of their struggles?
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Just a little bit earlier than your last example, but Iran 1979 springs to mind.
To be more recent, though nowhere near as developed, Bursa this spring.
Paris 1871, I believe.
I don't think Paris 1871 was a workers' council, but he's asking about 'since then' anyway.
north Vietnam 1945?
Thanks for the responses, I asked some further questions in the /r/socialism thread but have yet to get any answers so I thought I'd repost them here as well:
Do you know of any other examples since then [1980]? I'm specifically interested in cases since the onset of neoliberalism and globalisation since they both resulted in a significant rearrangement of work and the economy.
In Shipway's article he says:
...the revolutionary process can be seen as one in which the working class continually adopts new ideas and new forms of organisation in response to the practical problems which confront it in the course of the class struggle. Once workers have taken up the fight against the attacks of the ruling class, the necessity to overcome the practical problems which crop up in the course of the fight pushes workers towards the realisation that existing forms of organisation are no longer adequate to their tasks, and that new forms have to be developed.
Can the (apparent) lack of contemporary examples of the council form arising spontaneously during class struggle be seen as a suggestion that the council form has surpassed its usefulness and thus new forms of worker organisation need to be developed? How would council communists respond to this accusation? And if council communists understand that new forms of organisation arise dialectically out of struggle why do they seem fixated on one specific form of organisation (workers councils)?
How would council communists respond to the accusation that spontaneous organisations (like workers councils) are not capable of carrying out a revolution, that because of their ephemeral nature—often ceasing to exist when the specific struggle in which they were born subsides—they cannot creating lasting change? Because of the lack of a permanent mass political organisation the working class is often left to "reinvent the wheel" each time and thus makes little progress?
Seattle General Strike of 1919, 1936 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike, Spanish Revolution, Carnation Revolution, Hungarian Revolution, Mai 68', Italy 60's-70's, Chile 1970-1973, 2001 revolt in Argentina.
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Hello folks so I saw this, noticed that there weren't any decent ones scheduled, ("State Communism", lol) could a bunch of people get together and set one up? I don't think it has to be just one person, and even then everyone can just jump in I suppose. Some good opportunity for exposure
If you need multiple people for an AMA, I'd be more than willing to help out with the leftcom one.
Looking forward to seeing our representation :)
Someone should message devrim, leo and maybe Blake's baby, if reddit isn't below their station, as the former two were in the icc and the latter is in the cwo.
Ok so it looks like we've been added to the October 3-9 bracket with blackenedsunn and myself as the 'hosts'. Not really keen on that tbh, I would rather we draw up a little pamphlet thing to post as part of the thread as a community. I'm not on revleft or libcom, redmarx etc. etc. and I'm not under the impression that devrim or leo use reddit very often
I would rather we draw up a little pamphlet thing to post as part of the thread as a community.
that's a good idea. Could use this older thread as a basis?
Yes. Don't think I would be qualified to draft explanations for each one, though
I don't actually understand what this is. I might be willing to help though.
BB isn't I the CWO. You could message him. I'll contact Leo on this if I think it's worth it.
I think each thread covers a certain current. I found the old one that was done in a set of these a while ago (https://www.reddit.com/r/debateanarchism/comments/256ch4/left_communist_ama/). You could read through that thread to get an idea of what it would be like. On that one there were several folks writing answers in a pretty simple setup, just people who have an established identify with the perspective. I think it would be good to do a similar Thing this time around just with more communism !
So it's basically a sort of 'live' on line discussion. Am I right?
Pretty much. Though with these ones specifically, since it's a smallish sub discussion can go on for days
Reading through that AMA, it seems like a big question/issue seems to be the dictatorship of the proletariat, what it is, what its relation to a modern state is, etc.
Maybe we should work on a unified definition (with a clear relation to Marx's works) to this question so we're concise and right to the point? Or we could pre-emptively make a thread here to briefly go over a few things, taking influence from the last AMA, etc. Just a thought.
Edit: A relation of our definition to the historic real workers movements (Commune, Soviet) would be useful as well, imo.
For sure
or is it as some claim totally subsumed under capitalism and as such a class for capitalism? And if it is a class for capitalism what does that mean for a communist perspective
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It's only a revolutionary class if it makes revolutions. It has made revolutions in the past. Nothing has changed in any functional way from when it did make revolutions. It's no less capable of making more revolutions.
It hasn't made any revolutions recently and it's never made any that managed to benefit society along Marx' idea of a post-capitalist, international (anti-nationalist) society.
The working class is not totally subsumed under capitalism and never can be. The working class exists to participate under a particular form of forced labour. I don’t believe anyone genuinely wants to be forced to work in the way that they do under capitalist conditions. It's not even valid to get their opinion on the matter either because no-one can make a clear choice when they're under that sort of coercion. Yes, it’s a class for capitalism. It’s one of two fundamental classes. If the working class didn’t exist, capitalism couldn’t exist. The bourgeoisie and the working class create each other and expand capitalism geographically and vertically (new markets within a non-capitalist realm) as they do so.
So, I'd say: Lots of potential, no delivery. I don't detect any intent of delivery either.
Of course, this is mainly due to the many strides and efforts of the bourgeois ruling classes to maintain hegemonic relations of production and social relations in which people are ideologically propagandized to be made subservient to the authorities which hold dominion over them. The working class must be agitated in order that it might bring about a "revolutionary reconstitution of society," in the words of Marx in his writing The Communist Manifesto.
I question it, myself.
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but I thought that working class being "subsumed" was exactly how it was created - seizure of the commons and all that.
i think spiritof56 refers to the current of the position that the contemporary working class (the proletariat as opposed to the peasantry of european feudalism) has become completely subsumed into/under capital. Im not entirely sure though.
Aren't the contradictions of capital still in existence, and, if so, can't the working class still seize and determine its destiny?
As long as proletariat exists then sure, (purely in a theoretical sense) it can make a revolution, but I think what is being debated more and more is whether or not this period of historical capital has transformed the proletariat as spiritof56 puts it a class for capitalism only, in our modern reality of 21st centruy capitalism. this seems to be a pretty western thing, given the state of the working class since that late 60s or early 70s, that general lack of class struggle on a general scale. i'm extrapolating here but I think this might be part of the concept of future communism being only attainable through a pan-human struggle against capital.
edit: I don't necessarily agree with all of it, and I've personally been thinking about it a fair bit recently, but thats just what I have been able to glean
Yes, still a revolutionary class.
can you elaborate?
Dialectical materialism says: yes
this isn't really elaborating on the position. "Dialectical materialism" can mean lots of different things.
Well, the working class will always have a strong capacity for being a revolutionary class as long as capitalism and its inherent class antagonism exists.
Just because the working class is a revolutionary class doesn't mean it is perpetually engaged in revolution, or must be, to still be revolutionary. Calling the class revolutionary refers to it's potential more than anything else.
Keep in mind no other classes in society are even close to revolutionary!!!
peasants seem fairly revolutionary?
.__.
Haha I have no idea what that face means when you type it. Stone face?
If I had to guess, that's the "peasants seem fairly revolutionary" face
Tell me more
No probs.
By the marxist definition, the working class is the only revolutionary class in capitalism. The "peasants" have sort of a dual nature, if you will. Some of them have historically tended towards the side of the workers, others have proven to maintain the mentalities of the old society. This is for the peasants a question of their relationship to the means of production, the productive forces. Some of them don't have to "sell" themselves like us workers do, they have constant capital in their possession, like land, crops, live stock, machinery, etc.
Ok, I wasn't sure if I was being mocked.
I've studied the theory, but also studied contemporary revolutionary attempts and movements. The evidence seems to suggest that peasants are leaders in this aspect while also making up the majority of the population.
Peasant/working class is a growing thing too, as people both sell their labor power and their produce.
Are you drawing a line between peasant and agricultural worker? How about between peasant and kulak?
What point are you trying to make? It would be as easy, or easier, to point our instances of working class failure.
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the first text I find certainly problematic. For one the article rightly mentions the variety of theories concerning 'labour aristocracy' and then it proceeds to collapse those differences into a singularity to which it will play antithesis. One conceptions of 'labour aristocracy' is in fact historical and not merely sociological (after all in my eyes when you mention labour aristocracy, I immediately think of the historian Eric Hobsbawm). The concept of the 'labour aristocracy' has a long history in British social history (emerging with Hobsbawms various articles and books on the subject in the 1950s). Of course the fact Hobsbawm's a dissident stalinist will make it easy to pigeon-whole him in with the third worldist who's conception of the 'labour aristocracy' is rather different. It' actually rather ironic then that this article is itself taking a sociological analysis insofar as it's categories of 'proletarian' are abstracted from their concrete historical manifestation, i.e. insofar as we can define workers as proletarian they are by definition a whole, a class (due to their relations to capital, the need to sell their labour-power etc.). However the whole point of the 'labour aristocracy's' conception is to highlight the real historical distinctions within this category, especially at that historical junction when the proletarian as a class was itself being formed (not yet 'solid), and the results this disinction performed on the history of the working-class. This seem analogous to a debate about nationalism where one side poses that all workers should unite as a class due to their shared interests, of course this is necessary, but it's the result of a sociological methodology insofar as it's patently obvious that they working-class is divided by nations for very definite historical reasons. Of course it's very different to transform those historical division into inherent divisions in the working-class as a whole, and thus beyond history. This articles claims to be historical are rather betrayed by their talk of 'fundamental tendencies' and so on
The theory that fundamental antagonisms exist within the working class
this may be what the lenninists and other degenerates meant, but not what historians have meant by it. For them the 'labour aristocracy' accounts for definite divisions in the working-class in a period when it was still being composed as the working-class. Hence there's the talk about the distinction between craft labour and manual, or within the workplace between foreman and line-workers etc. As such the 'labour aristocracy' conception helped to explain the emergence, and particular character of social democratic parties and unions. As for all the article talk of the 'fundamental tendencies towards unity', this is not contrary to theories of the 'labour aristocracy' and is in fact complementary. Unity is not the same as class consciousness, working can unify towards many goals. The history of the 'labour aristocracy' is one in which it was able to organise and unify the working-class around it's interests (perceived as interest of the working-class as a whole), this was due to it's privileged position within production hierarchies or unions etc., the labour parties in most countries was founded by this 'labour aristocracy'.
Some more reading: http://marxistleftreview.org/index.php/component/content/article?id=81:is-there-a-labour-aristocracy-in-australia
Not a position I necessarily agree with but relevant to the discussion.
Is this in response to the /r/shittankiessay post I made or just the result of being fed up with Maoist garbage in general?
why not both ?
It's because of that Pannekoek article I read and this topic came up in it, which I wasn't expecting nor quite sure how accurate it is. Also because of Maoist garbage, but that's less important.
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"The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built. The masses were on the heights; they have developed this 'defeat' into one of the historical defeats which are the pride and strength of international socialism. And that is why the future victory will bloom from this 'defeat'. 'Order reigns in Berlin!' You stupid henchmen! Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I will be!" - Last words of Rosa Luxemburg
Hello everyone. I've been studying Marxism out of self-interest for almost a year now and I am still undecided in what I believe in, though I will say my capitalist tendencies have been shaken. One thing that has not shaken me is my belief in free speech. I've asked this question months ago in /r/debatecommunism and the general consensus believed it should be suppressed. But I'd like to know what left communists feel about it.
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The people you talked to in debatecommunism are delusional, to put it bluntly. The ultra-left generally opposes Leninist views of a "workers state" wherein a bureaucracy controls all aspects of life, advocating instead a direct transition from capitalism to communism. Most of us would probably believe that a society which has to suppress speech is not a socialist society but a capitalist one, since classes still exist which promote pro-capitalist views. Of course, there is also the likelihood of a totalitarian state to suppress all views which oppose the ruler or ruling party, rather than just those which oppose communism.
So in short, no, we don't really oppose suppressing freedom of speech, but we largely see it as a liberal formulation which exists as a result of the capitalist state.
Can you expound a bit on the last part? Would freedom of speech be called something else under communism?
Well there would simply be no need for it. The bourgeois class has already been overthrown, and capitalist social relations have been destroyed, and the state itself is gone.
rights only exist within the context of the state, we want to end the state. So to answer you question in a more concrete way, yes I think people ought to be able to publicly speak their mind, but I don't think that is a right (in the liberal sense), rather it exists in the context of the material human community. If this seems like its sidestepping the question well thats because it is ... basically the whole concept of inalienable rights is fundamentally a broken concept and I don't think using those sorts of concepts leads to very productive ways of thinking about the individual
In a communist context, the issue is not the negative liberty of freedom from censorship, but the question of positive access to the socially-created platform. In other words, how ought the platform of speech, as a social resource, be allocated?
Related: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/somereal1.htm
Also:
Some will say: "Freedom of expression is democracy; to prevent propaganda is to prevent democracy." Certainly, but it must be remembered that the freedom of expression of one or two powerful companies that do not express the thoughts of the individual or small groups, but of capitalist interests or an entire public, does not exactly correspond to what was called freedom of expression a century ago. One must remember, further, that the freedom of expression of one who makes a speech to a limited audience is not the same as that of the speaker who has all the radio sets in the country at his disposal, all the more as the science of propaganda gives to these instruments a shock effect that the non-initiated cannot equal.
I refer in this connection to the excellent study by Rivero,* who demonstrates the immense difference between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in this respect:
In the nineteenth century, the problem of opinion formation through the expression of thought was essentially a problem of contacts between the State and the individual, and a problem of acquisition of a freedom. But today, thanks to the mass media, the individual finds himself outside the battle [...] the debate is between the State and powerful groups [...] Freedom to express ideas is no longer at stake in this debate. [...] What we have is mastery and domination by the State or by some powerful groups over the whole of the technical media of opinion formation [...] the individual has no access to them [...] he is no longer a participant in this battle for the free expression of ideas: he is the stake. What matters for him is which voice he will be permitted to hear and which words will have the power to obsess him. [...]
It is in the light of this perfect analysis that one must ask oneself what freedom of expression still means in a democracy.
[*] "Technique de formation de l'opinion publique," in L'Opinion Publique (1957)
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yes, I would too
flair
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Any recommended reading for a left-communist critique of Anarchist organization? I've come from Anarchism and found its practice great, its basic philosophies largely sound, but its deeper philosophy somewhat lacking. I think its somewhat nitpicky to go "no, I'm an anarchist" "No, I'm a post-anarchist communist influenced by Marx" or whatever, but I still find critiques of Anarchism worth their read.
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a lot of anarchists fetishize Enlightenment values which I think, as communists, we should criticize
Are you referring to the tendency to accept and promote bourgeois morality?
How do you mean? I immediately thought of Chomsky's "Government in the future" with its quotes on several enlightenment thinkers, I rather enjoyed it. Not only does he give a different lens to look at the classics instead of the liberalism/free-market garbage, but also leaves the field open to both anarchism and Marxism, which I thought was pretty cool.
Unless you mean stuff that criticises it all like Todd Mays Poststructuralist Anarchism?
Which anarchism? I would have a different critique for different types.I disagree with the Syndicalists because I don't think trade unions, no matter how revolutionary their slogans or aims may be can ever be an effective means of waging and winning the class struggle. I disagree with Platformism because I view it essentially as Leninism for Anarchists, and essentially substitutionist. I disagree with the "if i cant dance its not my revolution" types because they're idiots and don't know the first damn thing about class struggle.
"if i cant dance its not my revolution" types because they're idiots
I shit you not, there are anarchists who have read Your Politics is Boring by Crimethinc and feel obliged to *yawn* publicly every time they hear a bit of theory.
What's the alternative to trade unionists and substitutionists?
Workers' Councils and Communes are the two big ones, though I think there should be a distinction between forms of revolutionary power and forms of association. I'm all for a place where militants, workers, artists, etc, can debate and plan and get a beer together: I just don't think that place needs to be defined as the vanguard party or as a lifestyle ideology.
"Syndicalism" also assumes that post-capitalist society will need industrial syndicates, which is pretty ridiculous, and is fully compatible with some form of capitalism.
I'm not calling for syndicalism, I'm just arguing that it's good to have an open and acessible social and political space when nothing much is going on. Insisting people meet up only in the context of protests, actions, or strikes is pushing the activist treadmill just as hard as a call for organizations: it's just doing it from the opposite direction.
Oh I know you weren't supporting it, I was just pointing out my criticism of it.
It's not so much that there's a single overarching critique of Anarchism associated with Left Communism, as that it can give you a framework in which to compare and evaluate different streams of anarchist thought, such as syndicalism or insurrectionary anarchism, which often come down to tactical preferences or differences of emphasis. And, really, often these preferences over-emphasize the importance of the question of forms of organization at the expense of grasping the nature and the dynamic of capital.
In general, the emphasis in Left Communism is on material conditions of struggle, and we take the definition of 'material' seriously--it's not just a synonym for 'correct.' To be effective, the action of a class has to represent an attack on capital: in contrast, there is a more-or-less explicit tendency on the part of a lot of anarchists to lean on the idea of 'leading by example' (especially, say, in things like prefigurative politics) that can often lead to co-optation or ineffectiveness.
And honestly, the difference between various kinds of anarchism can often be subsumed when we're talking about effective action or when we have a more nuanced understanding of capital.
There's an example of what I'm talking about here.. As you'll see, it's not so much a critique of anarchism as an evaluation of certain currents in favor of others, but it works because it positions that critique within the broader one which I've just mentioned.
I have a real bizarre mishmash of anarchist and marxist and leninist beliefs. I kind of view the whole thing as a smorgasbord of theory and practice and take what sounds good to me. So I'm probably an abomination to most leftists.
Having said that I agree with most of the comments in the thread. The central thing I take from anarchism is the critique of authority. Their biggest problem is their lack of theory.
The biggest problems lie in mainstream anarchism - syndicalism and platformism (or a mixture of the two). They fall into the same trap that the leftists do - the thought that they as individuals can incite revolution, and lead revolution, just because they have a "superior" worldview. Monsieur Dupont's "Nihilist Communism" is the go-to text on exposing the issues with voluntarist politics.
That being said, I don't have too many disagreements with the rejection of the state and hierarchy. It's certainly a preferable alternative to left-of-capital ideologies like Stalinism and Maoism.
Just received Nihilist Communism in the mail today actually.
Read it while keeping in mind that they are exaggerating certain things to make a point. Also, I'd advise ignoring the stuff about "essential" proletarians.
I'll begin.
Leninism has very little to do with Lenin. "What is to be Done?" is always mentioned as a foundation text of Leninism even though it became out date pretty soon after publication (it was even subtitled "Burning Questions of Our Movement") and was never re-printed during Lenin's lifetime.
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The next fucking time I hear "labor aristocracy" I swear..
Yes some workers in the west have a better standard of living thanks to imperialism. Yes some receive a greater portion of the product of their labor. Yes white American workers benefited by the institution of slavery.
But for fucks sake though, to call poor proletarians in the developed world "aristocrats" of any ambiguous shade because the real international bourgeoisie has offered them more concessions than those in the Global South? Are they insane? They remove an continents of proletarians from revolutionary struggle altogether, calling them oppressors and imperialists despite the fact that many had never seen a dime of imperialist profit. Even as the term "aristocrat" is only another heavy handed Leninist bludgeoning tool, it only breaks class lines into further stratified and competing strata, making worker and fellow worker class enemies.
The most astounding thing is the most often guilty of this, MLMs or Leninists, hunt for the truly exploited, the most proletarian who labor for our great benefit in the remote corners of the globe, would as soon give those workers control as commit seppeku. They're comfortable with freeing the real proletariat, whomever they are, so long as they hand decision-making power to their party. In the end, they could (and have) included actual aristocrats in the revolutionary proletariat, so long as it's their vanguard that decides.
Well, labour aristocracy original referred to those within the labour movement, such as those in the trade unions, who got a cushy job so their interests in revolution was diminished. It was just a way to explain the second international's collapse although one could turn this argument around towards the stalinist state.
MLMs, Maoists and most stalinists don't have an idea of what class is. They mostly view it as a moral, lifestylist or income based thing (probably based on their middle class white guilt) so they include sections of the peasantry into the "revolutionary" category even though this is a complete seperation of Marx's conception of the proletariat. This just shows how un-Marxist they are.
If that's the original definition I subscribe to that 100%, as complement to De Leons famous bit about the lieutenants of capital. It makes perfect sense in the context of state capitalist elites as well.
I agree with you about the roleplaying Stalinists absurdly degenerate marxism, but I am really put off by the "white guilt" phenomenon. To preface, I don't think white leftists should feel a personal moral debt, and the individual liberal politics of that debt in the first place is undermining to true racial equality in my opinion. But I think people, on reddit in particular, are very heavy-handed in labeling social justice activists as self-flagellating whiners who should "get over" their empathy with PoC and workers in the developing world.
Solidarity with those oppressed people is completely, absolutely commendable, what I don't like is when third-worldist Leninists require the white or more privileged proletariat subordinate themselves to an seemingly remote minority of "true proletariat". This last bit is especially ironic as for all their concern, the "true proletariat" they extoll the virtues of do not have the advanced revolutionary theory they claim necessary to lead revolution. The circle of logic places the responsibility of the vanguard back in the hands of the party (them) who was humbled enough to surrender that power to the proletariat in the first place. And all the while they get to wear mao suits and red buttons, and pretend to have read Hegel.
Naming something that objectively exists doesn't create it. People who understand the contradictions in the working class brought about by imperialism don't create those contradictions. I don't follow the ridiculous line that there isn't a proletariat in the advanced capitalist countries, but there is certainly a huge contradiction to be overcome in terms of the concessions they have come to expect from imperialism, and how the material foundation of their life is predicated on imperialism, and hence determines their consciousness to a great extent. If you don't understand the contradiction between imperialist and colonized workers, your only solution to why racism exists in the imperialist countries is because they are "bad people" at essence, which is profoundly idealist, or because "the bourgeoisie have tricked them, inventing racism and somehow making millions believe it because they control all the news media and education system".
As far as the media and education goes, this is actually a big part of ideological domination, but in the final analysis wouldn't work at all if there wasn't a material basis for workers to take up this ideology as well. We don't even need to look beyond the borders of an imperialist country to find structural, economic racism which benefits a stratified layer of the working class. White people in north america - I don't care how much you try to whitesplain to me that they don't - have many sociologically-demonstrated advantages in many aspects of life. One such example just off the top of my head is employment opportunities, job interview process. Then we have historically poorer communities, ideological demonization and the mental institution of "racism" and "race" as a concept, a biased "justice" system, from the over-policing and brutal policing to the railroad court rooms. And I could go on for days, but I don't think any of us would be foolish enough to deny the material foundation of racism in the imperialist countries. The only question is, how do we approach this national question? Two texts where Lenin deals with the national question (and if you don't read it, you would probably be surprised by the conclusions, which are not in line with the theory of no proletariat) are:
Critical Remarks on the National Question
and
Theses on the National Question
...and then there is of course "Imperialism..." but I don't think any of us are so vehemently anti-lenin on trumped-up cold-war bourgeois-propaganda grounds that we reject this concept which we probably use every day (albeit unscientifically if those of us haven't actually read the thing.)
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Yeah I doubt you've read it seriously. Imperialism is a higher growth of capitalism. You are the one throwing out materialism when you try to stretch the meaning of the term to extend back to the "beginning" of capitalism, as if finance capital, export of capital on a large scale, monopolies and cartels on a large scale, had always existed.
I'm wondering why anyone even bothers to use the term "imperialism," considering it is no different from capitalism as a whole.
This is because you are looking at our current historical epoch, that of imperialist capitalism, as eternal. You are committing a grave mistake if you read an old text as if it were written today, and if you look at the features of the world you have been raised in as eternal.
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Colonialism =/= imperialism as a specific term developed by marxists to refer to our particular historical epoch. Merchant capital =/= modern industrial finance capital. Taking resources =/= export of capital as outlined in Lenin's (or Bukharin's) work. Spain's colonization of the americas was "corporations seeking profit"?? So now a feudal monarchy is a modern bourgeois firm?
The second very widespread "theory" of imperialism defines it as the policy of conquest in general. From this point of view one can speak with equal right of Alexander the Macedonian's and the Spanish conquerors' imperialism, of the imperialism of Carthage and Ivan III, of ancient Rome and modern America, of Napoleon and Hindenburg.
Simple as this theory may be, it is absolutely untrue. It is untrue because it "explains" everything, i.e., it explains absolutely nothing.
Every policy of the ruling classes ("pure" policy, military policy, economic policy) has a perfectly definite functional significance. Growing out of the soil of a given system of production, it serves to reproduce given relations of production either simply or on an enlarged scale. The policy of the feudal rulers strengthens and widens feudal production relations. The policy of trade capital increases the sphere of domination of trade capitalism. The policy of finance capitalism reproduces the production basis of finance capital on a wider scale.
It is perfectly clear that the same thing can also be said about the war. War serves to reproduce definite relations of production. War of conquest serves to reproduce those rela tions on a wider scale. Simply to define war, however, as conquest is entirely insufficient, for the simple reason that in doing so we fail to indicate the main thing, namely, what production relations are strengthened or extended by the war, what basis is widened by a given "policy of conquest."5)
Bourgeois science does not see and does not wish to see this. It does not understand that a basis for the classification of various "policies" must exist in the social economy out of which the "policies" arise. Moreover, it is inclined to overlook the vast differences existing between various periods of economic development, and just at the present time, when all the peculiarities of the historical economic process of our days are so striking to the eye, the Austrian and Anglo-American economic school, the least historical of all, has built its nest in bourgeois economics.6) Publicists and scholars attempt to paint modern imperialism as something akin to the policies of the heroes of antiquity with their "imperium."
This is the "method" of bourgeois historians and economists. They gloss over the fundamental difference between the slaveholding system of "antiquity," with its embryo of trade capital and artisanship, and "modern capitalism." The aim in this case is quite clear. The futility of the ideas of labour democracy must be "proven" by placing it on a level with the Lumpenproletariat the workers and the artisans of antiquity.
From a purely scientific point of view all such theories are highly erroneous. If a certain phase of development is to be theoretically understood, it must be understood with all its peculiarities, its distinguishing trends, its specific characteristics, which it shares with none. He who, like "Colonel Torrence," sees in the savage's club the beginning of capital, he who, like the "Austrian" school of economics, defines capital as a means of production (which in essence is the same thing), will never be able to find his way among the tendencies of capitalist development and include them in one theoretical structure. The historian or economist who places under one denominator the structure of modern capitalism, i.e., modern production relations, and the numerous types of production relations that formerly led to wars of conquest, will understand nothing in the development of modern world economy. One must single out the specific elements which characterise our time, and analyse them. This was Marx's method, and this is how a Marxist must approach the analysis of imperialism.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/09.htm
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As far as I'm concerned they're both buzzwords for describing natural tendencies of capital.
Yeah, you didn't read the bukharin text I quoted for you. This is the most superficial way to analyze commonalities.
By the 15th century the economic structure of the Italian republics, for example, was beginning to resemble the capitalism of today.
In what did this "resemblance" consist? You can't just say it was so. In what way?
it was really individual capitalists seeking to expand their businesses into the Americas - their voyages were financed by the Spanish state, but the gains were to be for their own wealth
Could you send a text for me to read more about this?
My god, pure ideology and so on.
sniff my shirt is tight
Wipes face, gets side tracked with an anecdote.*
Poop joke* and zisch is mush as Hegel put it no?
One can tell how much of cult Leninism is when you begin to get lists of stuff to read. Nearly everytime you get Lenin's Imperialism coming up. Why this should be suggested is beyond me as it's just an outline, a poor reflection, of Bukharin's work on the subject. Why isn't Bukharin's work mentioned? Probably because he fell out of Stalin's favour.
This subreddit is such a joke, holy shit.
you're right - we should hang weird maoist propaganda posters up and proudly display our religious communist beliefs
Would you like to say something about Leninism?
this is mostly a circlejerk post/ having some fun. Also no one is forcing you to be here ...
This isn't a circle jerk post. I'm highlighting how batshit stupid Leninism is.
This thing made me laugh. Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism mentions that "Marx and Engels scores of times termed their philosophical views dialectical materialism". Let's put this to the test so that get can get some lulz. Not even once.
To be fair, the work is only a polemic with a political, not theortical or philosophical aim because he was attempting to undermine someone. Why this should be upheld is a joke considering that he revised his views somewhat after reading Hegel so that at least makes him a little better than Kautksy.
To be fair, the work is only a polemic with a political, not theortical or philosophical aim because he was attempting to undermine someone.
Unsurprisingly, most of Lenin's works are just this. Very rarely did he write something that was not directed at a specific person or group of people. Kind of makes a mockery of the contemporary Leninist obsession with "sectarianism."
The weird thing about the text is that it's presented as a philosophical piece and Leninists claim that it's a great piece of materialist theortical work even though it's just used to attack Mach who was getting a bit too popular within the party. Besides that context, the content is mostly the crude and vulgar materialism of Plekhanov.
No one gives a fuck about their shitty substantiationist parties, stagist view of revolution, or cultish devotion to dead tyrants
so lenin's dead body is being kept whereverthefuck in russia. can you imagine being the dude who has to scrub that 100 year old dead fucker's balls?
I'm sure there's some who would just love to do that.
Leninism is just a more marginalized and less significant form of LARPing to which a couple thousand people somehow still subscribe to. All Leninist organizations are self-reciprocating sects striving for nothing other than recognition and survival. Ironically they've all become corporations of their own - seeking new business measures with which to out-compete other sects and gain as many members as they can. It's a hilarious display of sectarianism and idiocy drenched in anachronistic ideology.
I think you've mistaken self-parodying and/or troll internet subreddits for 'Leninism.'
Not really - I've seen the Leninist left in the flesh, many times, and was involved with them for a time. It is not pretty.
Or at least the real-life equivalents of said self-parodying subreddits. Treating their on-paper affiliation with Leninism as legitimate is more than a bit ridiculous - these are identitarian activist ('rape culture' is now a phrase you'll see used seriously) groups, who are less and less shy about advertising their disdain for the 'class reductionism,' among many other supposed problems, inherent to Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism/socialism/what have you.
Truth is, I should have written "leftism" rather than "Leninism," since it's not at all the sole fault of the Leninists - all leftists who see themselves as more than they should are guilty.
So, what, we're supposed to revel in our own marginalization? Why bother with politics at all in that case?
For the same reason that someone would bother with any interest - because it satisfies you in some way. Pro-revolutionary conceptions only reflect pre-revolutionary fabrication. Individuals cannot become relevant outside of a revolutionary period - the hegemonic confines of capital ensure this. This has always been the case.
Er, what? Of course individuals (and more importantly, parties and organizations) can become relevant before a revolutionary situation - the entire direction of that revolutionary period hinges on the foundations laid beforehand by the socialist left.
The working class isn't going to instantly fashion an effective political leadership and embrace socialist doctrine and collective organization out of the blue one day, and we've got example after example of that point from just the last few years.
Any evidence of that? All I've seen is the contrary. Revolution is inherently spontaneous. It can arguably be directed by a minority group, but not jump-started by one.
Tunisia? Greece? Egypt? The Middle East's biggest upheaval since 1979 ended up replacing one US-backed despot with another US-backed despot, not an overturn of capitalism.
The direct spark for revolutions can be spontaneous, but the point is that socialist consciousness, political organization and an effective socialist leadership are definitely not. They have to be built up, incrementally, beforehand, if you want to see historically progressive outcomes further down the road.
Tunisia? Greece? Egypt?
The thing to remember about these places though is that
a) they're not really movements towards communism
b) while of course there was some planning that was involved in the original acts of these uprisings, the popular response was completely spontanious and out of any of the organizers (or the states for that matter) hands
a) See my response to drosoph.
b) Sure. That's the whole problem. The fact that these mass movements never coalesced behind an organized socialist leadership (or channeled behind a 'left' hostile to revolution, as in Greece) explains their failings.
Tunisia? Greece? Egypt? The Middle East's biggest upheaval since 1979 ended up replacing one US-backed despot with another US-backed despot, not an overturn of capitalism.
No one ever said that those were communist or even proletarian in nature. However, it is very possible that the proletariat can unexpectedly revolt and move towards communism without the aid of any ideological sect. There are many texts out there dedicated to discussing this, Endnotes' "Communization and Value-Form Theory" is one of them, if you're curious. Monsieur Dupont's "Nihilist Communism" discusses similar topics, albeit in a pessimistic and purposefully exaggerated way.
The direct spark for revolutions can be spontaneous, but the point is that socialist consciousness, political organization and an effective socialist leadership are definitely not. They have to be built up, incrementally, beforehand, if you want to see historically progressive outcomes further down the road.
The Russian and French working classes seemed to disagree in 1917 and 1968, respectively. For "materialists" you guys seem to love stamping laws upon history. This has always seemed strange to me.
No one ever said that those were communist or even proletarian in nature.
All three are widely acknowledged as mass working class revolts, products of the post-2008 economic breakdown. The fact that none of them 'became communist' is my whole point - they've ended up the way they have because of the absence of an existing socialist movement that could channel these upheavals in a genuinely revolutionary direction, with the right leadership, organization and perspective.
And I'll have a look at the texts you cite, but I don't anticipate they'll challenge this basic point. Spontaneous revolts and directionless civil unrest are very clearly not the socialist revolution, as we've seen again and again around the world, and can easily produce far worse outcomes.
The Russian and French working classes seemed to disagree in 1917 and 1968, respectively.
The 'birthplace of socialism,' on the one hand, and the home to one of the 20th century's most powerful and influential Marxist movements, on the other? These are textbook examples of how decades of socialist agitation and organizational work had a huge impact on the consciousness of the working class and the direction of each country's national development, not their irrelevancy.
An appropriate counter to this point would be an example of socialist revolution in countries that have little or no tradition of socialist and left politics, no existing political organizations and abysmal or nonexistent levels of class consciousness. I don't know of any example that fits that mold.
All three are widely acknowledged as mass working class revolts
sure, but working class revolts are not in and of themselves a move towards communism
they've ended up the way they have because of the absence of an existing socialist movement that could channel these upheavals in a genuinely revolutionary direction, with the right leadership, organization and perspective.
I don't disagree with you on this point.
Spontaneous revolts and directionless civil unrest are very clearly not the socialist revolution, as we've seen again and again around the world, and can easily produce far worse outcomes.
Sure, most left-comms dont think they are. We don't reject the party-form in itself, only the Leninist version of it
These are textbook examples of how decades of socialist agitation and organizational work had a huge impact on the consciousness of the working class and the direction of each country's national development, not their irrelevancy.
Except it wasn't the agitation that brought about these revolutionary movements, but crisis's of capitalism itself that brought the people to revolt.
The definition of Leninism is highly contested terrain and goes in all sorts of directions (see Stalinism, opportunism and the like), so we may or may not agree that much on that point.
And you're right that the crisis of capitalism is key, but the point is that the preexisting foundations are what shape the direction the popular response to that crisis takes: whether its socialism, fascism, an apolitical hyper-individualist violent struggle against everyone else for survival, what have you.
Generally speaking, "socialist politics" suck, and are arguably counter-revolutionary. The simple fact that there are so many different pro-revolutionary tendencies is very telling. It shows that there is almost no common ground within the pro-revolutionary crowd, meaning that in a time of revolutionary upsurge, pro-revolutionary ideology would be of no worth anyway. Unless you can wave a magic wand and somehow get huge amounts of people to agree to your specific party program, you are not going to be able to manipulate the class struggle.
That's because 'socialist politics' aren't socialist politics. They're the wanker politics of the affluent middle class, which implicitly or explicitly views the working class as a sexist, racist, homophobic, privileged mob. The idea that we're obligated to just accept the nominal 'revolutionary' or 'socialist' labels at face value is absurd, and is exactly the sort of mentality Lenin so effectively demolished in his time.
And I've no idea why you think a magic wand is needed to win support for a particular program. Difficult, sure, but no serious appraisal of the world situation these days could conclude it's somehow out of the question.
So you want to purify the Leninist left AND get the proletariat to swear fealty to you? Sounds even more fantastical than saying communism can come about without any external intervention.
Or see a resurgence of working class Marxist politics vs. the still-ascendant post-1960s middle class identitarian left. That's only the least bit fantastical if you're living in some bizarro universe whose conditions are unrecognizable to our own - even Time Magazine is running editorials on the global resurgence of class conflict and the dangerous relevance of Marx.
Even if that were to become reality, we would end up with a Labourite social democracy or even a Stalinist state - "Marxist politics" is basically just that. Social rupture, and ultimately human emancipation is not a mere matter of opinions and coffee shop talk.
"The proletariat will not be motivated by political values in its resistance to work but by its selfish interest to assert its species being; its bodily desire to be human floods across the barriers of its separation. There is nothing nice or noble or heroic about the working class, it is essential to the productive process which constitutes the structure of our reality and therefore essential to revolution and the abolition of reality based upon production." - Monsieur Dupont, Nihilist Communism
abolition of reality based upon production
LOL good luck
You're a moron.
Anarchists are lifestylist, adventurist fools who couldn't muster a revolution if they even wanted to. All they can do is publish zines and get circle-A tattoos.
... So hey, want a copy of my party paper? If you subscribe you get a Fidel cap with a red star! We're doing so much to organize Realtm Class Consciousness.
What the fuck, comrade.
look, im sure you saw that big shitfest in /r/socialism yesterday. This is mostly just blowing off some steam from it
oh? do tell...
Look at the "Objection: Propaganda" thread.
pretty much. im sure /r/SubredditDrama. would have a field day with that thread
Let us enjoy our circlejerk for a while, you go enjoy yours.
Leninism ended in the Soviet Union. Leninism included the massacre of anarchist-communists.
Nuff said.
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You've missed the point.
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No, you're doing it again. You're confusing Lenin with Leninism and now you're trying to diffuse the argument.
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This is literally the worst leftist cop-out in existence.
You contine to misunderstand what is being talked about here. Lenin and Leninism are two different things. One of the main things that should be painfully obvious, but for some reason I am having to spell it out to you anyway, is that What is to be Done bore no relation to what happened in 1917 but Leninists try to make it such.
You're right. However I do not get your point in this and even if they make it as relation, it has not shown as a cause of failure to leninist revolutions.
Problem is that there has never been a Leninist revolution. Leninism was not codified until the 1920s. What happened in China could hardly be considered Leninist - Mao pretty much made things up as he went along (and he ended up purging the actual Leninists in the CCP).
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This is taken absolutely out of context all the time to support absurd claims. Engels says that Marx said in a letter about Paul Lafargue and his group "what is certain to me is that [,if they are Marxists, then] I am not [a] Marxist". He was simply distancing himself from certain french Marxists. You can read more about it in the introduction to the document he wrote with the group.
Damn, even libcom is better than you folks.
When you spell out a joke, it usually means that you don't get it.
I figured you were doing it jokingly to say that all those people weren't True Marxists™ but in the comments section I didn't get that vibe -- this quote is misused and misunderstood all the time. What's wrong with having a little educational content in your sub?
There are plenty of serious topics but you can continue being a party pooper if you wish.
lol, shut up. no one is taking the quote out of context, it's a joke image playing off a Marx quote (and using it to show the distance Marx has from the various trends of leftism).
I swear, It's you Leninists deliberate obtuseness, lack of humor, and generally pleasant demeanor that make you so fun to be around
fuck u man this is serious business. what would marx and lenin think if we were making fun of the now.
The difference between this and libcom's discussion is that one of them is a joke, you dense fuck.
Right, I know the picture is a joke -- I knew the picture was a joke when I posted. It being a joke does not somehow nullify anything I said. Can you people please stop making the same boring insulting comments on this now? You're actually missing the point of my comment if you think it has to do with me "missing the joke".
one of my favorite quotes i am reminded of everytime an argument gets backed into the corner of "what did marx really mean?" by the capital thumpers.
Who is the man on the left side of Lenin? He seems familiar but I can't quite put my finger on him!
To the left is Kautsky.
Ah of course! How could I have been so NAIVE?
seconded. also, far right of the pic?
Far right is Hoxha.
the powerful neo-feudal lord of anti-revisionism and Marxism-Leninism
Indeed he is.
brilliant
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This should be interesting. I'm not the biggest fan of Graeber, but he does say some smart things every now and again
I don't share all his politics but they are certainly better than Niall Ferguson's, by a lot.
oh agreed, Ferguson is a massive tool.
If anyone has not read his book Debt: The First 5000 Years then you really should. It is highly entertaining and informative.
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We reorganised our website according to a different principle. Here you can find texts by the communist left after the Second World War, including four from the journal Prometeo that we translated in the last few days: "America", "America Again", "Korea is the World", as well as "East".
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Lovely text! Some quotes from this to get a grasp of what it's all about:
For Marxism, the revolutionary (or counter-revolutionary: the two terms are dialectically linked) destiny of Russia fits into a whole which, since the Manifesto, is by definition global. The shadow of Tsarist Russia, the stronghold of the European counter-revolution, obscures the revolutionary perspectives of 1848: it is no longer a question of the distant land of the Sarmatians dear to the bourgeois publicist, but the issue of a leading role in the drama, just like Metternich's Austria; without its defeat, the European revolution cannot win. After 1860, while remaining European, which at the time meant global, the Marxist perspective changed: the looming Russian revolution "would have enormous importance for all of Europe, if only for the reason that 'by destroying in one swoop the last reserve of pan-European reaction, untouched until now”, it will be able to initiate the leap "from the peasant communities, this already decomposed form of the ancient common property of the land [...] to the superior communist form of land property". It however had to become "the signal for a workers' revolution in the West, with both complementing each other ” (4). In the nineties, this hypothetical perspective in turn disappeared. Russia having engaged in the capitalist whirlwind, the anti-feudal and anti-Tsarist revolution promises to be the great upheaval which, by tearing the peasants "from the isolation of their villages, which form their universe" (5), and by pushing them "onto the big stage where they will learn to know the outside world and therefore also to know themselves ", will give "to the Western workers' movement a new impetus, new and better conditions for struggle and, thereby will bring victory closer to the modern industrial proletariat, without which today's Russia can neither leave the peasant commune nor capitalism to move towards a socialist transformation ” (6).
[...]
At the Fifth Congress of the Communist International, the Communist Left had courageously called on the international communist movement to restore to the Bolshevik Party some of the formidable theoretical and practical contributions they had made to it a few years earlier, but the call had fallen into the void. At the enlarged Sixth Executive, at the beginning of 1926, the same Communist Left showed that it was urgently necessary to overturn the "pyramid" of the International in unstable equilibrium on its summit, since it rested on a Bolshevik Party which had lost its homogeneity, and to establish this pyramid on a more stable basis, that is to say on a world communist movement conscious of its duties; unfortunately, this base was already cracked too. The Left also asked the world movement to take up the "Russian question" and discuss it as a vital question since it was essentially international; but the International abdicated, no force capable of fulfilling this duty having had the courage to respond to the call. The International no longer delegated to Moscow just Social Democrats but also Mensheviks and centrists, in short, all that political scum which had nestled in the various "national" parties and which felt that it was once again its hour. Thälmann, Smeral, the Cachins, the Sémards, the Martynovs (behind whom were social forces and very specific political traditions) were eager to become Stalin's corporals after having been the obtuse executioners of the Communists of the Opposition.
[...]
The counter-revolution may have crushed October, but it could not and never will be able to prevent capitalism from accumulating the explosive charges of a revolutionary renaissance, more powerful than ever. Historical development reduces the "national peculiarities" on which Stalinism has nourished itself to a vulgar pasteboard scaffolding which cannot conceal the deep unity of the world. In this world, the proletarian revolution, the only one possible in contemporary times, is objectively on the agenda of all the key countries of the world capitalist system. It is set on this material base, this granite base, that is armed with the teachings of both the defeat and the victory of October.
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Years ago, a beautiful film entitled Intolerance made its way around the screens. In a glimpse of history and its tragic struggles it wanted to confirm the thesis that the origin of all human ills and all social tragedies was an intellectual and moral fact, the incomprehension, the hard obstinacy not to admit and respect the opinions of others.
Thesis aimed at moving an audience, thesis fully inserted in the literature of secularism and free thought.
It is this position that Marxism wanted to reverse once and for all. It is not tolerance that makes the world move. It submits and binds the oppressed classes and submits them to the conformism of the privileged. History shakes when the human herd moves away from the illusions of tolerance. Few men are wolves to man, too many are sheep. Class dominations falter when, in the real process of organised forms of production, violent incompatibilities with traditional mechanisms push the vanguard of a hitherto kneeling class to break free from the hypocrisies of tolerance, to take the great, intolerant path of the Revolution.
lol sounds familiar
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In the union field, while it was no less clear the declaration of war to the yellow servants of the capital of Amsterdam and Geneva, direct material emanation of the bourgeois monopoly states and with no connection to the layers of the working class, was resolved in a consistent manner but not formally identical the problem of local and national organisations.
The issue gave rise to many debates among young communist parties. In many of these they supported the tactic of abandoning trade unions led by the yellows in order to move to the formation of new secessionist economic unions bringing together workers disgusted by the opportunism of social democratic officials. It was believed by these groups, German, Dutch and other countries, that the revolutionary struggle needed not only an autonomous communist party but also an autonomous trade union network connected to the party.
Lenin’s criticism proved that such a view implicitly and sometimes explicitly contained a devaluation of the party’s task and hence of the revolutionary political necessity, and that it was related to old workerist concerns that participated in the errors of the right. To it were linked the trends, also represented in Italy, to devalue the same trade union and industry based nationally compared to the factory organisations formed among the workers, or Consigli di Azienda, that were considered not as fighting bodies in a general network, but as local cells of a new productive order that would replace the bourgeois one in the management, leaving the autonomy of the company to subsist under the direction of its workers. This conception led to a non-Marxist vision of the revolution, according to which the new economic type would replace the capitalist type cell by cell with a more important process than those concerning central power and general socialist planning. The Comintern doctrine eliminated all these deviations and specified the importance, in the historical situation of the time, of the economic union in which the workers flocked to all countries in compact masses imposing vast national trade union struggles and laying the foundations for political battles. For Marx and Lenin in the deployment of the workers’ forces the party was indispensable, if it lacks or loses revolutionary strength the trade union movement can only be reduced to the sphere of collaboration with the bourgeois system, but where situations mature and the proletarian vanguard is strong and decisive, the union also passes from organ of conquests to organ of revolutionary battle, and the strategist of the conquest of political power is based on the decisive influence of the party, possibly even a minority, in the trade union bodies through which the masses can be called to the general strikes and to the great struggles.
In this context, reading the Minutes to the Second Congress of the Comintern is advised to everyone.
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I guess this is too "problematic" to be hosted on MIA.
I "respect" the aristocracy, "laugh" at the bourgeoisie, and I "tailor a system" to fit the proletariat, using them to "oust the aristocracy from power". In the first section of the Manifesto, entitled "Bourgeois and Proletarians" (see Manifesto, p. 11)[am], it is argued in detail that the economic and, hence too, in one form or another, the political sway of the bourgeoisie is the essential precondition both of the existence of the modern proletariat and of the creation of the "material conditions for its emancipation". "The development of the modern proletariat" (see Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Revue, January 1850, p. 15) "is, in general, conditioned by the development of the industrial bourgeoisie. Only under its rule does the proletariat gain that extensive national existence which can raise its revolution to a national one, and does it itself create the modern means of production, which become just so many means of its revolutionary emancipation. Only its rule tears up the material roots of feudal society and levels the ground on which alone a proletarian revolution is possible."[an] I declared accordingly in the same "Review" that any revolution in which England did not take part was no more than a "storm in a teacup"[83]. Engels had already advanced the same opinion in 1845 in The Condition of the Working-Class in England[ao]. Hence in countries where an aristocracy in the Continental sense of the term—and this is what Techow meant by "aristocracy"—has still to be "ousted from power", the very first prerequisite of a proletarian revolution is in my opinion missing, namely the existence of an industrial proletariat on a national scale.
Can anyone who's read Marx's musings on russia perhaps chime in with any changing of opinion on what is being said here? Considering he is speaking in Dec, 1860 after all.
If you're referring to the letters written to Vera Zasulich then it doesn't contradict what is written.
Can you specify your question a bit more? This is too vague.
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It is of note that this article is often quoted as an authority to support the confusion of the petty bourgeois anti-labour crowd (Postone and all these types). They take this paragraph:
Hence, without taking into account the “theory of productive forces” and the “political conditions of the nations”, all this can be “established”. What is established thereby? Reality. What is established, for example, by wages? The life of the worker. Furthermore, it is established thereby that the worker is the slave of capital, that he is a “commodity”, an exchange value, the higher or lower level of which, the rise or fall of which, depends on competition, on supply and demand; it is established thereby that his activity is not a free manifestation of his human life, that it is, rather, a huckstering sale of his forces, an alienation (sale) to capital of his one-sidedly developed abilities, in a word, that it is “labour”. One is supposed to forget this. “Labour” is the living basis of private property, it is private property as the creative source of itself. Private property is nothing but objectified labour. If it is desired to strike a mortal blow at private property, one must attack it not only as a material state of affairs, but also as activity, as labour. It is one of the greatest misapprehensions to speak of free, human, social labour, of labour without private property. “Labour” by its very nature is unfree, unhuman, unsocial activity, determined by private property and creating private property. Hence the abolition of private property will become a reality only when it is conceived as the abolition of “labour” (an abolition which, of course, has become possible only as a result of labour itself, that is to say, has become possible as a result of the material activity of society and which should on no account be conceived as the replacement of one category by another). An “organisation of labour”, therefore, is a contradiction. The best organisation that labour can be given is the present organisation, free competition, the dissolution of all its previous apparently “social” organisation.
- and find it in contradiction with both the earlier 1844 manuscripts, as well as the later Grundrisse:
In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou labour! was Jehovah’s curse on Adam. And this is labour for Smith, a curse. ‘Tranquillity’ appears as the adequate state, as identical with ‘freedom’ and ‘happiness’. It seems quite far from Smith’s mind that the individual, ‘in his normal state of health, strength, activity, skill, facility’, also needs a normal portion of work, and of the suspension of tranquillity. Certainly, labour obtains its measure from the outside, through the aim to be attained and the obstacles to be overcome in attaining it. But Smith has no inkling whatever that this overcoming of obstacles is in itself a liberating activity – and that, further, the external aims become stripped of the semblance of merely external natural urgencies, and become posited as aims which the individual himself posits – hence as self-realization, objectification of the subject, hence real freedom, whose action is, precisely, labour. He is right, of course, that, in its historic forms as slave-labour, serf-labour, and wage-labour, labour always appears as repulsive, always as external forced labour; and not-labour, by contrast, as ‘freedom, and happiness’. This holds doubly: for this contradictory labour; and, relatedly, for labour which has not yet created the subjective and objective conditions for itself (or also, in contrast to the pastoral etc. state, which it has lost), in which labour becomes attractive work, the individual’s self-realization, which in no way means that it becomes mere fun, mere amusement, as Fourier, with grisette-like naïveté, conceives it. Really free working, e.g. composing, is at the same time precisely the most damned seriousness, the most intense exertion.
They are unable to understand Marx as due to their relation to production they share the attitude here outlined in Adam Smith/Fourier (not their general attitude - that would be too charitable - just in relation to this issue). Marx in the first paragraph puts "labour" in quotation marks. This is because the German term, "Arbeit", gives no distinction as the English "work" and "labour", meaning once the having-become-independent sphere confronting us as alien - estranged labour, wage labour -, and on the other hand labour as such. By putting the word in quotes, Marx refers to the former - labour as mediated by private property - in this paragraph from the draft on List (incidentally also clarified in the section itself, but often ignored: "it is established thereby that his activity is not a free manifestation of his human life, that it is, rather, a huckstering sale of his forces, an alienation (sale) to capital of his one-sidedly developed abilities, in a word, that it is “labour”.") You might simply read "estranged labour" or "wage labour" whereever "labour" appears in the first quote here.
If the "abolition of work" has no other content than the abolition of wage labour (not labour as such!), there's nothing objectionable about it (though one might then ask why such a confusing slogan is chosen in the first place, instead of the clearer option) - but the reality is that it is championed by students of gender studies and the like who are terrified at the prospect of having to get a job. They might shove their "fully automated..." right where it came from. Communism is not the generalisation of the middle class condition, it doesn't mean that everyone gets to lazily sit on their ass and indulge in their petty bourgeois hobbies - the absence of private property doesn't mean that one only has to "wait around for the roasted pigeons [...] to fly into [one's] open mouth".
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The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organisation of the workers as an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is a distinct workers' party. And this step has been taken, far more rapidly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first programme of this party is still confused and highly deficient, that it has set up the banner of Henry George, these are inevitable evils but also only transitory ones. The masses must have time and opportunity to develop and they can only have the opportunity when they have their own movement--no matter in what form so long as it is only their own movement--in which they are driven further by their own mistakes and learn wisdom by hurting themselves. The movement in America is in the same position as it was with us before 1848; the really intelligent people there will first of all have the same part to play as that played by the Communist League among the workers' associations before 1848
Socialism is not merely when "the workers own the means of production", nor would it merely be a planned economy, or a combination of the two. Because simply having these would leave a wide margin for capital to remain entrenched.
The means of production will not be owned, but common among all. Planning will certainly take place, by those in control of the resources and means of production, but also, and very importantly, there will be no need for anyone to commodify themselves to be hired for jobs or taken on as producers, because production will not happen for the commodity form, but simply for... growth, necessity, fun, what have you? People will be free to pursue their desires and grow into their potential. This is truly, a basic socialist society? This is the abolishment of capital? Am I correct?
I sincerely apologize if this is the wrong place to post this question, but I have no idea where else to post it and get informed feedback.
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You don't mention property once. Property is the reason why the commodity-form (the value-form) exists. Communism is the abolition of property and with that, the abolition of classes.
very importantly, there will be no need for anyone to commodify themselves to be hired for jobs or taken on as producers, because production will not happen for the commodity form
You don't commodify yourself in capitalism. Slaves are commodities, proletarians aren't. Proletarians sell their labour-power (a commodity) to people who own property, the capitalist or group of capitalists, etc.
The first chapter of Capital deals with all of this.
I feel like I implied property, at least partially. I'm not the most thorough or best at communicating, but I know what I meant. Sorry. I definitely agree though.
You don't commodify yourself in capitalism. Slaves are commodities, proletarians aren't. Proletarians sell their labour-power (a commodity) to people who own property, the capitalist or group of capitalists, etc.
This makes sense. Although, it's basically what I meant. Like your labor power is essentially tied to you.
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Yeah, im serious.
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The group Pale Blue Jadal has a tumblr.
To my understanding, this is a group made up of what used to be Turkish section of the International Communist Current.
thanks!
well im glad you're serious but have you tried googling the last four words of your question?
https://moonbatdiaries.wordpress.comwww.edensauvage.wordpress.com
Yeah i know those, but i want a tumblr. Used to follow a bunch but i havent been on tumblr for too long and now all of those blogs are deactivated. And the serious part is for the potential 'are u fucking kidding me' recations because i am asking for tumblrs in a subreddit that is usually full of serious debates
I've been struggling to find a collected translated writings of Bordiga in book form, I prefer to read on text and be able to bring it anywhere i go rather than having to access libcom.org everytime i want to read bordiga. Is there a selected writings for him that I can buy?
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This is something I did for comrades and myself (party and class + party and class action along with short intro). I'll put printable pdfs up and am looking for a way to distribute (donation based/enough to cover shipping and paper/ink).
I prefer to read on text and be able to bring it anywhere i go rather than having to access libcom.org everytime i want to read bordiga.
Unfortunately, I do not know of a paper collection of Bordiga's works, but have you considered getting an e-reader? You can download books to them (Most can read webpages from sites like libcom.org too, and at the end of the day it is cheaper and less wasteful than buying paper copies of everything), they have fairly paper like screens that are easy on the eyes, and have long battery lives so they be taken on the go easily.
After the Situationist International many tendencies developed claiming to be post-situationist aka to be inspired by the situationists. These tendencies include Marxist Communization, Anarchist Communization, and many post-leftist anarchists. Did they carry the theory well or drop the ball?
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I was listening to interviews with Bob Black, and the main criticism I had of his framework and the limited reading I did on post-left was that it, as a rule, seems to offer no real means of changing modern politics. This was a glaring flaw in the SI that Debord himself criticized quite harshly, and they at least had some sort of vague framework descended from Pannekoek. Post-left essentially amplifies this by going so far as to suggest that merely having concrete organizational efforts are in and of themselves failures because of the tendency toward ideology. Fair enough, ideological tendencies in organizations is a problem, but what is his alternative? Do we merely wait for capitalism to solve itself? That sounds very collaborationist if you ask me, but then post-leftists think collaborationism isn't a problem, so they're answer appears to be literally nothing.
Do we merely wait for capitalism to solve itself?
You forgot his wacky criticisms of computers
deleted Whatisthis?
He seems to be a very peculiar figure in his political evolution, being a member of the Russian Left Communist group initially and eventually becoming a prominent member of the Right Opposition to Stalin. What does everyone here think of him?
Also, are there any particularly important Bukharin texts you would recommend? I've heard good things about Imperialism and World Economy, but haven't read it yet.
Thanks in advance
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Thanks a lot! For whatever reason I hadn't remembered The ABC of Communism as being Bukharin's, but I'll definitely have a go at the three texts over the next few weeks, as well as the Marot essay.
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We don't reject Lenin necessarily, I'll let someone else talk abt Mao.
So left communists reject only some things from Lenin? Which things?
First off, we ought to note that "Left Communism" isn't one coherent strain of thought, it's a historical current which opposed the reactionary turn of the Soviet Union starting in the early 1920's. The two most popular "sects" of Left Communism were the Dutch-German Council Communists, and the Italian Left Communists.
Most traditional Council Communists (e.g. Pannekoek) reject Lenin, and see the Russian revolution as inherently bourgeois, because in their view, the organic development of Proletarian authority through workers councils (e.g. The Soviets in Russia) is the legitimate revolutionary force, as opposed to the Communist Party (e.g. The Bolsheviks). The Italian Left (e.g. Bordiga) on the other hand, modifies some of Lenins theories, but largely accept the theory of the vanguard party. Their main break with Lenin, as far as I can tell, is that they believe that the Party should not be led by people "outside of" the proletariat, but I don't know enough about Bordiga or Lenin to say much more.
This is not exactly true. The Dutch-German left did support the Russian revolution and the party form originally. They came from the KAPD, a party. There's plenty of texts by Pannekoek in support of the Russian revolution. However, later on part of this current became what's known as the councilists. They are the ones who oppose the party form in general and consider the Russian revolution bourgeois from the start.
Not all left communists reject Lenin. The Italian Left were generally sympathetic towards him. Here is a quote from the front page of the ICP's website.
What distinguishes our party: – the line running from Marx to Lenin to the foundation of the Third International and the birth of the Communist Party of Italy in Leghorn (Livorno) 1921, and from there to the struggle of the Italian Communist Left against the degeneration in Moscow and to the rejection of popular fronts and coalition of resistance groups; – the tough work of restoring the revolutionary doctrine and the party organ, in contact with the working class, outside the realm of personal politics and electoralist manoevrings.
In regards to Mao, I only really know the position of Bordiga. Bordiga saw Mao as a bourgeois revolutionary.
The entire communist left considers Maoism to be a bourgeois current. There was no proletarian revolution in China in 1949. The Chinese proletariat had already been crushed in the 20's by Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces, the Kuomintang. Moscow then ordered the communist party to unite with the Kuomintang. These texts explain the left-communist point of view:http://insurgentnotes.com/2012/10/notes-towards-a-critique-of-maoism/http://en.internationalism.org/ir/081_china.htmIf you can read Italian (or translate it online): http://www.leftcom.org/it/articles/2003-01-01/elementi-di-analisi-della-rivoluzione-cinese
You're incredibly lazy.
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Introduction
The following article by William Morris was published in "Workers’ Dreadnought", Vol. X No. 30, October 13, 1923 and represents a complementary one to the article by Sylvia Pankhurst in the previous edition. The Pankhurst article was about the Poplar Board of Guardians (issuers of Poor Law benefit), under the control of the Labour Party, bringing in Police to beat up unemployed protesting over cuts in benefits. Pankhurst pointed out that this event was the consequence of representatives of the working class becoming involved in the administration of capitalist machinery, namely the State whether in its national or local versions. Consequently they become bastions of capitalism itself, having no other role than in the maintenance of the capitalist system. They cease being representatives of the working class (even though they may still parade themselves as such) and play out their role as Municipal bosses, the employers of wage labourers and representatives of property and finance.
This article constitutes a critique of and dialogue against the reformist perspective. Unfortunately there is no date to this article by Morris and is not readily traceable in those books which do reproduce some of his works. Because of the nature of the article it seems to be part of the period in which he was active in the Social Democratic Federation or in the Socialist League. Presumably this article may well have reflected the period in which he collaborated with the supporters of Engels in trying to steer the socialist movement in the direction of the class struggle, rather than in a reformist one. We base this assumption upon the reference to "practical" socialists, precisely because all those who follow the well- trodden path towards class collaboration do so upon the basis of being "practical". There is no other "practical" road open to change they say. And of course the other cry is "somebody has to do it" – to which we assume means also disciplining workers whether by management procedures or Police batons.
The difficulty in tracing this article is not unusual. There is no substantial history of the Socialist League, even though it represented the preferred option of Engels during the mid-1880s. But that is not surprising as the involvement of Marx and Engels in the working class movement in Britain has not been examined in depth. For instance Marx and Engels support for Ernest Jones’ reorganised Chartist Movement in the 1850s is shrouded in silence. Nor has the struggle within the English section of the First International attracted much attention by historians, excepted for the occasional study. After all the British bourgeoisie has an interest in keeping the strategy of Marx and Engels towards the class struggle in Britain shrouded in silence. Ignorance is bliss for the bourgeoisie, precisely because employees are easier to handle that way.
A century ago these "practical" socialists could believe and project themselves to be "wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing". This phrase is often used to characterise people who are believed to be potentially dangerous and who surround themselves with respectability. In this case it is more a strategy of infiltration into the ranks of the ruling order with some sort of change in mind - the seizing of controls of the state or political parties for some surreptitious purpose. With the complete integration of all the "practical" socialists into bourgeois order, under way at the beginning of the century and completed during and just after the First World War, they have changed their nature. From wolves in sheep’s clothing they have become their opposite - sheep in wolve’s clothing, thoroughly tame characters dressed up as very possibly some sort of danger for the system, sometime or other. They are paraded out whenever there are social movements in order to divert or diffuse them. They fill the ranks of the Labour left-wing MPs (you can hear bleatings all over the place) and local councils. The "radical" Labourites as Councillors, who still pose themselves as those thirsting for social change through very constitutional means, and continue in the same rotten reformist tradition, are merely the latest wave whose role is that of disorientation of the population in general and the working class in particular. They castigate any other future but capitalism as "utopian" whilst striving to enwrap all they can in the hideous machinery of the status quo. Those who believe in using the machinery of the state, public enterprises and democracy as a vehicle for social change for the people/working class are the real Utopians. It is the road to ruin and destruction and they will try and take the working class with them if they get the chance.
http://www.international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/CL03.htm#The_Big_Stick_In_Poplar._Who_Called_in - Big Stick in Poplar
Here's the date and source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1888/commonweal/02-practical-socialists.htm I posted it in /r/communists a while ago, vintage Morris!
Here's a sneak peek of /r/communists using the top posts of the year!
#1: CWI and Sexual Harassment
#2: The USSR was a capitalist society
#3: Castro Just Passed Away, Let's Not Forget About How He Repressed Anarchists (x-post /r/anarchism) | 1 comment
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I saw this as further vindication of antifa anarchism's bourgeois nature. Would you agree?
"Bourgeois nature" is a little loaded, but a movement that is purely defensive, reactive and non-constructive can not be anything but class collaborationist, wether it aknowledges that or not
Well put
I don't think anarchism has a "bourgeois" nature so this doesn't confirm that. It does confirm, though, that antifa is an, at worst, reactionary position. Same as knee jerk anti-impism.
I don't think anarchism is bourgeois, though it is pretty garbage, but antifa for sure. However, I ofttimes fucking hate how liberals hate it, for all the wrong reasons.
Several things I've noticed in the reaction to antifa from liberals:
a) The idea that every single Black Bloc action is due to some outsider out to ruin their protest.
b) The faith they have in the ideal of free speech to the point that they'll defend the rights of those who if they had their way would gladly get rid of it.
c) This binary thinking they have of anti-American/ real American. It's funny hearing progressives sound just like their conservative counterparts.
In other news, all /r/socialism can talk about is an internet white nationalist with a Twitter following of barely 45k people.
Well I think there are a couple of things going on here. First, this is getting Leninists, basically LARPers, frothy at the mouth because they can now recreate, in their heads, what they have always wanted their own Great Patriotic War. Secondly, Spencer is an excellent foil for Bourgeois politics to set itself up against and show it is so full of compassion and caring. Finally, I feel there is a bit of reductionism going on here from the other side. While I agree Spencer is a joke it is still a dangerous one and similar to another deranged lederhosen goofball that attempt a half-arsed putsch in that both were not taken very seriously early on but that is about the end of similarities outside of their respective ideologies being related. The more concerning part to me is not so much Spencer, but rather the normalization of radical Far Right politics by the mass media within the western sphere though this has been going on for a long time.
At the end of the day Spencer provides a catalyst to encourage these kinds of behaviors and something I have seen in my own city with an increasing sign of increased Neo-Nazi activity. I think the problem with /r/socialism, among a plethora of other things, is they are mistaking Spencer for the Trees and that is something I wold bet Spencer is proud of. Spencer is merely the kind of shift the White Nationalist movement has been trying to make in order to shed its Skinhead imagery for suits and ties. TL;DR Spencer is merely the symptom of an increasingly reactionary Bourgeois political landscape not the cause.
Edit: Downvoted with no explanation? Ok then.
True, he is definitely an attention whore of the highest caliber, if I'm allowed to use that word.
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In the few pages that follow are condensed the positions of the Communist Left, which is organized as the International Communist Party, and whose press organ in English speaking countries is "Communist Left".
The doctrine and the programme that the party embodies are products of historical selection and not the brainchildren of useless geniuses. They have been fused together by History into one steel block over the course of tempestuous and bloody class struggles; which halfway through the 19th century introduced a new class, the proletariat.
The party is a school of thought and a method of action. Doctrine, programme, tactics, and organization make up the party. The working class exists as such only by virtue of its party; without it the proletariat is a class only in a statistical sense.
The existence of the party does not depend on the will of great chiefs, but rather on generations of its militants jealously guarding and keenly observing its fundamental features, and enforcing them in all their practical consequences; the party’s strength, meanwhile, depends on the development of social contradictions. For this reason, at certain points in history, it is reduced to a small number of resolute militants, at others it grows, increases its membership, and becomes a social force that can determine the outcome of the final clash with capital’s regime.
For these reasons it is ruled out that the party can once again put itself at the head of the fighting masses, as in the glorious period between 1917-1926, by means of tactical expedients, diplomatic devices, promiscuous associations with other left-wing political groups, or innovations of sibylline significance in the field of the complex intertwining of the party/class relationship.
It is also ruled out that the party can increase its membership by official deployment of a senseless formal discipline, the inevitable counterpart of the restoration of democratic practices, which by now are forever banned not only from the heart of our organization, but from the State and society as well. Such petty subterfuges as these kill the party as a class organ, even should its membership rise. They are low tricks that betray the yearning of chiefs and semi-chiefs to effect a "break through", in the false hope of escaping the ghetto in which the true party is confined, not by its own will but by the pressure of the counterrevolution, which has been victorious on a world scale for almost a century now precisely by distorting the tasks and nature of the party.
The best evidence of the uselessness of such maneuvering, better than deriving it from the critique of ideas, comes from historical experience. Although the relations of power between the social classes have not changed at all various Trotskyist tendencies, and left wingers of various hues, have preached everywhere that the party must adapt itself to circumstances, i.e., adopt "realistic" policies, consisting of continuous changes of direction.
If the size of the party today is minimal, and its influence on the proletarian masses virtually non existent, the reason is to be found in the class struggle, in historical events, and we must be courageous enough to conclude that either Marxism should be discarded, and with it the party, or that Marxism must be kept unchanged. After having anticipated this lesson on the doctrinal level, the Left has also drawn from this materialistic and historical verification a fundamental lesson: nothing to add, nothing to change. Let us remain at our post!
This pamphlet is a text of the International Communist Party, and like all its other texts it confirms and reasserts the traditional positions of the Italian Left. Existing outside the contingent events of organic and historical selection of formal organizations. This unitary body of doctrine and praxis is today vindicated in full by only one organization, whose press organ is Communist Left in english, La Gauche Communiste in french, Il Partito Comunista in italian, La Izquierda Comunista in Spanish.
Let us state again that we expect the revival of the revolutionary class movement to follow a sharpening and radicalization of social struggle, which will arise as a consequence of the acceleration of contradictions within the capitalist system. The party will grow alongside these developments if, based on its inviolable doctrine and invariant program it knows how, in each proletarian struggle it participates in, to direct them simultaneously against the treacherous opportunism of the false workers parties, against nationalistic and patriotic trade unionism, and against the capitalist State and the bourgeois political front.
In this struggle the Left is alone and knows it will remain alone, not through its own choice, but because this is the fertile lesson derived from the past defeats of the proletariat. In those defeats a pre-eminently counter-revolutionary role was played by positions and organizations which, although pretending to be inspired by the proletariat and even by Marxism and revolution, in fact represented the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy; and their action has always been that of first obstructing, then dividing, and finally abandoning the proletarian front to the enemy.
It is some time since we settled accounts with all the latter day union leaders, anarchists, and "left wingers" or rather since History did, which has pitilessly shattered their deeds and doctrines.
We dedicate this short text above all to the proletarian youth, so that, with its characteristic bravery, abnegation and spirit, it may turn its back forever on the illusory temptations of modern society, on the false myths of democracy and national solidarity, of reformism and gradualism, in order to embrace a program of struggle, of combat, on the anonymous and impersonal revolutionary communist front.
For it will be up to our youth to bring communism to victory.
Thoughts on Eden Sauvage's "Disaster Communism" - Pt. 2
"We already know what meaning 'going beyond the framework of what exists' has. It is the old fancy that the state collapses of itself as soon as all its members leave it and that money loses its validity if all the workers refuse to accept it. Even in a hypothetical form, this proposition reveals all the fantasy and impotence of pious desire. It is the old illusion that changing existing relations depends only on the good will of people, and that existing relations are ideas."
– Marx, The German Ideology
"Communisation is a practical problem posed by the proletariat at a certain moment of its class struggle against capital."
– riff-raff, Notes on the Discussion about Communisation
"The revolutionary process is characterised by that process in which [the value form] is abolished and replaced by communism. The proletariat thus does not raise itself to become the dominant class, but abolishes itself along with all other classes."
– riff-raff, Crisis and Communisation
1. False Consciousness is a Faulty Concept
Through out the piece, Eden highlights a number of different "consciousnesses", including the notion of "false consciousness".
You won't find the term in any of Marx's writings, and it appears in just one place in the writings of Engels. Even in that example, Engels' (and Marx's) main subject of focus is ideology itself. He could have as well have called false consciousness "stickin' thinkin'", or just plain "stupidity". The essential point is to highlight a lack of objectivity and consistency between the ideologies of different individuals when viewed in isolation from the greater context of their social class. It's a kind of cognitive dissonance.
That being said, all consciousness is real consciousness. It's just that it can be shit consciousness. Just like spam and shitposts are still posts.
Eden brings this distinction into their views of the day-to-day struggle, making a distinction between "the real movement of the proletariat" on the one hand, and the movement of those in bad faith on the other. This could perhaps be viewed as the "false movement" of the proletariat.
But once again, there is really just one "movement"---the movement of the whole class, whether forward, backwards or lateral. To argue otherwise is to reproduce the schema of separating the “thinking revolutionary elite” and the “unthinking masses”.
2. The Powerlessness of the Individual
With some colorful language Eden makes us feel how powerless the individual is in today's society. Like Marx said in the Grundrisse, it is “impossible for the individuals of a class etc. to overcome [external relations] en masse without destroying them”. But that powerlessness is exactly why workers are driven to come together. One soon realizes the only way to make a difference and impact the world today is by uniting and fighting, predicated on the basis of that powerlessness of the individual mentioned by Marx and others.
The proletariat is only "bound in a thousand ways" when disunited. With enough proletarian unity, state repression, bourgeois cultural propaganda, bourgeois education---it can all be counteracted if not overcome completely. It's not a question of "possibilities". It's a question of timing. Are we in a period of open class struggle? How intense? Have the new ideas and moods "breached the surface"? And with our practical activity, how good we are at discussing and networking those individuals?
3. Substitutionism and Eden's Crystal Ball
Eden writes:
"Even if the proletariat were able to dodge every single one of these obstacles, a general strike and a mass-coordinated riot, no matter how well planned, would leave capital alive in small pockets of the world and despotic capital would then expand again and overcome the revolution. The proletariat cannot consciously stop capital."
Look who's talking about "bad-faith pro-revolutionaries", now! Haha, sheesh.
How are we so sure this is what's going to happen? Who says we are using accurate periodizations? Who's got the crystal ball? Nobody can see into the future.
But seriously, weren't the Bolsheviks thinking the same thing when Lenin declared revolutionary consciousness enters the working class not from within, but from outside? Didn't they also argue the proletariat cannot consciously stop capital alone? Their conclusion was the need for a substitutionist vanguard party. From similar logic, the Kautskyists and SocDems claimed the need for a mass party to help stop capital. We need to offer a better solution.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now and post a Pts.3 & 4 of this critique at a later time. Topics will include:
4. Communist Skepticism or Loss of Faith?
5. Anti-political, not apolitical
6. Uneven Development and International Revolution
7. Communism after Collapse? Yeah right!
8. The Threat of Imperialist War
9. Economism
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That being said, all consciousness is real consciousness
There's no way of possibly knowing if there's such thing as a "real consciousness", although perhaps that's what you're trying to say.
Otherwise I actually agree with a lot of what you said here. Not a bad piece.
Ey thanks comrade. I was basically trying to say the same thing as Marx when he said:
*Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men in their actual lifeprocess. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical lifeprocess as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process."
Thoughts on Eden Sauvage's "Disaster Communism" - Pt. 1
The piece begins with a Mattick quote from 1977:
"Thus far, such revolutionary actions have occurred only in connection with social catastrophe...it indicates the extent of social disintegration that precedes revolutionary upheavals. Revolution must involve a majority of the active population. Not ideology but necessity brings the masses into revolutionary motion. The resulting activities produce their own revolutionary ideology, namely an understanding of what has to be done to emerge victoriously out of the struggle against the system’s defenders.”
Here Mattick speaks in very ambigous terms. If "social catastrophe" means simply "wars and economic dislocation", then occurances of these phenomena under capitalism is nothing new. In fact, they occur in every class society in history, therefore their "uniqueness" or centrality must be question. Here is a quote from Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution" which seems to contradict former quote:
"In a revolution we look first of all at the direct interference of the masses in the destinies of society. We seek to uncover behind the events changes in the collective consciousness...This can seem puzzling only to one who looks upon the insurrection of the masses as ‘spontaneous' - that is, as a herd-mutiny artificially made use of by leaders. In reality the mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection, if it were, the masses would always be in revolt...The immediate causes of the events of a revolution are changes in the state of mind of the conflicting classes... Changes in the collective consciousness have naturally a semi-concealed character. Only when they have attained a certain degree of intensity do the new moods and ideas break to the surface in the form of mass activities."
I think the stark contrast in opinion is interesting, especially considering the utter defeat of the German Revolution that Mattick experienced versus the Russian Revolution which was initially successful, with the Bolsheviks taking control of the state, and the revolution being relatively successful in the first few years. Here's a quote from Bordiga that seems to be more aligned with Trotsky's conception:
"At all times the economic and social relationships in capitalist society are unbearable for the proletarians, who consequently are driven to try to overcome them. Through complex developments the victims of these relationships are brought to realize that, in their instinctive struggle against sufferings and hardships which are common to a multitude of people, individual resources are not enough. Hence they are led to experiment with collective forms of action in order to increase, through their association, the extent of their influence on the social conditions imposed upon them. But the succession of these experiences all along the path of the development of the present capitalist social form leads to the inevitable conclusion that the workers will achieve no real influence on their own destinies until they have united their efforts beyond the limits of local, national and trade interests and until they have concentrated these efforts on a far-reaching and integral objective which is realized in the overthrow of bourgeois political power. This is so because as long as the present political apparatus remains in force, its function will be to annihilate all the efforts of the proletarian class to escape from capitalist exploitation.
The first groups of proletarians to attain this consciousness are those who take part in the movements of their class comrades and who, through a critical analysis of their efforts, of the results which follow, and of their mistakes and disillusions, bring an ever-growing number of proletarians onto the field of the common and final struggle which is a struggle for power, a political struggle, a revolutionary struggle." - Bordiga, Party and Class Action, 1921
Moving on to the next section, there is a part from Eden that reads: "The revolutionary movement is dead and its corpse has been slowly decaying since 1917." I understand the attitude, but how then do we explain the various struggles between then and now? There are many to examples give. The period between the World Wars. The years directly following. Hungary. Czech Republic. France in 1968 and 1973. Poland in 1980-1. The Miner's strikes in England during Thatcher. The recent events in Greece and Italy. The Arab spring. All these struggles had serious revolutionary potential and were supermassive. They shouldn't be over looked.
Eden gives a depressingly vivid account of many of the problems facing "good faith" revolutionaries in the current period. But none of them are as fatal as the writing makes it seem. Capital has always surrounded serious communist revolution and isolated it---think Paris (1871) and Shanghai (1927) communes. The armed class, the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat are not interchangable, substitutible. They must be distinct and seperate. Capitalism doesn't just "revert back" from communization. It is forced back onto the proletariat by the counter-revolutionaries.
"Current conditions make it impossible for a revolution to succeed; there are too many obstacles, we are too weak, the enemies of revolution are too strong, and capital is all consuming and all too powerful to challenge."
Lenin disagreed:
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."
By this point it's probably obvious that I think we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater when giving wholesale prescriptions of "failure" to groups like the Bolsheviks. They had some undeniable success which we stand to learn quite a bit about. And here I'm speaking strictly of tactics and not ideology. Has this period even been given a modern treatment and approach? We need to go back an analyze the events of the RR, on our own terms, in order to figure out what is useful and what was counterrevolutionary and should truly be thrown out.
Back to the Sauvage piece:
"The proletariat will not be able to stop capital by itself, but only via the intervention of a major crisis that stops capital will the proletariat be able to create communism."
Would the proletariat not be apart of that major crisis inherently? Would a revitalized strike movement be able to aid in stopping capital? Strikes are on the rise globally.
Gonna leave it here for now.
(Continued crticism on points 2, 3, 4 to follow shortly)
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citing Trotsky and Lenin as definitive authorities on revolution
I'm not even going to bother.
Having a long day?
"Definitive"? Not really, comrade. Never even claimed it. Plus we have Brodiga saying basically the same thing.
I'm all ears! When you feel like being bothered
Sorry if that came off as rude, but I just don't think it's enough to say "well so-and-so disagrees with this and here's a quote that proves it" if you're trying to articulate an effective critique. Better to come up with your own arguments.
I've just given my argument using long quotes. No harm done. My point is not about the so-and-so/who's-who. It's about the first hand witness accounts of the events of a different period which I believe can help inform us on our role today. I think these are some of the best accounts available.
The historical conditions that existed when Lenin and Trotsky wrote those works have not been replicated in our present moment. Their theoretical models are not applicable given the context in which they were situated.
I think your correct, fundamentally. But like I said---is the baby still in the bath? We can learn from mistakes. The Bolsheviks reached a point where they became counterrevolutionary. That's not to say they never were in the first place.
Would the proletariat not be apart of that major crisis inherently? Would a revitalized strike movement be able to aid in stopping capital? Strikes are on the rise globally.
I do give a role to the proletariat in causing the major crisis in my section "A Qualification". By exerting their naked economic class interests: pushing for higher wages and shorter working hours, and wrecking property, the proletariat can put pressure on the capitalist system, tilting the balance towards a crisis between capitals.
But ultimately, it takes a crisis between capitals that ceases the accumulation of capital for the real subsumption of labor to end and for capitalists to lose control over the production process. And only when the real subsumption of labor ends and the proletariat is momentarily freed from the confines of bourgeois legality and ideology can the proletariat truly exert its complete economic self-interest and engage in the process of communization.
So it would go like: proletariat pushes back against capitalism -> capitalism enters a severe crisis -> capital accumulation briefly ceases -> real subsumption of labor briefly ceases and capitalists lose control over the production process -> bourgeois ideology, psychological/biological manipulation techniques, the spectacle, repressive bodies all lose their power -> the proletariat no longer has the obstacles in its way to prevent it from exerting its self-interest and communizing all of society.
But the key here is that the proletariat will not, in present conditions, be able to consciously and directly stop capital, say by a coordinated worldwide general strike or something like that, because of all of the thousand forces weighing the proletariat down, preventing success. The proletariat in present circumstances can at most increase the chances of a crisis between capitals, but it takes that major crisis between capitals to prepare the conditions for communization. Without that major crisis, all of the constraints upon revolution will still have full power and the proletariat will be mere cogs of the capitalist machine.
Thus, "The proletariat will not be able to stop capital by itself, but only via the intervention of a major crisis that stops capital will the proletariat be able to create communism."
Cheers, comrade.
Cheers and thanks for the response! Time for Pt. 2
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An article published in August, 1929 in L'Ouvrier Communiste (the Communist Worker) issue no. 1, which was the journal of the Communist Workers' Groups, who were led ideologically by Michelangelo Pappalardi. This group split from Prometeo on several key questions, immediately pursuing a rapprochement with the line of the old KAPD (Communist Workers' Party of Germany). This article outlines their disagreements with the Bordigist tradition and with Leninism, more generally.
And to maintain and expand these positions we will fight tirelessly against all enemies of the revolution, against the bourgeoisie and its affiliates, against Western social democracy and against the social democracy of Moscow.
Damn son. As a side note, I've never seen "labor aristocracy" outside of MTW discussions. How is it used in this article?
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Problem with the UBI piece is that in its analysis of productivity, it disregards the law of value. While increased productivity may temporarily lead to higher profits, the reduced amount of labor put into each commodity will sink its value. So in the long run, rising levels of productivity will cause a decline in the rate of profit.
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Some criticism in comments here: https://libcom.org/library/are-slums-another-planet
thanks!
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We were asked to write about how we relate to the 1970s American revolutionary group, Sojourner Truth Organisation (STO). Amongst other things, they were involved in workplace organising and developed thinking around race and white skin privilege. For more information about them you go to their excellent and informative archive: http://www.sojournertruth.net/
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Audiobook
I know this criticizes Left Communism but I've always wanted to read this. Here it is in case any of you comrades want to read it too and critique it. Has anyone already read it, and if so what did you think?
Edit: This book is trash. It is all just promoting Entryism.
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It's been a few years since I read it, but something interesting to note is that he seems to have changed his mind about communists working in reactionary trade unions only a year later, with the founding of the Red International of Labour Unions.
As usual with Lenin, this work gets taken completely out of historical context. Trots go as far as bending it to justify entrism, while reddit Maoists cite it despite the fact that it goes entirely against Maoist politics. They don't even understand the title, because most of the time they haven't read it, much less understood it.
Open Letter to Comrade Lenin, a response by Herman Gorter
Cool I'll read it after.
Didn't Bordiga mostly accept the criticisms in this pamphlet?
http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/historical_en/left_wing_communism_00.htm
Yep. Italian left=/=German and Dutch left.
Well didn't he identify as a Leninist?
Classic Lenin text. Makes a great stocking stuffer for the kids.
Seriously though, read this a few times and every time it's like nails on the chalkboard. I've never been able to wrap my head around Lenin’s writings and no one's been able to convince me otherwise. It's not a problem of understanding the text either.
I've never been able to wrap my head around Lenin’s writings
Im starting to agree, Ive only read a couple chapters so far tho
I'd regard it as an essential read for any communist and its spread today among comrades would do a whole lot of good. The key theme throughout is the need to recognize that communist currents within capitalism express themselves in all matter of forms--including those which do not immediately appear to have a revolutionary tendency as a determinant moment within them. Tactically then, the task of the party (or of whatever amalgamation of communists exists at that given conjuncture) is to recognize that content throughout and develop it through its forms in a manner immanent to that content itself. It's something of a phenomenology of communist spirit--thinking through the relation between the for us and the developing spirit.
One of my fave lines:
That which happened to such leaders of the Second International, such highly erudite Marxists devoted to socialism as Kautsky, Otto Bauer and others, could (and should) provide a useful lesson. They fully appreciated the need for flexible tactics; they themselves learned Marxist dialectic and taught it to others (and much of what they have done in this field will always remain a valuable contribution to socialist literature); however, in the application of this dialectic they committed such an error, or proved to be so undialectical in practice, so incapable of taking into account the rapid change of forms and the rapid acquisition of new content by the old forms, that their fate is not much more enviable than that of Hyndman, Guesde and Plekhanov. The principal reason for their bankruptcy was that they were hypnotised by a definite form of growth of the working-class movement and socialism, forgot all about the one-sidedness of that form, were afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable, and continued to repeat simple and, at first glance, incontestable axioms that had been learned by rote, like: “three is more than two”. But politics is more like algebra than like arithmetic, and still more like higher than elementary mathematics. In reality, all the old forms of the socialist movement have acquired a new content, and, consequently, a new symbol, the “minus” sign, has appeared in front of all the figures; our wiseacres, however, have stubbornly continued (and still continue) to persuade themselves and others that “minus three” is more than “minus two”.
But the whole pamphlet is straight fire.
What is it?
Do you guys like parties or unions?
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Pannekoek and Council Communism were OK but Pannekoek was wrong about the role of party and about the form that Capitalism took in Russia. As for unions, they are merely the negotiators of Capital that serve to pacify the working class and slow down increased exploitation at the hands of the Capitalists. But I think it's sort of meaningless to discuss "Council Communism" now considering that it has been a dead tendency for decades and was the result of its historical movement. Tendencies are idealist and Marxism is invariant.
I don't really care that it is dead. I just want to know what a Council Communist believes in.
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There also exists another element of unionism which seeks to do class battle with capital and abolish it in favor of a socialist society, thus creating organizations which are democratically controlled by workers themselves. This is what Big Bill Heywood called "class unionism". Other terms would be "syndicalism", "class struggle unionism", and "revolutionary unionism".
This is only ever played out in theory and rhetoric. When it comes down to it these so-called "revolutionary unions" act exactly the same as regular unions (remember "syndicalism" is just the French word for "trade unionism") or worse activist groups (in the case of the majority of the IWW).
Worker's councils embody this as they are organs class struggle for workers against capitalists (revolutionary unions).
Not really, no. Whereas unions are organisations created during periods of stability worker councils form during periods of revolutionary struggle and thus have a completely different nature to unions. I think it is pretty reductionist to refer to unions and worker councils as identical simply because they're both instances of workers organising.
Unions are essentially just organizations for workers and against capital and as such bureaucratic unionism, or the former type of unionism, is contradictory to the real spirit of unions and unionism. Bureaucratic/reactionary unions as such are barely even real unions in their own right.
Redefining "union" to mean something different doesn't negate the fact that unions are not revolutionary. Your ideology isn't relevant any more, just deal with it and move on. There are more recent developments to contend with.
I like communism my dude.
But it has been asked many times before, you can search it on the bar and ask questions here that still aren't answered tho.
And I hate parties and unions, except for the infallible IWW.
it has been asked many times before
I can't find anything on it :(
Counciists are opposed to unions and parties, at least as is typically understood. Councilists wish to merge the two, to, in time of revolutionary fervor, organize workers into "revolutionary unions" so to speak. They want these "unions" to carry out the role of the "party", while still maintaining their link to the proletariat by still being part of the work environment itself, thus avoiding the separation between the "vanguard" and proletariat as happens under Leninism. If you're interested in reading more about it, Pannekoek's Worker's Councils is a pretty short read and can be found online easily
Will read :)
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"is it possible, or desirable, to set up Soviets now?
If we are speaking of factory councils, these are already spreading in the form of internal commissions, or the English "shop stewards" system. As these are organs which represent the interests of the work-force, they should be set up even while the factory is still in the hands of private capital. Indeed it would certainly be to our advantage to urge the setting up of these factory councils, although we should entertain no illusions as to their innate revolutionary capacity. Which brings us to the most important problem, that of political Soviets. The political Soviet represents the collective interests of the working class, in so far as this class does not share power with the bourgeoisie, but has succeeded in overthrowing it and excluding it from power. Hence the full significance and strength of the Soviet lies not in this or that structure, but in the fact that it is the organ of a class which is taking the management of society into its own hands. Every member of the Soviet is a proletarian conscious that he is exercising dictatorship in the name of his own class.
If the bourgeois class is still in power, even if it were possible to summon proletarian electors to nominate their delegates (for there is no question of using the trade unions or existing internal commissions for the purpose), one would simply be giving a formal imitation of a future activity, an imitation devoid of its fundamental revolutionary character. Those who can represent the proletariat today, before it takes power tomorrow, are workers who are conscious of this historical eventuality; in other words, the workers who are members of the Communist Party."
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this is legit soooo, good
Left Communists seem to be against reform yet pro-conservation of workers' rights, gains and conditions from attacks from capital and the bourgeoisie - I agree with this, of course. In light of the situation in the UK at the moment, does this mean we should (and I stress now I do not mean support Corbyn) give our support to the working class forces backing Corbyn in his bid to increase, no matter how little or unimportant, the conditions of the working class? I am against parliamentarianism and bourgeois politics, of course, but the Conservative bourgeoisie seems to have declared the rights of workers ripe for their picking off of, and since Left Communists support union struggles (though not the unions themselves), should we support this struggle for better conditions or conservation of conditions (especially in relation to Corbyn's position on trade unions)?
To reiterate - I am NOT pro-Corbyn or pro-Labour, but we cannot ignore this milieu of workers unconsciously struggling for their rights. I am aware electoral politics is no gateway drug to consciousness and revolutionary organisation but is it pertinent to us to further the working class cause rallying around the betterment of their rights through bourgeois reform?
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1) Left Communism can support/oppose reforms - eg support opposition to the French labor law - but oppose reformism, that is, the belief that socialism can be enacted piecemeal through laws, or through coops, collectives, etc.
2) Corbyn: those issues are internal to a bourgeois party and should concern us outside of observation.
What does 'support' mean? That is the pertinent question.
Because the movement around Corbyn has one goal: Election of Corbyn as Prime Minister. He may have all these wide-eyed ideas about making capitalism more palatable to the working class but as we all know the governments of bourgeois states are not the masters of international capital, they are subservient to it. It doesn't matter how 'honest' or 'well intentioned' Corbyn is, he cannot, as a single person or head of a ruling government, fight international capital.
Our goal, as communists, remains the same, regardless of Corbyn: "formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
Decisions, decisions. On the one hand we could actively help the strongest socialist movement in Britain since the creation of the NHS, on the other hand we could complain that flesh and blood is weak and individual humans are the creation of the demiurge.
I think you got lost on the way to /r/socialdemocracy
lol do you think that you have a right or a privilege to post this garbage here?
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Why did they leave the ICC, do you know? Just curious
What's the ICC membership these days? The text got me wondering.
Cheers
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I read this - it's a fantastic book, especially the first part about Mattick's perception of the German Revolution as a young man. It's a bit soft on theory though, don't expect an in depth explanation of Mattick's development in that regard.
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Good biography by Augustin Guillamon in Spanish: https://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/paginas-espanolas/biografia-de-manuel-fernandez-grandizo-y-martinez-%E2%80%9Cg-munis%E2%80%9D-1912-1989/ see also https://www.marxists.org/espanol/munis/index.htm
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Totally not just capitalism with red flags.
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Bit of an overly grandiose title compared to the actual content but otherwise a fairly decent read.
Not commenting on the article as a whole, but the last time the "spectre" line was cool was when Derrida did it
A lot of critical theory builds off of Marxian methods of analysis. Do you think there is anything useful to be gained from critical theory, or is it all empty philosophizing? I think some of what they say about power relations, ideology, and culture is interesting even if I don't agree with aspects of it.
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What don't you agree with in critical theory?
It's not so much that I disagree with critical theory per se. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that much of what critical theorists do seems secured in academia and disconnected from practical political struggle and I think that kind of misses the idea. Like Marx said "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.".
critical theorists do seems secured in academia
true, but Adorno consciously analysed that problem and the problem of philosophy in general. Adorno was certainly not pretending to be an activist...and I'd take him over some SWP academic any day tbh. Also "the point is to change it" may be a nice catch but doesn't really say much divorced from the rest of the theses' and Marx's work more generally...lest we forget that AfD (Alternative for Germany) was founded by economics professors. We don't want theory for theory's sake nor activity for activity's sake, but a particular unity of theory and practice. It's an utter illusion to think that "oh if only all these academic's philosophising actually did something, we'd have changed the world already" and it comes from the theoretical void that sees activity in itself as a panacea.
It's an utter illusion to think that "oh if only all these academic's philosophising actually did something, we'd have changed the world already" and it comes from the theoretical void that sees activity in itself as a panacea.
I think most people that make these kinds of criticisms aren't properly aware of how, in the UK at least, critical theorists, sociologists etc aren't given the same respect as the more successful sciences like physics, biology or even psychology- this means they get much less funding and are expected to do more grunt work and take on extra work to make up for them being less successful. Using "success" as the main criterion to decide funding allocations is damaging for all science IMO but I think, and evidence is growing that it's happening, political science, sociology, philosophy, history etc are being left behind because they can't get university funding anywhere near as easily as other science departments. And that's all never mind the fact that being a full-time academic is usually more work than the average full-time job- most academics just don't have time/energy to contribute as much as I'm sure they wish they could.
Please check out /r/makhaevism for more critiques of science and academia :)
edit: just tagging /u/Caesen so they can see this comment :)
Which critical theory? Adorno's? Foucault's? Butler's? Zizek's? Critical theory is not homogeneous.
The Frankfurt School and the Situationists all made excellent contributions to Marxist philosophy and fit well within left communist theory.
Critical theory isn't really a school or tradition––like Marxism might be (but it's complicated), but it's more of a trajectory of thinkers. Who don't you agree with specifically?
Specifically during the spanish civil war. They weren't either trotskyist or stalinists so I'm wondering what they were.
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I don't think that there were any Spanish left communists at the time of the civil war though there were some members of the Italian left who joined the POUM militia. Munis, who was the leader of the small Trotskyist group in Spain during the war later became a left communist.
They were originally formed as an alliance between the left and right opposition, which in this context isn't the same as the left communists whether of the Italian or German variety.
While Trotsky didn't approve of the alliance, the left opposition had previously been affiliated with Trotsky. They were all Bolshevik-Leninists, they didn't see eye-to-eye with Stalin and by the 30s that was pretty much heresy. I wouldn't be surprised if you did find left coms in the POUM, but I don't know enough to know one way or the other.
What was the right opposition composed of? Mensheviks? And why did they think an alliance between left and right opposition was a good idea?
No, they were Bolsheviks. Bukharin is perhaps the most well known from the CPSU's right faction. It's pretty much a tactical alliance in the case of the POUM, based around resisting Stalin's control over the international movement.
Their program doesn't make it clear whether they could be called leftcoms, but they definitely were anti-Stalinist. They fought alongside the CNT-FAI during the May Days against the Republican government, which would indicate anti-statism.
Their published articles make references to a Union of Iberian Socialist Republics, but the descriptions in the previous paragraphs sound like this is basically a council communist/soviet 'republic' within the framework of international revolution. It's hard to state categorically whether they were leftcoms or not, but it certainly sounds like they embraced many "leftcom positions", so to speak, in their pamphlets. As stated by u/Trotskylvania, there probably were leftcoms among their ranks at least.
Yes, from what I can tell in this short text their positions were quite close to left communist ones. The only thing I found that would differentiate them from a "classic" leftcom position is this:
Through the channel of the unions the proletariat assures the management of all public services and many private enterprises.
They seemed to have some faith in unions.
Well spotted! I suppose they had in mind revolutionary 'unions' like the CNT/IWW as a plausible channel.
Sadly, the CNT didn't stay revolutionary, they participated in the government. Like Gille Dauvé said:
Anarchist union though it may have been, the CNT was a union before it was anarchist.
The POUM couldn't know all that, though, as this was written in 1936.
Thank you for sharing the text, I had never seen it before!
You're welcome, comrade :)
In some leftist circles (and right-wing) I have heard accusations that all of academia is just a liberal brainwashing facility that keeps people docile and for some, isn't a source of upwards social mobility but a bribe for those who are clever enough to pass all the ritual examinations etc.
I have my own criticisms of academia, especially as it's becoming increasingly marketised in the UK (where I live) but have found my education to be extremely enlightening, giving me access to a wealth of knowledge which has developed me intellectually in ways I never would have imagined a few years ago.
What do leftcoms think of academia?
Also, check out /r/makhaevism. For a short explanation of what Makhaevism is, check out this little article I wrote a while back. (It's not amazing, it was written for my student newspaper)
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I wouldn't call it liberal brainwashing, you will learn the ruling ideas if you get into academia but what else would you expect? Academia affirms the division of mental and manual labour and works to make sure this division remains. 'Makhaevism' seems to be the kind of postmodern drivel 'anarchists' learn during their 'intellectual development', left-communists are more interested in proletarian revolution than middle-class radicalism (to use Goldner's term.)
'Makhaevism' seems to be the kind of postmodern drivel 'anarchists' learn during their 'intellectual development'
Can you expand on this point a bit please? On the face of it, seems a bit judgemental and you might have a different interpretation, or you know of an interpretation that these 'anarchists' have, of postmodernism that is incorrect. It's extremely common for people to get ideas about postmodernism wrong and I wouldn't say postmodernism would fit in with anarchist philosophy very well from the stuff I understand about both philosophies.
left-communists are more interested in proletarian revolution than middle-class radicalism
By middle-class radicalism do you mean things like liberal feminism? That crap is all over my campus and I hate it :( I would love to have joined a feminist society but they don't care about working class women it seems. Plus, as we all know, political/social movements at universities are usually utter wastes of time.
I've expanded a lot on my original post in the comment further down if you are still curious.
I'm judging Makhaevism from the links you posted, maybe I'm wrong. Liberal feminism is part of middle class radicalism so are most forms of postmodernism and anarchism. Loren Goldner in his book 'Vanguard of Retrogression' calls it "ideology of the past 50 years, above all in its left and far left guises."
About your comment below, I think you should do your postgraduate. It doesn't matter to capital whether you are in the university or the factory, it is not like people are in the factory because we hate "universities qua institutions that reproduce structural inequalities and legitimise class domination by giving the ruling strata symbolic capitals that are considered meritocratic" we work in the factory because there is nothing else for us, if you think you can get a better standard of living in the academy then go for it (academics seem to live a miserable life, university seems to add mental stress rather than alleviate it). But don't pretend that what you do at the university has anything to do with communism, especially sociology which is one of the fields where the division between mental and manual labour is so overt and so appalling, as we can see in your comments.
Liberal feminism is part of middle class radicalism so are most forms of postmodernism and anarchism. Loren Goldner in his book 'Vanguard of Retrogression' calls it "ideology of the past 50 years, above all in its left and far left guises."
Could you expand on these points? It seems like you have just repeated yourself calling it BS without actually giving it a reason. I've never heard of Goldner and the quote you pulled isn't a reason, just another way to word what you yourself are implying by saying x y z you don't like is part of middle class radicalism.
My point about universities as institutions btw is just that I am increasingly disillusioned by my research that the idea, which I've seen in many leftist circles, that university can be changed to somehow be an institution that would work in socialism. I don't think you can change capitalist institutions into socialist ones, I think they need to be completely re-invented. Hierarchy is inherent in the university system and that's why I don't like them as institutions. This kind of thing I don't feel at liberty to write when doing so for my student union paper which is why I mentioned it in my original post.
don't pretend that what you do at the university has anything to do with communism, especially sociology which is one of the fields where the division between mental and manual labour is so overt and so appalling, as we can see in your comments.
If it wasn't for this opportunity, going to university, I would never have had the time to read as much as I have and find all these kinds of anti-capitalist ideas. What do you mean by my comments being indicative of the overt division between mental and manual labour?
I never said it was bullshit I said it seems like middle class radicalism, you asked me what that was so I gave you an approximation. What more are you asking for?
You make a good point about university not being able to exist in socialism, but is hierarchy the only problem you can find in the university system?
If it wasn't for this opportunity, going to university, I would never have had the time to read as much as I have and find all these kinds of anti-capitalist ideas.
Reading Foucault has little to do with communism, sorry. The conclusion to your essay on Makhaevism is the demand for bourgeois freedoms, it has nothing to do with anti-capitalism.
What do you mean by my comments being indicative of the overt division between mental and manual labour?
Well you are studying work as if you are not doing work yourself, as if the work of the sociologist is a superior form which can grasp the lower form in thought. You get knowledge of some bit of the social world, what it is, how it functions, what it will do next, this leaves no room for the object itself to choose what it will do. You think you have insight into how to manage because you've been managed, you know the most effective way to whip because you lived with the slaves.
You seem to have already made your mind up about me and have ideas about my course based on one article I wrote for a student paper and seem to be making a lot of assumptions and it makes me feel like there is no point talking to you.
edit: Just so you know, your criticisms of sociology are things that I have come to know from trying to get into that part of academia and why I've been having doubts about continuing my academic career.
It is unreasonable to post an article then be upset when people have ideas based on that article, what else do you expect?
No but twice I asked you about postmodernism and anarchism and what you mean calling them "middle class radicalism" and you didn't explain and seem to be implying that I consider myself superior because I'm a sociologist... Also, do you only read things that are directly related to communism? Some of the things I've read like Foucault you might not consider directly related but his analyses of society as disciplinarian have certainly helped me understand more about capitalism and how governments think etc which may be useful in overthrowing the state and his explanations of normative discourse have helped me.
I'm not sure I'd qualify as a leftcom, but like most things, the reality is more complex and nuanced than either entirely good or entirely bad. On the one hand, university is a great place to find people labouring away at pointless, dull intellectual tasks aimed at justifying or tinkering slightly with the capitalist system and pretending that this is some kind of great contribution to mankind. On the other hand, university is also a great place to find people reading Marx very seriously, etc. It depends in part on what subject, what uni, etc... but it's also just contradictory and complex.
I'm a sociologist at a fairly average ex-polytechnic uni in one of the most deprived areas of the country. I find myself feeling quite disconnected to my colleagues because majority of them have gone to school, gone to college and gone to university and never really experienced what it's like working to live, working to survive. I only worked for a few years before coming to university but it was enough to make things I am studying extremely real if you get my meaning. For example, when we're studying emotional labour and the differences between surface and depth acting, my experiences in retail mean I don't just understand enough so I could write a good essay about it, I know from personal experience what theorists mean when they explain how employers come to have a level of control over the affective experiences of employees. Or when studying new concepts of social class like the precariat, I know from personal experience what it's like being at the bottom of the social hierarchy in that schema from the year I was increasingly getting into debt despite having 2 jobs. I was earning on average £400/month and my rent alone was £400/month- if it wasn't for assistance from friends, I would have been homeless and ended up losing my job for being homeless.
I think the issue for me now is I'm supposed to be looking into applying for post-graduate stuff and I'm conflicted about it because I don't like universities qua institutions that reproduce structural inequalities and legitimise class domination by giving the ruling strata symbolic capitals that are considered "meritocratic" and obfuscate the truth that those kids would have ended up in their class destinations anyway due to hereditary transfers of capital.
Another factor in this issue is I have a mental health condition that legally classifies me as disabled and the academic life is much easier for me than most of the work I did before. I didn't mind manual labour because I didn't really have to deal with people very often but the work was never steady enough and pay never good enough that I could survive without becoming dependent on others.
It's all just a complicated situation for me right now and I guess having no family makes it extra difficult because I don't have any older people I can go to and ask for advice- at least, not that I trust.
Sorry to hear that you're finding it difficult. I think what you're experiencing is one instance of wider phenomenon of feeling trapped between conflicting priorities, analyses, obligations, etc.
Do you put yourself first (and go into a career that puts less strain on your mental health) or do you go into the frontlines of class struggle and risk your own health and happiness? Do you take the opportunity to develop your ideas and knowledge further, or do you dismiss the capitalist superstructure as part of the problem?
I think some of this is just the nature of human existence - "I can't decide whether to have jam or peanut butter on my toast" - but capitalism exacerbates it in some ways, especially with regard to political-economic decisions for leftists: on the one hand, you want the housing security of homeownership, on the other hand you don't want to buy into a social institution designed to keep workers in check and paper over the cracks in a stagnant economy, etc.
Full disclosure: I'm doing a PhD at the moment, and teach undergrads, etc. Personally I've always wanted to teach, but in a way that isn't constrained by a straitjacket curriculum, and with people who actually appreciate the opportunity to learn (rather than misbehaving fifteen-year-olds). I also quite like to write, read, think, etc. So academia felt like the most logical place to try to find that work, which to me is the most fulfilling path I can realistically see myself being able to follow (I mean, short of some kind of massive upsurge in proletarian struggle internationally, I don't really see how I can find my way through life being any happier).
So my inclination is to say that you should stick with academia - it is one of relatively few institutions that is able to accept self-critique: at least some academics are very open to critiques of academia, hostility towards a lot of the infrastructure of academia and the demands imposed on it by capitalism generally and neoliberal capitalism more specifically, etc. And to some extent it is responsive to those critiques, although it's never a good idea to hold your breath for substantial class struggle or anything like that. But ultimately it's going to depend on your own personal situation and inclinations, and I'm sure others will give you arguments against.
Personally, I feel like I benefit greatly from the opportunity to study and think and argue with others, and then I try to share that with others in whatever ways I can, with an eye to advancing political objectives at the same time, etc. However, there are also other reasons why I can't be involved in some other forms of struggle and that has no doubt influenced my path too, etc. Good luck, whatever you choose to do!
Thanks for such a detailed response. I think I will most likely apply for post-grad anyway, there are no guarantees and it will be nice to have the option when the time comes to leave this place.
A decision of a human to follow capitalistic values is his own. You can't brainwash people. You can hide information which leads to wrong decisions but that's all.
Do you think having a career in academia is indicative of following capitalistic values? I'd say my experiences of university have given me time and opportunity to develop my political thought I never had while I was working. Plus access to scientific journals etc as well as the library has been really helpful.
I know a philosopher with a PHD who is very critical against philosophy but did his PHD to make a living. As I wrote being an academic doesn't make you to anything. You have to keep a critical distance. Don't trust something because is a famous person who wrote it. If do so, academia can be valuable because you have to fight for your point of view.
did his PHD to make a living
This is part of my dilemma, I feel like continuing in academia for a while would be sort of an easy ride compared to how it was in the few years struggling before coming to uni. The thing is, I hate the lifestyle. I don't feel like I belong and I don't have many friends, especially now when everyone is super busy with dissertation, my social life has gone to naught. I would love to just be free, go travelling, keep reading and writing as I do now within university, but without having to be chained to one place. I've never needed that much, I've been surviving off about £7K for the past few years (I get the maximum state funding assistance but most people get to go back to families in summer or whatever where I have to make it stretch over then too which is usually when I end up homeless and couchsurfing- but I always feel terrible about that). I've been browsing /r/vagabond for a while now and I'm drawn to it in some ways but because of my disability, I'm not sure how I'd survive socially. It's not that I lack social skills, I'm supposedly very emotionally intelligent (even if I often lack control), it's that I get lonely. I've lived with my gf for basically a couple of years now too and that presents another dilemma although we can hardly discuss it, we hardly discuss politics too (she's a white upper-middle class (technical middle class in some schema) liberal). This whole situation is just too damn complicated. I've never really been in a position to make a decision about my own life before, usually I was just carried around by fate feeling like it was my enemy. Moving because of family (when I had them) or because of work and money etc. I don't have anyone older that I trust I could talk to for advice and life just seems daunting. Occasionally I look at old people and wonder how they got so old without killing themselves because life is shit.
You want a life style which isn't quite compatible with capitalism and the probability to become a poor nothing is high. Some poeple are quite good in being a vagabond this like the owner of the sail ship Delos (youtube). But even he has to face sooner or later the fact, it isn't lasting an eternity, when he becomes old.
It you are intelligent as you say, go into politics or philosophy and use it to make better leftists by educating the next generation. Marx his notion about alienation in for example "German Ideology" is the key. You have to make the decision for yourself. If you have something valuable like your intelligence share it and help to make a better world.
go into politics or philosophy and use it to make better leftists by educating the next generation
The problem is, I don't believe that the university would allow me to teach if I was teaching ideas that might actually upset the order of things. Here in the UK, university is increasingly marketised and programmes like philosophy, politics and sociology will be some of the first to go, being deemed unprofitable or not serving the needs of the market.
As for other reading and writing, which is what I really want to do, I don't see why I can't do it while living a more nomadic lifestyle. I wouldn't be completely cut off from society because free internet is so ubiquitous and I could probably publish stuff that way- at least put stuff online I mean, I'm not sure if there are many commercially published vagabond authors making enough money that they don't have to dumpster-dive, steal etc to survive although it must make life easier.
Thanks for the advice though mate, I still have a fair amount of time to chew things over
Not distainful enough
Recently had a discussion with one of my liberal friends (he supports Hillary). I floated the idea that the USSR was state capitalist. He said that was impossible because it didn't have competition and competition is a vital part of capitalism. I guess there's a flaw there somewhere but I'm not well-informed enough to know it.
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The USSR and all other states competed on the world market.
If it didn't, would it not have been capitalist?
(Or would it be impossible to not compete on world market and still grow? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_trade_of_the_Soviet_Union says "In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product." Not an economist in any way so if they accounted for 0%, would that not change the fact that they still competed on the world market?)
Yeah it still would have been capitalist. Your friend is wrong about what capitalism is. Capitalism is a system of generalized commodity production. This of course I plies wage labor and production by and thru separate firms (this of course itself Implies competition)
Thanks
Competing on the world market doesn't mean doesn't imply having capitalist social relations of production? "The Soviet system was based on wage labour, but it was certainly not based on social relations of capitalist production. While the system as a whole may have been subject to the international operation of the law of value, Soviet enterprises most certainly were not subjected to the law of value, and so to the production and appropriation of surplus value. This was expressed in the essentially non-monetary character of economic transactions" (http://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/pubs/whataboutworkers.pdf - chapter 2)
The law of value did hold sway in Russia. It affected prices, and no amount of state control could prevent it. Everything was accounted for in terms of cost as well. Things weren't built on time during the five year plans not just because of a lack of material but because of a lack of money. There were also actual capitalists within Russia, for example, the number of private plots within Russian agriculture may have been small but they amount they contributed to production and economy was huge, and out competed the state ran farms and collectives.
Yeah p much the whole thing g u wrote is wrong. 1) the wage labor relation held in the USSR and 2) the commodity relation held (ie products were created to be sold for money and firms were required by law to turn profits)
Depends on how you define capitalism. For Marx it's an economic system where one class (capitalists) profits off others' labour because they own the capital. Even if there's just one capitalist, if they own all the capital and pay labourers less than their value to work, it's still capitalism to Marx.
For orthodox economics, competition is necessary to achieve a Pareto efficient outcome. Often it is assumed to exist. Economists might squabble with you over whether monopolies are "free markets", but they'd probably disagree over what counts as capitalism. A major problem here is that economists don't generally talk about capitalism in any sophisticated way. They just kind of assume it exists and they go about their work from there. It seems fair to say economists would never call the USSR capitalist. However, if you had markets free of "government" regulation where "private owners" made all the decisions, I bet many of them would be more willing to call a single-capitalist economy "capitalism". You see the (artificial) distinction drawn between "public" and "private" here? It kind of breaks down when you're trying to address real problems.
Your liberal friend probably has a popular conception of "capitalism" which would have been heavily influenced by mainstream econ and cold war rhetoric. So free markets, competition, efficient outcomes, maybe with a little bit of "socialism" in there to "prevent things getting too unequal". However, unless they've spent a lot of time systematically thinking about it, I wouldn't expect their understanding of capitalism to be overly coherent. In debate, they can probably always come up with a counterpoint to any given argument you present, but few people are interested in anything more comprehensive.
Which I kind of get. Not everyone finds this stuff interesting and bourgeois ideology is a hell of a drug.
Well, the Russia did have internal competition amongst various capitals and emerging capitals. But the standard understanding of imperialism as a stage of capitalism is that there is a drive in capitalism away from competition, hence monopoly. State capital is a step in that direction. For a time, yes, I think there could feasibly be a situation where there are no longer any competing capitals, but how stable that would be would be anyone's guess.
Well in a supply constrained economy like the USSR competition took the form of various enterprises vying for more inputs and easier control figures at the expense of other enterprises. It was a giant hierarchy of needs where the military got precedent over inputs and all the other enterprises had to cut deals with each other and the Council of Ministers to fulfill their control figures. This isn't too dissimilar to a demand constrained free market economy except in that case the enterprises compete over a pool of consumers instead of inputs.
If the government controls/regulates their national currency it is neither free market nor is it capitalist. This is my understanding in it's simplest form. What we have in America is corporatism. Which basically just means the state(government) has formed a corrupt alliance with mega corporations so they can essentially pay each other whatever they want and use tax dollars to do it. This same problem of unholy alliances and using tax money to pay one another happens A LOT under pretty much all forms of government to my knowledge. I'm sure the same happened in the USSR. You scratch my back and I scratch yours, to my knowledge, is absolutely universal no matter what ideology people pretend one thing or another is.
I read Peter Fryer's Hungarian Tragedy and the revolution in question didn't really seem to be a socialist revolution. Workers were definitely involved but their requests struck me more as democratic (in the liberal sense) and nationalist more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, a "democratic" social democracy would have been better than a social democracy at the barrel of a gun but I don't understand why it's hailed as socialist by anarchists and leftcoms.
One last thing, that might be specific to Fryer, is the assumption that Hungary was already socialist. A lot of the declarations that were supposed to prove that the revolutionaries didn't want to "go back" to capitalism consisted of them assuring everyone that they wanted to keep things the way they were (nationalised factories and etc), just with more "democracy".
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I hated my old comments so I've replaced them all using the Reddit Overwrite tampermonkey script.
that's a pretty biased statement I am making there due to several reasons.
I'd be interested in knowing what these reasons are? Also, I'm quite surprised to see someone with a ML flair on here. It seems I even upvoted you many times!
I hated my old comments so I've replaced them all using the Reddit Overwrite tampermonkey script.
That is weird indeed! I've never agreed with Marxism-Leninism, even before reading Marx and even less so after reading him, but I still don't know where I stand politically. Probably a strange mix of anarchism and marxism.
Edit: too late, can't read.
I commonly find myself agreeing with a lot of left-communist rhetoric and a lot of ML rhetoric so I am just waiting for my brain to decide on one.
This usually means bordigist. Don't ask me what that means, though. "leftcomms" and "bordigists" have yet to hammer out any real positive identity.
Hungary 56 - The Myths and the Reality: We should "(...) demolish both the myth of reactionaries that it was simply a nationalist rising without any particular working class content, and that of the libertarians who blind themselves to its failure and to its reactionary national aspect in order to praise the councilist form it took".
Thank you for sharing the article, I will definitely read it soon.
I mean generally speaking everyone who's not a stalinist take a favorable view of it
I was mostly wondering to which degree? With the nationalist aspect, especially.
Well it certainly had its limitations (nationalism, self management, etc) still most folks consider it an authentic prole uprising
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I'm not so sure I agree with her politics later in life, with her focus on anti-fascism and supporting Ethiopia's struggle for national liberation so vehemently. However, I have a large appreciation for what she did and her politics in the most part of her life, but this article is rather poor and as typical of mainstream media it does its best to gloss over her beliefs.
Pfft, stupid guardian. She wasn't just a socialist, she was a part of the communist left, one of the people Lenin criticised in his pamphlet. And also a good example of why Lenin was wrong because her group did what he suggested.
Yeah, by the fucking Guardian
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Thank you! So would you say that 'Bordiga-ists' and Leninists only really diverge in their analysis of the Soviet state? (Even though there isn't really a single Leninist stance on the USSR they are all fundamentally different from Bordiga's stance?)
depends on how you define "Leninism". Would you expand you question?
Well its a pretty straight forward question.... what are the differences between Bordigaism and Leninism? afaik theres only one definition of Leninism, basically the theoretical principles developed by Lenin (just for simplicity's sake lets not go into the contributions of Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, or other Leninists, and stick to Lenin's contributions)
that was the clarification I needed. A lot of people call themselves Leninists.
For a quick rundown, the "Bordigists" (not the term I would use) see themselves as in line with Lenin. The Italian Communist Left (ICL) developed concurrently with the Bolsheviks. The major difference in the revolutionary period of 1917-1922 was electoral abstentionism, as discussed in Left-Wing Communism. Bordiga at the congresses of the Communist International saw this as a difference in strategy rather than principle. the ICL - then the majority of the Italian Communist Party (PCd'I) - accepted the CI's thesis on electorialism under discipline and particpated in elections.
Another slight difference is between the concept of Organic Centralism and Democratic Centralism. The best discussion of this can be found in the ICP's publication, "In the tradition of the Left" linked below. Part IV Chapter 4.
The following is a good introduction to early Bordiga, his central role in the devleopment of the Italian Communists and his later conflicts with the Stalinizing Communist International and PCd'I
https://libcom.org/library/amadeo-bordiga-myth-antonio-gramsci-john-chiaradia
I would say the following is the best introduction to a Bordigist/International Communist Party perspective:
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/CPTraLef/CPTraLe1.htm
So are you saying the only major difference between the two is strategy vs. principle?
As far as I'm aware a Bordigist vanguard would comprise of the best of the proletariat, which would separate it from Lenin's conception of the bourgeoisie intelligentsia leading.
Unfortunately my inability to read Italian limits a lot of what I can read from Bordiga, but based on what I have read I think I'm more or less correct.
Bordiga did consider himself a Leninist though so there's plenty of similarities, though in my opinion the places where Bordiga does differ makes him the superior theorist.
I'm fairly new to left-communism, so I'm just getting a feel for it and learning the differences between the Italian and Dutch left-communists, what council communism is all about, and so on.
However, I've read on the Wikipedia page (not the most credible or directly informative source, I know) that anarchist communism can be included within the left-com. category. As an anarcho-communist of a couple of years, I'm wondering if this is true: does left-communism accept or reject anarchist communism? Is it miles apart from council communism? It doesn't seem to be, but I'm not thoroughly sure.
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There are these recent threads that might be useful for ya:
https://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/3wurmp/what_do_left_communists_think_of_anarchists/
All communists seek the stateless society of anarchism.
Marx/Engels defined communism as stateless:
-- Engels @ marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/
It's basically terrorism by leftists. I know Trotsky wrote something about "individual acts of terror" but I wanted to know the leftcom point of view. If there's any anarchist reading this, I'd also be interested in learning what you think of it.
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It's dumb. It's basically reducing class struggle to just propaganda conducted by either individuals or just small groups.
It is counter productive. Emma Goldman supported it early on but came to see the futility of it, writing in the afterword to My Further Disillusionment in Russia
"There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical."
The nicest thing i can call it is unreliable.
I know that he was a major figure in the Second International and was a Social Democrat, but what specifically did he get wrong? And did he write anything worth reading? I've only read Foundations of Christianity and Thomas More and His Utopia.
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I think it's fair to say that Kautsky's version of Marxism was very influenced by the European prejudices of the time: a tendency to think in terms of rather linear, progressive development (which he supported with a misreading of Darwin); a sort of soft technologism; an over-investment in parliamentarism etc.
He developed, or helped develop, the theory of 'ultra-imperialism' which, to simplify, argued that further capitalist development would tend to eliminate the excesses of colonialism and that international relations would become less violent and based on a broad cooperation between capitalist cartels. It seems absurd now, but it was influential at the time.
He also wrote about the role of intellectuals in the socialist movement, in particular a passage that became infamous after Lenin quoted it in 'What Is To Be Done?', and seems to have largely downplayed the role of spontaneous class consciousness in favour of the need for intellectuals from petty-bourgeois backgrounds... though, I do think some of this is over-stated by his critics.
There's a debate to be had over whether there are really two Kautskys - the earlier Kautsky, who was more revolutionary, and Lenin's "renegade" Kautsky - but some contemporary scholars (e.g. Massimo Modonesi, whose book on Kautsky is excellent but far too sympathetic) deny that this break exists.
You've already read two of his better works, but it's definitely worth sampling some of his more directly political writing, especially his polemics against the Bolsheviks and their responses to them.
It seems absurd now, but it was influential at the time.
I would say that it seems much less absurd now
Really? You think we have less violent competition between nation states over their neo-colonial interests?
Yes. I don't think you can deny that the usual set of war has changed a lot
We're in danger of wandering off topic here, but I can't agree. Many contemporary conflicts - e.g. Syria - can only be understood in terms of competition between rival imperialisms, and are characterised by extreme violence.
"Federations of the strongest", such as Kautsky predicted to emerge out of WW1, have proven consistently incapable of sustaining themselves and have repeatedly collapsed through internal rivalry. I mean, does anyone remember the League of Nations? Or does anyone think that the members of the UN Security Council are not competing against each other in terms of arms races and geopolitical struggles?
Just because we don't have a super duper alliance doesn't mean we don't have bigger alliances and fewer wars. We do. The EU for an instance is almost entirely on the same page militarily speaking, which certainly wasn't true a hundred years ago. NATO save for maybe Turkey also seems to be fairly unified. The conflicts are also fought in a different way. Like by proxy or just with auxillary support in Syria, or with intelligence agencies and money like in Africa.
He's a hack fraud.
The Road To Power is pretty important for understanding the Minimum / Maximum program, a big part of Orthodox Marxism.
I was just banned from /r/communism101, I wasn't given a reason but I suspect it was for quoting Marx in response to a question about the difference between communism and socialism (and then questioning the reasoning behind the Marxist-Leninist conception of "socialism").
Which leads me to ask, where did the Marxist-Leninist definition come from? I know Lenin used the term socialism to refer to the dictatorship of the proletariat but apparently it was already in common usage by his time.
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Well first off let's not do the whole banned from x thing. It's boring and it doesn't tell us anything new or interesting about the degenerates that run the place.
Secondly idk the exact archeology of the how the terms came to be used for different things but I'd wager it comes from second international social democracy
Eh, I more came here to get some insight into the origin of the "socialism = dictatorship of the proletariat" myth, but since I was spurred on by being banned from /r/communism101 I thought I'd take the opportunity to vent a little. Sorry!
Sure I get it. Still the pissing and moaning about the ban is more appropriate for r/shittankiessay than here. That said the question embedded in the post was a good one
Apologies, I'll keep it in there in future!
Thanks, and to clarify I don't mean never mention u got banned from some sub, it has more to do w the phrasing of it. For instance ur post was titled as I got banned. Next time maybe phrase it as "I have a question about x" and then in the body u can mention u got banned if that makes sense.
Basically we all know those dipshits ban everyone that doesn't tow the line and in the past we used to get a post at least once a week about it. Needless to say it got old fast
The question wasn't really posed until it had to be asked. But let's look at what Stalin had to say in 1906
in Marx's opinion, the higher phase of communist (i.e., socialist) society
Quoting Marx and inserting socialist there. In the same article he also writes things like this
socialist society is a society in which there will be no room for the so-called state, political power, with its ministers, governors, gendarmes, police and soldiers. The last stage in the existence of the state will be the period of the socialist revolution, when the proletariat will capture political power and set up its own government (dictatorship) for the final abolition of the bourgeoisie. But when the bourgeoisie is abolished, when classes are abolished, when socialism becomes firmly established, there will be no need for any political power—and the so-called state will retire into the sphere of history.
But when giving a report on the 1936 constitution he seems to have changed his mind, probably because of Lenin, he said
Our Soviet society has already, in the main, succeeded in achieving socialism; it has created a socialist system, i.e., it has brought about what Marxists in other words call the first, or lower, phase of communism. Hence, in the main, we have already achieved the first phase of communism, socialism.
and that
the Draft of the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R. proceeds from the fact that there are no longer any antagonistic classes in society; that society consists of two friendly classes, of workers and peasants, that it is these classes, the labouring classes, that are in power; that the guidance of society by the state (the dictatorship) is in the hands of the working class, the most advanced class in society
And in 1939 he elucidates on how to get from the first and highest phase
We have outstripped the principal capitalist countries as regards technique of production and rate of industrial development. The is very good, but it is not enough. We must outstrip them economically as well. We can do it, and we must do it. Only if we outstrip the principal capitalist countries economically can we reckon upon our country being fully saturated with consumer goods, on having an abundance of products, and on being able to make the transition from the first phase of communism to its second phase.
What do we require to outstrip the principal capitalist countries economically? First of all, we require the earnest and in domitable desire to move ahead and the readiness to make sacrifices and invest very considerable amounts of capital for the utmost expansion of our socialist industry. Have we these requisites? We undoubtedly have! Further, we require a high technique of production and a high rate of industrial development. Have we these requisites? We undoubtedly have!
And even in Economic Problems of the USSR he was still trying to describe the USSR as not being capitalist invoking Marx once again
It should be remarked that in his Critique of the Gotha Program, where it is no longer capitalism that he is investigating, but, among other things, the first phase of communist society
I think that this whole thing of socialism as a transition between capitalism and communism is fairly recent and came about as a need to defend Stalin and the USSR at a later date. Cause back then they certainly seemed to think of it as being "The first phase of communist society". Stalinists at the time never really talked about, or the nature of the USSR in general; they didn't need to. But if I had to guess I would think it may have come with the "anti-revisionists" who had to come up with some convoluted way to distance Stalin from Krushchev, for political reasons. Such as saying that Krushchev was now saying that they were "constructing communism" and so on. I don't have a source for that but that would be my guess as to where it first started to become canon.
It might be interesting to look at Lenin's idea of state-capitalism in 1922:
The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yot got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.
Where what mattered was who was in charge, which foreshadows the 1936 constitution mentioned. Of course, this state-capitalism is different from what came after in different circumstances, but I think that this should be kept in mind somewhat.
He also wrote in 1917 that state-capitalism and socialism are not the same thing, though, but he did write that
These things by Lenin were in response to groups coming forward to describe Russia as turning towards capitalism, or state-capitalism, normally couching it around the bureaucracy moving against the workers.
Thanks for the detailed reply (as always), as always I'm indebted to your superior knowledge! I was under the impression that the distinction was made as a way of justifying the failed revolution, so glad to read the sources to back it up.
Well, it was in a way used to justify the failed revolutions with the whole socialism in one country thing. But you can trace a clear defining of the terms as time progresses. When Lenin was still kicking about he was saying things in 1919 such as
and stuff like this from the same year
Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke.
And classes still remain and will remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship will become unnecessary when classes disappear. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat they will not disappear.
Classes have remained, but in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat every class has undergone a change, and the relations between the classes have also changed. The class struggle does not disappear under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it merely assumes different forms.
Lenin would talk about how under the the dotp class struggle would intensify and Stalinists would later take these same phrases and transpose them into the 1930s. But anyway, the problem for stalin and his transition between socialism and communism wasn't one of class, like how it's often portrayed, but one of productive powers (cause Marx) which is why he said stuff like "But the significance of the Stakhanov movement does not end there. Its significance lies also in the fact that it is preparing the conditions for the transition from socialism to communism".
So I'm reading your comments and this is why we call them tankies. To call them stalinists would be an insult to stalinists.
It's a shame because I've had some pretty good conversations in /r/communism101 and had lots of top voted comments, but I guess when you start straying the line into critiquing the Holy Science of Marxism-Leninism you get into trouble!
Like was said in the thread, saying socialism is the transition instead of at best the lower stage of communism (but optimally one and the same) is to justify state capitalism. However, a bunch of obvious falsehoods in the present were based on misreadings, lack of access to certain texts and the general nascence of the movement.
e: Lol, you got deleted big time. Kinda like me. They can't handle what is actually said, so they just delete and ban to cover their tracks.
e: Lol, you got deleted big time. Kinda like me. They can't handle what is actually said, so they just delete and ban to cover their tracks.
I hadn't noticed (you can still see your deleted comments if you're logged in). Doesn't surprise me, it's easier to censor and ban than participate in the "ruthless critique of all that exists"!
Welcome to the club, comrade! Those power-hungry tankies threw me in the proverbial gulag for acknowledging the possibility of the war crimes/human right violations of their precious Stalin, Mao, Lenin, and Kim-Jong Un.
Luckily I just discovered this wonderful community, and am now quite content knowing I'm not alone in my disgust at the blind allegiance and r/conspiracy-level skepticism. Fight the good fight comrade! Not for some stupid dictator, but for true social and economic justice for all mankind, regardless of conditions perpetrated by the hierarchal bourgeois dictatorship in its current transient seat of power!
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Some interesting things on the party here
We communists know very well that the historical development of the working class must lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this is an action which must influence the broad masses, and these masses cannot be simply won by our ideological propaganda. To the full extent to which we can contribute to the formation of the masses' revolutionary consciousness, we shall do it by the strength of our position and our stance at each stage of the unfolding of events. This is why this stance cannot — and must not — be in contra-diction with our position concerning the final struggle, in other words the goal for which our party was specifically formed. Agitation around a slogan like that of workers' government,[3] for instance, can only sow disarray in the consciousness of the masses and even of the party and its general staff. We criticised all this from the beginning, so I shall content myself here with recalling in its broad outlines the judgement we expressed at the time.
...
It is true we must have an absolutely united communist party, excluding internal differences of opinion and disparate groupings. But this statement is not a dogma or a priori principle. Rather, it is a goal to be aimed at during the development of a genuine communist party. But this is only possible if all ideological, tactical and organisational questions are correctly posed and correctly resolved. Within the working class, it is the economic relations in which the various groups exist which determine the actions and initiatives of the class struggle. The political party has the role of gathering together and uniting whatever these actions have in common, from the point of view of the revolutionary goals of the working class of the world as a whole. Unity inside the party, the suppression of internal differences of opinion, the disappearance of factional struggles, will be a proof that the party is on the best path for carrying out its tasks correctly. But if differences of opinion do exist, this will prove that the party is marred by errors; that the party does not have the capacity to radically combat the degenerative tendencies of the working class movement, which normally manifest themselves at certain crucial moments in the general situation. If one is faced by cases of indiscipline, this is a symptom showing that this fault still exists in the party. Discipline, in fact, is a result, not a point of departure, not some kind of unshakeable platform. Moreover, this corresponds to the voluntary nature of entry into our organisation. This is why a kind of party penal code cannot be a remedy for frequent episodes of lack of discipline.
in a closed session between Stalin and the Italian delegates [Bordiga] was able to astonish Stalin when, after quizzing [Stalin] about the relative situations of the Russian proletariat and the peasantry and the nature of the opposition groupings within the Communist Party, he directly asked whether "Comrade Stalin thinks the development of the Russian situation and the internal problems of the Russian Party are linked to the development of the international proletarian movement?" (Evoking the profound response from the Great Man: "Never till now has this question been put to me. I would never have believed that a communist could put it to me. May god forgive you for having done so.)
May god forgive you for having done so
If i didn't know better i'd see this as a veiled threat
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I stumbled upon this author while doing some research about the censorship of Marx and Engel's works in the USSR. He's a russian-born french council communist who fought in the french Résistance during WWII and it's there that he realized the confusion and incoherence of so-called "scientific socialists".
I'm looking for Marx, auteur maudit en U.R.S.S.? (I don't think there's an english version) by the same author, if anyone has it in a digital format.
the censorship of Marx and Engel's works in the USSR
TIL
I don't actually know if it was censored, I was looking for articles/books about it but found nothing. Wouldn't surprise me, though, they censored lots of Lenin work.
Heres a bibliography (with some texts in English) and some biographical texts: https://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/rubel-1905-1996/
It's only available in spanish. :/
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The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
Engels says a lot of things like this. It sounds as though Engels is making an utilitarian argument here specifically, sort of advocating that the ends justify the means, if you will. I'm curious to get people's thoughts on this essay as a whole.
Also, if one needs to get around that pesky MECW copyright that the Australian version here appears to have everything.
I feel ultimately he is right which is namely that the majority of national liberation struggles outside of a few contexts are counter-revolutionary
What about specifically his dismissal of people's oppression as a necessary evil for "world-historic significance?"
Obviously dismissing oppression is not a good thing, one that we should seek to stop, however I cannot bring myself to disagree with his premise.
This is the part I'm familiar with, though I just learned it's actually an excerpt from a larger book:
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I think it's just a mix of councilism, and workerism.
Great postism
Could you elaborate on how it seems like those? And presumably you are using them pejoratively?
No, I don't think I'm using them pejoritavily at all. I'm tryin to describe their politics. In many ways we come from the same roots. Certainly we were both very influenced by the struggles in the UK working class in the late 80s, particularly those in the Post Office where we were both involved in the same workplace group and magazine. By councilist, I mean that he places less emphasis on the need for political organisation than I do. Although we disagree on this I don't think it's pejorative. Workerist is something different. I know it is often used in a pejorative manner, but then again I've always been someone who many people have reffered to as a workerist. Again I'm not attacking it. I was just trying to give a general description.
Ah, my bad. Thanks for explaining.
I read an article about on Libcom and it seems nice, definitely variant of left communism
It seems like most Marxists now a days have less than 0 respect for the concept of free speech. So what do y'all think about it?
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I find it's the opposite in many cases actually. Recently I've seen many trots re-energising their free speech creds in the face of 'religious barbarism' in Paris attacks and the like. It's no coincidence that such lines are shared by Hollande and his ilk. The ruling class wears the ideological garb of 'free speech defender' whilst it's silencing us, just as it uses the peoples stick to beat us. When the concept of free speech is so relentlessly professed by those who act opposite to it, the concept must be quite hollow (necessarily so).
Of course free speech isn't meaningless or useless and is a good bourgie right, even if so fragmentary applied. But bourgeoisie freedoms are subsumed under their need to maintain class rule, in general terms the extent of freedoms simply reflects the relative security (perceived or otherwise) of their rule (and thus also indicate our strength and the situation of the class struggle). But we should be under no illusions about a class society being a free one. In the same instance though, I'd much rather be a communist in the west than in Communisttm China.
People usually talk about free speech with regard to their supposed right to oppressive speech, like calling black people the n-word, transgender individuals "mutants," women sluts, Muslims violent, etc. etc. But, in my view, speech which dehumanizes or rejects the freedom of others can hardly be called free.
Then there's the matter of whether or not political rights are worth the paper they're written on. Karl Marx writes about this in On the Jewish Question. I also like what Voltairine de Cleyre said:
Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man’s determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
Free speech can only exist when people actually use it. If people are afraid of what people will think about them then they are not speaking freely and free speech doesn't exist. But at the same time if one's definition of freedom is the freedom to steal the freedom of others, then it isn't free speech.
For freedom to exist in practice there needs to be an understanding of other people's right to freedom. If one is complaining about their supposed right to call for the deportation or murder of mass groups of people, then they aren't complaining about free speech, they're complaining about oppressive speech.
I agree that unless people use it free speech is meaningless but to me the answer to that will always be more free speech not less. We need to encourage the downtrodden to speak more not tell the rest of the world to shut up.
I get that im probably on the fringe of Marxist thought but i dont have an issue with someone saying any of the things in your first list. (to be very clear i find all those views repugnant, but so what? As long as people aren't advocating actual violence i dont think enough harm is done to ban it).
I think this is my favorite quote on the matter, from Luxemburg of course:
"Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter. Not because of the fanaticism of "justice", but rather because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effects cease to work when "freedom" becomes a privilege."
I never said that people saying oppressive things should be banned, per se, I'm saying that it isn't free speech. Oppressive speech should be opposed like any other system/form of oppression. You seem to be viewing this in a one-sided fashion, in terms of the rights of individuals. But free speech, like all freedoms, must be social; oppressed people speaking up for themselves isn't free speech, it's self-defense. So when we attack people for oppressive speech, we're not limiting their free speech -- because their speech is oppressive, not free -- we're defending oppressed people.
Caring too must about the rights of individuals is something im happy to plead guilty too =p
I guess my issue with your idea is, oppressive according to who? There are loads of people who think Marxist is evil and oppressive what gives us the right to silence them but not them the right to silence us? But if we were just talking about banning out and out racists or people totally off topic to the rest of the thread i wouldnt be so worried about it. But people (my self induced) are being banned from marxists groups for disagreeing on minor issues, and i dont think thats right. We run the risk of ending up as little more than a drooling circle jerk
Caring too must about the rights of individuals is something im happy to plead guilty too =p
The problem here is that rights can't exist only for individuals. If freedom isn't social, and doesn't apply to everyone equally, then it doesn't exist.
I guess my issue with your idea is, oppressive according to who?
I don't really understand the question. It would seem obvious to me that a person crying about "white genocide" or "oppression of white people" is full of shit; likely someone who thinks that Marxists are oppressive is similarly full of shit (although if they mean Stalinists then they are quite right).
There isn't some "one person's oppression is another person's freedom," subjective nonsense going on here. I don't know anything about why you've been banned from Marxist groups, I imagine it could be that you have blind spots that you're unaware of, or it could just be that the people in those groups have their own blind spots.
Either way though, what are we talking about exactly? If people in a group don't want you around, they're well within their right to kick you out. Either learn from the experience or find people that want you around.
I am forced to ask though, are you sure these were minor issues? If they were indeed minor issues and they kicked you out because of them, are you sure you even want to be apart of a group like that?
In essence the issue is i dont think identity politics is very Marxist. I think it can be proven that a lot of Marxists agreed with this view point at some point of not currently. I certainly dont think im the perfect Marxist, but im not a racist, and im not some secret fascist shill. Ive talked to people who've been removed from groups for saying that they dislike Stalin, dont think a communist state had to be a one party state ect. ect. The list of heresies seems to grow and the list of allowed ideas seems to shrink.
As to do i want to be in a group like that? Of course not thats why I'm looking for new groups willing to take slight disagreement without freaking out. But i worry that if this is the front we show the world who in their right mind would want to join?
What do you mean by identity politics? People seem to have so many different definitions for it.
Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man’s determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations.
To respond to a small portion of your comment, guaranteed free speech is really a misnomer; what it actually represents is freedom from persecution for speaking. It seems that you're in support of this, but only for one side: the oppressed.
Of course it's unfair that the dominant regime has a stronger voice, but the solution to this, I think, isn't attempting to limit its speech (which is both hypocritical and futile), but strengthening the solidarity and free-association of the oppressed classes from below, through education and organisation.
Free speech encompasses all speech, including oppressive speech. You cannot allow one without allowing the other (which, importantly, doesn't mean you have to advocate either of them).
It seems that you're in support of this, but only for one side: the oppressed.
As I say elsewhere, an oppressed person speaking out against hate speech isn't exercising free speech, they are defending themselves.
You didn't seem to understand what I was talking about with regard to free speech. If there is such a thing as an oppressed group and an oppressor group, there can hardly be said to be free speech at all, since the speech of the former will often be punished by the latter, and the speech of the latter is often oppressive to the former.
Only in a free association can free speech exist.
I'm not the best example of a Marxist, but I'll give my thoughts regardless. For me free speech is scared. You don't touch it. For the pure and simple reason that otherwise you are letting someone else (the police, the governemnt) decide what you're allowed to say.
Regardless of whether something seems black and white - the "n word," for instance - limiting speech is beyond a slippery slope. The answer to reactionary rhetoric is not to exercise our powers of bigotry, but to speak our own minds a little more clearly and eloquently.
Your understanding of freedom is really vulgar.
The answer to reactionary rhetoric is not to exercise our powers of bigotry
You think it's bigoted to shout down reactionaries and silence their oppressive speech?
If you will note, the end of that sentence is:
but to speak our own minds a little more clearly and eloquently.
Talking back to reactionaries is fair game. I encourage it. I do it myself. What's bigoted it to censor reactionaries; to make reactionary speech a crime.
What's the difference between censoring someone and shouting them down and silencing them; i.e. not allowing them to speak?
Yet you've answer my question as a 'yes,' which honestly I find disgusting. As I said, your understanding of freedom is vulgar if you think letting racists spread their hate is "free speech." There's no freedom when Donald Trump says that Muslims shouldn't be allowed in the country, or that so-called illegal immigrants should be deported. There is only oppression and authoritarianism.
I don't see Donald Trump as oppression and authoritarianism: I see Donald Trump as as filthy rich idiot with a microphone and a foul mouth stirring up hatred among the white lower-middle class. In a couple years when most likely Hillary is president, we're gonna look back at dear Donald with a sigh, not a shudder.
you are my kind of Marxist thanks for giving me a bit of hope for the future of our movement =D
Like any bourgeois 'right' the concept of freedom of speech needs to be negated and preserved if it is to be realised. If the problem is oppressive speech the task seems to be to get rid of the conditions that engender oppressive speech. Speech itself is something that we produce, but not as isolated individuals, if speech weren't social we couldn't have languages to communicate at all, speech is alienated, appropriated and degraded as the rest of the products of labour, oppressive speech is not just an insult from one atomistic individual to another it is anti-social speech. I'll respect free (meaning truly human and social) speech when it is realised in practice, it exists now only in essence and within the integument of bourgeois society.
Speech is not free until all interlocutors are, so we don't bother mucking about with bourgeois conceptions of it. In fact, under the DotB, you are “free” to repeat received opinion - liberalism. Due to this effect, and the experience of suppression of speech of proletarians and oppressed people, I know that genuine free speech precludes that which is deleterious to free speech. That means kicking someone out for derailing discussion or inciting violence against a marginalised population is not an infringement on free speech. In fact, this is everyday practice. Academic conferences, club meetings and even outings with friends apply a bunch of ground rules (explicit and implicit) to ensure maximum discursive output from a maximum of participants. (However limited by bourgeois ideology, the fact that groups spontaneously set rules to ease discussion is telling.)
Perhaps we'll have a better understanding once under communism, but knowing that bourgeois free speech isn't free is a start.
No need for a paragraph answer, its free speech. ANYTHING GOES.
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Communism is a worldwide stateless society where money and markets have been abolished and production is collectively planned by all. It is the abolition of all exploitation and oppression, where the segmentation of human beings into classes, nationalities, races and genders has been transcended. Rather than mere worker ownership of factories or state-control of resources, communist society is one within which “value” as we know it has been abolished and free access to goods has replaced markets and rationing. Also abolished is the mental/manual division of labor, where permanent attachment to menial work-task specialization is replaced by a great reduction of the social working day, allowing for a maximization of leisure time and fluidity between different forms of socially necessary labor. Under communism, phenotypes like skin color which function unevenly today as markers of racial and ethnic distinction will carry no more significance than differences of eye color. Similarly, the superficial surface markers of gender identity will carry no necessary power to govern minds and bodies. Masculinity and femininity will be purged of relations of domination and forced labor and become nothing more necessarily socially significant than personal fashion preferences or subcultural affinity. However, this society will not emerge through self-sufficient communes or an immediate change in the social order without transition. Capitalism itself is a product of history developed from previous social orders and communism will be no different.
The whole communist league project is interesting, but I am fundamentally sceptical of its direction. Quite frankly this whole document reads like it could have been written or accepted by some disadent trot especially w it's emphasis on "transition" and "production".
Let's be clear here the material basis for communism exists right here and right now, and while yes the transformation of this world will not be a days work, there is certainly no basis for a "transitional period". Furthermore yes there will be "production" under communism but it will not and can not look anything like production today, even rationalized or democratization production
Communism is a worldwide stateless society where ... production is collectively planned by all.
However, this society will not emerge through ... an immediate change in the social order without transition.
I'm curious if these snippets would put this group at odds with groups supporting communization theory? Abolition of production and immediacy respectively.
They are I'm pretty sure. I think they posted an article about it at some point
Found it, thank you
The go-to answer always seems to be the 'Big Three' of the Paris Commune, Russia in 1917 and Civil War Catalonia, but I wanted to see if there were any other examples that anyone had in mind?
It could be interesting and worthwhile to discuss these examples and their failures/shortcomings.
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There's this thread from a couple months ago
Bit of a late reply but this was really informative, cheers! This article in particular was really interesting and exactly the type of thing I was looking for, so thanks for linking that thread.
I've just finished reading most of the Luxemburg canon and Workers' Councils. I was wondering about the perceived utopianism in Pannekoek where he seems to argue that some sectors of workers and the petty bourgeois would support the communes immediately because they would realise their interests lie with the workers because they are exploited as well. He seems to disagree with using workers' militias to enforce decisions. A second less important point is about electoral action. It's clear social-democracy failed, but even Marx argued fighting for reforms within parliamentarism in order to build consciousness. Winning easy victories like fighting austerity would appeal to reformist workers and he doesn't argue against unions per se, only authoritarian ones, so I don't see why he's against parties vanguardist or not.
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Only being against authoritarian unions seems like a flawed position, when is a union authoritarian? when isn't it? How do you prevent a union from becoming authoritarian? Seems like Marx just applied Trot logic to unions but i might be wrong
Well the whole left communist shtick is horizontal unions based on the self-organisation of the proletariat acting as the kernel of the new society in the shell of the old. I just don't see why these unions can't participate in bourgeois elections
I had no idea leftcoms were suddenly into prefiguration.
Yeah me as well.
Prefiguration? What are you for? Having no theory or strategy? I don't know, is Pannekoek too authoritarian, or not really a leftcom? Is this to0 prefigutative: "Thus the two forms of organization and fight stand in contrast, the old one of trade unions and regulated strike, the new one of spontaneous strike and workers' councils. This does not mean that the former at some time will be simply substituted by the latter as the only alternative. Intermediate forms may be conceived, attempts to correct the evils and weakness of trade unionism and preserve its right principles; to avoid the leadership of a bureaucracy of officials, to avoid the separation by narrow craft and trade interests, and to preserve and utilize the experiences of former fights. This might be done by keeping together, after a big strike, a core of the best fighters, in one general union. Wherever a strike breaks out spontaneously this union is present with its skilled propagandists and organizers to assist the inexperienced masses with their advice, to instruct, to organize, to defend them. In this way every fight means a progress of organization, not in the sense of fees paying membership, but in the sense of growing class unity."?
What has that got to do with prefiguration?
I don't get it. Is this not about the use of unions? If this is about the authority of commune councils, the proper use of force in order to safeguard the new institutions the day after the revolution seems a pretty important theoretical question.
Maybe it's just the language you are using which is confusing people. Prefiguration usually means however your revolutionary organisation is set up is going to determine how the future will be organised. And it's almost invariably used by anarchists to argue against parties or "authoritarian" measures.
That's one thing I can agree with Marxists on (among many, being an especifista). The modes of organisation that we dream up depend on an economic context; without the context (i.e. socialism), the ideas have no power on the ground.
Sorry, I'm new to this part of the spectrum (former Trot) and I'm not aware of the jargon. You're right, it's mostly silly, but creating organisations that resemble the future society is valuable in so far as it creates a consciousness and experience that is useful after the revolution. Also, when considering why the Russian Revolution failed, the internal organisation of the Bolsheviks that placed almost mythical authority in the hand of the central committee seems a good place to start in explaining the reason for the waning of soviet influence.
Well my problem with the whole prefiguration thing is that it implies that you can create socialism within capitalism, which is a big thing if true, so groups tend to hyper focus on organisational forms to almost fetishistic levels. In this sense it's utopian. I think it would be a mistake to try to find The PerfectTM organisational form as these are going to change when the situation demands it. I also think that to begin to understand why the Russian revolution degenerated the way it did would require looking at the world situation and also the material situation in Russia, and how that in turn impacted upon the party and the state.
Certainly revolution in Russia was more difficult to achieve, but when Marx was writing, Germany was mostly an agrarian nation as well. There are certainly other factors, such as foreign invasion, but to say that the revolution degenerated because of material condition is to say that nothing more could be done, the revolution was bound to fail. This seems like the Trotskyist response that we did what we could, but the thirteen imperialist armies resulted in Stalin.
Well the whole left communist shtick is horizontal unions based on the self-organisation of the proletariat acting as the kernel of the new society in the shell of the old.
Only if you consider the Dutch-German left to be the only representatives of left communism I suppose.
Sorry for the reductionism, but mostly I do. While, I'm not aware of all the forms, certainly I think Italian left communism is just heterodox Leninism. Borgia and the PCI were certainly quite supportive of the Bolsheviks.
So were the Dutch-German left until they were kicked out of the Comintern.
They criticised the Bolsheviks quite early. One could not have said the Bolsheviks were establishing state capitalism in November 1917, however Rosa Luxemburg started criticising the antidemocratic and reactionary measures such as the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the division of the large estates as early as 1918. And then while at the Second Congress of the Comintern the delegates were presented with the first draft of Left-Wing Communism, presenting the "heretical" views of the German Communists, while Borgia was arguing the subordination present in the Third International wasn't sufficient. I see Italian Left-Communism as an alter-Trotskyist response to opportunism or Stalinism when they were told they had to work with reformist parties.
One could not have said the Bolsheviks were establishing state capitalism in November 1917, however Rosa Luxemburg started criticising the antidemocratic and reactionary measures such as the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the division of the large estates as early as 1918.
Rosa Luxemburg criticized the Bolsheviks as early as 1904 but she also wasn't a left communist, are you referring to her as a Dutch-German left communist who criticized the Bolsheviks?
Borgia was arguing the subordination present in the Third International wasn't sufficient.
I'm not aware of this, do you have a source? It doesn't make sense considering that Bordiga held many of the same views as the Dutch-German left with regard to activity in trade unions and parliaments, but I don't care to apologize for Bordiga if that's what he did.
My understanding is that from the formation of the Communist Party of Italy Bordiga refused to follow the Comintern's orders, which is why he was eventually purged from the party.
Rosa Luxemburg wasn't a left communist, but she was arguably the most important influence behind the current, since most of the German left communists were members of the Luxemburg-led wing of the SPD. At the Second Congress of the Comintern, Borgia proposed the 21st point that said that decisions of the Congresses were binding on all member parties, and since the Russian Bolsheviks had the most delegates and were effectively dictating policy in the Comintern, this meant that the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was able to dictate policy in all countries resulting in the order that made the PCI break with the Thrid International.
So Bordiga believed in centralism but didn't believe in the Comintern's practices, that wasn't what I thought you were saying before but now I understand. I don't see the problem here. Should he have supported faction rights so that he could practice Trotskyist entryism in the Comintern?
My point is that due to the material conditions of Russia being the only place where the revolution succeeded, his point meant in practice the subordination of all parties to the Bolshevik party. This indicates to me, he was ok with most of the tenets of Leninism. Plus he was in opposition to Gramsci's councilist approach. The KAPD was never a full member of the Comintern and broke all association after the Second Congress.
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Why is this so upvoted?
Good question. Nepalese communists aren't even good maoists, much less good left communists. This isn't really good news at all.
I sort of just thought it was here as "hey, look at this thing that happened" not "this is a good thing that happened", but I could be wrong lol.
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Funny because not too long ago people were complaining about how the "Nepalese revolution" fell to revisionism.
you'd think they'd notice a pattern after a while but I guess that requires a bit too much self-critique
So much for self-criticism.
President
"communist"
Yeah, probably not.
Oh boy, I can already feel the world revolutionTM
World revolution is idealist comrade. True CommunistsTM know the revolution will take place one country at a time as, like a house of cards, all the capitalist countries fall like dominoes. Checkmate.
I am sorry for not being dialectical.
We should study the ideological overlap of Truman and Mao
Establish Full Communism With This One Simple Trick!
Capitalists hate her!
Take that, imperialism
Am I supposed to laugh or..?
Haven't the maoists already been in power in Nepal and operated just like any other bourgeois political party, breaking strikes and shit? Or do they not count because they became revisionists even though they were the team that all whitey maoists were cheering on before hand?
I'd like to know where you heard that from cuz that sounds like some interesting information
Wasn't Prachanda a part of the same group? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prachanda
Also this https://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations
shh don't tell unruhe
My bad, it's not the same group.
Or else he will be pretty unruhig
no, they were secretly trots you know, at least the leadership, a maoist on revleft told me once.
Richard Wolff interview from CounterPunch
This for Marx, on the face of it, is outrageous, unjust, unequal, and therefore not sustainable in the long run, because for Marx it is only a matter of time for people to understand, as Marx himself did and help others to understand, what the situation is, and therefore sooner or later workers will say, “Why do we need capitalists? Because if organized production ourselves we would not only pay ourselves the 20 bucks, but we would be in charge with what is done with the surplus”, which is the value we add in production over and above the $20 we get, “which would be ours collectively, and we would become our own board of directors. And that would be a system far better for us than turning over that surplus to other people who are with a different interest from us. We wouldn’t treat it the same way, because we are the people in charge and we wouldn’t participate in self-exploitation.”
Support for co-op capitalism. Somehow I guess he is arguing that it's not wage labor if it imposed by the workers themselves.
So, the conclusion for Marx is revolution. You need to get rid of capitalism in order to replace the capitalist-labor relationship, wage labor in the way I’ve described it, with an altogether different system that is more egalitarian, more democratic, and more just, because the workers in each enterprise would become their own board of directors. That’s actually understood by people even if they’ve never heard of Karl Marx. You can see it in the fact that all over the world today, and true for the last 300 years, there are businesses that have organized themselves not as a capitalist corporation, but as what Marx would’ve called a communist organization. That is, it is a community of workers who set up a business and own and operate it themselves.
Here he seems to give a definition of capitalism that would not be far off from the one found commonly on /r/Anarcho_Capitalism: capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, and apparently we only need to replace the capitalists at the head of society and everything will be fine. No capitalists == communism right? Does Wolff think the USSR was communist? or does the lack of co-ops make it not-communism?
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I'm beginning to think that we need to make a /r/shitmarketsocialistssay or /r/muhcoops
With a permanent sticky to anticapitalist's user page.
Please.
I think a lot of it has to do with how detached someone is to something. I mean, even Chomsky despite being a smart guy has never bothered to look into any Marx at all. But, back on point, being away from the point of production usually means that one is not aware of the class nature of society, or of property or whatever. Industrial capitalists were almost fully aware of the nature of capitalism, but then in the age of finance capital you start getting weird ideologies such as the Austrian School, which is the ideology of a class of people completely removed from the point of production. Probably explains why it's mostly students who seem to like Wolff.
It could also be that he's a lazy workerist, the inverse of a social-democrat. I don't like the way he thinks that you can just hoodwink people into being communists.
How there can be a 'Marxist economics' in the first place is what I would like to know. Marx's work was a critique of this false form of thought. Wolff's economics is merely bourgeois economics with added moralising, this is not just the way the economy works but it is 'outrageous' he urges, his argument for communist organisation, whatever he means by that, is purely an appeal to justice, what makes him a fit judge? Where did Marx advocate this method?
Let's look into the nature of capital as Marx presented it. Workers don't just produce values as the political economists thought, they produce the capital relationship which separates the workers from the conditions of production - which belongs to the capitalist. The life-activity of workers becomes alien to them, meaning they are alienated from themselves. This (alienation) is not a feeling loosely resembling stomach ache brought about by exploitation as /r/socialism likes to think of it.
Marx wanted to find out how this separation came to be and how it is reproduced.
"It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labour and capital."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch09.htm
Marx doesn't just want to understand how production can be done humanly, but also to understand the inhuman form it takes in bourgeois society which the economists explain to be natural. His effort is to undo that work, to show it as an expression of that inhuman way of life. This is what allows us the possibility of seeing a way of life 'worthy and appropriate for our human nature'.
Marx wasn't taking the theories of the economists and making them better or showing them as examples of how capitalism is objectively bad. They made progress in explaining the forms and categories, Marx probed into why they took these forms that seem to govern our lives.
"Political economy has indeed analysed value and its magnitude, however incompletely, and has uncovered the content concealed within this form. But it has never once asked the question why this content has assumed that particular form, that is to say, why labour is expressed in value, and why the measurement of labour by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product." Capital, vol.1 MECW 35 pp. 91-92
Surplus value is fine to point to but Marx was also pointing at deeper contradictions. Selling yourself, your labour, life-activity in exchange for money as if you were a thing is more to the essence of the matter. The result of treating humans as things ie. the result of wage labour makes humans and our life-activity a mere means, and the expansion of capital an end in itself.
The terrible conditions for workers is not a mere consequence of some system which is also subject called 'capitalism' it is the expression of the alien relationships we have with ourselves and our life-activity.
The problem isn't simply that worker's life-activity, the ability of social production, is controlled by Mr. Moneybags Capitalist. Marx showed that this human ability appears in the form of capital, it is the property of capital and is controlled by capital, an impersonal social power of which the capitalist is merely a personification.
Look at this passage from the Grundrisse.
"The collective power of labour, its character as social labour, is therefore the collective power of capital. Likewise science. Likewise the division of labour, as it appears as division of the occupations and of exchange corresponding to them. All social powers of production are productive powers of capital, and it appears as itself their subject."
"The association of the workers, as it appears in the factory, is therefore not posited by them but by capital. Their combination is not their being, but the being [Dasein] of capital. Vis-à-vis the individual worker, the combination appears accidental. He relates to his own combination and cooperation with other workers as alien, as modes of capital’s effectiveness." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch11.htm
The dead labour only controls living labour because the dead things are social things. The producers of the dead labour only relate to each other through the social relations of the commodities they themselves produced. Marx relates this to religion where the products of our minds govern us rather than the products of our hands. Fetishism isn't a judgment call of something as good, nor a false way of seeing things, it is looking at things as they actually appear. Labour appears to be wage labour by nature, gold and silver seem by nature to be money. The point is that they appear this way because of the the upside down way of life described above.
The social relation 'capital' for Marx was 'value in progress,' 'the substance which is also subject' which grows from money, money itself as Marx says, 'becomes a real God' (Comments on James Mill), this is the active power over humans (equivalent to Hegel's Spirit), not just Rev. Moneybags. This substance does it's work 'behind the backs of its producers', it's movement is determined by the actions of the people that are dominated by it. It is hidden from workers and capitalists alike.
"A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it."
"Labour power is only saleable so far as it preserves the means of production in their capacity of capital, reproduces its own value as capital, and yields in unpaid labour a source of additional capital. The conditions of its sale, whether more or less favourable to the labourer, include therefore the necessity of its constant re-selling, and the constantly extended reproduction of all wealth in the shape of capital. Wages, as we have seen, by their very nature, always imply the performance of a certain quantity of unpaid labour on the part of the labourer." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm Section One
It isn't something we can get rid of by voting on who gets the surplus.
Sorry to drag up an old comment, but I was curious, if Marx was interested in criticizing the science of economics as a false form of thought, why did he explain basic economic principles in Value, Price, and Profit? Sorry if I'm not asking this question well.
Good question, I did suggest some kind of 'positive economics' in Marx with the Surplus Value point but I was somewhat ambiguous - I haven't figured it all out myself, I don't think anyone has completely. But if he was producing a positive economics, wouldn't he be helping the capitalists? - Somebody asked this recently, I think it's not a bad question.
Value, Price and Profit are three things that won't exist in a truly human (i.e. communist) society so these principles will be gone, as will the science behind them, Marx wasn't the one who invented the science or these principles, he was bringing out their real meaning. In the same sense that he gave the rational meaning to Hegel's Idea, he wasn't giving a Hegelian phenomenology of it, Hegel already did that, as Ricardo and Smith already gave us a lot on the economic categories.
In VPP Marx wasn't presenting a critique of political economy in the sense that I suggested he does in Capital, or the other sense which sees Marx as having his own science of economics which proves that a socialist economy would be better than a capitalist one (Wolff), he appears to be arguing against the view that a raise in wages doesn't help. Or, for the view that it does help...
Near the end Marx says:
'At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"'
Followed by:
"After this very long and, I fear, tedious exposition, which I was obliged to enter into to do some justice to the subject matter..."
From the first quote we see that the argument that Marx has been making in this speech (VPP) is futile, because his end is not "A fair days wage", but rather "abolition of the wages system!"
In other words when Marx is engaging in the explanation of economic principles he can only get as far as arguing for reform, trade unions, wage rise - ie. ends within capitalism. But Marx is a communist, as we know. This is why it is a false form of thought, because it serves to as Marx writes in Capital ‘transfigure and glorify what exists’ in other words engaging in economic science (rather than Marx's critical science) must presuppose capitalist society. But Marx isn't an economist, he is a communist! this is why he says: get rid of this arguing over wages and abolish the wage system! This is his true, communist standpoint, and he only got to it when the explanation of economic categories had finished and he had settled accounts with Weston.
I'm not sure how clear I've been here but I'm sure there are a lot of other issues to raise on this, Marx's method is a big topic, let me know what you think.
That makes sense. I haven't read all of Capital yet (real life gets in the way. Personally, I blame capitalism :P) and so I try to be cautious when I talk about Marxian economics. But I see people often say that the LTV is important to Marxism, but from what I've read it seems to be incredibly unimportant to the larger context. Bertell Ollman claimed that Marx "took it for granted," which is to imply that Marx didn't even bother to spend time thinking about its validity or importance. The Austrians like to believe that their subjectivism disproves Marxism, which is nonsense since even if value is judged subjectively, and I believe it is, as all things outside us are, it doesn't contradict the existence of value having an objective basis.
I don't know if I'm on to anything here though.
It's good that you haven't read all of Capital yet because I'm going to give you a different way of looking at it that I've been suggesting in my two comments on this thread. You will probably disagree, a lot of communists that I agree with otherwise (Left-Communists) would disagree, but I feel my view is more conducive to left-communism/communisation, however it says nothing about tendency.
I think LTV is important to Marxism, but Marx and Marxism need to be distinguished, the question is: What is the meaning of the LTV for Marx? What was Marx doing with it?
Now if you are to give a logical account of something, the thing must be logical. (Discussion of Marx's relationship to Hegel, Hegel's critique of Kant, and also Aristotle's logic in relation to the others is needed here but we will brush past it for the sake of brevity.) Now if Marx was giving a logical account of the economic system it would assume that this system is logical, not the kind of thing we would expect a communist to do. In fact this was the method of Political Economy, that showed that this system was natural, and as Marx tells us their standpoint is the same as Hegel's, who tells us that "The rational is real and the real is rational", Hegel wanted us to reconcile ourselves to this way of living, Marx claims that we need to change this way of living instead of simply making a 'scientific' theory of it (Recall theses on Feuerbach). That is to say if you are going to give a rational account of the inhumanity of society, you will fail to get at the insanity (Verrücktheit) of it. (By the way when Marx says 'My dialectic method is the opposite of Hegel's' in the preface, this is what he means, not that nonsense about 'dialectical materialism'.)
According to 'Marxism', Marx took on the LTV from Ricardo and Smith (who did come up with the modern version of it) and all he needed to do was clean it up. Now it is true that by showing the difference between labour and labour power Marx showed the origin of surplus value which then went on to take various forms (profit etc.) and showed how apparently free wage labour was really only wage slavery.
But is this Marx making a new political economics? On the contrary, Marx was showing that political economy could only come to logical contradictions because it presupposed the existing social order, it could not see beyond capitalism. The contradictions and inconsistencies in the classical political economists expressed actual contradictions in capitalist society, Marx praised them for showing these inconsistencies. The contradictions and inconsistencies are due to the conflict between the inhuman social form and humanity, the classical political economists couldn't even think of such a conflict.
Marx shows how the money relation turns by necessity into capital - an impersonal social power which destroys the humanity of workers. What political economy had explained to be free and equal relationships actually turn out to be relationships of oppression and exploitation.
Das Kapital is about capital (not an economic system called capitalism) the inhuman social relation which reproduces itself and enslaves those whose life activities and forms of consciousness are responsible for its existence. He always explains the fetishised way it appears to those who live within these forms.
He is not making an economic doctrine as Kautsky named it and as 'Marxism' implies, but a critique of these doctrines. Perhaps I'm repeating myself here, the point to remember is that Marx is a communist, some people forget this when they read Capital and they think he is a scientist making an objective assessment of phenomena outside himself. His critique is bound up with his communism. He wasn't explaining capitalism, but rather showing how humanity can break free from the inhuman social power 'capital'.
If we aren't producing for profit, why do we need value? (This is a bigger question than I can deal with here, the value issue is controversial but I think the essential point is correct) Why do we need a labour theory of value in a human world? Marx's aim seems to be to get to a world where we can be rid of the LTV. I haven't read those Austrian economists but if they are arguing against the LTV then they haven't understood Marx very well either in my opinion. I like Bertell Ollman but I don't think he gets to the bottom of it either, what he said about Marx taking it for granted can only really be explained by the reading of Marx which I have suggested.
Thank you. I don't suppose you'd mind it if I asked how long you've been studying this stuff for? You seem to really know your stuff to the point where you have a lot of your own ideas. Sometimes I can't help but feel like there is too much stuff out there, but I've only been a communist for just over a year and I've learned a lot in that time.
Thanks, I'm only at the beginning there is a lot more that I have in front of me, the project like Marx's own is one that is limitless and can only be finished in practice. I think Marx's ideas are up to date, his standpoint is needed now more than ever but we need to begin with Marx and not take him as the last word, certainly not take bits and pieces from what we assume Marx to be saying.
John Holloway, Werner Bonefeld, Open Marxism, New Marx Reading, Value Form Theory and Communisation theory and more all helped me along, but I keep in mind Marx's two maxims, doubt everything, nothing human is alien to me.
I think we can understand Marx better if we don't assume him to be saying what Marxism claims, we need to take him on his own terms, a lot of the 'stuff out there' as you word it can be explained by Marx's own ideas rather than the other way around so we don't need to be in too much of a rush to get to grips with all that. Although I think understanding Marx has a lot to do with understanding Hegel, Hegelians and Philosophy in general now that is a big task - on the other hand understanding Marx helps to understand Hegel etc. As I said he was giving a rational meaning to these things.
You can learn a lot really fast, but understanding Marx's basic standpoint (Human society or social humanity ie communism - theses on Feuerbach) and method of critique (described in simple form in the intro to CHPR) is essential and more important than any quantity of other knowledge we can amass.
Hope that makes sense, how much Marx have you read? Have you delved into Hegel at all?
nothing human is alien to me
I never really understood this one. Could you explain it?
Although I think understanding Marx has a lot to do with understanding Hegel, Hegelians and Philosophy in general now that is a big task
I mentioned a week or so ago on /r/socialism how it seems the farther one gets from Hegel the farther one gets from actual revolutionary theory. I said this in reference to anarchists who don't read (I'm given to understand that Proudhon and Bakunin were Hegelians) and Stalinists who claim that Marx rejected Hegel.
I was thinking how eventually I would love to read Hegel and then Kant, which would probably lead me to more philosophers perhaps all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. As you said, big task.
Hope that makes sense, how much Marx have you read?
I believe I've read all of his major works except Capital, the Grundrisse, and The Poverty of Philosophy. I'm trying to make my way through Proudhon so I can read the third one I figured I would save the second for after I read Capital.
Have you delved into Hegel at all?
I haven't though I'm pretty excited to do so. At the moment anyway I'm planning to save him for when I have more time to devote to reading and maybe after I read more Marx.
You can see it in the fact that all over the world today, and true for the last 300 years, there are businesses that have organized themselves not as a capitalist corporation, but as what Marx would’ve called a communist organization. That is, it is a community of workers who set up a business and own and operate it themselves.
I hear people say that cooperatives are a step towards socialism all the time, but this on a whole new fucking level
From Kapitalism101:
For the market-socialist vision, it seems that all we need to do is replace the class-relationships in the workplace with a cooperative workplace, leaving market exchange in tact. But such a cooperative society would still have wage labor, socially necessary labor time, value in the abstract, and abstract labor. Cooperatives would still be compelled by competition to produce surplus value in order to expand production and stay competitive. Production would still be for the sake of producing surplus value, and not for the sake of bettering society. It is probable that the most efficient and successful firms would be those with the least cooperative structure and the highest disciplining of labor.
He's a market socialist obviously, not a leftcom.
I know that. I'm asking the question of how does someone who has presumably spent his whole life studying economics from a supposedly Marxist perspective not understand capitalism? This is a general question, which the community here is more capable of providing a good answer for then say /r/socialism where people love faux-socialists like Wolff.
Generally it's an approach towards a vision of transition from capitalism into a socialist market society that will eventually change further and hopefully yield communism.
As the anarchists would say, you have to build the new society within the shell of the old and it looks like cooperatives are a good alternative model where the workers own and control to means of production. It does not solve the problems of markets nor does it abolish value production, but it's something that makes sense if you look at the transition in terms of futurist dialectics. Cooperatives are something to be strived for IMO because they really allow the working class to learn how to take control over both their workplace and their lives, something that breeds class consciousness.
Don't let perfection get in the way of praxis my friend.
It's not about perfection or praxis. Co-op capitalism does not destroy capitalism, and will eventually transition itself back to "private" capitalism. When the revolution is stopped to organize society on the basis of co-ops, the counter-revolution will have won.
Well I would generally have to disagree with you there comrade.
There's also no need to stop a revolution either. Generally I am not in favour of the state taking the place of Capital in its contradiction with Labour.
There's also no need to stop a revolution either.
I'm not saying that the revolution would have to be stopped to reorganize society on the basis of co-ops, I'm saying doing it would stop the revolution.
Generally it's an approach towards a vision of transition from capitalism into a socialist market society that will eventually change further and hopefully yield communism.
Which is basically just lazy reformism and utopianism. It doesn't require a revolution and it doesn't require class theory or materialism, or the class party or anything.
As the anarchists would say, you have to build the new society within the shell of the old and it looks like cooperatives are a good alternative model where the workers own and control to means of production.
Which is also utopian and idealist nonsense. You can't just wish the antagonisms of capitalism away and pretend that your co-op or your group is the seed from which the whole genesis of socialism will emerge. I'm not even sure how anarchists propose this to work on a scale that is above a group of 12 people and on revolutionary terms.
It does not solve the problems of markets nor does it abolish value production, but it's something that makes sense if you look at the transition in terms of futurist dialectics.
Ignoring your "futurist dialectics", it makes sense because it's capitalism. Capitalism produces it's own ideology. It's also not a transition to anything because it's an obfuscation. Worker self management is something that capitalists and states promote all the time in order to keep the work force docile.
Cooperatives are something to be strived for IMO because they really allow the working class to learn how to take control over both their workplace and their lives, something that breeds class consciousness.
But the working class already does produce and reproduce the whole of capitalist society on a daily basis. You don't "breed" class consciousness by telling workers that they are their own capitalists, by mystifying further the relation of labour to capital.
Don't let perfection get in the way of praxis my friend.
The fact that you can even say that perfection can get in the way of praxis means that you don't know the first thing about praxis.
K looks like I'll take my reactionnary ass back to r/Socialism because it looks like I can't engage in an argument without being attacked Ad Hominem
Have you seen the Tim Burton adaptation of Alice in Wonderland? There's a dialogue at the end of the movie between the Jabberwocky and Alice, or so we think.
J - Oh my old foe, we meet on the battlefield once again A- We've never met.. J - Not you insignificant bearer! My ancient enemy, the vorpal one.
Like capital, the vorpal blade is the true enemy, and whoever wields it is only a fleeting participant in a much longer struggle, that between labour and capital.
What are futurist dialectics?
Well basically taking the idea of historical materialism and applying it to the future. Essentially that a cooperative economy would be able to "grow within the shell of the old" capitalist society like markets and banks did in feudal times and eventually these new social and material relations would give rise to advanced socialist or even communist social formations.
Essentially that a cooperative economy would be able to "grow within the shell of the old" capitalist society
But co-ops are capitalist, a large part of capitalist society which I have pointed out several times to yet have anyone actually challenge it, are used by capitalists and the state to quell working class dissent by bringing them into management.
like markets and banks did in feudal times and eventually these new social and material relations would give rise to advanced socialist or even communist social formations.
Which was only possible because both of these modes of production were commodity based economies and class society. You can't create a non-capitalist, non-commodity society "within the shell" of capitalism and expect that to be anything other than a short lived commune, but you're not even arguing that. You can't have "socialist" banks or "socialist" markets. Those are inherent contradictions in terms and in the progression of the communist movement, in other words, it is not according to the materialist method as applied to history.
You're just arguing for a nicer capitalism that the workers have to manage, which nullifies any sort of need of forming the class as a class in opposition to capital.
Why not magical dialectics where communism is bestowed upon us by pixies?
Well basically taking the idea of historical materialism and applying it to the future.
What exactly do you think Karl Marx was doing? History is not something that only exists in the past, it is a constant process.
Does Wolff think the USSR was communist? or does the lack of co-ops make it not-communism?
I've listened to quite a few of his lectures. Its his opinion that the USSR was state-capitalist. In fact, one of his favourite ideas seems to be that capitalism is flexible, sometimes relying on market forces and at other times relying on the state. Most countries swing from one to the other as they seek elusive stability. The USSR was in his view capitalism having swung to a state extreme, without having altered its fundamental surplus appropriating nature.
In fact, one of his favourite ideas seems to be that capitalism is flexible, sometimes relying on market forces and at other times relying on the state.
which is even more bizarre, given that his obsession with 'market socialism' and coops is the perfect example of how capitalism is flexible and not defined by a mode of enterprise.
Did he actually use the term market socialism? I've heard him talk about coops before, but only as examples of worker-organized production, not as examples of socialism. He spoke highly of them in the context of them being an improvement on traditional owner-run businesses. (Edit: and importantly, as an example that workers can and do organize production by themselves, even today) He nevertheless came across to me as very much anti-market.
At least when I heard him talk, his focus was on whether surplus is produced, and if so, how it is distributed. Coops embedded in capitalism are still subject to capitalist forces, but at least surplus goes back to the workers. Not socialism if they still need to compete in a market system, but better than a traditional business. Is that not what he was implying in your opinion?
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I wish more people recognized that liberal "democracy" is nothing more than a buzzword. Oppression is oppression, no matter what you call it
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People's Stick."
I may or may not have posted this just the other day, oh well!
How did you come across it? Did you find it on the ICC forums?
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I find it ultimately amusing and slightly depressing that Marx argued against a lot of the same nonsense that socialists continue to fall into today.
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This was the film that was shown at the ICC public meeting, in London, today. It was the film that was used to introduce and be used as the base of the morning discussion. The discussed topics of the day were: decadent capitalism, imperialism in world war 2 from all sides, the internationalist response to war, the role of revolutionaries and several more. Mostly it was members from the ICC, but there were several non-members (including me) and some comrades from the CWO (a group of the ICT). It was a great meeting, which taught me a lot about organising and especially about internationalist organisation.
The film itself was made by Mark Hayes, a sympathiser to the ICC.
Here is a link to the event page, if you want a wider idea of what happened during the day, I also think there might be an audio download coming at some stage.
What attracted you to the event in the first place? Which group do you prefer, the cwo or icc?
My developing leanings towards left communism ended up compelling me to looking into left communist groups to organise with, especially those who were active in my country. I had read material from both the CWO and ICC before and on the ICC website I saw the advert for this event and that it was only a 30 minute train ride away, so it seemed like a great chance to expand my own knowledge and get in contact with some other left communists.
I'm not sure which group I prefer, I got a good chance to see the ideological and organisational differences between the two today, as they did actually hold a small debate between them. I'd like to attend the CWO meeting they've got coming up, but it's all the way up in Durham and it is on a weekday, which isn't very easy for me to get to. It'd be nice to get a clearer view of their opinions, because obviously I got a lot more of the views of the ICC today.
Are you involved with any groups?
What sort of impression did you get from the small debate? I'm not in either group and have only had a peripheral connection to the ICT.
The main two differences I saw were:
1) The role of the party. To put it simply, the ICC believe the role of the party is to agitate and propagandise, but the ICT believes the role of the party is to agitate, propagandise and organise workers. However, it is probably slightly more complicated than that, and I think they mentioned that the ICC has slightly come over to the ICT's position in regards to that issue.
2) They come from and are the continuation of two different traditions of the communist left. The ICT are the continuation of the Italian left, whilst the ICC were apparently the continuation of the French left.
They were all very articulate and very intelligent, but I didn't find myself swayed to a particular side, mainly because I hadn't much considered the role of the party nor have I come to favour a particular 'tradition' yet. Outside of the differences they seemed to agree on most things, with a few minor details here and there between the individuals themselves.
First of all, I either consider myself left communist, or ultra left Leninist. Bordiga is my bro.
Recently, I have been reading about TWism. And it makes sense, so does Labor Aristocracy.
I can see how the FW exploits TW workers more, in order to give FW workers a more pleasurable life. This keeps them from being revolutionary. I can relate as a FW worker, my coworkers get paid a wage that can buy a car and a house with internet and computers. It is much easier, then lets say some poor souls in the TW. Those poor souls will want a revolution much quicker then some liberal dems in the FW. My problem with TWism is that, yes, while I do think that revolution is more likely to spark in the TW, it needs to spread for the FW to be successful. A revolution in the FW has much more umphf than that of the TW.
Second is LA. The exploitation of the TW by FW countries seems almost obvious. This makes the quality of the FW better. I am typing this on a Nexus 6 on 4G. There is some value I have that those in the TW don't.
I don't have much of a question, I just know you people will tear into this and tell me why it is faulty thinking. Which is want I want. That and just general discussions on the subject.
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People use labour aristocracy to mean a bunch of stuff, but it originally came from Pannekoek, the council communist and then picked up by Lenin who was a big fan of him. It has it's roots in Marx and Engels though. They mostly used it to refer to the old trade unions and the labour leaders though, and Lenin tied it to opportunist trends and such, and the petite-bourgeoisie. I think that that definition can be a little useful.
But what is normally said of it is that the whole of the first world workers have become "bourgeois workers" and that's based upon the idea that the workers in the first world are paid off with higher wages at the expense of the third world.
You're not really trying to give an explanation of anything. Like, who is this third world and why are they being exploited? I don't think that the answer to give workers in the first world "a more pleasurable life" is what is actually happening, or to prevent them from revolting is a satisfactory answer, cause you sort of contradict yourself here by saying that this makes the third world revolutionary. And in doing so you are actually moving away from any materialist conception of history by stating that it's relative levels of poverty that make some group a revolutionary class, not anything to do with it's relation to the means of production. This is really more of a petite-bourgeois vision of revolution more suited to anarchists and maoists, who are to be expected of promoting this with their historical roots in the peasantry over the proletariat.
TWism is really just a way for mostly petite-bourgeois types in the first world as an excuse for the failure of their ideas, the decline of a working class movement and as a way to justify them sitting back and do nothing apart from making youtube videos.
"I'm too lazy and probably too lacking in interpersonal skills to do any actual organizing so instead I'll just incoherently cheerlead for tin-pot dictators and drug gangs on the other side of the world" - a whole lot of white Maoists
That's a lot of internet communists.
This is what I wanted. But let me explain my thoughts a little more.
This is from a perspective of a US citizen, keep this in mind. In the US, it is a large problem of "exporting work" over seas to the global south, the "Third World". This is because labor is cheaper there. The capitalist can make much larger profits from child labor in Somalia than they can from local labor in the US that requires labor laws and minimum wage. While it will take a minimum of $7.25 (plus material costs) an hour to make the latest consumer device in the US, exporting it to some poor country can drastically reduce that cost, to let's say, $3.25 (plus material costs) an hour. This is a $4 dollar gain per hour for the same product. So if they make $6 an hour in profit in the US, they will make $10 in that poor country. (This is a gross simplified example).
With this new found profits from the exporting of jobs to the third world, in theory, it allows the capitalist to pay their workers at home more. Now the workers can get $8.25 an hour and the capitalist still has a larger profit from exporting the jobs comparing to not exporting the jobs.
Getting these higher wages, it isn't that the working class in the US isn't a revolutionary class because of it, but that they are appeased, and the itch for revolution won't come as soon as those in the TW who are getting worse treatment.
Isn't it in times of struggle, that the proles become a revolutionary class? When the contradictions of capitalism become more apparent, and the workers can see it more broadly? Eventually, in the FW, the workers will become revolutionary, because that is the nature of capitalism. The next huge bust can do it, but it is almost dependent on the bubble bursting. Comparing this to the TW, where the workers are more likely to live in dire poverty, they are feeling the contradiction more bluntly... so to speak.
I like to use my wife as an example. She understands Marxists theory. I fill her head with it all the time (she probably hates its). But she has no revolutionary tendencies. She has a job that lets her live comfortable, because she lives in the TW. Sure, she wants to have higher wages and work less hours, as that is one of the contradictions of capitalism. But out liberal democracy will gradually raise her wages, give her benefits, and this feeds her need to not become a revolutionary. It appeases her, and I understand why. Why would you want to throw-out your boss when they are friends with you? Compare that to the TW, where they don't get health care, don't get higher wages, don't get shorter hours. My wife and some TW worker can work for the same company, yet one doesn't really care for a revolution because she is comfortable, while the other is facing death because of poverty.
Now if our economy where to crash, and my wife were to lose her good hours and her good wages, which will happen sometime, I am sure she will become a revolutionary. Because her friend that is her boss will need to make a profit, and he will cut her wages and benefits in order to do so. The contradictions of the bourgeois and proletariat will become more obvious.
Sorry about the rant. Just my thoughts on it.
This is from a perspective of a US citizen, keep this in mind. In the US, it is a large problem of "exporting work" over seas to the global south, the "Third World". This is because labor is cheaper there. The capitalist can make much larger profits from child labor in Somalia than they can from local labor in the US that requires labor laws and minimum wage. While it will take a minimum of $7.25 (plus material costs) an hour to make the latest consumer device in the US, exporting it to some poor country can drastically reduce that cost, to let's say, $3.25 (plus material costs) an hour. This is a $4 dollar gain per hour for the same product. So if they make $6 an hour in profit in the US, they will make $10 in that poor country. (This is a gross simplified example).
With this new found profits from the exporting of jobs to the third world, in theory, it allows the capitalist to pay their workers at home more. Now the workers can get $8.25 an hour and the capitalist still has a larger profit from exporting the jobs comparing to not exporting the jobs.
You're still not explaining why the cost of a wage is that in the US or why it is the cost of a wage anywhere else, just that capitalists some how desire to pay workers more in the west? Hint, it's tied up with the exportation of certain industries. You're still just giving a weird voluntarist understanding of the world. The price of labour is different in different places due to various historical and cultural reasons, and it's also different within countries based around gender and age. It's not because of capitalists just working together to conspire.
Getting these higher wages, it isn't that the working class in the US isn't a revolutionary class because of it, but that they are appeased, and the itch for revolution won't come as soon as those in the TW who are getting worse treatment.
Isn't it in times of struggle, that the proles become a revolutionary class? When the contradictions of capitalism become more apparent, and the workers can see it more broadly? Eventually, in the FW, the workers will become revolutionary, because that is the nature of capitalism. The next huge bust can do it, but it is almost dependent on the bubble bursting. Comparing this to the TW, where the workers are more likely to live in dire poverty, they are feeling the contradiction more bluntly... so to speak.
This type of logic leads to anti-working class politics. Why not just vote for the most absurd of capitalist parties if the question of revolution is only a matter of levels of satisfaction?
The answer is that it's not. While revolutionary potentials develop quicker in times of capitalist crisis this hasn't always happened.
I like to use my wife as an example. She understands Marxists theory. I fill her head with it all the time (she probably hates its). But she has no revolutionary tendencies. She has a job that lets her live comfortable, because she lives in the TW. Sure, she wants to have higher wages and work less hours, as that is one of the contradictions of capitalism. But out liberal democracy will gradually raise her wages, give her benefits, and this feeds her need to not become a revolutionary. It appeases her, and I understand why. Why would you want to throw-out your boss when they are friends with you? Compare that to the TW, where they don't get health care, don't get higher wages, don't get shorter hours. My wife and some TW worker can work for the same company, yet one doesn't really care for a revolution because she is comfortable, while the other is facing death because of poverty.
Why would you want to throw-out your boss when they are friends with you? Compare that to the TW, where they don't get health care, don't get higher wages, don't get shorter hours. My wife and some TW worker can work for the same company, yet one doesn't really care for a revolution because she is comfortable, while the other is facing death because of poverty.
You're not placing much in the way of revolutionary demands into the mouths of those that you are speaking for. I think that this is also a crutch that twists lean on as well and ends up being a support of nationalism and capitalism.
Now if our economy where to crash, and my wife were to lose her good hours and her good wages, which will happen sometime, I am sure she will become a revolutionary. Because her friend that is her boss will need to make a profit, and he will cut her wages and benefits in order to do so. The contradictions of the bourgeois and proletariat will become more obvious.
This is far from being a generality.
Are you sure you're a left communist?
Thanks for this! I wrote that wall of text to explain that I sympathize with TWism, but do not believe it. I was wanting some criticism on it, why it is wrong.
Are you sure you're a left communist
No, I drift between Leninism and Left Communism. I come here to learn.
Also, can you elaborate how that it is far from generality?
And the bit about not understanding the historical development of why labor is cheaper in some countries, you're right. But this still doesn't negate that, today, FW capitalist can get more profits from the TW. And the reason to pay their employees more in the FW is to make them not angry. As a capitalist, why would you want to antagonize your workers when you have to ability to tithe them over?
No, I drift between Leninism and Left Communism. I come here to learn.
I just think that it's one thing to know what something is and another to call yourself it, that's all.
And the bit about not understanding the historical development of why labor is cheaper in some countries, you're right. But this still doesn't negate that, today, FW capitalist can get more profits from the TW. And the reason to pay their employees more in the FW is to make them not angry. As a capitalist, why would you want to antagonize your workers when you have to ability to tithe them over?
The situation is that capitalists have moved certain industries overseas to areas where the price of labour is cheaper, and it has done so because it isn't profitable to do so in the more developed parts of the world. Profit comes from surplus value. It has nothing to do with appeasing anyone. Sure, capitalist welfare measures have been put into practice in order to prevent or subvert any militant working class action (you could make an argument that this is the labour aristocracy doing so, the opportunism that Lenin spoke of, such as the Labour Party), but they also had the effect of lowering the cost of labour as well, and lowering the demand for higher wages and those were also at the behest of actual militant working class action already established in the 1920s.
Capitalists don't just grant higher wages to people. These were hard won victories, however short term, from a militant working class, that could be militant because of the way that labour was organised in those days in giant factories, where collective action was possible on a large scale in centres of direct value production, and that situation then is different now. Having several factories employing 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 people in one city isn't common at all.
And it's not just "first world capitalists" who get more profits from employing cheap labour, it's every capitalist that does so as everyone is connected to the world capitalist system.
And I don't know how sheltered your life is, but it isn't all coming up roses for everyone. It's more common for people to have more than one job, more difficult to find steady full time work, wahes have been continually dropping, benefits are being cut continually resulting in people dying from it or ending up on the street. Capitalists have no need to buy off workers anywhere and they don't do it, and on the scales of which twists talk about is really stupid.
Thank you! I think I understand it now. But I have to clear something up a bit before I go on.
The way welfare capitalism keeps militant action down, is the same thing I was talking about when capitalist in the First World use their "super profits" (please excuse the use of the term, I know it is debated) to increase wages on their homeland.
I used to work at Meijer (its like Walmart), and the way they kept people from unionizing is by giving the employees some BS incentives like a period "bonus" (it just works out that if we simply had higher wages, it'd trump our bonuses). They did this to kept us from becoming radicals, keep us from joining a union. My question is, why wouldn't the capitalist in the First World use part of their newfound super profit from the Third World to do the same except on a revolutionary scale? I understand that this doesn't make the working class not revolutionary, just like how Meijer's incentives didn't stop people from unionizing. It isn't that the First World workers aren't being exploited, it is just that the Capitalist in the First World have a lot of gain to export the work. From profit to even more profit.
The way welfare capitalism keeps militant action down, is the same thing I was talking about when capitalist in the First World use their "super profits" (please excuse the use of the term, I know it is debated) to increase wages on their homeland.
The welfare state was dependent on the productivity of labour at home. It wasn't introduced to placate workers in the same sense that twists use. It had the effect of lowering the pressure of labour on wages and also as a way to make labour cheaper. It had a role in the production and reproduction of labour in a time when there was a demand for it, and now that there isn't, there are cut backs in this section of the state spending.
They did this to kept us from becoming radicals, keep us from joining a union.
Unions aren't radical though, and just demands for higher wages isn't a radical demand. This is more to do with the desire for the work place to keep a work force in a weaker position in negotiating, to keep the cost of labour low.
My question is, why wouldn't the capitalist in the First World use part of their newfound super profit from the Third World to do the same except on a revolutionary scale?
I don't think they do pay off workers to keep them from being revolutionary. I haven't really seen any evidence of it and I think that the whole concept of workers having higher wages in developed countries as having to do with super-profits and exploitation of cheaper labour sources to be bunkum. On the whole, the power of labour has been broken, the basis of that has been shipped over seas, the source of the welfare state has been in crisis, wages are falling and workers now work longer than before.
I think you're presenting a lot of differing things and trying to tie them together in a contradictory manner.
The welfare state was dependent on the productivity of labour at home. It wasn't introduced to placate workers in the same sense that twists use. It had the effect of lowering the pressure of labour on wages and also as a way to make labour cheaper. It had a role in the production and reproduction of labour in a time when there was a demand for it, and now that there isn't, there are cut backs in this section of the state spending.
I stand on the side of Impossibilists on this issue. That reforms to capitalism is counter-productive to revolution. I guess that is where I come from for most of my views on this issue. That is why I see the First World not being as revolutionary inclined as the Third World at this moment. Like I said, we see a spike in radical worker movements when the economy collapses. Just like during the Great Depression.
Anyways, are there any articles on the text above?
/u/red-rooster made this post about six months ago with a collection of readings. There's also this comment from /u/g0vernment that is a good read as well.
Revolutions historically didn't happen because of shitty conditions(a relative thing btw), they happened when the working class tried to amend the shitty conditions through official channels and found them to be lacking. In short, when the governments couldn't help the workers even if they wanted to since their interests were as antagonistic and unyielding as they could be. That's why in a way Corbyn, Sanders and their counterparts could be dangerous, not because they hold any real power, but because they do not.
I thought Marx wrote that revolutions happen because of contradictions inherit in the system, and when these contradictions become more pronounced, the revolutionary class becomes more active.
when these contradictions become more pronounced
I believe that's what makes it more pronounced, when they realize they're powerless.
I am a bit curious about left communism. Your seem to me a lot more sympathetic than the cultish great-man worship common on a lot of communist subreddits that go more in the leninist direction. Most of what I know of left com ideas is that you take internationalism very seriously which I like. What do you think of syndicalist unions as an organisational approach for working class liberation?
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Left communists are on the whole against trade unions.
How do left coms think we should struggle in times of low class consiousness? Electoralism doesn't seem to be your thing.
There's still organisational and propaganda work that can be done, but left communists don't think that trade unions are mechanisms for social revolution.
how do we differentiate between the spontaneous workers organisations and trade unions? Do leftcoms make the distinction anarcho-syndicalists do between - to put it bluntly - between 'good' and 'bad' unionism?
I'm not sure if there is any meaningful difference. I don't think there's been a strike in the past 100 years that wasn't the result of pressure from the rank and file, but regardless, they are usually stuck in the same situation of being restricted to economism of one sort or another and they will have to move out of those confines. One type of unionism is probably easier to do this than the other, and it's not too hard for workers to break the confines of the traditional trade unions. But it's often hard to break the confines of "trade unionism" in general, hence the need for us to be doing work in these sort of situations. I'm not aware of the actual Left CommunistTM position on this though.
This is what devrim has to say about it which is useful if you're needing it
I said on a thread somewhere the other day that the communist left doesn't believe that you can have permanent, revolutionary, unitary (meaning based on workers membership as workers) today.
It is the three of them that aren't possible together. Any of the two combinations are.
A permanent unitary organisation is a trade union.
A permanent revolutionary organisation is a communist political organisation.
A revolutionary unitary organisation is a mass meeting, strike committee or workers council.
The three together in this period is impossible.
Not because we don't like the idea. It would be nice. It's not possible though.
The left communist position works from here.
inverted Leninism n' all that..
When I think about the history that I know, America and the Louisiana Purchase and the westward expansion, the UK and the East India Company, seems to verify Bordiga's argument. It also seems to make it really easy to explain what happened in the USSR and China.
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I think that Bordiga said that there is no such thing as state-capitalism, seeing that as an oxymoron as all capitalism requires a state. I think he mentions the state of the USSR becoming subsumed under capital rather than capital becoming subsumed under it. Someone will need to back this up because I'm not 100% sure on this particular subject.
Supposedly Bordiga on the other hand considered the chief task of the bourgeois revolution is the development of agriculture, with the increasing population ratio in the urban areas as compared to the rural. This was his measure of development. What may be surprising to some is that Russia is the most urbanised country in the world. Again, this is all second hand information, mostly from Goldner and Camatte. Italian is a pain in the ass language to read, especially texts that are 40-80 years old.
I think that Bordiga said that there is no such thing as state-capitalism, seeing that as an oxymoron as all capitalism requires a state.
Scratch that. I'm just going through the archives and he does talk about it.
"Non abbiamo solo in Russia capitalismo di Stato ma capitalismo di Stato misto al privato"
Not only do we have state capitalism in Russia (after 1953) but state capitalism mixed to private.
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Nice, ty
I'm an anarchist who mainly identifies with Syndicalist and Mutualist trends, but I'm curious about left-communism and it seems interesting.
Other than there being more of an emphasis and appreciation for Marx's work, what are the main, functional differences between left-communism and anarchism?
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Left communists don't reject the party form. The historic communist left comes out of a split w the 3rd international primarily on the question of trade unions, parliaments, national self determination and front ist tactics.
However most people mean (communist) ultra left when they say left communism and as far as that goes it really depends on the tradition and person
Left communism is member of the set ultra left but the set ultra left is larger than just left communism
A rejection of prefigurative politics.
This gets asked a lot. These other threads might help.
http://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/1hpd0q/any_leftcommunism_critiques_of_anarchism/
http://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/27exsn/anarchism_in_the_rearview_mirror/
A meaningful understanding of material history and economic relationships
Left communism is rooted in a dialectical materialist analysis whereas anarchism is often rooted in idealism.
I'm predicting at least one other answer that refers to anarchism as "petit bourgeois" or "liberal."
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Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Grundrisse, and The German Ideology were all published after Lenin's death.
Why is that particular piece significant? I have never read it myself.
Lenin once read a chapter of Hegel and declared that all the Marxists had failed to understand Marx. He never got round to studying the rest of Hegel.
The early writings show more clearly Marx's critique of Hegel, amongst other important things. The early writings show Marx's humanism, which shines a different light on his later writings. Lenin thought Marx was basically Hegel with atheism, a mechanical determinist with economic doctrines.
His early work let's you understand his later work. It's also some of his most interesting work.
Additionally, Marx didn't have access to all the works of Hegel (I can provide extensive commentary on this if I were to find my notes/book on this topic) and naturally there was a disconnect as to whether or not Marx read the most crucial works of Hegel.
[deleted]
Marx's Discourse with Hegel, by Norman Levine.
Marx did not read any work by Rosenkranz.
I would type it all out but simply look at this page:
Marx's Incomplete Quest, (Levine, pg 41)
Edit: Additionally on pg 38 he lists the work that Marx did not know by Hegel (but was available in his lifetime):
The Difference of the Fichtean and Schellingean System of Philosophy
On the Orbit of the Planets (Hegel's Latin dissertation)
The Critical Journal of Philosophy articles:
On the Natural of Philosophic Criticism, How Common Sense Construes Philosophy, The relation of Scepticism and Philosophy, Faith and Knowledge, On the Scientific Method of Treating Natural Law, On the Relationship of Natural Philosophy and Philosophy in General
Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg
The English Reform Bill
Various other articles, prefaces, et hoc genus omne...
Lenin once read a chapter of Hegel and declared that all the Marxists had failed to understand Marx. He never got round to studying the rest of Hegel.
Are you basing that on the chapter that Lenin annotates in the collected works or on something else?
Yes the conspectus of Hegel's Logic https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_180a
'It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and es- pecially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!'
Krupskaya also claimed he read the phenomenology, but she was also claiming other questionable things in those years.
More interesting would be what the Pope of Marxism didn't have at hand.
Shit, Lenin never read The German Ideology? Explains a lot!!!
Neither did Rosa Luxemburg, how much does that explain?
A lot as well.
It's really telling that 'left' communists seem to care more about Lenin than we Leninists do.
It's really something else then you going around pretending to be a marxist-leninist yet knowing nothing of what marxism-leninism actually meant. Do I have to remind you of that whole fiasco of you thinking Stalin meant socialism as something distinct from communism? I suspect strongly that this is from you just reading wikipedia articles than actually reading books. So god knows what you actually think Leninism is and how that relates to Lenin and the actual communist movement.
I'm also not quite sure why it's telling. It's telling if you mean that Leninists don't care about Lenin? Do Leninists also not care about Marx?
And solidblues continues to show that they get all of their information from reddit and wikipedia rather than actually from reading books.
The closest thing I've found (I haven't looked too extensively however) is the comparison of Bordiga/Pannekoek's "Party and Class".
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I'm not sure how those could be considered good.
They really aren't, I was just throwing them out there. Guess no one else contributed to the thread?
not sure really, most modern left communists generally combine aspects of bordigas thought with elements of the dutch and german left but i dont know of anything that strait up sets out to critique bordiga.
Here's a collection: Bordigism
I was wondering if I could get left comm opinions on the differences between anarcho-communism and left communism. I've got a sort of scattered view of the thing. As far as I can tell, the main difference is the acceptance of historical materialism as a thing. Is there a definitive list of differences between these two political outlooks? Thank you.
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From my personal experience of being around many self declared anarcho-communists, they just use that term to give the impression that they are not regular anarcho-weenies. In reality they are just as idealist as any other anarchist tendency, and as you have said tend to have a very distorted, or even just a superficial, understanding of materialism as applied to history and society. They might talk about class and such, but for them the ultimate goal is the creation of the most truest democracy and freedom, with class just being something in the way of that in the form of "classism" in a range of supposedly interconnected oppressions. In practical terms this means that they have to create this future society in the shell of the existing one, hence why all of their talk of class struggle is just superficial.
there's no inherent contradiction between anarcho-communism and historical materialism, there's merely a real contradiction insofar as most ancoms don't believe in historical materialism. If ancoms aim for a society without hierarchy/authority, then historical materialism offers an understanding of how the existing problematic society comes about and thus how it can be ended to make that ideal real.
I could be completely wrong but 'anarcho' implies that the problem in society is hierarchy, an understanding of historical materialism would show how hierarchy arises and how it is reproduced, making it futile to simply try to get rid of hierarchy in and of itself. See Marx - Bakunin conflict for more on this. If you don't have historical materialism you don't have agency, that is you don't think the proletarians are the ones who will build the new society. It carries all kinds of contradictions like this.
In case you don't already know about it, the Anarchist Faq comes closest to a Capital style document for anarcho-communists, and there are passages explaining why they aren't Marxian communists.
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.htmlhttp://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append3.html
That said, not everyone on the AnFaq collective is/was a communist, so a more represenative view of anarchist communism can be found at
Some anarcho-communist tendencies, especially Especifismo, are heavily influenced by historical materialism.
Some posts by users here made me think about this. So I was asking this here and then what I think is a left communist (is that correct?) started this.
From my understanding, socialism was used to mean the lowest stage of communism. But Stalinists seem to be wary of answering this question, but I think that the majority opinion was that socialism as communism is dogma, hence wrong, and socialism as transitional stage is correct.
What is going on here?
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Well this particular commenter refers to two left communist writers in their user name and is very critical of stalinists so it's a pretty safe bet. I can't speak for everyone e of course but I am beginning to get the impression that the whole notion of distinguished historical phases of the communist epoch has become somewhat obsolete. What with the radical change in economic productivity and what not.
Anyway, to get a really complete understanding of this whole debacle you really have to go back to the mid 19th century when the idea of 'socialism' started to become a thing. Socialism was a word that was employed by the utopians, idealist, bourgeois socialists, and although thinkers like marx held socialism as synonymous with communism (hence the interchangeable use of the words), the word 'communism' was mostly used as a polemical device to distance themselves from these bourgeois thinkers and utopians. Plus you have the connection to things like the Paris commune and so on. From my somewhat limited understanding myself, it seems that the separation of socialism from communism by 20th century ideologues has its roots in the bourgeois socialist movement. I mean, to anyone with a remotely independent mind, 'communism in one country' is laughable. Lenin's treatment of this theory in the state and revolution also has had an effect I think.
Basically, the issues that stalinists constantly try to avoid is a result of the fact that the entire dogma is based on the defence of the Soviet Union as somehow 'socialist', which is of course an impossible task. The stageist view of history in the nonsense about 'transitional societies' or the 'workers' state' and so on is a reflection of this ideological dilemma, not the objective social conditions present in the Russian society at the time. Which were of course of a primitive, highly developmental capitalist nature, which was actually acknowledged by the bureaucrats at the time but rebranded as stuff like 'socialist accumulation'. I mean seriously? How can capital accumulation of any kind exist in a post-capital society (communism)? Oh that's right, no this actually our transitional (tm) socialist state and we are well on the road to full communism.
There's nothing transitional about the destruction of the capitalist world. Perhaps you could argue that a transitional political period would exist (as it has in the past), but I feel we need to be more critical of this and question its validity with regard to the modern world, which is vastly different than that of 1871. It's completely immediate, in the literal sense of the word. Of course this is not going to happen overnight and all at once, but I think its also a fallacy to say that the revolution can exist in one country. It was wrong in 1922 and it's even more wrong 100 years later with an enormously more global economy and global logistical system. The law of value has to be overcome everywhere, because it exists everywhere as the precondition placed on production.
I mean, to anyone with a remotely independent mind, 'communism in one country' is laughable.
I'm not so sure it is laughable. Is communism on one planet impossible?
Lenin's treatment of this theory in the state and revolution also has had an effect I think.
In what way?
How can capital accumulation of any kind exist in a post-capital society (communism)? Oh that's right, no this actually our transitional (tm) socialist state and we are well on the road to full communism.
I'm not sure if I understand the problem here. If socialism is being referred to as the lowest stage of communism then what would the problem be? And vice versa for the transitional period? Would it not make sense to have a transitional state for a transitional period?
Is communism on one planet impossible?
No, I'd actually say communist society can only exist globally. Just as capitalist society is global. States aren't mini solar systems with their own completely insular society, history, and way of doing things. They're arbitrary institutions.
Given the current circumstances of human society, as marxists we really should have no concern about interplanetary society. Perhaps in the somewhat near future, but now the only planet we have to worry about is this one.
In what way?
Lenin makes the remark, in regards to those oft quoted sections of the gotha kritik that socialism had become understood as the 'lower' phase of communist society and communism as the higher. This kind of language lessens the mental gymnastics required to separate communism from socialism considerably, and makes it easy to conflate the revolutionary period with a fully blown communist society. This is especially true considering the almost unbelievable way in which the professional dialecticians completely mangled the works of marx and lenin to suit their political aspirations
I'm not sure if I understand the problem here. If socialism is being referred to as the lowest stage of communism then what would the problem be? And vice versa for the transitional period? Would it not make sense to have a transitional state for a transitional period?
Well there is not a problem per se with it, I just find that the whole concept of socialism has become obsolete. There's communism and capitalism. Where does socialism fit in? It's just confusing really, and all it does is give stalinists an opportunity to shoehorn their bullshit about socialism being a class society and so in,
You're pretty much right though wrt this political transition. What Marx refers to here is that the state is in a transition, from a position of presidence over class society to being non existent. The proletarian dictatorship, which shares no characteristics with the state, exists in this period. Transitional states don't really make sense, but it's a pretty minor issue as long as you understand the fundamental bits.
Well there is not a problem per se with it, I just find that the whole concept of socialism has become obsolete.
Well, it was also obsolete in Marx's time.
You're pretty much right though wrt this political transition. What Marx refers to here is that the state is in a transition, from a position of presidence over class society to being non existent. The proletarian dictatorship, which shares no characteristics with the state, exists in this period. Transitional states don't really make sense, but it's a pretty minor issue as long as you understand the fundamental bits.
I think really that the problem is that Marx never considered the possibility of a failed social-revolution, where a bourgeois state congeals out of the reconstitution of the bourgeois mode of production/value production. I believe that the majority of those who argue over this as if it was some defining point have never read about the history of the Great French Revolution and the Paris Commune, or read what Marx had to say on the subject. It's pretty clear that for Marx, the state was alienated society, and that he used the word state just for convenience such as when he says basically, fuck it, workers' state, when arguing with Bakunin. It didn't matter to him to develop a theory on this because he never lived to see it played out in such a way.
I think we agree, that's a fair assessment
i'm not so sure it is laughable. Is communism on one planet impossible?
The two aren't comparable. The planet did not arise with capitalism like nation states did. Nation states are part of the development of capitalism. I'm not saying that you can't have a revolutionary period in one geographical location, it has to start somewhere, but capitalism especially now is a world system and the revolutionary period has to either succeed in abolishing capitalism all together or collapse in on itself. It can't, for instance, remain in a steady state while capitalism still continues outside of it. Tankies on the whole have zero understanding of capital as a social-relation. If Stalin liked Tito then they probably would approve of market socialism.
In what way?
Lenin was just a lawyer by trade, not a theorist. He takes the lawyer's mind to the situation by using citations and such. Which is fine, but his use of language is conditioned by this. He quotes Engels when Engels says that the dotp should not be called a state (as it does not come from or serve the same historical purpose), he says later such things as the state no longer being a state and so on. This area of Marxism is probably the least developed, Lenin himself just uses quotations and doesn't really develop much. He does introduce a lot of social-democratic garbage though such as the post system being the best example of socialism, and seizing state power thing.
I'm not so sure it is laughable. Is communism on one planet impossible?
I'd say it could be possible but the shear timescale I believe this will take to achieve makes it irreverent at this moment in time, more romanticism than practical application.
What is going on is that tankies don't understand what they are talking about and have to bend reality to fit their stupid definition of "socialism", which they are vague about because if they were specific then they wouldn't be able to defend their positions.
Marx and Engels used socialism and communism to mean the same thing and they did so because they both referred to the same objective movement that is created by the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
German Ideology (1845)
It is not a set of ideas or policies to be adopted, but rather these ideas regarding communism come out from the real movement itself. This means that we different ideas regarding socialism/communism. These types of socialism are usually just plans to be enacted and on the whole do not involve the proletariat as a class emancipating itself. Marx and Engels deal with a variety of these types of socialism their works from the third section of the Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, to the Critique of the Gotha Program, etc and show how they are in opposition to their historical materialist conception of communism.
What is Communism? Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. What is the proletariat? The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor....
Principles of Communism (1847)
Communism now no longer meant the concoction, by means of the imagination, of an ideal society as perfect as possible, but insight into the nature, the conditions and the consequent general aims of the struggle waged by the proletariat.
On the History of the Communist League (1885)
You are right in saying that communism is a classless society, regardless of which level of development it is in. This is very much the definition of it and the outcome of the process of revolution, the abolition of capitalism and classes by the liberation of the proletariat. This is what the "general aims of the struggle waged by the proletariat" means; the abolition of the wages-system.
Stalinists had to revert the whole meaning of communism, and then of socialism when that apparently became impossible to defend. Originally the problem was that it described the USSR, which was a capitalist power and was in no way shape or form something arising from the communist movement, but just the counter revolution. They try to justify this capitalist power by appealing to a sentence or two to Marx and Engels, and even Lenin, regardless of how much they would disagree with them.
For instance, Marx lays out a simple outline of history in the Gotha critique:
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
To get to communism, you have to abolish capitalism, obviously. Tankies have the habit of glancing at this and then misunderstanding the whole thing. They'll try to place over Marx their own ideas regarding what socialism is, sometimes it's the revolutionary transformation of society, some times it's the first phase of communist society, sometimes it's both. The reason as to why they are against "dogma" is because they reject Marx, who is clear on the nature of communist society, in all it's phases, which never corresponds with the soviet union.
They might point to the section where Marx talks about bourgeois right existing in the first phase, on a communist society just developing. They will then ignore what this actually means thinking that it means that the bourgeois mode of production will prevail, as well as the state and classes and even the bourgeoisie.
The whole bourgeois right thing refers to the idea of equivalent exchange. The difference between communist society and capitalism is that in communist society the commodity-form is abolished, which never happened in the soviet union. It's worth reading the whole thing. There is also this article which I think is worth reading.
But on the whole, the real problem with the whole USSR as socialism thing is that it is inherently a bourgeois reformist ideological interpretation of the class struggle. The vanguard party captures state power and communism is enacted by state laws and reforms, even if they have to act against the proletariat as well.
There's also other things that they say which probably results in the confusion, especially in regards to Lenin, such as the idea that class struggle intensifies under "socialism". This really came from Lenin describing the civil war with the Stalinist bureaucracy co-opting it to suit their own political ends. This also occurs with much of Lenin, especially recently with his State and Revolution. Lenin wasn't a theorist. And he was a pretty poor writer, but you can hardly blame him for the stupidity and distortions made by other people. Stalinists are like creationists and ancient alien theorists. They start off with a conclusion and then try to look for evidence to fit it. It's pretty funny that they weren't actually able to counter your points in any way without having to delete posts.
Not sure if this will be helpful but Troploin had a small bit in this piece about a transition and might provide at least some interesting side reading: http://libcom.org/library/communisation
To my mind a transitionary stage more than anything. Many socialist concepts can live within capitalist societies fairly easily, I'd certainly say this is true of Britain although it's also true to say we have been moving away from such ideals since the 70's, but anyway it's certainly on the way to communism but it may not necessarily end there. Your comment about dogma seem correct to me.
Obviously, the bourgeois state of capitalism is something entirely different from the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm confused because Engels seems says:
All the palaver about the state ought to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in the true sense of the term. The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore suggest that Gemeinwesen ["commonalty"] be universally substituted for state; it is a good old German word that can very well do service for the French “Commune.”
And then Marx says:
"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing, but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."
I understand that it is not a "transitional state" but that society is transformed. What I'm asking is why they refer to the dictatorship of the proletariat as a revolutionary state. If states are borne of class society and maintain it, and the dictatorship of the proletariat abolishes class society, then how is it appropriate to call it a state, even a revolutionary one. However, Marx and Engels seem to have had no problem doing so.
The only thing I can think of is that maybe they are just referring to something political and state was a closer synonym to that than it is now?
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a difficult point, however since marx Engels advocated the withering away of the state rather than the straight up removal instantly I'd say they mean that the DotP is part of the transition from state to stateless, in which infrastructure is set up a powers given to the citizens once the base requirements are in place.
Well, if you're going to comment you probably should know a little about what you are talking about. The quote, "withering away of the state", is from Engels, not Marx. And what Marx actually said was ""If you look up the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire, you will find that I declare that the next attempt of the French Revolution will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it, and this is the precondition for every real people's revolution on the Continent. And this is what our heroic Party comrades in Paris are attempting.""
"withering away of the state", is from Engels
ah, my mistake. I'll correct that.
Well, I think some may err in chanting 100 year old catechisms of revolutionary theory as some kind of divine gospel, with slogans like “Smash the State”, heh.
While it may be correct that we ultimately seek Not to merely transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from “one hand to another”, but to smash the very “need” for an elite managerial class…that cannot occur by the sheer force of will of some supposedly enlightened “vanguard” elite…as history has demonstrated.
I have to admit that I have not studied Marx (and Engels) religiously, in every detail…but I think a fatal error in communist theory and practice has been the resort to a more or less bourgeois elitism, in lieu of more immediate democracy…due, no doubt, to conditions in the masses, which, perhaps understandably, did not seem materially capable, yet, of such a precipitous transition.
But then, Marx, Engels, Lenin, et al were sons of the bourgeoisie their ownselves, virtually to a man, heh.
Anyway, that was then and there, while this is here and now, and conditions have very substantially and significantly changed, I think.
I think that part of the problem is that Marx never really got round to doing a work on the state and that the word state is used in a more common parlance as a result. There are many ideas and concepts that Marx didn't develop such as the party and the state, and many Marxists since didn't really develop upon it either as a result. If we actually look at the use of the word Party by Marx we can see pretty much the same thing, a use that isn't tied to what the modern use is or even having a difference with other concepts behind the word party at the time.
Don't get too bent up on specific words and interpretations. Everyone is human and no one is a perfect communicator.
That being said, and as rooster somewhat alludes to, the devil is in the details. We can look at correspondences and other discussions to hash out a picture, albeit rough, of what Marx pictured the dictatorship of the proletariat should be.
Really it's pretty obvious from that, as rooster also points out, that in his maturity Marx intended to be clear on the subject. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/letters/71_04_12.htm
"Smash" is a clear enough term for me. To Marx, for a workers revolution to be "real", he said the workers must "smash" the state apparatus used by the bourgeoisie.
A pretty good article on Marx and the State would be... Karl Marx and the State by David Adam. https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-state
Yeah, that's the same on from the MHI on the sidebar. Already read it and I found it interesting. I think it would be accurate to say that Marx and Engels thought that dictatorship of the proletariat (revolutionary state) is an organ of class rule (the proletariat asserting its interests as the general interest of society) and thus a state in some sense.
But as capitalist society is transformed, it ceases to be a real state at all (if it ever was). It doesn't whither away, but dies, because it is no longer truly an organ of the proletariat since the proletariat as a class is negated.
And I suppose the fact that dictatorship of the proletariat is a "state" that removes class antagonisms rather than simply diminishing them makes that title somewhat debatable. ( Not the semantics are all that important. f. e. Engels on the Paris Commune.)
Wouldn't we say, more or less, that the description of the DOTP as a state, is merely the explanation of the suppression of the ruling class at that point in history that the bourgeois state is overthrown by proletarian revolution?
I know that it's a simplistic way to look at it, and as Rooster says, Marx never really had a theory of the state.
I would argue that the DOTP is a state, but because it's not a capitalist state it is vastly different, while maintaining the basic "suppression of one class by another" definition.
It's interesting to look at the way Marx phrases it in his CotGP. "The state can be nothing but..." He doesn't say the DOTP can be nothing but..."
This opens for an interpretation that the state changes to no longer be a state, but to be a DOTP. (State =/= DOTP. DOTP =/= state. BUT State is replaced by/becomes DOTP).
At this point I'm blowing air out of my ass.
I know that it's a simplistic way to look at it, and as Rooster says, Marx never really had a theory of the state.
I would argue that the DOTP is a state, but because it's not a capitalist state it is vastly different, while maintaining the basic "suppression of one class by another" definition.
You hit on the point that while we can use this function of "suppression of one class by another", this has a completely different context when in a revolutionary situation, especially in a social-revolution one. With the elevation of the proletariat as the ruling class, the only thing that it can then do is to abolish all class relations and capitalism itself, no other class will then exist for it to exist or to perform this function. Such as when Marx says that with the political transition, there is a corresponding transformation of society.
Which is what Marx is going on about with "the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship", meaning hat it can't be a state that exists to maintain class society, because it is the dissolution of class society.
You can call it a state all you want, but usually those that do have a completely different idea as to what this means and usually it is used in a way to justify the soviet union, to justify capitalist social-relations and more importantly, to justify the social democratic position of "seizing the state" and then reforming your way to communism. Just look at all the maoist and stalinist parties that are either functioning in bourgeois politics, seek to function in bourgeois politics and have completely sold out to bourgeois politics, or even in the historical context, look at the actions and justifications for Spain and Germany.
Tankies don't even understand this criticism and will resort to the example of Bakunin and his abolition of the state, which is a completely different argument and only shows how weak their own arguments are, and are in fact just mirror images of Bakunin's conception of the state.
You cleared it up for me, I think, and I agree.
I think that the basics of what you're saying is that it isn't a state, because in the all encompassing view of the DOTP it is fundamentally a different thing than the capitalist state. That the capitalist, feudal, and all other states were based around the preservation of a society... that the DOTP is based around the abolition of a society.
I'm going to use a horrible analogy here, but I think it'll help me explain.
The DOTP ceases to be, but doesn't cease to be. The DOTP isn't like a light that is on, and when classes go away it is dark. It is a light that stays on, but because darkness goes away, because darkness becomes nonexistent, the light becomes something totally different because we understand light as the absence of darkness. The DOTP doesn't turn off, but by the nature of the change in society, becomes something different.
I'm trying to get to a theory of a state. We can certainly have definitions of a state, but these definitions are just that. They usually include this talk of a state is when one class oppresses another, or the state is a tool for class suppression, etc. Well, a hammer is a tool for hammering in nails, this isn't a theory of a hammer, the reason for the existence of a hammer.
The capitalist state, and all previous states, had a definite historical context, a definite reason for existing in the forms that they do, and they share common traits, namely the maintenance of the present status quo. This ultimately includes the suppression of one class, or more, by another class, just because this is necessary for the maintenance of society. Otherwise it becomes difficult to account for things such as reforms and will usually devolve in the usual social-democracy crap of Lasselle of the iron law of wages, etc.
So yes, you're right I think in that the DOTP is the dissolution of class society and thus the state. So it does not fulfil the same historical role or function. Different class participation will result in different types of revolutionary dictatorships.
We can compare this to the revolutionary dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which abolished all estates and feudalism but could not abolish class society, being as it was a combination of classes. So they ended up with a new class society and a new state. The same thing can be traced out in Russia as the constituents of a state grew out of the inability of the soviets to overcome the class forces even if there had been the potential on an international level. The rest is a history of capitalist accumulation as anyone can see if they have a read of Capital.
Well even if the dictatorship of the proletariat can be considered to be a state because it is the suppression of other classes by the proletariat (though as you said, it can be argued that it is not one because it fulfills a different historical role) then it is still obviously not what the various Leninist and post-Leninist parties think a revolutionary state should look like.
It is not the seizure of the capitalist bourgeois state, or the establishment of a new "red" state. The political character of such a state is genuinely democratic with direct participation of the entire class in political administration, among other things. Basically what David Adams wrote in his essay "Karl Marx and the State".
For a Stalinist, they have to defend the soviet union and Stalin regardless of how that deviates from a Marxist understanding of history and the state. So for them, the soviet union was the dictatorship of the proletariat, the state of the soviets, socialism and the lowest phase of communism, mostly because Stalin said so. It's pretty much in exact alliance with bourgeois propaganda. Their conception is really bourgeois as well, and they try to present it as good as, if not better than regular bourgeois states by making appeals to how democratic it is, or how much education people get and so on. Stalinist isn't anything more than social-democracy with it's conception of the state and the idea that you can just reform your way to, or implement, socialism.
I think the concept of a “State” refers to an External, Separate apparatus, like a “governor” on the engine of society, which manages the production and distribution of goods and services “for” the society, rather than the society doing that management itself through a more built-in apparatus of the society itself (the masses), i.e.: democracy.
Rather than allowing the engine (society) to run too fast, or too slow, breaking apart or freezing up the machinery, the “governor” regulates inputs and outputs, basically the speed and efficiency of operation, for optimal performance.
The “withering away of the state” begins to occur (not overnight, but as a transition) as actual real mass popular democracy emerges, over time, to manage production and distribution our ownselves, rather than being “dictated” by an external apparatus.
Marx theorized (considered an incredible, virtually impossible utopian dream, at the time, due to material conditions in the masses, of virtually universal illiteracy, ignorance, and dire poverty, steeped in thousands of years of religious superstition) that once the average worker knows how to read and write and do basic math, we would no longer “need” an elite managerial class to lord it over us, tell us what to do, and exploit us, but we could begin to manage production and distribution our ownselves, democratically.
Perhaps too many think of this transition to democracy (communism) erroneously, AS IF it can occur overnight, like turning on a light switch…rather than requiring a lengthy transitional period, during which both technical skills, and scientific knowledge of the masses, evolve, to higher, more efficient levels of human existence, understanding, and endeavor.
Comrades,
We are the Model House of Commons (MHOC) Communist Party. We are currently running for seats in the General Election, and we would like to ask your help in helping us achieve victory. Please note that this is a roleplaying community, and we would appreciate your cooperation.
What is the MHOC
The Model House of Commons is a community of political enthusiasts who have come together to debate and legislate. It is a mock British House of Commons that consists of 8 parties, loosely based on their real-life counterparts:
Please visit /r/MHOC for more information.
Please click to read the full manifesto of the Communist Party
Economic Democracy – supporting worker-owned cooperatives, 30-hour workweek, and raising the minimum wage until our ultimate goal of a classless, moneyless, stateless society is achieved.
Green Economy – We pledge to make concrete strides towards Britain being entirely free of fossil fuels. Invest in electronic automotive technology and mass-transit infrastructure.
Education – Success is not high marks. Success is the capacity to develop academically, socially, and emotionally. We will expand the primary and intermediate level curriculum to focus also upon the social skills and personal development. Teachers, students and parents will have democratic control over the education system to ensure that each school's curriculum can be tailored to ensure the best possible education for its students.
Science & Technology – Increase government spending on R&D to 1.5% of GDP. Research into labour-saving technology, sustainable technology and energy efficiency shall be highly incentivized, and all government-funded academic work shall be openly accessible and free of charge to the general public.
Liberation Issues – The Communist Party is committed to the complete liberation of all people from the social antagonisms formed within class society.
Nuclear Disarmament – the atom ought to be used as a source of power and life, not a means of coercion and death. We propose unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Military Reform – We are committed to demobilizing all but 30,000 active duty soldiers and 20,000 reserves. Instead of a large standing army we will create popular militias. Every able-bodied citizen will be encouraged to train and be prepared to defend their home from counterrevolutionary invasion.
Defense of the Working Class - There is no assurance that the capitalist class will give up their rank without resorting to despotic means. Any citizen who purchases arms would need certification and training to ensure proper use and safety.
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Bordiga's supporters operated an abstentionist faction within the Italian communist party to fight opportunism and reformism.
The difference between your roleplaying and a lot of the LARPing that constitutes most leftist "activity" is at least you're being up front about it.
That's pretty true. And plus we're not making you buy a newspaper :)
A stalinist asked me if I was selling a newspaper today I felt so indignant : - (
Stalinist
Yes, a Stalinist. Pretty rare nowadays.
/r/RedditDayOf has chosen October 29th as the reddit day of communism and the tankies are all stoked about it. Let's go ruin their day by posting correct things about communism.
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Hopefully it will actually amount to something. But I'm guessing it will probably just be a bunch of liberals saying how communism killed 2000 billion people or something like that.
to plagiarize tumblr
but communism literally pulls verb out of hat killed spins big wheel 2,504,000 during the throws dart at timeline 1921 pulls event out of hat grain harvest
And what is objectionable about them?
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A "Leninist" is someone who thinks class consciousness is ideology which has to be imposed on the working class by intellectuals. Leninism is therein idealistic, since the revolution here becomes the creation of a few Great Men instead of the working class as a class. For Marx the proletariat is the actualization of philosophy and its class consciousness is manifested in its activity, in the way it reacts to the world according to its social need. Besides this, Leninists (or people who call themselves Leninists at least) tend to have a conception of a transitional society inbetween capitalism and communism which in reality only serves to obscure their social democratic tendencies and throws both historical materialism and the value theory out of the window.
I don't really think you can say that Leninism is idealist. The vanguard will of course mostly consist of workers themselves, Leninism is basically just based on the idea that people's consciousness develops at different rates in a society. This means that there will be a radicalized minority long before there is a majority clearly in favor of absolutely anything. The Leninist party's role is to intersect with and unite this minority behind a genuinely Marxist program. This isn't so that the minority can then "emancipate the majority." It is to take advantage of the tempo of a revolutionary crisis and seize power when the time is right.
I also think most Marxists argue that there is a transitional period between capitalism and communism, the difference is that Leninists calls this period socialism which contradicts with Marx's views about socialism. I agree that Lenins views can sometimes be social democratic but it is more so on his views that Russia needed a a capitalist revolution before a proletarian revolution.
True but it's worth pointing out that Lenin himself stated again and again his positions on the subject, against the conception of "a few great men" which is a Karl Kautsky quote if I'm not mistaken. Lenin and Luxemburg were essential in "the fight against social democracy" and the fight for proletarian revolution. Once again, many many times before his death Lenin stated that "What is to be Done?" was written hyperfocused on the events in RUSSIA and BEFORE 1905.
Lenin recognized communist consciousness was a product of the workers through the class struggle. Arguments against this fact are just straw men and unicorns.
This is almost a worthless discussion though. What needs attention is the mistakes brought on by Lenin and Bolshevism, so that they don't repeat themselves in possible future revolutionary ruptures. There were many. Not having faith in the working class was however not one of them.
"If anything is certain I am not a Marxist." - Karl Marx (referring to idealists who began using the term before his death)
Someone who believes in Leninist revolutionary theory. And what is objectionable is their inability to see what happens seemingly every time it's applied: the rise of a bureaucratic class above the proletariat.
what happens seemingly every time it's applied
How many examples, I wonder, actually exist? Clearly that happened to the USSR, but does that constitute every time? And why does that mean that we ought to abandon the idea of a vanguard party rather than augment or change it? Are there examples of victories by leftcommunists that we could look to as an example that would be preferable?
Well, I would say most socialist revolutions in the 20th century have some basis in Leninism or at least Maoism. It's not to say that there are tenants that cannot be applied in revolutionary theory, but as was pointed out afterwards, a party leading the proletariat is not the self organization of the proletariat, not an overthrow led by them but by the party leading them on as the bourgeoisie had done in the 17th century. And this can indeed lead to a bureaucratic class as explained by Trotsky.
Left-communist victories? I can only think of the Paris Commune and a couple anarcho-communist entities that managed to survive (if that even counts.) Anarchist Catalonia, for example, was created by the seizure of the means of production by the trade unions.
More than just the USSR. It was clearly the case in East Germany. The Marx-Lenin-Mao traditions of last century have all washed up the same way -- China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Laos.
do you mean "lenin's" revolutionary theory. or "leninist revolutionary theory"? isn't the history of left commuist parties littered with supporters of lenin?
isn't the history of left commuist parties littered with supporters of lenin?
Supposedly. The Bordigist current usually call themselves leninist but they have different conceptions of party and class. It would be wrong to undermine Lenin and the Bolshevik's role in the Russian revolution, especially in the face of all those who supported traditional second international dogma and what not, with their call for actual worker participation and their work in the soviets and factory committees. It was only later that they turned counter-revolutionary and which also reveals their misunderstandings of certain issues regarding state-capitalism and the state. These misunderstands are what spurred the germs of the left communist currents.
Leninism can mean whatever you want it to mean. Most self described Leninists though use him as some sort of gospel to justify the soviet union and it's policies under Stalin, so what ever. It's not uncommon for "Leninists" to take positions of Lenin that became outdated and proven wrong in Lenin's own lifetime and apply them now as if they were timeless and incorruptible concepts. It didn't help that Lenin was pretty mediocre, at times being on the fence a lot and being a terrible writer and a product of his time and environment. He didn't even get to read a bunch of Marx stuff that's usually considered pretty important such as the 1844 manuscripts, the German Ideology and the Grundrisse.
If anything, Leninists always come across as weird LARPers that are stuck in the past and are willing to undergo massive mental gymnastics to stay that way. But then again it seems like the same is true for most anarchists I meet, so who knows at this point.
I think anarchists have pretty much the same conceptions of the party, class and revolution as LARPing Leninists. That off injecting socialism into the workers movement, even if they don't use those words. The anarchist fetish for organisation finds it's mirror image in the Leninist fetish for the party.
Not only that, but they all seem to have these romanticized views of failed past revolutions, like "ooh, if only the red army hadn't intervened in Ukraine, then everything would've gone well" or simar things with anarchist Catalonia. We all know how Leninists act, so I don't even need an example there.
http://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/2bb6in/leninism_is_the_betrayal_of_lenin/
That's a link to a discussion we had about this not too long ago! Good place to start.
To answer you directly I think Leninism and vanguardism are often viewed as two sides of the same coin today. Not true however, I wouldn't call myself a "Leninist" but I do see a vanguard and a need for it.
Honestly the term "Leninism" has a polarizing and politicized history behind it, given that Lenin himself never used the term. It was Stalin and his supporters that really popularized it. I think from a non bias perspective a more accurate term that in general means the same thing to communists is "Bolshevism".
So, how exactly does one go about community organizing and so on as a left com? Are there any national/international left-com organizations that do very much fieldwork, or do most leftcoms just join up with their local CP and try to introduce infantile trains of thought into the group?
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Depending on your tendency, there are a few internationals. Careful with joining a CP - some of the more orthodox ML parties will not look kindly on one with an infantile disorder.
Anyone have any direct experience with these internationals?
Yes, I was in the ICC. What would you like to ask?
Devrim
Overall positive or negative experience? Is there an actual advantage to joining one of the parties? What does membership include?
I wrote a piece about it which you can find here:http://libcom.org/library/my-experience-icc-devrim-valerian
Devrim
They basically don't exist. By that I mean having one or two people in a country is not much of a presence.
These organisations are tiny, but most of their sections are not quite that small.
Devrim
Where are they the biggest?
The ICC's biggest section in in France, and the second biggest is in Mexico. The ICT's biggest section is in Italy.
Devrim
Even the IWW lacks presence outside of North America. The best strategy is probably making like the Germans and trying to radicalise social democrats and the like. Sure, the German radicals may be under constant surveillance for any hint of revolutionary activity, but that's more of a result of the constitution.
Maoism and Trotskyism are considered left communism?
No, the left communist internationals are clearly labelled as such.
Ok. Reading comprehension malfunction.
No, not really, but there doesn't exactly need to be. We seek more to work directly within the class rather than in a sect. A lot of people here are in the IWW, for example.
Well the thing is, communist intervention is really only effective in periods of heightened class struggle. Sure you could go be some kind of activist, but it would be activism not communist intervention. That being said many of us are in the Industrial Workers of the World, which despite its limitations is probably the only militant organ of the proletariat in the USA.
Yeah, I've been in contact with my local IWW branch and do some minor organization stuff with them from time to time, but it's difficult being the only person to ever mention parties or soviet representation, etc. I guess structurally they're as close to my own revolutionary principles as you can get, but still. They've been around for a hundred years and for some reason Capitalism still hasn't been abolished.
Well I mean you could make that criticism about damn near every group, tendency or theoretic. That said the IWW does certainly have its share of problems, but idk I can't find anything better. Also if theres a large branch (in fact its by far the largest "anti-captialist" group in town) in my city so if I want to be connected politically to different struggles the IWW is pretty much my best bet
My question comes largely of ignorance. I've read some Bordiga, but I found its language of vanguards, of minority rule, IMO just reeked of Leninism to me.
Am I missing something? I enjoy some others that thought well of him (Dauve), and others who thought he was a terrible authoritarian (Pannekoek), so I'm not putting up a wall or anything, I'm genuinely curious.
How does the concept of Vanguard and minority rule lead towards a truly proletarian communist revolution and ultimately a society? Even if I were to reject the vanguard ideas of Bordiga, what other qualities (such as his critique of democracy maybe?) can I learn from him?
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Bordiga never wanted the party to become the governing body of the state, unlike Lenin. Still I think just about all of us here are critical of Bordiga's Leninism; the only 'ultra leftists' who still support it are weird groups like the ICT.
So the vanguard becomes purely a propaganda and organizing body, but not a central committee?
In effect, yes. Actual governmental actions would be operated like a massive soviet of the entire population.
This is wrong.
Care to clarify your idea?
Huh, you're right. I misread part of "Is this the Time to Form "Soviets"?". In it, he says:
The political Soviet represents the collective interests of the working class, in so far as this class does not share power with the bourgeoisie, but has succeeded in overthrowing it and excluding it from power. Hence the full significance and strength of the Soviet lies not in this or that structure, but in the fact that it is the organ of a class which is taking the management of society into its own hands. Every member of the Soviet is a proletarian conscious that he is exercising dictatorship in the name of his own class.
I read it as "the political Soviet consists of every member of the working class". My mistake, sorry.
For Bordiga it was primarily for preservation of theory, I believe.
The ICT: not to be confused with the ICT.
(Internationalist Communist Tendency vs International Communist Tendency. One is Left Communist, the other is Trotskyist).
The main problem is that with Leninism, they think that the working class needs to have a socialist conciousness injected into it by this vanguard party, which is composed of either a sort of supposedly declassed intellectuals or the bourgeoisie. This is contrary to what Marx thought and also contrary to actual historical experience. For instance, Marx didn't bring communism or socialism to working class struggles, it was the struggles of the working class that brought communism to Marx. The usual left com position is that the vanguard is just a collection of people who are supposedly more theoretically advanced and can see what has to be done, for example the abolition of wage-labour and the law of value (and why that is). They don't set themselves aside the task of injecting "socialist conciousness" into the working class because that's ridiculous. Left coms tend to see communism as an objective historical movement rather than a set of ideas or a bunch of theories to implemented.
In regards to other parts of your question about minority rule, I think this is slightly distorted. I haven't studied Bordiga in any great detail but I will give you my impression of it based on conversations I have had with those who follow Bordiga. For Bordiga, the party does not lead the revolution and it does not rule in any sort of state. This is the task of the proletariat which finds it's own form of rule but only a tiny minority of it will be communist in actual outlook. Ideology here not being as important as the historical task of the proletariat here. For the transition to actual communist society I don't think he thought this requires 100% of the proletariat either because the revolution is the most important thing. There is not Leninist conception of "socialism" being distinct as communism so you also have to take that into consideration. I've probably got a lot of this wrong but I do think it is the gist and I would welcome someone to correct me.
The proletarian state can only be "animated" by a single party and it would be senseless to require that this party organise in its ranks a statistical majority and be supported by such a majority in "popular elections" - that old bourgeois traphttp://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/class-party.htm"The dictatorship of the proletariat will therefore be the dictatorship of the Communist Party and the latter will be a party of government in a sense totally opposed to that of the old oligarchies, for communists will assume responsibilities which will demand the maximum of sacrifice and renunciation and they will take upon their shoulders the heaviest burden of the revolutionary task which falls on the proletariat in the difficult labour through which a new world will come to birth."http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1920/abstentionists.htmThe class is the party in the bordigist view. The party is the organic representation of the class that will become "formalized" and called into action when a revolutionary time occurs. The class is a dynamic thing that can only be seen when it is in action. We cannot have a statistical view of class, and thus it would be impossible and absurd to figure out who qualifies for this democracy. The class interests must dominate, the revolution must continue on. We cannot wait for things like "proletarian democracy" or "workers control" or other such demagoguery. The inaccuracies in this thread disgusts me.
How does Lenin's vanguard idea then differ from Bordiga?
Many Leftcoms, ultralefts and "Leninists" will disagree with me, but I don't think it does.
I would argue that the Bordigist vanguard is closer to the Kautskyist vanguard than the Leninist vanguard. Whereas in Kautsky's original idea the vanguard were to be a component of the proletariat, Lenin developed this into the idea of a "party", technically separate from the proletariat (although originally intended to have open membership, as advocated by the Mensheviks). This distinction is rather significant, as, in the Kautskyist concept, the vanguard are simply the vessels of the revolution, guiding the proletariat, while in Leninism, the vanguard leads the revolution, and is at the forefront.
Bordiga had believed the party was the social brain of the proletariat and would guide (lead) the class. itt people demonstrate they know shit have you actually read any Bordiga? even my small quotes contradict you.
Isn't that what I just said? I fail to see how that's different from
vessels of the revolution, guiding the proletariat.
In Bordiga's view, the Vanguard is itself an organ of the class, and is separate from it (the party is thought of like an organ of the class). The party leads the revolution, and is at the forefront.
The problem here is one of definition. I agree that the vanguard is an organ of the class (just as you said, the "brain"). Thus, I would argue that it, in fact, not separate (the class is the body, and hence the brain is not separate). However, I see the Leninist vanguard as more of something actually distinct, like another person, dragging the class along.
The party leads the revolution, and is at the forefront.
What differs is the manner of leadership (and our terminology). While they both "lead", they do so in a different manner. The Bordigist vanguard guides/leads from within the class, and in that manner, is at the forefront. However, I prefer to describe them as at the "centre" of the revolution, as that implies a distinctly less authoritarian mode of leadership. This is just a disagreement over semantics, I believe.
I will confess that I am not that well-read on Bordiga, but I would hope that I have read enough to understand the basics.
"Authoritarianism" being given a bad name does not sound like left communism, but more like Bakunin dribble.
Opposition to authoritarianism is one of the primary characteristics of left communism, stemming from opposition to the bureaucratic anti-proletarian democratic nature of the USSR. Anarchism is also affiliated with left communism under the bracket of "libertarian socialism".
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I read this a while back. I think some of the detail in Dunayevskaya's analysis is flaky, at least in chapter 1, but overall this is a really impressive and concise reading.
whys it flaky?
I think I vaguely understand that ideas that are usually presented, such as a re-evaluation of class in our our era. Such as the mass worker, students and peasants being considered as part of the revolutionary moment (correct me if I'm wrong). But I don't think I quite understand the "autonomia" part. Autonomous from what?
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So. Autonomous Marxism is a school of Marxism that makes a lot fo claims about how class struggle is class struggle, not party struggle, or union struggle. Autonomists essentially argue that capitalism's evolution is not a process of inevitable innovation, but a reaction against workers' movements. Fordism came around after the unrest of the 1920's, and the socialized worker came around after the 1960's.
The point is that workers are the ones who push capitalism forward, but they've always slipped up for whatever reason and allowed the hanges that they brought into place (automation, technological advances) to be used against them. So, workers should essentially fight the good fight autonomous from trade unions, which autonomists see as bureaucratic, and parties, which they see as elitist.
Madea can do bad all by herself.
hmm, thanks
As far as I understand, the Operaismo (sp?) movement was a series of splits by intellectuals and workers from the CP of Italy. Their approach was to break from the basic Stalinist framework of join-the-party-and-strike-when-we-fucking-tell-you. I remember various internal debates (from when I read part of Storming Heaven) that revolved around whether a new political organization was necessary, or a syndicalist approach of direct worker organization (direct unionism?)
I remember autonomia being used primarily for worker rather than CP control of struggle (basically that decision-making should be done at the shop floor)....importantly this is NOT the same as the idea of individual autonomy in Bakuninist anarchism.
I'm just learning about it now. I have a few books on it that I'm trying to get read, but I know that it originated in the italian Workerist Movement, Operismo I think it was called. It is a very diverse group with some diverse views from my understanding.
Autonomia Operaismo was a movement based around Autonomist praxis.
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This article is wrong. The law of value, the invisible hand as the author puts it, was in effect throughout the existence of the USSR. Private capitalists did exist within the industries and they did compete with each other. The only real difference to be expected from the USSR and regular capitalism came from the strength of labour, ironically, but that was mostly because of the shortage of labour to begin with.
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God damn, this better not be long.
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Scan that stuff and put it up on the internet for preservation.
Now you can learn about your infantile disorder in style!
there are a couple articles by pannekoek, one from 1912...defo getting on those.
so my buddy just showed up with a few boxes of pamphlets and books an old timer gave him a few years back. it's a goldmine of literature, from marx v. darwin to comintern notes and newspapers. lots of S.L.P. stuff. had a blast digging through it. lots of industrial democracy IWW stuff from 1910 and on...
here are a few of the finds...check the dates @_@
Holy shit! That is awesome! I'm pretty jealous of you right now. Did he just give them to you?
im just keeping them as my olace since i have more space...
I am commodity fetishizing the everliving shit out of your stuff right now. Jeaaaalous. What rooster said though, get a scanner! o_0
I just came.
Fucking sweet find man!
This is an amazing find! I'd be especially interested to see Aveling's work on Darwin and Marx since it's something I've been unable to find online. I hope you can scan and share these, especially the ones not yet available for free.
already contacted the marxists.org folks to transcribe it for them. i'll be sure and post it once it's said and done.
Have you read any Pannekoek?
I think this needs to be addressed. There's a few texts I could direct people to such as Bordiga's The Spirit of Horsepower http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1953/horsepower.htm or The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience by Paresh Chattopadhyay http://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience
Fundamentally, the generally left communist stance on the USSR was that it was capitalist and did not transcend capitalist relations. These two texts should set the average reader straight, the first being somewhat more accessible.
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We Marxists do not have a monopoly on the word socialism, it's a rather broad and vague word which simply means that the means of production are under social ownership(of which there are many forms) and the means of production were owned socially in the USSR, but it was, as you say, a capitalist nation. Socialism and Capitalism aren't mutually exclusive systems, the means of production can be owned socially yet still operate with capitalist relations of production. Socialism is not a proletarian ideology, communism is.
There's a problem with that as Engels calls the socialisation of production a product of capitalism; production is now social etc etc. He even ventures torwards the idea that the socialisation of capital leads to a national capital. Terms are vague if you apply them to many groups but under a marxist analysis, socialism and communism mean pretty the same thing and are the negation of capital.
Your opinion is contrary to a marxist anaylsis. There's no such thing as almost-socialist or semi-socialist. This stems from either a really poor reading or Marx or no reading at all leading one to assume that you're a utopian socialist, if you are even that, or just some sort of capitalist apologist. Your statement is shot through with things that a marxist would laugh at. For example, your definition of class seems to be at odds with Marx when you say "the Soviet leadership was originally from the proletariat".
(To reply to someone, click the "reply" under their comment)
State capitalist is the better term.
I guess this comment is supposed to be a reply to my comment, so:
I am not a Marxist.
In my opinion, the Soviet Union was almost-Socialist or semi-Socialist until Gorbachev's years.
Socialism is a society where the means of production are under control by the workers. This could be implemented in various ways, ranging from Anarchist/Libertarian ways to more Statist/Democratic ways. In a State Socialism, the workers are controlling the means of production through their representatives in the government.
The USSR implemented Socialism through the State. Now the problem in the USSR was that the workers couldn't easily choose who their representatives would be. However, this doesn't mean that the leaders of the Soviet Union didn't represent the workers. The Soviet leadership was originally from the proletariat, and their policies were in favor or intended to be in favor of the proletariat (until Gorbachev took control and shit has hit the fan). Ironically, this is the exact opposite of a "democracy" like the United States, where people can actually choose their representatives, but it always turns out that these representatives' policies are always in favor of the bourgeoisie, and not the voters.
This analysis doesn't take the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" seriously enough. It's like people calling the USA a government "of by and for the people".
It's also like calling the roman empire a shepards' state because an emperor was once a shepard.
The emperor's policies were not in favor of shepherds though. In the USSR, every worker had a decent job, free education for his kids, free healthcare, transportation, worker rights, food, water, shelter, and protection. This is why I call the pre Gorbachev USSR a semi Socialist state. It is a place where the leadership are for the benefit of the workers, but the problem is that the workers couldn't decide who their leaders will be. The means of production are used for the workers' well-being, but these means of production are not under their control.
See also http://links.org.au/node/2967
Some communists argue that we should never take sides in conflicts between states. While I understand that taking sides in these wars will not bring us any closer to communism, uniting against common enemy is sometimes the right thing to do. Take for example World War 2, of course we should support the allies in my opinion.
Am I stating the obvious, or being a retard and misunderstanding something?
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You are going to have to be more precise. The united front came out of a specific context, but people tend to mix them all up with what they think these terms relate to. What you're talking about sounds more like the popular front, which has its own origins (and people tend to like to make dogma out of these so now "popular front" has lost even more meaning stripped of that context).
This article gives some insight to some of the context of the united front, with some attention about how the instability of the third international, being a federation, lead to an instability in programme.
although we could see why Lenin and Trotsky defended them, we would nevertheless continue to assert that these formulations lent themselves - precisely because of their vagueness in a historical phase which required very precise directives - to very ambiguous and regrettably, compromiser interpretations.
The Comintern and the united front
The united front remains a swamp.
And this has a section on the popular front, which arose in the period of reaction, with the Stalinist parties trying to form alliances, soon to be abandoned, with the democracies against Germany.
The Tactics of the Comintern 1926-1940
And you have people today who will maybe references these things, but argue for something completely different, such as when they talk of working towards a supposedly communist party, or try to win numbers. Such trends are completely opportunist in that they actively hamper the creation of communist parties by introducing elements who simply aren't communists.
Some communists
Who?
argue that we should never take sides in conflicts between states.
Can you reproduce the argument? That would be helpful, since it did not seem to convice you.
While I understand that taking sides in these wars will not bring us any closer to communism, uniting against common enemy is sometimes the right thing to do.
Who is the common enemy? Sometimes? When is that then? "The right thing" according to what criterion?
Take for example World War 2, of course we should support the allies in my opinion.
Who is "we"? Why?
Am I stating the obvious
No, you are definitely not.
or being a retard and misunderstanding something?
I don't understand what any of this has to do with the united front, and why you just dump opinions here and expect them to be self-evident.
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What about the subtle differences between the allies and the axis, like one side not being committed to genocide of entire ethnic groups of people?
What do you mean by united imperialist world bloc? As far as I remember, the world has always been split between various big imperialists, and there were many competing imperialists after world war 2; even among the closest allies of ww2, there was a period when the joint French-British imperialism was at odds with American imperialism (Suez Crisis, decolonisation).
The intensification of the oppression and repression? Sure there is still oppression, but I think things are much better than concentration camps and SS driving around executing people.
What about the subtle differences between the allies and the axis, like one side not being committed to genocide of entire ethnic groups of people?
Many of the former Allies have indeed destroyed people on a mass scale themselves (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, etc. come to mind within the Second World War alone), and they did not enter or fight the war out of humanitarian considerations for the victims of Nazi Germany.
Additionally, the Holocaust was not the product of Nazi Germany alone either - even though the Nazis obviously were the ones actually carrying out the destruction of the Jews. The text "Auschwitz or the Great Alibi" explains this, and this section of a follow-up article goes into greater detail regarding the co-responsibility of the Western democracies for the Holocaust. For an initial overview, the Wikipedia entries on the Évian Conference, the Bermuda Conference and the Madagascar Plan might also be of help.
Sure there is still oppression, but I think things are much better than concentration camps and SS driving around executing people.
There is no immediate equivalent to the SS because the conditions are not the same, not because of some sort of inherent humanitarian trait of the former Allies.
I'll reply here to both you and Dr Marx, as there are many messages and you both seem to speak almost as one. Thank you for taking your time to reply to my thread!
It is clear to me now that I am mistaken, I had no idea about the international involvement in holocaust, and it seems like I have a lot of reading to do about other issues as well. Thank you again for clarifying my misunderstanding.
You're welcome. If you are interested in reading historians on the Holocaust, Ian Kershaw and Yehuda Bauer are good starting points.
What about the subtle differences between the allies and the axis, like one side not being committed to genocide of entire ethnic groups of people?
It's not as simple as just making it into this binary opposition. The nazis alone weren't responsible for the holocaust nor was the war fought over it. Retroactively it was used as a means to justify
Sure there is still oppression, but I think things are much better than concentration camps and SS driving around executing people.
This is a what if scenario that is based entirely on some wild projections. You're probably reasoning based upon a Germany towards the end of the war where it had no chance of winning, but the current situation in Europe has largely played out according to the Nazis original policy of deporting the Jews out of Europe. They're now largely in Israel (created post war thanks in part to the British) and in the US.
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I appreciate your effort in writing this. You mentioned that there are concentration camps in every major western country. Apart from whats happening on US border, and areas related to migration in Europe, what do you mean? I am not aware of any concentration camps, or equivalent of SS in UK or Germany or France.
Another question, why do you think climate change is an issue directly linked with capitalism?
You mentioned that there are concentration camps in every major western country. Apart from whats happening on US border, and areas related to migration in Europe, what do you mean?
I'm guessing they are mostly talking about precisely those refugee camps. This text here deals with this topic, among other things.
Another question, why do you think climate change is an issue directly linked with capitalism?
There recently was a thread about this here.
There recently was a thread about this here.
Further, what the user was saying here is not appropriate for this sub.
Yeah, arguing for barracks communism and petty bourgeois fearmongering is already widespread enough as is.
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Some time ago I posted the 1894 afterword to this here - it elaborates on the developments in the twenty following years:
https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1894/01/russia.htm
It's quite amazing how much time they spent on this subject and how their opinions changed. Marx would later write about how surprised he was when he introduced the first Russian section into the international.
I enclose a letter from the Russian colony in Geneva. We have admitted them and I have accepted their commission to be their representative in the General Council and have also sent them a short reply (official, with a private letter as well) and given them permission to publish it in their paper. A funny position for me to be functioning as the representative of young Russia! A man never knows what he may come to or what strange fellowship he may have to submit to.
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The commentary at the start of the article is the most interesting part of it.
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I haven't read this in entirety yet, but it seems interesting, even though it's full of abstract humanism and its inevitable consequences. It's pretty obvious this is about Marx, even though he is not explicitly named.
There's also a stark contrast between utopian passages like this (the implication that communism does away with suffering, which is itself a human condition):
For the problem, the contradiction, exists for everyone. In the form of suffering, it is directly present in everybody's life. The suffering we have in mind here is a form of our essential contradiction. As such, it is characterised by those six points that we have disentangled above; and as such, it demands a resolution. Suffering in itself proves three things: the human essence, its denial in our reality, and the demand that this contradiction should not be. And this 'should' of suffering expresses something more: against all appearance, and against any experience to the contrary, the essence is stronger than reality.
And what Marx thought:
the positive transcendence of private property – i.e., the perceptible appropriation for and by man of the human essence and of human life, of objective man, of human achievements should not be conceived merely in the sense of immediate, one-sided enjoyment, merely in the sense of possessing, of having. Man appropriates his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man. Each of his human relations to the world – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, observing, experiencing, wanting, acting, loving – in short, all the organs of his individual being, like those organs which are directly social in their form, are in their objective orientation, or in their orientation to the object, the appropriation of the object, the appropriation of human reality. Their orientation to the object is the manifestation of the human reality, For this reason it is just as highly varied as the determinations of human essence and activities. – it is human activity and human suffering, for suffering, humanly considered, is a kind of self-enjoyment of man.
Or:
Suppose a being which is neither an object itself, nor has an object. Such a being, in the first place, would be the unique being: there would exist no being outside it – it would exist solitary and alone. For as soon as there are objects outside me, as soon as I am not alone, I am another – another reality than the object outside me. For this third object I am thus a different reality than itself; that is, I am its object. Thus, to suppose a being which is not the object of another being is to presuppose that no objective being exists. As soon as I have an object, this object has me for an object. But a non-objective being is an unreal, non-sensuous thing – a product of mere thought (i.e., of mere imagination) – an abstraction. To be sensuous, that is, to be really existing, means to be an object of sense, to be a sensuous object, to have sensuous objects outside oneself – objects of one’s sensuousness. To be sensuous is to suffer.
Man as an objective, sensuous being is therefore a suffering being – and because he feels that he suffers, a passionate being. Passion is the essential power of man energetically bent on its object.
Her comments about Auschwitz also seem a bit too much.
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I apologize if these kind of posts are against the rules but I'm trying to find this and I'm out of luck. I tried sinistra.net too but it's not there either
Your best bet will be to contact the ICP directly.
I heard those words used a lot when Leftcoms describe leftists, in what way of everyday life do we see them manifest?
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What would the subjective factors of class struggle?
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For some reason the site isn’t displaying right or something on my phone. Is the author listed anywhere?
It's from the fifteenth issue of Subversion magazine (Summer '94). The author may be anonymous, or at least I couldn't find any information online beyond that.
Thank you
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Brilliant read. Thanks for sharing.
I've owned a copy for some time and recently thought about getting around to read it. What can I expect?
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My friend said that she appreciated the chapter about abstract time. She said that the concept was always implicated by Marx but never explained and that the book did a good job on the subject. Did you get that far in your reading?
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I would appreciate that
Postone seems to be of the opinion that private property is done away with by state ownership
What? Postone says repeatedly in his book that this exactly is not the case, but that this in fact is one of the mistaken beliefs that was held onto by the founders of the Frankfurter Schule (Pollock and Horkheimer), which consequently led them into an abyss wherein they couldn't figure out how to solve the contradiction that the "abolition" (note the quotes) of private property could both lead to socialism, but just as likely, if not more so, lead to state capitalism. This is what Postone calls the pessimistic turn of critical theory (which is in the chapter title of chapter 3). It is really clear that you only read about a third of the book, since if you had read the most important chapters in the book (from chapter 4 onwards) on abstract time and labor you couldn't possibly have made such a strange interpretation that Postone claims that private property, let alone capitalism, is done away with by state ownership.
I found the first one-third of the book by the way quite boring to be honest. Postone mostly repeats the same argument over and over again on the difference between a critique of capitalism from the perspective of labor, and a critique of labor in capitalism. This gets tiresome really fast. It really only gets interesting from chapter 4 onwards, so just beyond one-third of the book.
If you read a third you didn't even get to the main argument.
Postone really offers the only way forward left to us (no pun intended) but it requires dropping some of our most cherished myths in the dustbin of history (the proletariat as a revolutionary subject is among them) so that we are left with a defensible theory of modernity and domination
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I couldn't give less of a fuck about academics quibbling
That was pretty clear from the beginning. But then why respond here? The original poster doesn't share your anti-intellectualism and came here to learn about Postone. It is your own choice: wait for the revolution that will never come or try to understand why these old ideas failed and what was wrong with them in the first place. If you are interested in that Postone offers a nice place to start for that too.
Postone is that you? Really weird to create an account that only talks about Postone.
Might be the wrong place to ask, can't find a lot of people discussing it on Reddit despite many believing it and apparent evidence for it. I figured this community might have some thoughts on this 'conspiracy theory'. Thank you!
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"One sec let me just fund of revolution that will
Take one of our allies out the the largest war in human history up to this point
Completely devalue all the investments we've made into the industry and development of Russia
Give inspiration to our own workers to revolt against us, as well as legitimize and bring to the fore all these socialist and communist ideals, which invariably advocate our overthrow and, in the case of "wealthy interests in London and New York," the confiscation of all of our wealth, property, and possibly lives"
-The Rich, September of 1917
As I've mentioned elsewhere in the thread, this is a "protocols of the elders of zion" style conspiracy concocted by the usual nazi types. The suggestion is that jewish bankers (aren't all of them bankers /s?) are globalists, respect no nation, and set up bolshevism in order to control poor innocent aryans.
It's true that US capital financed both sides of the conflict before US entry into the war. It's also true that some financiers of Jewish descent refused to loan to Tsarist Russia, given its antisemitic policies, and by extension refused to loan to the aliies. It's true that many encouraged the toppling of the Tsar. It's also true that any US financiers that loaned to Germany would have wanted Russia out of the war, through revolution or otherwise. But this does not translate to a support for Bolshevism, let alone some grand conspiracy of jewish bankers masterminding it.
First I've heard of it, and nothing about it makes any sense. I'd love to see some of this evidence, but otherwise it goes against the established historical record. The Americans intervened against the Bolsheviks during the civil war, and as much as the bourgeois love to invent conditions for war, it makes no sense at all to be simultaneously funding and fighting an organization. Usually they at least stop funding them first, like the Afghan mujahideen.
The American and European bourgeois would have no political interest in supporting the Bolsheviks. All I'm seeing in support of this 'theory' appears to be coming from what appear to be antisemitic sources. The Russian proletariat, small as it may have been in 1917, wasn't a Jewish cabal.
it makes no sense at all to be simultaneously funding and fighting an organization
This is true, of course, but American capital financed both sides of the conflict (gradually gauging which one was more likely to be profitable) right up until the entry of the US into the war:
http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_finance_germany
Before its entry into the war, money markets in the US lent over 2 billion dollars to the Entente, compared to only between 27 and 35 million dollars to the Central Powers.
Arguably, the entry of the US into the war was primarily due to the fact that a German win would result in a default by the Entente, which would be a financial calamity for American banking, as opposed to a German loss, whose default could be better managed.
In any case, given that the then German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman (of Zimmerman telegram fame) organized for Lenin to have safe passage from Switzerland to Russia in the lead-up to the revolution (to knock Russia out of WW1), antisemitic conspiracy theorists have concocted this idea that bolshevism is some sort of plot organized by bankers.
Edit: There's more -
However, as Ackerman’s book explains in some detail, the Trotsky-Jewish conspiracy — in 1917 especially — took a very specific form. It centered on the most conspicuous Jewish financier in New York at the time, Jacob Schiff.
Schiff had openly used his wealth to pressure Russia into changing its anti-Semitic polices. Moreover, Schiff had refused to allow his bank to participate in American war loans to Britain or France as long as they allied themselves with Russia. The suggestion of a link between Schiff and Trotsky came directly from the United States government — specifically, its Military Intelligence Division (MID).
“Schiff had, of course, contributed to groups advocating the overthrow of the Tsar,” says Ackerman. “But once the Tsar was overthrown, Schiff was aligned with the Kerensky government. So he was not aligned at all with Trotsky or the Bolsheviks.”
So, we have again the usual nazi nuts coming up with an conspiracy of jewish bankers colluding to set up bolshevism.
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Disclaimer: Not a leftcom but I wanna ask a question directly to you guys, hope you don't mind
I always see leftcoms argue the USSR was State capitalist but I never see any advocate Shactmans Bureaucratic Collectivist theory and I'm wondering why that is? I'm not a Shactmanite or anything, just curious why most Leftcoms don't advocate it. Is State capitalism just more prevalent or is there some about it that leftcoms fundamentally don't agree with.
can capitalism sucessfully avoid ecological disaster, especially global warming, or will it present an insurmountable crisis?
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In theory, it's completely possible for the capitalist system to have a massive slowing effect on global warming (according to the science at hand, we can't reverse it now unless we come up with some carbon sequestering technology that scales world wide.) If the government subsidized a capital group to build a bunch of nuclear reactors all around the world, or if private land ownership is turned over to solar/wind harvesting and investment keeps up in energy storage technology, then greenhouse emissions could be almost completely eliminated, even for the industrial sector.
What the issue is is which industry wins in the political arena. For the time being, it looks like the old fossil fuel industry has won with the Republicans in power, but if the Democrats get in power soon, they could favor the newer fossil fuels (natural gas -- which will not go anywhere in solving the global warming crisis) and renewable energies. China's state capitalist system is going hard in on solar technology at the moment, though. It's all about 'cost' though, and what matters is at what point renewables will be sustainable in profits for capitalists to pursue, which would be a mixture of getting government subsidies and also constantly pushing production forces to get the price point down. Fossil fuels would have never taken off if the government hadn't sunk trillions of dollars into infrastructure and exploration subsidies for oil companies. And renewables are in the same bag right now. It all depends if the energy sector is capable of undergoing another bout of creative destruction.
thanks for the reply. could the dems offer significant support towards moving away from fossil fuels? they increased domestic oil & gas production during obama, and now they seem to be all too willing to slide further to the right in the wake left by trump, enthusiastically picking up any cash they can find.
on the one hand, the renewable industries themselves appear to already have lower rates of profit, at least according to this economist article. presumably, they are very capital-intensive but don't consume further commodities once installed - wind and solar certainly capture energy without needing labor input beyond maintenance once they're in place. i'm not sure the democrats would be willing to support that. in an era of declining rates of profit and generalized austerity everywhere, could they really spend such massive subsidies on something that won't really create lasting employment? look at the popularity of trump's stance on coal, despite the fact that the usa mines more coal now than ever.
on the other hand, cheap energy would reduce the costs of circulating capital. this would be a boon for many industries, especially capital-intensive ones facing declining rates of profit, right? but would cheap energy just offer a lesser constraint on energy usage? commodity production might pick up following cheaper energy availability, expanding production to meet the new supply, which might continue the problem of global warming?
to date, carbon emissions from the usa & eu have managed to level off (the usa is still on a slight increase). the most recent data i can find shows china levelling off starting in 2014. doesn't this levelling off mean that total co2 levels will continue to rise at the same rate, but just not accelerating any more? if so, globally speaking, this is much too slow of a response to be effective. can capitalism really reverse itself and decrease emissions?
can the low profits of renewable energy be tolerated? i'm not exactly sure what to think here, but it seems like we're headed towards some serious crises at full speed, and i see no sign of changing course.
thanks for the reply. could the dems offer significant support towards moving away from fossil fuels? they increased domestic oil & gas production during obama, and now they seem to be all too willing to slide further to the right in the wake left by trump, enthusiastically picking up any cash they can find.
This entirely depends upon whether the Bernie contingent in the Democratic party can actually overcome the Obama/Clinton wing. But even then, if the Democrats find themselves in power under Bernie's wing, there's still the Pelosis and McCaskills of the world who would trip over themselves to continue supporting natural gas. And I think setting that problem aside, they would have to come up against capital interests, in light of the fact that our renewable technologies are not yet to the point of fulfilling the entirety of our energy needs. Even if we got capacity to where we need it, we'd still need to outfit the entirety of our national grid to handle power like that, where it was typically used to being run on coal and gas. That's a feat itself. The solar and wind industry would definitely love to see Berniecrats in office, I know. Especially since they're also a contingent that would be against nuclear power, so there's no competition that would stand in the way of them getting subsidies.
on the one hand, the renewable industries themselves appear to already have lower rates of profit, at least according to this economist article. presumably, they are very capital-intensive but don't consume further commodities once installed - wind and solar certainly capture energy without needing labor input beyond maintenance once they're in place. i'm not sure the democrats would be willing to support that. in an era of declining rates of profit and generalized austerity everywhere, could they really spend such massive subsidies on something that won't really create lasting employment? look at the popularity of trump's stance on coal, despite the fact that the usa mines more coal now than ever.
In terms of maintenance, that's correct, but solar isn't that efficient yet and the goal is going to be to push it as far to efficiency as possible. That's going to, itself, keep a steady stream of employment in terms of upgrading panels and what not. But no, certainly not on the same level that coal and gas has been able to sustain employment. On the other hand, we can see now how even coal hasn't created that sustainable of employment. There have been continuing dramatic losses in that part of the industry in the last few years, and as natural gas comes into more popularity, it's going to stay that way. Will Democrats oppose it? Coastal Democrats might, because they're not affected. It's a different story for Democrats who reside in districts and states where natural gas is important to their economy.
on the other hand, cheap energy would reduce the costs of circulating capital. this would be a boon for many industries, especially capital-intensive ones facing declining rates of profit, right? but would cheap energy just offer a lesser constraint on energy usage? commodity production might pick up following cheaper energy availability, expanding production to meet the new supply, which might continue the problem of global warming?
If the price of renewables drop to the point of it being viable for industry, then that's only going to cut GHGs much more dramatically. The trick, like I said above, is really whether or not the government is going to open up subsidies to that industry in the way it has O&G. The answer to whether that's going to happen is far less clear, especially since conservatives and liberals are both on a bender about not subsidizing industry. And the oil industry has done its own PR attack by claiming that they stopped receiving subsidies a decade ago (leaving out the fact that the vast majority of their current infrastructure had been, in some form or fashion, publicly funded, which renewables haven't had the benefit of in any substantial form for as long.)
to date, carbon emissions from the usa & eu have managed to level off (the usa is still on a slight increase). the most recent data i can find shows china levelling off starting in 2014. doesn't this levelling off mean that total co2 levels will continue to rise at the same rate, but just not accelerating any more? if so, globally speaking, this is much too slow of a response to be effective. can capitalism really reverse itself and decrease emissions?
As I noted above, scientists are saying now that our best case scenario is a leveling off. A solution would be carbon sequestration, but anything we've done to that end so far hasn't scaled up well enough to be useful. Really all we can hope for right now is damage control.
can the low profits of renewable energy be tolerated? i'm not exactly sure what to think here, but it seems like we're headed towards some serious crises at full speed, and i see no sign of changing course.
I gave you the theoretical stance. The reality is that if our survival is pinned to profits, regardless of whether the renewable sector can become profitable enough, then we're simply doomed. The O&G industry is getting into the "we need to stop global warming now" game, but it's too little too late. They did the same thing the tobacco industry did with cancer, and, unfortunately, for many years ended up winning that PR game in ways that tobacco didn't.
Of course it can. However, what it can't avoid is a continuous intensifying of the exploitation of the earth, and a growing production of waste. These are the two tendencies that are inherent to capital. Climate change was just one form that was taken due to these general tendencies, but it would perfectly be possible for capital to shift focus to some other form of exploitation and waste production.
so you're saying one particular human-made disaster can be averted, but not all human-made disaster? that one disaster or another is inevitable?
I would say that the disaster of all disasters, climate change, can certainly be averted (I'm not saying it's going to, just that it is possible in theory). Smaller disasters, like oil-spills, pollution of the oceans, the poisoning impact on the environment due to mining of minerals, the dumping of excess waste in air, water and on land etc. etc. however are a part of what capital is: capital is the creation of 'value', but part of the value-creating process is the simultaneous creation of waste in the various forms as listed above.
Can of worms question. I would respond but I fear I'd need at least ten thousand words just to get started.
I was wondering if there is any good "left communist" literature on the communist events in France, May 1968. I'm looking for mainly analysis of the communist groups and activities but I'd like really anything on the topic in general.
If you have some high quality resources on this topic, even if they aren't "left communist", I would still appreciate them. Thanks.
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This article from Marxists.org is a great, detailed account of the protests and riots from the view of one of its participants, and here is another essay on the general history of it, specifically the strikes. There's also this analysis of the strikes and occupations, but fair warning, I haven't read it, and the group writing it appears to be associated with the autonomist movement, so proceed with caution.
Thanks! Just wondering, why do you say I should tread with caution around the Autonomist movement?
Np. But it's really hit or miss on autonomist texts, as autonomism is a pretty broad term and is used by groups that are not necessarily leftcom as a "catch-all". For example, most Greek autonomists are really no more than anarchists who think they're Marxists. That being said, autonomist groups in the Cornelius Castoriadis tradition or groups that grew out of the earlier autonomist movements like Aufheben usually produce good material, although the ICC has criticized a few of Aufheben's published works.
Oh I understand. Thanks, I was actually looking into the Autonomist movement earlier and they seemed rather interesting. Somewhat disappointing but I'm glad to hear some elements are good!
Well the fact that autonomism is such a broad movement means that it's not one single, coherent movement with set goals. Communization, for example, can trace some of its roots to the autonomist movement.
Yeah that's a good point. I'll still look into it, definitely.
I've read some Bordiga and was curious if there are other authors who have covered it.
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This article goes into it briefly. https://marxsrazor.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/the-organic-principle/
Many thanks
The party’s preparation for the revolution lies in its organic nature
I. Organic Nature of the Communist Party
The Communist Party, political party of the proletarian class, presents itself in its action as a collectivity operating with a unitary approach. The initial motives which lead the elements and groups of this collectivity to incorporate themselves into an organism with a unitary action are the immediate interests of groups of the working class, arising out of their economic conditions. The essential characteristic of the Communist Party’s function is utilization of the energies incorporated in this way for the attainment of objectives which are common to the entire working class and situated at the culmination of all its struggles; objectives which thus transcend – by integrating them – the interests of single groups, and such immediate and contingent aims as the working class may propose.
The integration of all elemental thrusts into a unitary action occurs by virtue of two main factors: one of critical consciousness, from which the party draws its programme; the other of will, expressed in the instrument with which the party acts, its disciplined and centralized organization. It would be erroneous to consider these two factors of consciousness and will as powers that can be obtained by, or are to be expected of, individuals since they are only realisable through the integration of the activity of many individuals into a unitary collective organism.
The precise definition of the theoretical and critical consciousness of the communist movement, contained in the programmatic declarations of individual parties and of the Communist International, as well as the organization of the one and the other, was and still is being arrived at through the examination and study of the history of human society and its structure in the present capitalist epoch, carried out on the basis of facts, experience and through active participation in the actual proletarian struggle.
The announcement of these programmatic declarations, and the appointment of the men to whom are entrusted the various positions in the party organization, is formally carried out by means of a consultation, democratic in form, of the party’s representative assemblies, but in reality they must be understood as a product of the real process which accumulates elements of experience and realizes the preparation and selection of leaders, thus shaping both the programmatic content and the hierarchical constitution of the party.
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This is activist and democratic opportunism.
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Only when the proletariat has as a leader an organized and tested party with well marked aims and with a tangible, worked-out programme for the next measures to be taken not only at home but also in foreign policy, will the conquest of political power not appear as an accidental episode but serve as the starting point for the permanent communist construction of society by the proletariat.
What foreign policy would the DotP have? Would the DotP have to cooperate with the capitalist class?
... the Communists can and should work in those associations that are non-party but nonetheless embrace big layers of the proletariat, such as for example the organizations of war invalids in the various countries, the ‘Hands off Russia’ Committees in Britain, proletarian tenants’ associations, etc.
I’ve been under the impression that we should be hands-off, but this says to be involved in these types of organizations. Will someone clarify?
What foreign policy would the DotP have?
World revolution.
I’ve been under the impression that we should be hands-off, but this says to be involved in these types of organizations. Will someone clarify?
Hands off? Who have you been talking to? The party of the working class has to have connections to other working class organizations. I would have thought that this to be a fairly uncontroversial point.
Hands off? Who have you been talking to? The party of the working class has to have connections to other working class organizations. I would have thought that this to be a fairly uncontroversial point.
I think they meant in regards to activism.
Activism and participation in proletarian organizations are two different things.
I agree.
Aside from the ones mentioned on the site, what are some other organizations we could join?
I couldn't possibly name them all.
What is the history of this organisation? Is it more in line with the Damenists, or the Bordigists?
We are not "Damenists".
Oh I see. Other than that, what is the history of the group?
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST LEFT
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/ShortHis.htm
Thank you!
party organ
Pfft
What a terrible website, my eyes hurt.
Alternatively you can buy our paper.
No, thanks. Maybe rude of me, but I'm assuming that the paper have slightly the same (lacking) communication strategy.
You mean being written with black ink on white paper?
Yes, the design sucks, but it's still legible, fcol.
The reading list is actually very hard to read because the font-size is x-small. Well well...
Jesus, what is it with leftist organizations and making it as hard as possible to be accessible to normal people? This party's page on what appears to be their platform seems to be a fucking theses on Marxism written in jargon near-incomprehensible to people not already familiar with Marxism.
No one knows nowadays what a "proletariat" is; how does using archaic words help promote the agenda of this article at all? How does starting groups and organizations which do nothing but talk about some abstract "oppression" in an essay sprawling pages and pages using language better suited to the nineteenth century make anyone feel aligned with this organization? There's no wonder communism is dead; no one's left who can make it sound remotely appealing to the average person. There's nothing in this that can feel real, or relatable, to anyone remotely rooted in reality.
Then you have "gems" like this:
This latest of counter-revolutionary waves would be far more lethal than the opportunist disease (anarchist deviations) that had troubled the brief existence of the First International, and far more serious even than the damage wrought by the Second International when it sunk into the mire of adhesion to the Union Sacrée, and then to the 1914 imperialist war (gradualism, parliamentarism, democratism). Today the situation of the workers’ movement appears a thousand times worse than after the vertiginous collapse of the Second International at the outbreak of the first World War.
Writing like this hurts to read.
You appear to be laboring under the impression that the class party can be a mass party under times of capitalist reaction.
No one knows nowadays what a "proletariat" is
Everyone understands what a proletarian is. The concept is not hard to grasp. We're not of the opinion that "normal people" are too stupid to grasp words like "proletariat" which only refers only to themselves.
promote class consciousness?
How does one "promote class consciousness"?
There's no wonder communism is dead; no one's left who can make it sound remotely appealing to the average person.
Communism is dead because some people write using big words? Comrade, if you want to go hang out with parties that treat people like children and use child like language, then there are plenty for you to choose from.
Writing like this hurts to read.
Maybe you should stop reading children's books.
You appear to be laboring under the impression that the class party can be a mass party under times of capitalist reaction.
What will it be; comprised of intellectual 'elites' who claim to work on behalf of the 'proletariat' they supposedly represent?
Communism is dead because some people write using big words? Comrade, if you want to go hang out with parties that treat people like children and use child like language, then there are plenty for you to choose from.
I'm not complaining that it uses "big words;" I'm complaining that the writing is atrocious and pushes people away. Most communists now seem to have an inability to convey ideas clearly; this section of writing is proof of it. When people ask an American Republican what their party's platform is, they don't respond with the entire history of liberalism and the historical development of their party's philosophy and a long-winded explanation of the underpinnings of their beliefs; they tell you they believe in government deregulation and less taxes. They are more effective. Things like this immediately turn people off. It's not an issue of being able to understand its contents; it's an issue of whether at first glance this seems like a reasonable position; whether it has an appealing message.
Just immediately saying something like "Employers steal their worker's wages," or something similar enough, as a beginning statement, with a brief overview of general beliefs of the party, and of course a more detailed explanation somewhere else on the website, would be a thousand times more effective than immediately launching an abstract diatribe against capitalism or something. Writing like this actively turns people away from what this party is trying to do.
What will it be; comprised of intellectual 'elites' who claim to work on behalf of the 'proletariat' they supposedly represent?
I don't know why you think that this is the only option. Is this a poor attempt at a straw man argument?
I'm not complaining that it uses "big words;" I'm complaining that the writing is atrocious and pushes people away.
You haven't made a real critique apart from "people don't understand the word 'proletariat'".
When people ask an American Republican what their party's platform is, they don't respond with the entire history of liberalism and the historical development of their party's philosophy and a long-winded explanation of the underpinnings of their beliefs; they tell you they believe in government deregulation and less taxes.
I suppose then it's a good thing that we're not running for the presidency with a platform intended to appeal the greatest number of people in order to receive the greatest number of votes.
Just immediately saying something like "Employers steal their worker's wages," or something similar enough, as a beginning statement, with a brief overview of general beliefs of the party, and of course a more detailed explanation somewhere else on the website, would be a thousand times more effective than immediately launching an abstract diatribe against capitalism or something.
Where exactly is anything on the ICP website "abstract"?
Writing like this actively turns people away from what the party is trying to do.
Your opinion on what the party is trying to do sounds to be the exact same opinion that every other opportunist has.
Hi!Here'sasummaryoftheterm"Strawman":
Astrawmanislogicalfallacythatoccurswhenadebaterintentionallymisrepresentstheiropponent'sargumentasaweakerversionandrebutsthatweak&fakeversionratherthantheiropponent'sgenuineargument.Intentionalstrawmanningusuallyhasthegoalof[1]avoidingrealdebateagainsttheiropponent'srealargument,becausethemisrepresenterriskslosinginafairdebate,or[2]makingtheopponent'spositionappearridiculousandthuswinoverbystanders.
Unintentionalmisrepresentationsarealsopossible,butinthiscase,themisrepresenterwouldonlybeguiltyofsimpleignorance.Whiletheirargumentwouldstillbefallacious,theycanbeatleastexcusedofmalice.
Hi again. So I've heard from a lot of leftcoms that leninism is kind of a bastardized stalinist version of what lenin actually did and what he believed. I'm curious about his distinction. How exactly does "Leninism" misrepresent Lenin?
Also I have to admit I'm very unfamiliar with russian history in the early twentieth century. Can any of you suggest any good sources to get started with?
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Lenin wasn't a Leninist. His opinions and ideas changed throughout his life. Before the betrayal of the Second International Lenin was a devout Kautskyist. He wanted to build the equivalent of the SPD in Russia. He even made a comment about "What is to be Done?" only being relevant to the historical movement of the party later on in his life. I mean, you can even read The State and Revolution and see for yourself how remotely non-Leninist Lenin was. He praises Pannekoek a lot in that book as well.
He might have took to extremes but Stalin just completed what Lenin started . They're both just despicable people and fervent anti-socialists.
really? I mean I believe Lenin made some serious errors, but I've generally heard from people in this sub that he also did a lot of good work in the Russian Revolutions and that much of what we call "Leninism" today is kind of a corrupted version of Lenin's theory (I've heard "What is to be Done?" for example has been elevated to be a central part of "Leninism" when in reality Lenin did not mean it that way or something)
Perhaps the people who believe that are more Bordigist leaning. Are you a councilist?
The debate against Lenin within the Communist left didn't concern the shit you see flung at him from internet ultra-leftists today. It's absurd to place Lenin within the debate against the party-form which only developed years after he died under radically different historical and political circumstances.
I say this because you get a very distorted perspective on the Communist and the communist left when you simply compare pamphlets from both sides written at varying times.
Anybody who reflexively denigrates Lenin for his anti-leftism should actually study the period within which the controversy took place. At that point in time, the communist left was pursuing disastrous politics--it wasn't a theoretical debate or an abstract discussion. Leftists were fucking destroying the German communist party and the revolutionary development of Europe.
the communist left was pursuing disastrous politics
like what?
Namely the March Action of 1921 which ended up with the majority of the working class standing against the UKPD (Communist Militants were literally beat by fellow workers for trying to initiate strike actions), half the membership leaving the party, 4000 of the best party members in prison, and the Communists losing all real contact with the mass of the proletariat.
When Lenin shit talked the leftists it was a matter of survival for the struggling international communist movement.
Interesting. so then are you a leftcom (I suppose that term is a bit antiquated, but you seem to take a very different sort of position from what I would expect from someone in this sub)? do you believe that the left-wing of the UKPD would have been more successful if it just followed lenin?
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Is Viewpoint or it's staff associated with any orgs specifically? Do they self-identify as part of any traditions? I've read a number of good and thought-provoking articles from them now and never had any context in that sense.
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It's misleading to explain Marx using the language of Horkheimer and Marcuse. When Zilbersheid comes to the quotes from 'Capital' and 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy' which contradict his Horkheimerian interpretation he explains it away as a 'retreat' from Marx's previously correct position, instead of realising the interpretation is wrong. However I suspect the quote from Capital Vol. 3 about the realms of freedom and necessity was Engels's doing and does not necessarily represent Marx's view on the matter either.
I'm always skeptical of those that focus one-dimensionally on the abolition of labour (usually disciples of the Frankfurt School) because they have a tendency of viewing themselves as radicals (though they be bourgeois) and the proletariat as pseudo-capitalists, but this article was pretty decent apart from the above problems.
instead of realising the interpretation is wrong
What is the correct interpretation?
Marx didn't equate alienation to instrumentality, for Marx instrumentality can be a part of alienation but is not the essence of alienation. Zilbersheid gives us Marx through the medium (!) of the Frankfurt School or at least the perhaps misleading language of some of the members of that group, instead he should give us Marx in Marx's own language or as close to it as he can get while retaining it's original meaning.
I've read the introduction by Ernest Mandel to the appendix of my edition of Capital (the "unpublished chapter" is included in the appendix), but it doesn't have much information. Other than the chapter itself, what are some of the works that deal with it? I'm particularly interested in documents by the "French currents" mentioned in the following extract from Loren Goldner's Communism is the material human community. The only one he actually cites is this 1973 article on the failure of workers' self-management in a watch factory. Other texts that deal with it are welcome.
All of the French currents put at center stage a text of Marx which, in the long run, may be more important than all the other new material that started to come to light in the 1950′s and 1960′s: the so-called “Unpublished Sixth Chapter” of Vol. I of Capital. It is not known why Marx removed it from the original version of Vol. I. But it is a materialist Phenomenology of Mind. Ten pages suffice to refute the Althusserian claims that Marx forgot Hegel in his “late period”. But the affirmation of the continuity with Hegel’s method is the least of it; the fundamental categories elaborated in the text are the distinctions between absolute and relative surplus value and what Marx calls the “extensive” and “intensive” phases of accumulation, corresponding to the “formal” and “real” domination of capital over labor. These are introduced in a very theoretical way; Marx doesn’t attempt to apply them to history generally. But the French ultra-left started to periodize capitalist history around exactly these distinctions. “Extensive” and “intensive” phases of capitalist history are not unique to Marxists; they have also been used by bourgeois economic historians as descriptive devices. One current summarized the distinction in its essence as “the phase which de-substantiates the worker to leave only the proletarian“. In that sentence is the condemnation of the whole Gutman school of the new labor history. The transition to “intensive” accumulation in the 6th chapter, is presented to the “reduction of labor to the most general capitalist form of abstract labor”, the concise definition of the mass production labor process of the 20th century in the advanced capitalist world. The new labor history is one long nostalgia song for the phase of formal domination.
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Camatte wrote a lot on it: https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/camatte-capcom.pdf
The chapter can be found here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/
From the intro:
“The Results of the Direct Production Process” is part of a third draft of Capital which Marx wrote between the summer of 1863 and the summer of 1864, based on a plan Marx made for the work in December 1862. This manuscript has been lost, apart from a few pages from what would become the first five chapters of Capital, some related footnotes, and what was to become the sixth chapter. The pagination and content of this sixth chapter indicate that it followed on from five previous chapters. By the time Capital was completed however, this chapter had not been not included.
It is included as an appendix to the Penguin version and in MECW vol. 34, same translation.
Ye, I've already read most of it, including that introduction. I was asking for other sources about it, especially the ones Goldner is referring to.
Ah I see, Maybe this one http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2014-10-07/communisation but there isn't much about it?
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Anyone know when it will be published?
I was reading endnotes article on their lack of use of the term communisation in the 4th volume. In it the mentioned that proletarian self-realization was based on the conditions that were of the time, but today the conditions are for proletarian self-abolition (I am guessing this is what they use the term communisation for).
What exactly constitues proletarian self-realization and proletarian self-abolition, and what are they characterized by?
I don't feel like these questions will quit rolling on this sub, so sorry in advance. Also excuse me when I fail to articulate my thoughts more clearly.
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Probably it means that only now the proletariat is in a position to abolish itself. Which is nonsense, of course.
Why would you say that? I feel like their analysis is a pretty clear articulation of the current state of things, why would you say this is false?
i think the suggestion was that the prole have been in that position before.
I don't view them as conflicting. Communizers do because of their "anti-programmatism" that views the problems with past revolutions as their emphasis on worker control rather than the immediate abolition of the proletarian relation.
The self-abolition of the proletariat is the abolition of class divisions that result in the distinction between the proletariat and the capitalist class through the working class struggling for political power against the bourgeoisie and in gaining political power bringing the means of production into social hands. When the means of production come into social hands it will be through workers abolishing capital through their self activity and creating a society based on associated, rather than alienated labor. This means that everyone becomes a worker, a producer. Thus proletarian self realization and self-abolition in the terms of endnotes (think they put this forward first in endnotes 1) aren't really conflicting despite their idea of these things.
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What do you mean by "the Bordiga vanguard"?
I thought there was a difference b/t the vanguard Bordiga described and the one in the Soviet Union. Since I thought there was a difference, I asked for examples of the former.
I read your response to Somechuvak1, and now I'm confused again: Are you saying there is no difference b/t the two?
I thought there was a difference b/t the vanguard Bordiga described and the one in the Soviet Union
There is a difference between the revolutionary Bolshevik vanguard (which, from what I've read so far, Bordiga quite adamantly defended), and the "Party" of functionaries which it transformed into following the degeneration of the revolution: an organisation which was really just an appendage of the state, and thus no longer determined by the conscious necessity of the advanced workers, but rather by the economic interests of 'Soviet' capitalism.
Are you saying there is no difference b/t the two?
If we're referring to revolutionary Bolshevism, the difference is not vast. If we're referring to its degeneration, the difference is between proletarian and capitalist dictatorship.
[deleted]
What does that have to do with Bordiga?
Does every Bordiga styled vangaurd need USSR styled disembodied heads of him? From what I've read of leftcoms on this sub the Bordiga/leftcom vangaurds is not a group of radical intellgensia trying to forcibily reject the masses with consciousness but rather a mass of people thay are fully class conscious and dont require "leaders" but only "executive organs." As Karl Marx said in Conspectus of Bakunin's state and anarchism the entire masses of the people participate in the self-managemnt of the commune
I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me - what do you mean by "Bordiga styled vanguard"?
For one, Bordiga observed that the vanguard and its party are not a "mass of people" - even in a revolutionary situation it's always a minority of the working class.
Hence he placed such an emphasis on leadership, holding positions which might even shock you:
The proletarian state can only be "animated" by a single party and it would be senseless to require that this party organise in its ranks a statistical majority and be supported by such a majority in "popular elections" - that old bourgeois trap. [...] In conclusion the communist party will rule alone, and will never give up power without a physical struggle.
(Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party)
As you can see this is quite different to your phrase "the entire masses of the people participate in the self-managemnt of the commune", which you impute to Marx.
There is strange a tendency here on reddit for people to attribute libertarian ideas to the communist left, which is probably what that commenter I replied to was doing. The only thing Soviet Bavaria has to do with Bordiga is that it proves his critique of the fetishisation of councils. Bordiga was arguably at the height of his political activity in that year, and I doubt he had much praise for the swift failure of those events.
Well I took a shot in the dark and I'm being hanged for it but Marx did in fact say this. Also Libertarianism did in fact originate in the communist left and isn't somehow anathema.
Marx did in fact say this
I can't read it now but if I had to guess Marx is referring to communism, so neither the vanguard nor the dictatorship of the class (you confuse all three of these in your comments). The point is that "the people" is a hollow bourgeois concept - there is no such thing as "the people" - only a society divided in classes, which only the revolutionary working class can and must destroy. For Bordiga, for good or bad, this meant a centralised party of the advanced section of the proletariat seizing and exercising power.
Libertarianism did in fact originate in the communist left and isn't somehow anathema.
By "communist left" we refer to that tendency which emerged out of the Comintern in 1919-1920, long after Marx's definitive break with the anarchists. Someone posted these texts against anarchism a while ago. In the first one, Il Soviet (the paper of the current led by Bordiga) defends itself from the reformists accusing it of anarchism.
I admit I'm not too familiar with the works of Bordiga but this is getting far too supercilious for my liking (I would also like to note no one else had the courage to try and formulate a response to op's question)
I would also point that Lenin cites passages on Engels in "The State and Revolution" and he notes that Engels most certainly was talking about the proletariat and doesn't feel the need to lambast him for not enough class distinctions
In response to Bakunin's question "Will the entire proletariat perhaps stand at the head of the government?" in the same work I cited Marx writes in response "Then there will certainly be no one 'at the bottom'." He further elaborates "Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune" he is clearly talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat so no I am not confusing socialism, communism and the DoP thank you very much.
I'm also not an anarchist. Libertarian can indeed refer to figures like William Paul and Anton Pannekoek
Libertarian can indeed refer to figures like [...] Anton Pannekoek
Please don't insult Pannekoek like that.
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*Everything from the MIA except the worker's council book. If there are other works you'd like to see just let me know. Full list of TTS audiobooks I've converted can be found here.
http://redmarx.freeforums.org/on-going-project-marxist-audiobooks-updated-09-03-16-t1293.html
My gawd. Perfect for me since I'm always on the road. Thank you!
Absolutely, the robotic voice can take a touch to get used to but it is well worth it.
I'm surprised at how popular this one was compared to Bordiga's works. Nearly twice the number of downloads.
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I met Maurice a couple of times. His work is worth reading despite some of the limitations.
In what context did you meet him, if you don't mind me asking?
Would have to be Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch (2004) for me. Changed the way I looked at history, labour, class struggle and women's oppression.
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[deleted]
How often does endnotes come out? Is it worth subscribing?
Sin Patrón by Naomi Klein gave me a little hope.
My dad got me The Anti-Capitalism Reader (2002) around the time I was starting out as a radical. I think it's well worth a read no matter what your leftist orientation is.
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His biggest belief, in my opinion, was of organic centralism as opposed to the democratic centralism espoused by Leninist parties, which basically states that the workers themselves in the revolution must spontaneously form a centralized system themself rather than relying on a party making democratic decisions. However, you really have to read Bordiga yourself to understand his beliefs, and they're different from his rather pro-Bolshevik 1920s to his writings after the World War.
So this is where organic centralism came from! Thank you. I have been debating between democratic centralism/organic centralism with myself I will look more into it.
You're welcome, glad I could help my friend.
The way I see it:
Anti-Bolshevism.
Anti democracy.
Organic centralism.
Absence of money and the market.
No delayed state capitalist "transitional stage."
Internationalism.
muh self decaying state,how can tankies even put on a straight face and say state capitalism was just transitional for the USSR
Because Lenin said it.
1and 5 aren't particularly accurate.
Why?
So Bordiga wanted a shift from capitalism to communism directly?
I would think very little, considering that he's been dead as a doornail for over 40 years...
As to what he personally believed when he was alive, which I suspect is what you actually mean, I imagine that someone more knowledgeable can answer better than I can.
Mods, What do you think about setting up a rule or an announcement relegating such questions to /r/marxism_101 ?
Sorry I just didnt know where else to go to speak with specific left communists. Not all marxists are left communists.
Well we run that sub as well, but it's fine. It doesn't make much of a difference.
yeah I had no idea excuse my ignorance
How about /r/left_communism101?
Do you any of you recommend good places to start? I know there is a reading list on the side, but I was just wondering if there is any essential reading I should begin with. I'm really keen to learn more!
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I'm on mobile, which limits my ability to link articles or essays, but all the titles I will mention below are available to read on www.marxists.org
Paul Mattick's Council Communism
When Insurrections Die by Gilles Dauvé
Party and Class by Anton Pannekoek
The Pannekoek and Mattick articles are quite short, so I'd recommend starting there, especially if you're pressed for time. This is just my opinion, of course, but any of the articles on the sidebar that seem interesting to you are undoubtedly worth reading.
And, of course, if you haven't read any of Marx's works, those are quite essential, I think. Which works specifically, however, I'm not sure.
prepare yourself for some of the most dry tome of a book if you want to read capital.Jesus Christ,I went to start it like "yeah,i'm gonna learn about how shitty capitalism and stuff is and sound real smart".I'd say read it if you really want to but honestly it isn't as engaging as other works you might want to read.It did however help me understand the idea of Marxism when I first started learning about socialism
It's dry, sure, but understanding the basics is also essential. I think that the first chapter is the go to part of the book for that and that's not awful to get through. I still haven't made it past around page 600, though. :(
I've only read the first chapter but I heard it gets better later on. Anyone who wants to read it might want to read it with a companion book along with it. David Harvey's is the most recommended on reddit.
David Harvey's is the most recommended on reddit.
That alone should be a warning sign.
I've only read the first volume of Capital, as I've prioritized reading other material, but it certainly gets better later on in the book. For me, it really started to get interesting in chapter X, The Working Day, got a bit dry again, then I found a newfound interest in chapter XV, Machinery and Modern Industry.
https://edensauvage.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/reading-list-for-aspiring-ultra-lefts/
I wrote a long reading list if you're interested.
Is internationalism perhaps the most important principle that should unite communists? I've read in a few places that left communists would recognize "internationalist anarchos" as their comrades while criticizing many of the tendencies that that claim the legacy of Marxism such as Leninism and Trotskyism.The betrayal of Kautsky and the 2nd international is also frequently cited as a bit of original sin.
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100% agree. Internationalism is definitely the biggest thing that separates Left Communists from Leninists and the sort.
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the weakened proletariat could not resist the development of a new state bourgeoisie from the remnants of the Tsarist bureaucracy.
In my opinion this is complete and utterly wrong. The introduction of a bureaucracy was a consequence of a general flaw of the concepts of the workers movement. Most proletarian movements were organized hierarchical without any regards to Marx his notion about freedom in German Ideology, which is quite different to the bourgeois idea of freedom. Most movements were just copying bourgeois culture to show that a state of the workers movement is the better state. It is the old idealistic concept of a state which cares for all of it's citizens regardless of the conflict of interests. When the German workers movement was born from the bourgeois education clubs they carried bourgeois ideas into their future and it had a huge influence even for the bolshevik revolution. The power of the European social democrats was this idea because it gave to best fit for the bourgeois state. The former GDR is a pretty good example for propagating to be the better German state when it comes to welfare. This quite the opposite of Marx his concepts. American communists weren't better when they developed into a sort of civil rights movement until McCarthy destroyed them. When communists in Europe were lined up for commands from Moscow they did it because they were convinced it was necessary, while Moscow did his own nationalistic calculations. The worst kind of this history was, when communists spread the opportunistic idea of joining the movement is joining the winning side without taking into consideration it's an issue of having power. The setback after 1989 was the inability to spread the word, because history showed the flaw of "communist" logic.
While the civil war killed a lot of intellectuals, it's just a scapegoat to excuse a problematic development which started in the infancy of the workers movement.
I don't know why people are looking that much backwards. It's time to make a fundamental critique on capitalistic concepts, which turn out to be flawed as always, when it comes to preserve the interest of the individual. Sadly I'm reading most about variants of social democratic concepts like defending worker from loosing the job or a fighting for a minimum wage. Without a fundamental critique a proletarian will never be able to change history.
Shine on u crazy diamond
RIP Syd Barrett.
Mao-Spontex back again?
Haha somewhat similar and inspired by Mao-Spontex
if it is the material conditions and the working class response to them that leads to revolution, why do we need to preserve revolutionary ideas during non-revolutionary periods?
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[deleted]
This was a very informative answer, thank you! :-) i always assumed (maybe because i still love a lot of non-egoist anarchist authors) that the idea of defending radical theory these days had some kind of an important function for the revolution, i can understand why someone would choose to do it just because they are interested in it though. Your link to the dauves text is appreciated too
I always wonder though, what is there for us to do then?
The point is that there's going to be people who are going to argue from the perspective of capital, or from some shitty utopian perspective (a la stalinists, labourites, etc), or whomever, and it's left communists to use this body of knowledge to go "nope" and then point out stuff like the historical recurrence of these people.
There's also the issue that you can't have a communist revolution without communists.
If you want to read up on it then read the Italian left's work on the party. In essence, in times of social peace it's difficult to do anything, but when the class struggle heats up it's up to the party to actually connect the various outbreaks of it. The party exists as an expression of the class struggle, either in an ethereal form or in a more concrete one when conditions permit.
There's also the issue that you can't have a communist revolution without communists.
Could you expand on this a bit? Do you see the role of communists in this situation as one of connectors of various struggles or is there more to it? I'm more of a communization proponent and would love to hear more from the Italian camp's perspective. Thanks in advance!
Ultimately it's cold weather that leads to me making a sweater, but if I forget how to make one in summer time I'll be starting from scratch come autumn.
Thats an interesting way of putting it. but dont council communists argue that class consciousness and revolutionary ideas are developed spontaneously during revolutionary periods?
when leftcoms talk about defending revolutionary theory or whatever it kinda sounds like an idealist position to me honestly (by their standards), which confuses me
Council communists at the time, with Pannekoek and Gorter anyway, still argued for a tight knit party of only the most advanced sections of the proletariat, and still argued for the party as such. It's only later once the revolutionary ebb had receded that ideas began to change and now we're in a situation where there are no council communist parties, where it's difficult to get their books and so on
when leftcoms talk about defending revolutionary theory or whatever it kinda sounds like an idealist position to me honestly (by their standards), which confuses me
If you don't defend revolutionary theory then you get people who read Capital as if it was a text book. I think you're being confused by mixing up bodies of knowledge and theory. Proletarian revolutionary theory is anti-idealism because it is fundamentally a critique of all that is existing.
I'm pretty ambivalent towards the concept of "council communism" tbh. I like Pannekoek's ideas on trade unions and what not, but I don't really buy into councils as some magic fix to the problem of "authoritarianism".
do you understand why someone like pannekoek or ruhle would advocate defending communist theory presently?
also, what's your opinion on that idea?
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking me (I mean that by no offense, as I'm pretty tired); but, as to councils: I'm not necessarily against them so much as I think a lot of planning and decision making will just be performed as unsexy administrative work undertaken by professional planners. Not saying there can't, will, or shouldn't be councils--I'm just unconvinced that the very top of the economy, for instance, should be domineered by a council, which in its very essence, would be prone to politics.
what i meant was, do you think you could explain to me the reasoning behind a leftcom's belief that communists must presently work to uphold revolutionary theory (since it seems like an idealist position to me by their standards). also was wondering what your opinion was regarding the idea that we gotta defend communist ideas and preserve them during non-revolutionary periods - do you feel it's necessary, do you think it stands in contradiction to a materialist view of history, etc?
& its fine, get some rest and answer whenever you can !
I see upholding and developing theory as a means of creating a nest-egg that will be lying in wait for the proper circumstances. I don't think it's idealist in that the revolution will have been brought to a start by material conditions; the existence of any theory that future revolutionaries may or may not look at will only make their lives easier. Understanding theory is also important, imo, in understanding what we can do as leftists. For example, its conclusions leads us to understand that we shouldn't waste time handing out more newspapers than the rival Trot cult party in the area. And technically, no, it probably isn't necessary in the grand scheme of things--to answer your final question.
These are my personal opinions. You're gonna' want to ask around with other leftcoms, as I've only just recently been inundating myself with all the Bordiga and Gilles Dauve my heart can desire.
E: wording
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Good ol papa Bordiga spitting down some knowledge. Its actually p good tho especially these lines
From the Marxist point of view, the class is not a concealed statistical data, but an organic active force, and it manifests itself when the simple convergence of economic conditions and interests widens into action and common struggle.
Beginning with the economic forms, it is in no sense necessary to declare oneself a partisan in general of communist or private economy, liberal or monopolist, individual or collective, nor praise the merits of each system according to the general well-being: in following that method one falls into Utopianism, which is the exact opposite of the Marxist dialectic.
Yeah, this was definitely a good find. If you haven't come across it yet, the Bordiga Archive on Marxists.org has a handful of goodies to check out. It's sad that Bordiga is virtually unheard of outside of leftcom circles.
It's sad that Bordiga is virtually unheard of outside of leftcom circles.
I blame Gramsci.
The collection at n+1 is better imo. There's also sinistra.net but their translations are iffy even if they do have things in English, Italian, French and German.
I am beginning to lose hope in there being any gain in consciousness any time soon. If a vanguard is linked to the proletariat organically, is it acceptable? I don't see any other way unless it is well beyond our time.
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man, if anyone knew the answer, we wouldn't be in the situation we find ourselves, or maybe wed be in exactly the same situation
"linked to organically" isn't really what the organic party means. The idea of vangaurdism today is used mostly by people who have a social democratic conception of the party and the class, that the party has to introduce socialism into the workers' movement. The party is therefore distinct from the class. That's the vangaurdism of today, but it really has little to do with actual working class politics, the organic party or what Marx was talking about in the manifesto of the communist party.
hi I know this comment is a bit old but could you elaborate a bit? If the majority of workers at the moment do not believe in communism, how can the party not be distinct from class?
I'm just now getting around to properly reading Marx, and I was wondering if you could recommend some good secondary guides to M&E. I'd ask the 101 subs, but they are infested with tankies, so I'd like to hear from you guys. Thanks!
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For Capital I recommend Raya Dunayevskaya's Outline. If you haven't read it yet try Otto Rühle's Abridged Version.
/r/marxism_101/ is tank-free.
On Capital see Ben Fine's book, it's really good if you haven't read much: http://davidmcnally.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Marxs-Capital.pdf
On Marx and Engels in general see Hal Draper - Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (series of 5 books)
Inside:
*May Day 2016 - Under the capitalist regime there can be no peace between States - So let there be war between classes!
*Paris attacks: Bourgeois terrorism
*Uniting the struggle of the international working class
*Italy - No “Christmas truce” for the struggles of the SI Cobas: Against police and regime unions
*Airbus production moved to USA
*Democratic Tunisia can’t stop the revolt of the unemployed
*Proletarians against bourgeois in Palestine
Read Online
PDF
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"You killed Rosa Luxemburg"
FULLY
AUTOMATED
LUXURY
COMMUNISM
Could someone explain this one?
my guess-
some ppl conjecture communism is only possible after full automation of labor, or is inevitable after that is reached. accordingly in such a world if the MOP is commonly owned living standards would be luxurious for all (or is hoped to be). as most bern supporters desire the benefits of liberal welfare capitalism OP is presenting a position which may find appeal.
the communism ideally comes before the full automation but otherwise a pretty spot on guess =)
that gives me the idea for another sign...
lol good one
Save the Planet, Kill Yourself
"Accelerationism or Bust!"
"See you either in hell or in communism"
"wage-slavery isn't normal, but on capitalism it is."
"Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing--Fuck you!"
"You worship the bourgeoisie."
"Exploit Sentient Robots Not Humans"
Positive: Communist4Bernie Neutral: Workers Unite ☭ Negative: Death To America ☭
I think we can all agree that the Soviet style administrative planned economy was very wasteful and inefficient. One method of allocating consumer goods more efficiently without an actual market is a share based system pioneered by food banks which I'm a fan of: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/magazine/spr06/YJ_34-39_Front.pdf
I'm curious to see what kind of methods of allocating resources comrades adhere to/think could work
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Distribution is entirely secondary to production. How things are produced should be looked into first.
Well one of the main problems of the Soviet economy was not their inability to produce things, they out produced the USA in a lot of areas, but their failure to distribute it: The multitude of independent allocating organizations, however, unavoidably causes situations in which, for example, an organ demanding paraffin lamps gets all the necessary chimneys from one economic organization, but only 60% of the holders from another, 50% of the wicks from a third one, and only 20% of the burners from a fourth." (Socialist Planning, Michael Ellman, Pg 36)
Also a major problem was the things they distributed were not what people would have wanted to buy
Problems of allocation are intimately related to production. Even relatively simple commodities require a diverse selection of inputs in raw materials. Deciding how to distribute steel to the nail factory or the screw factory is an important economic question.
Producers of steel must also decide what proportions of different grades of steel to make (you can't make springs out of tool grade steel alloys), based on the needs of other producers. And in turn, their production processes must take into account different methods of steel production, the associated externalities, and select the proper grades of coke; the producers of coke must meet the needs of various different refining industries, and in turn must select the proper stocks of coal to refine into coke and so on and so on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
This was a thing during the time of Allende. Seemed to work really well, until America thought otherwise.
Cybersyn was quite a lot more than just developing efficiency. It was the brainchild of Stafford Beer, a management cybernetician. In his book, which I'm reading (called The Heart of Enterprise), he basically outlines how completely inadequate current organisational structures are at handling any potential changes in what their systems may spit up. He really does go into all systems, in an abstract methodological sense, dealing with how layers can interact with other layers to generate more and more system complexity and how current manangerial structures basically ignore this complexity.
Its a really good read, covers a lot, and I really don't see how the critique engages with any of Beer's work outside of how a layperson might look briefly look over the wikipedia article and say, "oh, well that was clearly an exercise in nothing more than some freaky computer economy thing" when the implications for Stafford's thinking have (themselves) yet more implications for how we think of organisations, as well as how we think of the thinking already done on organisations (This thinking-on-thinking I also get to appreciate thanks to Stafford's work.) What's most striking for me in his book is exactly the layering in his Viable Systems model and how that then can be used as a way to see organisation in all its general uses. I'd personally say it's one sort of analyses up there with ol' Marx (and comes from some entirely different type or education or approach towards/of abstraction), different to where Marx's critique came from yet being still of importance (to us who are familiar with Marx's work) for its usefulness precisely in providing an analysis of how purposeful systems, from lights, factories and countries ( sub-systems like social/economical bits) relate to each other, self actualise and (as he states, the primary question posed to all cyberneticians) how to deal with the complexity/variety (a specific term meaning a potential state a system can be in at a time) each system generates through its interactions with its environment it lives in.
If you have the time for marx, its well worth the read. His analyses speaks so much to the inadequacy of this system in doing anything but causing bureaucratic, institutional misery (The most heinous kind) that its proponents and readers (i.e people who get what he's saying) are fundamentally heterodox to the establishment. You will probably see how Marx's own body of thought can co-exist with his as you read his work anyways. Theres lots of stuff available online too.
Anyways as for economic planning theres a lot thats already been said on that everywhere. Its a question for which there exists no prescient answer - All our knowledge is especially the form of that of negation, specifically Marx's. Our language then continues on in that form. No concrete 'solution' can be claimed to exist to the demand of a society of production for needs (somewhere here it's discussed), but it (communism) remains "an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." Hopefully that shows how little we can truly claim to 'know' on what to do. And moreover how much more demands knowing.
he basically outlines how completely inadequate current organisational structures are at handling any potential changes in what their systems may spit up. He really does go into all systems, in an abstract methodological sense, dealing with how layers can interact with other layers to generate more and more system complexity and how current manangerial structures basically ignore this complexity
That's all well and good, but the glaring issue with this is that something like this can easily be put to use making a corporation like Walmart or Tesco or something more efficient. This kind of waste-cutting, efficiency maximizing organizational restructuring is every capitalist's wet dream. You'll never get communism out of efficient planning or powerful computing.
His analyses speaks so much to the inadequacy of this system in doing anything but causing bureaucratic, institutional misery (The most heinous kind) that its proponents and readers (i.e people who get what he's saying) are fundamentally heterodox to the establishment
While I'm no fan of sprawling, labyrinthine bureaucracy, I can't help but see this sort of technofetishist dream as equally dangerous. I don't see much difference in having your job and work quotas assigned to you by some faceless bureaucrat versus an equally faceless computer.
but it (communism) remains "an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." Hopefully that shows how little we can truly claim to 'know' on what to do. And moreover how much more demands knowing.
Wow way to totally butcher that Marx quote. I've seen tankies on /r/socialism make the same misquotation and this is particularly egregious. You really ought to realize here that Marx is saying that communism isn't "an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself." You talk about limits on what we know and Marx is certainly something you know little about.
Also, word of advice: there's the 'enter' key on your keyboard for a reason. No one wants to go through a massive wall of text without any paragraph breaks.
but I'm not a technofetishist tho.
Maybe This short set of lectures by Stafford Beer himself could explain the concept of manengerial cybernetics better than my 3AM ramblings :p <
http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/beer/book.pdf
Harsh
Truth hurts :^)
From a left communist perspective, of course, but I would also be interested in an anarchist one.
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http://www.krisis.org/1999/manifesto-against-labour/
This is perhaps the biggest left-com group that made opposing work a big thing after the situationists
Thank you! That's pretty much what I was looking for but I didn't know where to search.
To Work or not to Work? Is that the Question? by Gilles Dauve.
I read it recently, it's what made me want to read more on the subject!
Here's David Graebers Bullshit Jobs article from a while back.
Thank you, I'll reread it since it's quite short.
The Invisible Committee's The Coming Insurrection has stuff about work, although I don't necessarily condone the entire book.
Thanks!
but I would also be interested in an anarchist one.
Thanks a lot! I'll read it this weekend.
That was a really interesting read and I agree with pretty much everything. There's only a few strange passages:
Next we can take a meat-cleaver to production work itself. No more war production, nuclear power, junk food, feminine hygiene deodorant — and above all, no more auto industry to speak of. An occasional Stanley Steamer or Model T might be all right, but the auto-eroticism on which such pest-holes as Detroit and Los Angeles depend is out of the question. Already, without even trying, we’ve virtually solved the energy crisis, the environmental crisis and assorted other insoluble social problems.
How does stopping the development of one of the most promising source of clean energy solve the energy and environmental crisis? What's wrong with cars in general and why the fuck would I want a model T when I can have a car with airbags that is all around much safer to drive? And, finally, what's wrong with feminine hygiene and deodorant? I don't think many women would like to stop using pads and tampon lol. Is the author a weird kind of anarcho-primitivist?
Also:
We should be more than skeptical about the promises of the computer mystics. They work like dogs; chances are, if they have their way, so will the rest of us.
I guess that's more understandable since it was written in the 80s but the computer should definitely be a major part of our post-work communist society if we want to make it work (pun intended).
And finally:
All the scientists and engineers and technicians freed from bothering with war research and planned obsolescence should have a good time devising means to eliminate fatigue and tedium and danger from activities like mining. Undoubtedly they’ll find other projects to amuse themselves with. Perhaps they’ll set up world-wide all-inclusive multi-media communications systems or found space colonies.
I don't think an engineer working in the armament sector is qualified to set a up multi-media communications systems. Just because two people are called "engineers" doesn't mean they are qualified in the same domain at all. "Scientist" is even more vague of a term.
https://endnotes.org.uk/en/gilles-dauv-karl-nesic-love-of-labour-love-of-labour-lostLOVE OF LABOUR? LOVE OF LABOUR LOST… by Gilles Dauvé & Karl Nesic
https://libcom.org/files/the-problem-with-work_-feminism-marxism-kathi-weeks.pdfThe Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries by Kathi Weeks
Thank you!
When the revolution happens, and money is finally eradicated, would the labor voucher be utilized? Was it something that would have been necessary only back in the day since capitalism hadn’t advanced far enough yet?
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I really don't see how currency non-exchangable paper tissues you get for working has a place if rationing isn't necessary. That said i never saw this as some really important issue regarding social revolution, i don't really care, it shouldn't be a thing, you're not giving according to need when it's according to ability, that's half the equation wrong.
In large one of those things Marx wrote about that people could never distinguish from what was universally applicable about his study of the workers movement.
It's my view that labor vouchers are, indeed, money within the "capitalist" dictatorship of the proletariat. Some DotP's in history have made use of them, but it's not logically mandated.
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"(…) the family is central not only to the maintenance of capitalism in terms of providing a space outside the budget crises of states and the externalities of profit on which to unload the human needs of (individual) workers, but that it is central to the resilience of capitalism under conditions of crisis and depression, precisely because it is both structurally and ideologically flexible, all the while appealing both to a sense of tradition for conservatives, progress for liberals, and social solidarity for what remains of the left. Indeed it is these features which make it ideal as the perpetual site of pitched battle between conservatives and liberals who share the agenda of strengthening the family while supporting capital’s assault on wages and streamlining reproductive functions of the capitalist state.”
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Housing struggles are wierd. I know from personal experience how it can be used to divide the class. I come from a place where the working class is increasingly being pushed to the suburbs and even exurbs, by ironically enough other working class people. What used to be houses for families are increasingly unaffordable and filled w 5 or 6 young bohemian types. This as you can imagine ferments a certain amount resentment and a certain amount of native vs outsider dynamic.
I've been reading History and Class Consciousness and finding it pretty useful.
Anyone here have any thoughts?
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I think History and Class Consciousness is an excellent book, and concepts such as reification are very useful. I plan to reread it again soon. Also, it is one of the books that inspired the Frankfurt School.
That said, Lukacs later disowned that work, and became a stalinist.
That said, Lukacs later disowned that work, and became a stalinist.
All the more reason to like it.
Lukacs was hardly a Stalinist. And in any case, he left politics entirely before anything like Stalinism developed into a real practice or political framework. Forced out for leftist deviation no less...
The extent to which Lukacs was a Stalinist is debatable but he certainly parroted some Stalinist positions in his 1967 introduction to History and Class Consciousness.
What are you talking about?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Luk%C3%A1cs#De-Stalinisation
If you can sift through his orthodoxy and rigidity, there is much to be taken there.
Ő volt egy pretty cool guy.
So I've been trying to learn a lot more about left-communism, and after a lot of confusion I feel like I'm getting there; bear in mind that I come from a strong anarcho-syndicalist background, so it's quite a lot to attempt to understand from such a backdrop.
One of the most prominent left-communists — at least from what I can tell — is Bordiga. But to what extent does his work influence modern-day left-communism? Is he still relevant at all?
Also, could somebody better explain the justifications for "revolutionary totalitarianism" to me? I understand reasonably well the Bordigist position on democracy and class, but to me it still seems relatively off (for lack of better word) to try to act, as proletarians, in the interest of freeing all through communism. Equally, I am hard-pressed to see a justification for a transitional state period.
Thanks in advance for the time taken to answer seriously.
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I think it really depends on where you are. In most anglo-phone places, the answer would; not really. There's some sort of synthesis going on with the dutch-german and Italian brands of communism. In Italy however, you still have many hardline Bordgiaists. I would like that more people read about Bordiga, I think his perspective on things is useful.
The idea of revolutionary totalitarianism is that only a minority of the class will be actual communists. I don't think that this by necessity means a lack of democracy, just a lack of class collaboration or inter-class democracy. I'm also not entirely sure if Bordiga ever used that phrase.
But in general, when Bordiga does come up with stuff like this, he's not describing something to be put into practice, but something that has occurred and he's trying to explain it.
Interesting.
Bordiga's work on class perspectives are very interesting, especially when he breaks it down into history unravelling itself as opposed to trying to deal with an infinite stratigraphic approach derived from a "snapshot" of a given place at a given time. He mentions somewhere that even members of the working class will uphold capitalism, which is true; what that does, however, is negate your explanation of denying only class collaboration, surely? Bordiga, to my understanding, says that the only way to define a proletarian from a labourer is that the former belongs to the communist organisation, and from there reject any form of unity with those who support capitalism. His class analysis is, at least to me, correct; but his conclusions seem, to me again, to be too "we are right because [x] and you should listen to us or you'll be a victim to our force" etc. Again, I may be wrong.
Left communism isn't one set of ideas. German/Dutch and Italian are very different traditions. Bordiga has not been widely translated into English.
I would say Italian Left communism is more important currently because its is involved in working class movements - strikes, etc. Which is not true for the German/Dutch left and unlikely to be involved.
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I knew that much, but I haven't read a huge deal of Pannekoek or Mattick yet. From what I know though, Pannekoek's examples of "spontaneity" are derived from workshops wherein the labourers were already highly organised; so that, to me, definitely negates the object and meaning of "spontaneous". But I may be wrong.
Why is Bordiga so huge within the left-communist currents? Also, what are the justifications for "revolutionary totalitarianism"? Why should every be subject to a party defined by a meritocratic — or, organically centralised — framework?
Revolutionary totalitarianism is simply the use of force - how ever that occurs - to defend the new order against the old one.
I spoke with three black students earlier today. They were talking about the injustices of society, one of which was how any job that benefits the community paid ridiculously low.
They sounded anti-capitalist, so I asked if they were communists. They collectively responded in horror, “NOOOO!” I looked at each one just as shocked wondering why they were so surprised. They must have felt that I was accusing them of being evil, until I admitted I was one and proud of it.
One student asked what country I was from since communism seemed like something only foreign countries would embrace. I told him I wasn’t a foreigner and that I was from California. We then talked about how I converted to a communist.
They threw all the clichés at me: Russia, China; “It’s good in theory;” “means of production owned by the government;” etc. I clarified what it really was and told them that everything they had learned about it was intentionally misleading b/c it was in the ruling class’s interest to distance us from it so that we would stick with the status quo.
I also said to look into Left Communism, urging them not to confuse it with Marxism-Leninism. I stressed not to go down the ML route.
They seemed genuinely curious, and I hope to have converted them today.
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Russia, China
If someone references actually existing socialism, drop that hot potato into the water by counterreferencing disagreement among Marxists regarding it. Immediately.
It’s good in theory
Which theory? Marx's theory? Marxist theory? Communism is simply what happens when the proletariat successfully takes us past capitalism. However that happens depends on (1) who the proletariat are, and (2) the point of departure.
means of production owned by the government
Reference the heterogeneity of Marxism like above, but then this time emphasise that government control means nothing because (1) the average person does not govern, so they'll be alienated from the production process, and (2) even if they did, the way the political economy works would fundamentally be the same.
[BONUS 1] What's the point?/Revolutions have failed/the end of history
Okay, now what about all the slave revolts that failed before the final ones? What about all the sit ins and strikes people had to do to force the state to concede human rights? What about capital makes it so impregnable?
Further, environmental crises due to unprecedented anthropogenic climate change puts pressure on the idea that capitalism can last forever, or even much longer.
[BONUS 2] But scarcity!
Actually, we have seen the productive forces taking a toll on capitalist relations for a long time. Post-industrial automation, renewable energy, mass printing modular and printed fabrication (I can build a custom computer using premade parts and then 3D print the case for it), f'ing logistics and worldwide telecom make scarcity less and less of a problem. Intellectual property, planned obsolescence, appropriation of the commons into “the sharing economy” (yuck!), the occasional war to revalorise unit commodities and the creeping commodification of everyday life are capital's response. Clearly, it is a matter of overcoming the irrational social relations that hamper this development.
[BONUS 3] Communism means waste!
Not if
scarcity is a non-issue,
commodity production is abolished (wasted product and wasted talent), and
there exists a free association of equal planners
However that happens depends on (1) who the proletariat are, and (2) the point of departure.
What do you mean by "who the proles are"? What additional characteristic is of import other than being a prole?
The identitarian questions. Obviously, having a feminine, multinational, more or less abled proletariat of colour changes the transitional programme. It places issues of aggression against organised misogynists, racists and disableists closer to the forefront.
I see your point, but isnt the proletariat today basically every sort of identity that isnt related to class? You know, global. And if you agree, why would that change?
Thanks for the response.
isnt the proletariat today basically every sort of identity that isnt related to class?
Yes. However, it is disproportionately composed of oppressed groups, such as aforementioned.
And if you agree, why would that change?
Hopefully the composition balances (i.e. fewer people are bourgeois and more and more people shed their class condition) so that there are no excuses to exploit anyone for any reason, so that at the end of our reign, we can confidently say that the class composition of the proletariat is N/A.
personally i dont like this whole "converted" talk, it does make communism sound more like a cult than anything. but good for them if they want to look into it. though i feel bad for them as well, once they actually see all those odd leftist groups and orgs...
https://hatfulofhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/spart-nk.jpghttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/2402165916_cb5bbf28d7_o.jpg
Converted was a poor choice of word. I never said to them, "I hope I converted you."
I did clarify to them that the USSR and others weren't socialist, and emphasized to avoid ML.
I did clarify to them that the USSR and others weren't socialist, and emphasized to avoid ML.
sure, but im also sure they will encounter those people sooner or later, especially since they are way more numerous than leftcoms as an example.
I normally don't say I'm a communist unless the situation calls for it (like, when I'm arguing with fucking middle class student fucks who think socialism means keeping the pre-existing welfare system + free bus passes). I don't think it's important, not right now anyway.
What's the negative in revealing it? And when would be the right time to reveal it?
What's the negative in revealing it?
Unfortunate connotations. It's like 'revealing' anything that might be taken as shady or shifty or whatever. There's a right time, a right place, and if you don't see it then wait until you do. Preferably until it actually matters—not in the supermarket, for instance—and until you can dispel any relation to that image or any like it.
I understand it's not something that should be announced carelessly to anyone.
Thanks for the clarification.
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The Left should embrace the struggle for a federal constitution.
Ug, maoists are bad enough but Jacobin is worse.
What would you suggest to remove caste?(sorry if I'm crude).
I'm not an expert, but do you think that a federal constitution is going to end the caste system? Discrimination against caste is written into the Indian constitution but the phenomenon still remains.
I frankly do not see any hope out anywhere. The justifications from the Nepali side basically amount to IF WE TREAT THESE CASTES BETTER INDIA WILL ANNEX US.
Nepali people are probably the most ignorant chutiyas out there!
They don't understand that China is on the other side and thats now how geopolitics work!
And you would think that if those castes were properly represented it would prevent them from turning to India for help and they would be strongly united Nepali.
Also, what is appalling is how I was looking around media sources on Facebook and I saw chutiya Nepalis speaking about how x should be done regarding JNU and stuff while when we just gave just a TINY bit of criticism, they were like "FUCK OFF INDIA! AWAR INTERNAL AFFAIRS DHOTI RAPISTS!"
Whereas now they are doing the same. Hypocrites basically.
Sounding a bit racist (nationalist?) against Nepalis there.
Maybe they should STFU for once and maybe tempers will be less flared up.
Do you just go around Reddit looking for threads about Nepalis or are you actually interested in left communism?
Actually interested. But not the pseudo-Communism that India and Nepal follows.
Gotcha, sorry for assuming.
Yeah, that's why my tempers are so flared up.
Also, if you look at a very particular event in India that happened just a few days ago, you would be too.
What happened?
Long story
Well, why do you think the brain behind a lot of the provisions in the Indian constitution who was behind a lot of the reformatory efforts to end caste discrimination---his slogan to the them downtrodden castes eas "Educate,Organize,Agitate!"?
Crucially, the Indian state also seems to have imposed trade restrictions on their side of the border. Although the Indian government has officially denied that it has imposed a blockade, it is clear that they have been constricting flow of goods, particularly of petroleum products. With that, the crisis that was once concentrated in the south has now gripped most of the country.
Fucking morons.
So I was looking through my highlighted copy of On the Jewish Question and I came across this:
At times of special self-confidence, political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite, civil society and the elements composing this society, and to constitute itself as the real species-life of man, devoid of contradictions.
I had noted it with the caption "fascism?" Of course, fascism didn't exist when Marx was alive, but could this be itself a defintion of fascism? where the state attempts to become the "real species-life of man, devoid of contradiction?" The latter part particularly sounds like the fascist concept of building a class collaborative society, particularly when Hitler declared that Germany was classless because they were all united as Germans.
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I think what is meant by this is that all polity aspires "to constitute itself as the real species-life of man, devoid of all contradictions". It isn't a good definition of fascism because that is not a characteristic exclusive to fascism. Of course fascism stresses this idea of removing the contradictions of society, but that same idea can be found in most political thought just with varying intensity.
I haven't read On the Jewish Question, it has to be said, so this'll lack all context.
the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity --Mussolini
As a description it seems to fit quite nicely. Whether it could be used as a definition is harder to say with any certainty. I suppose the question would be whether the state attempting to become the "real species-life of man, devoid of contradiction", if the conditions are right, always implies fascism. Otherwise it'd be a description of the capitalist state in general, to one degree or another.
I suppose that's an interesting question in itself. Does political life always seek to suppress civil society, given the opportunity? Exactly what that would mean eludes me. We don't live in a classless society, obviously, but neither did Hitler's Germans.
Still, we are implicitly told that we're all equal aside from the number in each person's bank account. Quantitative differences, never qualitative. Class is swept under the bed in both states, one way or another. It's worth more thought, but I don't know enough to come to any real conclusion.
It should be viewed in the context of Hegel's philosophy of the right and Marx's critique of it (which he wrote just before, like a month or two) . As such, I don't think it has anything specifically to do with fascism but to bourgeois states in general. And I think that in this case it's talking about the revolutionary dictatorship of France as it expelled religion and other institutions from itself only to be reintegrated in some fashion later. I think that Marx probably considered the state to act in an independent way.
Could it not be more bonapartism in general as opposed to fascism in particular?
Bonarpartism is considered proto-fascism no?
But I didn't mean fascism in particular, as fascists define it or as fascism existed by those who called themselves fascist, but what could be said to be a broader perhaps sociological definition of fascism.
... The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
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That you shouldn't lie to people about being a communist such as trying to trick people into socialism with front groups like many trots, supporting "national liberation" movements, and so on. The anonymity is in reference to the disdain for cults of personality.
Ironically, the Cabral quote
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories
means essentially the same thing.
It means essentially what is said. You can hide who you are but not what you're for.
[deleted]
Hello there i'm the glorious leader of the party for rape cover-ups and anti-imperialism, would you like to hear the MLM-ABCDEFG position on the illegal occupation of europe by indo-"europeans"?
Hello there i'm from the international communist current, we'd like to help you help yourself.
I'm not saying don't use your name but you get the point.
[deleted]
Exactly. A movement with a head is weak anyways
Says the guy kicked out of multiple countries and wanted by secret police everywhere... Haha
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Pretty interesting article on the role of the left current in the Polish communist movement during the revolutionary period, in particular through two founding members of the KPRP (Władysław Kowalski-Grzech and Henryk Stein-Domski, though Domski became more centrist over time), and how this current was suppressed and expelled by other party members and the Comintern during the rise of Stalin and the 'Bolshevisation' of Communist parties.
Also, this part is pretty interesting:
After an unsuccessful uprising in Kraków, in which the party failed to make an intervention, doubts began to arise regarding the tactics of the leadership of the 3Ws...
This failure was so bad that even ol' Uncle Joe took notice:
In July 1924, at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, Stalin joined the chorus by condemning the Polish leadership for their soft stance on the Trotskyites and the Brandlerites and called the party to ‘reorganise its central committee at the forthcoming congress or conference.’
Another good example of how the "professional vanguard" has a tendency to fall far behind the actual proletariat during revolutionary periods.
I personally think that it's a terrible idea. They're only different than fiat currency in a few ways that do not completely address the problem of money. What does everyone here think? Is there already a hashed-out leftcommunist position on labor vouchers?
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I often entertain the idea that there might be a sort of intermediate form between the labor voucher system and complete free access to all goods and services. Possibly a "ticket" system where, once you complete the daily/whatever mandatory labor hours, then you do get free access to goods and services for the remainder of whatever time-period. That said, I don't have a problem with the usual labor voucher system in the lower-phase of communism. They can't be accumulated and there thus can be no "economic" activity based purely around speculation (no stocks, interest, etc).
We must keep in mind, as Marx pointed out, we don't get to choose to just implement what we think is perfect immediately. Society doesn't develop that way. Society will develop in a way that shows its history. The society established during the revolution will still be heavily influenced by the one it destroys. "What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
We are materialists precisely because we study how society develops based on the forces and relations of production (and how the superstructure is shaped by, and maintains this), it would make no sense for us to abandon our understanding of how society actually operates simply because we can possibly conceive of a better configuration (this is what distinguishes us from the Utopian socialists). As such, the system established by the revolution will, at first, look like the old one in many ways, the important thing though is the change in the relations of production. This is what will eventually clear away the remnants of capitalist society in every nook and cranny. In the meantime though, an intermediary system of some kind is unavoidable, even if it doesn't last for very long (which it probably won't, dialectics shows us how change happens rapidly and abruptly).
"Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another."
It isn't because I think this is the best possible system that I consider it a part of the communist program, it is because it is a result of the scientific study of society, and I haven't seen an alternative given that is based upon the same kind of study.
I don't think it's Utopian to see labor vouchers as not truly socialistic. It's the same way it's not Utopian to call the USSR "state capitalist."
If you could explain what these things have to do with each other I might be able to respond better?
There's a difference between labour money, which everyone seems to think what labour vouchers are, and labour certificates. This article has some interesting points
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I never really liked these English translations of Bordiga. There's even a typo in the first sentence of this one.
Is it just things like typos, syntax, and grammar, or are there limitations serious enough to make it difficult to come away with a good interpretation of Bordiga's words?
They're mostly good enough approximations it's just that they're usually written half backwards compared to the Italian, which I think in some instances makes it a little harder to read than it should be in English. In some instances the English has been taken from German or French and they are also sometimes lacking stuff in the Italian originals. There is supposedly a selected works of Bordiga coming out if it gets crowd funded so that would be interesting.
MP3 of the event can be found here: http://audioarchiv.k23.in/Referate/Christoph_Plutte-Paul_Mattick_im_Gespraech.mp3 (length: 1h15m)
There was a reading of this book in March 2015 in Bremen, Germany that some of you who understand German might enjoy. More info about the event: here.
The reading included original audio material from the interview between Paul Mattick and Michael Buckmiller. In it, Mattick talks about council communism, workers' strikes, his exile in the US and a lot more.
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Paul Mattick is great! For everyone who doesn't understand German, you can read large parts of the interview in this book:
Danke Genosse
Hey all, I'm a relatively newly self-identified socialist who's still trying to learn about a few tendencies, so I'd like to ask a few questions about left communism. This is by no means an exhaustive list and I expect I'll return with more questions in the future. Feel free to skip any questions you'd like, and please forgive me for any faux pas -- I'm still learning and I just wrote some of these questions.
This is all I have for now, though I'm sure I'll have follow ups. Thanks for the help.
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1 Qutoing Engels
The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason', as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state." (Pp.177-78, sixth edition)
The state is the outcome of a society in struggle with itself. It is an apparatus that seeks to channel class struggle down harmless routes, to keep the status quo and to suppress other classes. This is tge basic outline but some pep le have some different ideas.
2 For instance, I wouldnt call the dotp a state as it doesnt fulfil this historic function. It is the solution of class society, not the end result. Engels:
so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist.We would therefore propose replacing the state everywhere by Gemeinwesen, a good old German word which can very well take the place of the French word commune." (pp.321-22 of the German original.)[3]
But regardless, the dotp is the vehicle that destroys class society and smashes the state. It should be highly centralised and organized into soviets. Bureaucracy is the product of class society.
3 this will consist of slight differences. Im more party oriented so that I tbink that the mist advanced sections of the working class has to be organized into a party that intervenes in the struggles of the working class and its orfanizations, giving things a marxist explanation.
4 At different times different organizational structures will be required. But the class component has to always be taken into account such as the distinction between bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy/dictatorship. I dint think that the party should be open to just anyone however.
5 ml and mlm are petite bourgeois ideological justifications for the state capitalist nature of the social relations and regimes they grew out of. Ml is social democracy with bayonets.
6 anarchism is another petite bourgeois reaction to capital that often is idealist and utopian in nature, and most of the time rejects class as being the motivator of history
7 the russian revolution was party of the world wide series of revolutionary activity of the proletariat, and the only one to succeed in smashing their state ans seizing power. As the international situation worsened and the bolsheviks had to take command of the economy during the civil war, capitalist tendencies began to again take over.
8 third worldism only exists on the internet
9 unions are a part of capitalist society with the role of managing the worker/boss relation, often in reactionary ways.
10 ict and icc 11 being a left com is a lot of work and many of them are drunks
12 dunno. Talking to other left coms and reading marx?
9 unions are a part of capitalist society with the role of managing the worker/boss relation, often in reactionary ways.
What is your opinion on Fight for 15 and other battles for better (short-term) conditions for workers?
3 this will consist of slight differences. Im more party oriented so that I tbink that the mist advanced sections of the working class has to be organized into a party that intervenes in the struggles of the working class and its orfanizations, giving things a marxist explanation.
In what ways would this differ from an ML Vanguard party?
Thanks for the help.
Issues around wages are where the communist movement, that is the movement of the working class towards its own emancipation, springs forth from. The problem with trade unions is that they keep this struggle economic abd thus not communist, with no desire to overcome wage labour. Marx writes in value price and profit
Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.
And in the same text
the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"
Engels repeats these sentiments in two articles, in a maybe more clearer way, in A Fair Day's Wages for a Fair Day's Work and The Wages System in vol 24 of the collected works.
And in regards to Stalinist vangaurd, it hardly constitutes itself as the historical party in practice. Nowhere has it been a part of a revolutionary movement of the proletariat. The vanguard thing is just taken straight from Marx in the manifesto, hence the lip service. The Stalinist party is substitutionist in that it puts itself in place of the proletariat, which is especially true of maoists. This stems again from the ideological need of acting against the communist movement with the creation of the soviet state (on capitalist terms). Maoism also but more particularly as the communist party there had practically zero proletarians in it and having a social base in the peasantry. I met an old stalinist who thought of the proletariat as children that had to be disciplined trying to justify with an out of context Engels quote.
What are some good leftcom 101 readings?
I found it useful to read Lenin's Left Wing Communism and immediately follow with Herman Gorter's response.
I've seen Bordiga vs Pannekoek, Karl Marx and the State, and Left Communism and its Ideology recommended as well.
The other links on the sidebar are also useful.
There's also Bordiga's critique of Lenin's "LWC" here.
Thanks
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This is a response from the Communist Workers Organization to the Socialist Party of Great Britain's pamphlet, What's Wrong with using Parliament?
There was a CWO-SPGB debate, it's on audio on the SPGB site. Pretty fun.
<3 SPGB
What's the difference exactly? Why did the bourgeoise develop when it did as opposed to earlier? The same basic productive relations of commodity production and wage-labor existed in ancient markets as in modern ones (though maybe not as widespread), right? I know the British Marxist historians did a lot of writing on the subject but I'm interested in your take on it.
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I can't give an authoritative overview of the Brenner debate, but I can touch on a few broad, interrelated features that limited the scope of commodity relations in pre-capitalist epochs:
Generalized commodity exchange needs the M in [M-C-P...-C-M} - a lot of it. And while basically every economy throughout the ancient and medieval world had currencies, they often didn't predominate, if for the simple reason that these economies simply didn't have sufficient metallic reserves, or an understanding of monetary management, to render money-commodity exchange the predominant mode of exchange. This is why mercantilism, and the discovery of metal deposits in the Americas, are often cited as key developments in the history of early capitalism. This in turn meant that there were...
Thus, these societies had developed a number of ways to coordinate reproductive labor that did not utilize money. Slavery is an obvious example. Corvee labor is another. The relatively economically-independent peasant homestead is another. Additionally, most states during these periods took taxes in kind (agricultural produce) or in the form of labor, from the agricultural communities that consituted most of human social and economic activity. This is important because of...
So-called "natural" economies are localized agricultural economies, centered around centers of handicraft production (i.e., towns), which produced the tools and specialized goods necessary for the community's functioning. Depending on the place and era, money was not absent in these economies, but just as if not more often debt accounts and payment-in-kind were the predominant modes of exchange, if not straight up traditional non-exchange modes of economic distribution. Commodity exchange simply didn't have much a role to play in these economies. Thusly...
The upshot of all of this is that where we do see commodity exchange (e.g. the robust Mediterranean trade of the Roman Empire), it's usually between these "natural" economies. Think of the Parthian traders, or the Silk Road - these early forms of mercantile commodity exchange existed to link together disparate communities of producers which, internally, did not rely too much on money-commodity exchange. This continues all the way into the Mercantilist era, where the first forms of commodity capital took the form of goods procured form other ports.
A combination of relatively scant money supplies, economies adapted to non-monetary conditions, and highly naturalized non-monetary economies and taxes mostly restricted commodity production to a limited, inter- rather than intra-community role. This would not change until things like money supply, agricultural productivity, productivity of mercantile transport, increased the power of the commodity classes and made the commodification of agricultural activity itself a predominant condition, which of course kicks off primitive accumulation and the whole genesis of the capitalist system.
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The same basic productive relations of commodity production and wage-labor existed in ancient markets as in modern ones (though maybe not as widespread), right?
Not really. The term "earlier historical epochs" covers a lot of different modes of production and relations to production. The main obstacle really was the primitive technique in production. Commodity production when it did exist, wasn't the main reason for production. Commodities only came to be exchanged when there was a surplus, after the household needed to be taken care off. This household could have included a large number of people and industries by the way, including the family, slaves, artisans, poets, etc. The real main hurdle and reason as to why capitalism wasn't a dominant social force in say ancient Rome was because of the slave system. No wage-labour, no capitalism. It was certainly the case that banks, money, and piecemeal work existed, but this wasn't the dominant mode of production, and the primitive proletarian elements didn't constitute a major class if they existed at all. But none of these things drove ancient society.
But none of these things drove ancient society.
I get that part. I'm asking what exactly changed to make commodity production the dominant social productive relation. How and why did that change occur and why did that change occur when it did and not earlier or later? Specific examples like what productive forces needed to be developed?
lots of interlinked processes were underway which paved the way for the genesis and development of capitalism. Increased agricultural techniques indicative of the agricultural revolution (such as crop rotation) meant that a larger non-agricultural class could emerge and exist stably. This together with enclosures throwing previously self-sufficient peasants off common land meant the conditions existed for wage-labour on a large scale. Concomitantly those enclosures gave resources to landlords who were developing a capitalistic mentality of rent seeking and speculation (mercantilism and the profits commodity exchange brought spilled out into land, progressively destroying the old society based in it to be replaced with a land of cities). These early capitalist landlords saw land as a source of profit thus further increasing the rate of privatisations. This itself was only possible due to the increased prevalence of money due to colonial exploits. Similarly slavery gave the basis for increasingly profitable ventures as rich farmer, often originally mercantilists in the towns, returned their to utilise and develop commodities born of slavery together with the growing population of landless labourers. This is just a basic overview of some of the conditions required and processes underway. See The English Revolution 1640 by C. Hill for more.
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I thought this was a decent piece. It's a good historical account, but ultimately it falls a bit flat for me because it doesn't really make any theoretical critiques except for a few small quips in passing. I'd prefer a lengthy philosophical work instead.
Yeah, I assumed by its title that it was a theoretical critique, but that isn't the case. Do you know of any in depth critiques of Maoism?
Is there an English version of that?
Um I'll have a look. If its not on that site then it probably doesnt exist. Maybe parts of ithave been translated and used in other articles.
just laugh then direct them to his memoir called The Future Lasts Forever where he confesses to being "a trickster and deceiver" who never read Capital, and who sometimes invented quotations to suit his own purposes.
"In fact, my philosophical knowledge of texts was rather limited. I [...] knew a little Spinoza, nothing about Aristotle, the Sophists and the Stoics, quite a lot about Plato and Pascal, nothing about Kant, a bit about Hegel, and finally a few passages of Marx."
"I had another particular ability. Starting form a simple turn of phrase, I thought I could work out (what an illusion!), if not the specific ideas of an author or a book I had not read, at least their general drift or direction. I obviously had certain intuitive powers as well as a definite ability for seeing connections, or a capacity for establishing theoretical oppositions, which enabled me to reconstruct what I took to be an author's ideas on the basis of the authors to whom he was opposes. I proceed spontaneously drawing contrasts and distinctions, subsequently elaborating a theory to support this."
Sounds quite familiar, does it not?
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Bear in mind that Althusser had manic depression throughout his life and the condition affected the way he perceived his own work. Quotes like this can't be taken as definitive statements on his contribution to philosophy - treating them as such would be very ironic.
Agreed. Most of these seem very self-deprecating and try to cast himself in a negative light more than anything.
That's my take on this. I mean, hell, he did coauthor a book specifically about reading Capital.
And anyone who has actually read Capital would understand that there was no epistemological break between the young and mature Marx.
zing
What contribution? It was just Stalinism codified.
That doesn't prevent Althusser from being a sham and with anyone supporting his ideas in a Marxist context do so out of ideological patriotism rather than from any sort of leg work of their own.
So you mean besides him strangling his wife and all?
what's a left-communist position on the content of his Marxist analysis/theory?
Seems very stalinish
but many anti-stalinists proclaim althusser's lineage + broken clock right twice a day n' all
He probably only had electro-convulsive therapy because somebody told him Lenin once said "Communism is Soviet power plus electrification."
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Great find I might have to get the book, the Marx myths site you posted a while ago should really be spread around the place, it has some invaluable information in it. And I found out it was Cyril Smith who made it, I've been reading a lot of his works recently.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/discuss.htm
This is another good page with discussion on Hegel and Marx between Cyril and Andy Blunden (Seems to be the person in charge of the MIA) and a few others.
Have you read Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques?
I haven't heard of them, from what I understand he was something of a philosophical dud. His death letter to Stalin is one of the most chilling things I've read, apparently Stalin kept it with him the rest of his life.
From my understanding this was his attempt at rectifying that.
http://thecharnelhouse.org/2015/05/01/nikolai-bukharin-on-the-criterion-of-practice-in-epistemology/
I haven't gotten around to reading them at the moment though.
Looks interesting, I doubt he will stray far from Lenin's mistakes though, it was hard for anybody to address the problems it looks like he was tackling without looking at Marx' work that has been published afterwards. If it's like Lukacs and Korsch books that he condemned then it should be worth a read, if only for what his take is on Engels 'dialectics of nature'.
Bukharin mentions The German Ideology and the 1844 manuscripts in the text. He also mentions that he's taking off from where Lenin began with the fragments he left behind on Hegel, so who knows.
I found the time to read the Philosophical Arabesques, if you haven't gotten around to reading them I'd advise you not to waste your time. Unfortunately although he attacks his previously held 'mechanical materialism' the argument is from the standpoint of crudely defined 'dialectical materialism', this includes all manner of superfluous discussion of what is meant by idealism vs materialism and why dialectical materialism is superior without really knowing what he's talking about. He seems to have read into German philosophy prior to Hegel (Fitche, Kant mostly) to mine concepts that may be relevant only to make us realise they are in fact some kind of nonsense or other.
It is interesting that he has spent a lot of time thinking about these issues and that was no doubt due to the state of circumstances, but at the same time rather sad, especially since he hangs onto Lenin and Stalin as the prime theoreticians of the ages. It feels like a desperate attempt to find out what went wrong but ends up only being a good example of what went wrong.
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Sounds like my kind of map.
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I found the sections on councilism very illuminating. They way the authors discuss the failure of Soviet Russia and council communism as something we can now learn from to help us understand both capitalism and communism.
Councilism replaced the Leninist fetishism of the party and class-consciousness with the fetishism of workers’ councils. The critique of both Leninism and ultra-leftism is now possible because the development of capitalism, and the struggles that question it, give us a better understanding of what communist revolution means.
To a certain extent I agree with the above. However, I wonder if all of that was really necessary. Why wasn't it already understood? Why did anyone ever have the delusion that capitalism in Russia was communism? Why was there not an imminent critique of councilism while it was being formed? Why have people failed to read Marx correctly over and over again?
The councilist's idea of the labour money is summarised as:
Its main principle is the “introduction of the Average Social Hour of Labour as a unit of economic regulation and control…. All money will be declared worthless and only labour certificates will give entitlement to social product. It will be possible to exchange this “certificate money” only at the cooperative shops and warehouses. The sudden abolition of money will bring about a situation in which, equally suddenly, all products must have their appropriate ASRT (Average Social Reproduction Time) stamped upon them.”
The author's criticism of the ASRT is:
Marx was in contradiction with himself when he presented social labour time as something different from and opposed to value, but his notes did not elaborate the idea into a full definitive plan. Council communism’s ASRT brings this contradiction to a stage where it is untenable: The bourgeois does not know what value is: he only bothers about profit, interest, or rent, and when economists discuss value, it is these three forms they are talking about, not Marxian value. Yet, according to council communists, the associated producers would be able to evaluate the individual and the collective physical-mental energy necessary to produce objects, and to measure that exertion in time. This is forgetting that labour time, because it is a social average, is hardly computable for a specific task or object. Value does exist, but not as a management technique instrument.
The idea derives from Marx:
in future, human beings will be conscious of what they do. At present, the bourgeois do not know what labour time amounts to, and they don’t want to know, because an accurate reckoning of labour time would reveal the extent of the exploitation of labour. Exact opposite in communism: in Marx’s view, associated producers will be able to compute the labour time necessary to whatever they manufacture. Marx repeatedly refused to draw blueprints for the future. So it is significant that when he did elaborate on the subject in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), his suggestion for the “lower phase” of communism, labour vouchers, amounted to value without money.
It seems that by splitting communism into the lower and higher order, Marx allowed capitalism in the back-door before it had even begun to leave. It allows for the now traditional split between reformist socialism and revolutionary communism. Was the Critique of the Gotha Programme just a complete screw-up by Marx?
I believe that someone wrote an article saying that Dauve got the councilists' views wrong. Maybe someone can find it before I do and post it before tomorrow.
I think this is the text you're talking about. https://libcom.org/library/marx%E2%80%99s-critique-socialist-labor-money-schemes-myth-council-communism%E2%80%99s-proudhonism
Has everyone who is participating got a copy of the new edition?
http://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=673
You might be able to find an ebook copy from some torrent sites (shouldn't be too hard to find, if you look).
Is this the new edition? https://libcom.org/library/eclipse-re-emergence-communist-movement
No, that version doesn't include the postlude and chapter 'Crash course in ultra-leftology' from the new version, and the three main essays there lack the apparently extensive revisions of the new version (they are the 1997 revisions or possibly 1973 originals). A PDF of the new edition was posted there but taken down. It's still hidden away there but I don't know whether linking to it is poor 'redditquette' or not...
Looks like that was posted in 2005. I think that's the Antagonism Press edition. The PDF definitely is.
To clarify: The page is a bastard hybrid of various versions - the 1974 foreword and two of the appendices are from the Black & Red edition. The preface is from a Japanese edition of a journal Dauve contributed to, in which an early version of 'Capitalism and Communism' featured (this version of 'Capitalism and Communism' does not exist in English, as far as I'm aware). The 'foreworld' was written specifically for the Antagonism edition. The three main articles are from the Antagonism edition, revisions of the 1974 edition. The appendix 'Note on Pannekoek and Bordiga' is also from the Antagonism edition, and is an extensive revision of 'Notes on Trotsky, Pannekoek and Bordiga' which was appendix to the 1974 B&R edition (a link to this older appendix is included on the libcom page). 'Value, Time and Communism' and 'The Bitter Victory of Council Communism' are drafts of articles included in the new PM Press edition, and were circulated last year by Dauve and added to the site by myself. There was a PDF of the PM Press edition uploaded a month or so ago, but libcom reverted it to an older PDF recently, presumably after the publishers complained. The PDF, epub and mobi files were made by another libcom user and contain all the aforementioned texts, minus 'Value, Time and Communism' and 'The Bitter Victory' which were added to the page after the files were made, and for some reason also minus the 1974 appendix 'Notes on Trotsky, Pannekoek and Bordiga'.
No it's not.
i have a pdf of the newest version if anyone needs it. not sure how to share it tho. dropbox or something?
anyway, is this happening in any strucured sort of way, like a reading group, or is it just open for discussing whatever one feels like?
open discussion i guess. i dont know who is reading this or how fast they are reading it
I'm in the midst of reading through it right now. Honestly though, it seems like 90% of the posts in this thread are people complaining about what version they're supposed to read instead of actually talking about the text.
I don't know what to say about the text though. There isn't much I disagree with. Actually, I can't remember. I'll need to read it again cause I've forgotten what I thought I knew.
Guess I'll share some after thoughts. So I liked the new rework but I have some mixed feelings about it still. I noticed he added some explanations of which in previous editions I felt were a bit a bit vague, which is a good thing. I also noticed he mashed (and even slatched) some of his some stuff and combined it into a new chapter on "ultraleftology". It's good but I felt what I liked about the previous edition is that it was concise piece. I'm not sure why he felt that it was important to go into more detail with Bordiga and the Dutch/German councilist but whatever. I noticed some new insights and analysis that's updated to the present day context which was something I was on the lookout for. Overall, I haven't decided whether I like the 97' edition better or this updated one.
Also, something I was kind of surprised about was he explicitly calls the former USSR state capitalist which is becoming more arguable in the left communist circles.
which is becoming more arguable in the left communist circles.
How do you mean?
Well tbh for myself, I've heard different back and forth arguments about whether the USSR was capitalist or not due to markets, value-form, etc.. (or lack there of, altered) and I don't really have a hand in it because it really isn't that important. But I've seen folks on FB (or even a little here: http://www.reddit.com/r/leftcommunism/comments/2spcv1/ussr_was_capitalist/ ) get themselves in disputes about it. Not sure if that is helpful explanation really.
Do you mean people arguing whether or not the USSR was capitalist or a "non-mode of production"?
can you be more clear what you mean? hasn't state capitalism been pretty standard analysis on the communist (ultra) left?
Red-rooster: Pretty much yes
Prole dreams: Well if I've been reading folk's comments incorrectly on the subject and no one is actually making those argument, then I stand corrected. Like I said, I don't make these arguments myself but I've noticed on appearances that some do.
hmmm. at least in my limited experience, I haven't come across any ultra leftists that disagree with the state capitalism analysis. I have heard of the non-mode of production though, but it seems that the small number of proponents of this theory don't seem to fit in with the communist left milieu. i'm probably wrong though.
Well, I've flipped through it. I've read much of it before and I still think that this is a good clear introduction and guide to communism and it's historical roundabouts. Some things aren't as great such as the section on crisis, even if it sort of gets to the point but not really. I can't really comment on the sections regarding the German-Dutch left as I haven't really read much and much of it is in German which isn't a language that I can speak well. The introductions were a bit laborious though. Capitalism and Communism is a text that I will recommend to people to read, there's an edited version on the side bar.
When one looks at the history of Marxist-Leninism, what they have to look back on are dictatorships and purges. While there are obviously revisionist attempts to make the USSR look better than it actually was, that is usually post-conversion rationalizing rather than something any unbiased observer would believe.
Meanwhile, there is a relatively libertarian strain of communism supported by various Left Communists that seems far more appealing to just about anybody who likes Marxism but likes having their freedoms protected too.
Why then does Marxist-Leninism persist? Certainly the theory can't be that appealing, in practice it is horrifying, so what keeps it alive?
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When one looks at the history of Marxist-Leninism, what they have to look back on are dictatorships and purges. While there are obviously revisionist attempts to make the USSR look better than it actually was, that is usually post-conversion rationalizing rather than something any unbiased observer would believe.
I think you make a good point here as to post conversion rationalising. I suspect that many newcomers to ideologies like 'marxism leninism' have either an impressionable or skeptical view of the world, and arrive at these groups and have their light bulb moment where everything makes sense. Once you're in, discrepancies and contradictions are masked over by this process of distraction and revision of history. Along with a mutilation of the theory-speak so that the words correspond to the ideals, rather than language to object as in materialist theory, if that makes sense.
Meanwhile, there is a relatively libertarian strain of communism supported by various Left Communists that seems far more appealing to just about anybody who likes Marxism but likes having their freedoms protected too. Why then does Marxist-Leninism persist? Certainly the theory can't be that appealing, in practice it is horrifying, so what keeps it alive?
I think you sort of answered your own question with your great point above but from what I can see another big element of this phenomenon is the legacy of 20th century ideology and its place in the 21st. Stalinism has been pretty dead throughout most of the world for a while now, but I think that places where it persists are also the same places where the old politics of the last century fit in most appropriately, as far as politics goes. Th
I'll admit, this is just conjecture on my part and drawing on my own experience with stalinism and the like. I'd like if if others could add some critique to the discussion
It persists because it is the reflection of a certain class struggle, the petite-bourgeoisie. The left communist factions and parties were closer to the actual communist movement, and they still attract individuals from this communist movement. Then you have your tankies here where they just decide to be a stalinist to begin with, probably to annoy their parents, then they have to back track to actual stalinist positions. Regardless of how we feel about the subject, most people's introduction to communism and Marxism will be through the USSR and the prism of it's own, and it's ideological enemies, propaganda and self reflection. There's also the issue of where you start your communist career, which probably for most anarchists and stalinists would be when they are in education, as compared to more regular people in an organic way through working class struggles.
Regardless of how we feel about the subject, most people's introduction to communism and Marxism will be through the USSR and the prism of it's own, and it's ideological enemies, propaganda and self reflection.
I think this is the most important bit
On a practical level, Left Communism basically lost out to Marxism-Leninism during the revolutionary movements of the 20th century. It is a dissident faction of a dissident movement, and so its been extra suppressed when compared to other tendencies. The distinctions that make up Left Communism as an ideology are a bit more subtle and distinct when compared to something like anarchism. It also lacks the cultural cache associated with anarchism which has been connected to things like punk rock. I imagine that because of this, for someone who is interested in a critique of capitalism but has been put off by the direction that the communist movement took in the 20th Century, the anarchist tradition would seem like a better place to start.
It’s people with this skeptical view of the world that see an explanation, in this case Marxism Leninism, and jump to it as “the answer” while ignoring or rationalizing flaws in it. Stalinists like to cry about Western propaganda warping the truth about Stalin while simultaneously glamorizing him and ignoring the fact that Stalin had plenty of propaganda himself. When it’s media from the West, it’s obviously biased and distorted propaganda. When it’s media from your own sources...
It’s this ‘conspiracy theorist’ mindset, that ‘question everything’ mentality, that drives people to subscribe to ideals like this. And once they've got that ingrained in their brains, there’s probably not a huge chance they’ll regress.
And then there's the problem that all the most well known examples of "communism" are the USSR, North Korea, China, etc. So when the people above mentioned look to new, different ideals, specifically when they go looking for communism, they're going to see those ones first. These two things coupled together are a deadly combination, and unfortunately all too widespread. I just wish the people drawn to Stalinism out of their 'question everything' mentality would learn to question just that...
Because Marxism-Leninism is the only expansion of Marxism whose tactics have actually accomplished anything. Left-communism in Germany led to Hitler.
Meanwhile, there is a relatively libertarian strain of communism supported by various Left Communists that seems far more appealing to just about anybody who likes Marxism but likes having their freedoms protected too.
So left communism is liberal communism? This is also very idealistic saying that left communist rhetoric could actually accomplish anything and people should be left-communists because of the promises that left-communism offers.
Left-communism in Germany led to Hitler.
Not directly, at all, let us not forget the clear failings of the official Communist Party, which was Marxist-Leninist, in the run up to German fascism.
So left communism is liberal communism?
There is a distinction between libertarianism and liberalism, one is an ideology in and of itself, the other is affixed to another to offer a certain interpretation.
Funny you say left-communism in Germany led to Hitler considering I've met Fascists who consider Marxist-Leninism or "Bolshevik Fascism" as I've heard them call it, generally to be ideologically compatible with their beliefs. The Horse Shoe Theory may be a myth, but as it turns out all dictatorships are alike, including Leninist ones.
On top of that, the Comintern's official policy of labelling Social Democrats to be "Social Fascists" divided the left in most countries within Europe. This divided opposition, treating the rest of the left as the true enemy, left Fascism the room it needed to take hold in Germany, then Spain and Portugal.
Leninism and Left Communism both have a very small toe-hold in the modern world so it can't really be argued that Leninism has an advantage in that respect (yes, there may be Leninist parties in strong positions but Libsoc groups are also doing quite well in Kurdistan, Central America, etc). My point was that it seems baffling for me that Leninism would remain in such a position when we live in a culture that values freedom, something most Left Communists leave a lot more room for than Leninists.
Leninism and Left Communism both have a very small toe-hold in the modern world
In the modern first world. There are revolutionary Leninist parties all over the first world. Countries like Palestine, India, and others have not only Marxist-Leninist parties actively fighting against their governments, but MLM parties as well.
when we live in a culture that values freedom, something most Left Communists leave a lot more room for than Leninists.
Specifically liberal bourgeois "freedom." You've just outed yourself as a first-world chauvinist.
This is the thing about left communism: I found it appealing myself when I first turned to Marxism, because I saw the USSR and thought, "why would I want this when my life is so good, comparatively?" I eventually realized that the "freedom" I have in the US is directly related to the lack of freedom in other countries.
I realized that the state should be used to fight against reaction, and I also realized that the real world isn't going to live up to my ideals. This is why I'm a Leninist, and why I believe left communists, just like anarchists, are utopian.
As I mentioned, non-ML/MLM communists are also doing well in the modern world but not nearly mainstream globally, so I still believe my point has been shown.
I'm hardly a first-world chauvinist, but I see communists making the change they want to see in the world without resorting to authoritarianism. Consider the Zapatistas in Mexico, they verge on the anarchist and they are hardly first world, yet they'd be just as horrified by any of the actions of the USSR as I am. The USSR was never really communist, how it has somehow managed to rope so many in even without the USSR around to do it anymore I don't know.
Tell me, do real communist states have such massive power struggles between different branches of government (party, military, KGB)? Can this communist state survive if all it takes to challenge it is to show westerners enjoying that First World Chauvinism (1959 Expo in Moscow)?
While the revolution will certainly entail that those of us in the first world have to adapt to lower living conditions in order to compromise and make room for those in the worse conditions to get what they need, but that doesn't mean the government should intervene lie the USSR did - for its own gain.
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This is similar to a lot of the Class 1 railroads totally fucking the dog pre/during the pandemic. Just look at the posts in /r/railroading to see some of the shit.
Hello. I've got a few questions on a rather niche question that while ultimately is likely unimportant still remains a burning one. If possible, I'd like some pointers on how to address it. If there are clarity issues, please let me know. Apologies in advance if the discussion is unproductive, as it might be due to my incomplete understanding of some of these things mentioned. If it is as such, I will refrain from posting until I can come back with the advised required standard of knowledge to know when something is worth discussing.
I've had some exposure to a variety of ideologies recently in an attempt to find ways to explain why people should discard them in the case that in the future have the opportunity to gently help members of organised labour see capitalism and the bourgeoisie, rather than specific comically evil employers, as their adversaries. I've had the misfortune of being exposed on the regular to anarcho-capitalist rhetoric and some concepts of the Austrian school of economics. While this particular ideology remains rather obscure, its normative character and convenient explanation for all of society's ills do give it some potential to grow, and I worry that it might be taken up by workers who are on the path to strong consciousness but yet remain among the modern revulsion to words such as "socialism", "communism", and "communist party" and so on that see the Austrian school's promise of a libertarian and utopian market anarchy as more attractive then organizing labour for the purpose of agitating for higher wages.
There are two particular things from this grouping of thought that I tentatively see as causing problems due to their palatable and simple nature that, coming from a hyper-individualist moral framework, has significant appeal for the average individual facing struggles due to their class position. Here they are:
For the average person these would probably take the simplified form of "it's not real capitalism if it has a state" and "nothing except capitalism would 'work'". Due to their very simple nature, and the prevailing ideological aversion to Marxist concepts at the moment, I worry that these ideas, supported by a very vitriolic body of petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie intellectuals who see the wide adoption of their ideas as necessary for their implementation, have the capacity to act as an obstacle to people obtaining class consciousness by offering a prima facie plausible explanation for their problems based on a normative framework that simultaneously makes them resistant to Marxist analyses and answers for their problems, and aligns their ideological consciousness with the interests of capitalists.
My questions are thus:
On a side note, I'd like to thank the good posters here for the information and analysis they provide us, especially u/dr_marx and u/DrRedTerror. The commentary and investigation of real world labour movements and dispelling with some of the popular myths of Marxism have been very helpful in my attempts to attain an elementary understanding of what communism is and slowly move away from the "internet leftcom" stereotype.
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Why the concern over a hypothetical scenario involving a fringe ideology instead of the ideologies that historically have and continue to actually poison the labor movement?
This is without doubt the worst post that has ever appeared on this sub.
It definitely is in hindsight, and I hope people can get some tiny value out of seeing what’s wrong with it, even if it from it being another example of how out of touch young petty bougie university students often are in regard to these issues.
I hope people can get some tiny value out of seeing what’s wrong with it
Do you know what's wrong with it?
I have a general inkling, to the point that I pretty quickly regretted posting this. I misunderstood the nature of ideology and projected petty bougie concerns about it onto people who, as mentioned around here, won’t end up caring that much because they don’t have the luxury to be able to worry about such abstract time-wasters.
It’s mostly the university student bubble talking, I think. I can get some of the basics, and I’ve set aside time for reading Marx and Engels, but I don’t have any practical experience. Maybe in 5 years.
Goddamn University students must be bored during this pandemic.
Yeah, and our egos typically get inflated when we do much reading so it’s all the more spectacular when they get popped like what’s happened here.
I’ve got some time before I can gain practical experience so I’m going to be unhelpful around here for a long, long while. I’ll keep my head down until then.
I've had some exposure to a variety of ideologies recently in an attempt to find ways to explain why people should discard them in the case that in the future have the opportunity to gently help members of organised labour see capitalism and the bourgeoisie, rather than specific comically evil employers, as their adversaries.
Why do you think that "members of organised labour" need lecturing about who their adversaries are? Isn't it enough that they already practically pursue their interests? Why do you think that what you're doing has anything to do with the task of communists?
I've had the misfortune of being exposed on the regular to anarcho-capitalist rhetoric and some concepts of the Austrian school of economics.
An ideology that has absolutely no practical relevance even within the framework of ordinary bourgeois politics. Where could you be "exposed on the regular" to that "rhetoric", except on the internet?
While this particular ideology remains rather obscure, its normative character and convenient explanation for all of society's ills do give it some potential to grow, and I worry that it might be taken up by workers who are on the path to strong consciousness but yet remain among the modern revulsion to words such as "socialism", "communism", and "communist party" and so on that see the Austrian school's promise of a libertarian and utopian market anarchy as more attractive then organizing labour for the purpose of agitating for higher wages.
Ideology does not diffuse because of ideological reasons, but because of practical ones. Workers don't organise, or fight for higher wages because they believe in communism, but because it is the only way for them to fight for their needs. Communists don't "agitate for higher wages" or endlessly lecture about what workers ought to think - they aid already existing labour struggles so they can succeed, which necessarily involves more association among the proletariat.
Have you ever had a job? Most likely, you won't ever encounter a worker who believes in such nonsense, let alone a "member of organised labour", or a worker you describe as being "on the path to strong consciousness" (of what?).
There are two particular things from this grouping of thought that I tentatively see as causing problems due to their palatable and simple nature that, coming from a hyper-individualist moral framework, has significant appeal for the average individual facing struggles due to their class position.
I don't think you have any idea of what a class position is, or what problems ordinary people face.
Due to their very simple nature, and the prevailing ideological aversion to Marxist concepts at the moment, I worry that these ideas, supported by a very vitriolic body of petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie intellectuals who see the wide adoption of their ideas as necessary for their implementation, have the capacity to act as an obstacle to people obtaining class consciousness by offering a prima facie plausible explanation for their problems based on a normative framework that simultaneously makes them resistant to Marxist analyses and answers for their problems, and aligns their ideological consciousness with the interests of capitalists.
This is one single sentence. Hats off to the scholasticism, it's hard to top this post.
Is this scenario of a worker inhibited by these specific hyper-individualist ideologies even one worth addressing, in the sense that it's actually plausible enough to be a significant problem in the future?
No. The momentary opinions of the proletariat at large, let alone those of individual workers, are irrelevant. More, "anarcho-capitalism" is not even a thing among the bourgeois in the actual world. If it isn't widespread among the bourgeoisie, then how would it ever be able to take hold among workers, with how much more removed it is from their life and interests in comparison? It's an ideology for cranks and basement dwellers on the fringes of society. I don't know why anyone would take it seriously. It's like taking Ayn Rand seriously.
An explanation that AnCap would not be able to gain sufficient popularity among labourers for this to be a problem would be an excellent thing to hear.
Communism is the natural expression of the labour movement. It isn't a central matter to disseminate "correct opinions". Neither is it particularly important to combat ideology that might exist in individual workers by education, because they will shed it when practical, immediate successes help the class develop. Much less would it be possible to get the proletariat at large to adopt an ideology as alien and opposed to its interests as "anarcho-capitalism". There isn't any deep consideration necessary to understand this.
On the first of the two, it is common to see AnCaps dismiss proletarian concerns about wages and exploitation as existing only because of the state rather than capitalism itself.
If concerns about wages and exploitation are proletarian, then how would the proletariat buy into an ideology that dismisses the fight that practically demonstrates to alleviate them?
Seeing as the state within Marxism is seen primarily as a tool of class oppression
Communists don't view the state as a "tool".
it might be very easy for a person influenced by this belief to say "what if you just got rid of the state and kept capitalism?". Despite having gone on the look for critiques of AnCap, I have not found any literature providing a direct and detailed refutation to this claim from a Marxist perspective
You won't find one, because no one except morons completely detached from the real world care about this shit, and because anyone who has read any basic works by Marx could explain why this "claim" is nonsensical.
and would very grateful for any recommendations
Reading Marx and Engels wouldn't hurt.
While leftcoms are not specifically concerned with the specifics of how a post-revolution society might be organised, it seems that it might do more harm then good then to simply handwave concerns as is the norm (rightly so) when other "Marxist" ideologies try to press us for details on what economic systems we "should" impose on the labour movement.
There is no "us". Are you and I, or anyone else in this subreddit, or all the people that call themselves "leftcoms" on the internet, in some common organisation? No? Then why do you pretend that it would be that way?
When ideologies such as the Austrian school and AnCap deny the possibility that any non-market-based resource distribution could work, it seems in order to at least say at in a general sense that statement is wrong, so that we leave the questioner with the knowledge that some form of a non-capitalist society is feasible and will be discovered as a revolution progresses even if we give no specifics about it.
Again: there is no "we". No one right in their mind would waste their time with such debates. Only academics care about this. No proletarian fights because they believe "a non-capitalist society is feasible", and no proletarian ceases to fight because "the Austrian school and AnCap deny the possibility that any non-market-based resource distribution could work". Workers fight because they need to, to alleviate immediate problems that they have. They don't care about such abstract nonsense.
On a side note, I'd like to thank the good posters here for the information and analysis they provide us, especially u/dr_marx and u/DrRedTerror.
Go fuck yourself, no one needs this disgusting sycophancy. You are a good example of the degenerates we regularly make fun of. Just looking at your post history, I see that you participate in that retarded meme subreddit, and comment stuff such as this:
He is truly the most leftcom leftcom. Spend time writing essays on how other self-claiming leftcoms are actually stupid libtards, and also how the liberal leftcoms’ attempts to call libs lib is actually lib and dumb.
Truly the king.
I only just started reading this subreddit recently and the Doctor seems to be a good meme.
Hyperbolic for comedic effect you dum. Plus part of the conspiracy is that they might be alts.
Dr_marx writes long threads responding bit by bit to almost every aspect of a comment thread here with “lmao how stupid” with either a vague gesture to theory as if it were something we should be born knowing, or an extremely harsh explanation that fits the stereotype well. I’m guessing they’re probably correct on what they say but the mannerism is what is funny as per my above comment.
This was a mere two months ago. The audacity to then post this thread is truly something else.
The commentary and investigation of real world labour movements and dispelling with some of the popular myths of Marxism have been very helpful in my attempts to attain an elementary understanding of what communism is and slowly move away from the "internet leftcom" stereotype.
They haven't been helpful for anything with you, except for exchanging memes with more memes. I'll never understand how people who have never had a job can claim to be communists, much less how they never look into the subject they claim to be so passionate about. I can count the cases of people in this subreddit showcasing knowledge of Marx and Engels, or any independent, remarkable conclusions in one hand. The rest are a bunch of idiots who want to be told what to think, or what to reply in arguments.
Why do you think that "members of organised labour" need lecturing about who their adversaries are? Isn't it enough that they already practically pursue their interests? Why do you think this has anything to do with the task of communists?
lol I wonder in what reality a trade union member would start going on about anarcho-capitalism.
You know, there are idiots out there that consider the IWW a trade union. But I don't even think you'd find such nonsense among IWW members, as petty bourgeois as they might be at large.
I'm pretty sure that you would need more than one brain cell to qualify for nonsense
Loving the new brown mod hats, guys.
That's a feature by RES, highlighting users mentioned in the OP. It has nothing to do with Reddit itself, or moderators.
Shit, I'm an idiot then sorry lol. Thought it was an update to the sub because I noticed some other changes on the sidebar. Thanks for illuminating me. Also didn't notice you were mentioned in the OP because I didn't bother reading that enormous screed he wrote.
I noticed myself and had no idea what it was either. I first assumed it was some update to Reddit itself, because I had never seen it before. I simply googled it. On second thought though, it would be surprising for them to make changes to a design they want to phase out.
Ok, glad I wasn't alone in initial confusion then. Also, I'm guessing (or at least hoping) that they've decided to indefinitely forestall the phasing out of the "old reddit" design because so many users prefer it over the new design.
I'm hoping the same. The redesign is shit.
Glad we can agree on that. And while we're on this off-topic tangent, I was just wondering if you guys have any plans to re-do the CSS "subreddit style" for this sub?
No.
Understood. I suppose there is a benefit to me being disconnected from unions or work, and that’s that my errors can’t do much harm as long as I shut up. I do need these kinds of harsh realities, and they’re still relieving.
As for the certain meme subreddit, I had no clue about it anything at the time. I still don’t, evidently, but at least I know it now.
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Thank you. As much as I've rightly received flak for being clueless, having a response that deals directly with what to do in the scenario should it somehow occur (yours) and a response outlining why the scenario is incredibly unlikely to occur are both very useful and it's all been informative.
Their answer is wrong.
Was there anything useful to take from it at all, or does it only serve as another example of what shouldn’t be done?
The latter.
The commodity has existed before capitalism so not every commodity producing society is going to be capitalist. It doesn't make sense to condemn the USSR as capitalist for the existence of commodities, it was in a transition to communism and you can't abolish capital over night.
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That's a meme spread around by morons who have no idea what they're talking about. They use it as some sort of gotcha argument because it allows them to use to the first couple of chapters of Capital (probably the most they read) as some sort of authoritative argument, start blabbering on about the value-form or commodity-form, having no idea what that means, which becomes really obvious when they start throwing in labor vouchers.
People have absolutely no idea what was happening in the soviet union or what it meant when Stalin announced that it was socialism in one country. It being capitalist is of secondary importance. People who don't understand this don't understand Lenin, and it's amusing that these same people will pretend to be on the same side of him. And when people say that the dictatorship of the proletariat ceased to exist I doubt that anyone could point to the moment where that happened, they'll just repeat it.
The problem was that Russia was a country of peasants, of small proprietors. The dictatorship of the proletariat effectively ended and the counter revolution began when the Soviet state came to an agreement with the peasantry, when the Soviet state first began to give concessions to the peasants, then compromised with this petty property owner, the vast majority of the population. Even after the assault on them, the mass starvation, the collectivization, the Soviet state became the state of the small property owner. It became stuck in this primitive form of capitalism. There is nothing new in Stalinism, just go look at Marx's comments on Proudhon, and this legacy of dealing with peasants finds itself comfortably in the annals of bourgeois revolutions of China and south east Asia.
There is also the issue of the narrow national outlook that everyone apparently shares that rides along with this one, that people are also inanely oblivious to. The international perspective was abandoned for the nationalist one, but this was already something that existed within most of those who attended the comintern congresses and also people who were supposedly "on the left" within the Russian party. Bukharin being the really obvious one. Do people honestly think that he just switched one day? Nothing about him changed from the days before the revolution, to his shifting position on the left to the right. His conception of communism was within the narrow confines of the nation and he slid naturally into socialism in one country (which really means socialism in Russia). The same goes for Radek and a whole host of other people.
And, in true tradition of history finding itself being repeated, we see petty nationalists of petty bourgeois backgrounds today out there who proclaim allegiance to communism and espouse the ideas of Bukharin. If it wasn't so funny it would be quite pathetic.
The dictatorship of the proletariat effectively ended and the counter revolution began when the Soviet state came to an agreement with the peasantry, when the Soviet state first began to give concessions to the peasants, then compromised with this petty property owner, the vast majority of the population.
I don't get the impression that people understand how the phrase "revolutionary democratic-dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" carries a different meaning in different conditions, or how hammer and sickle came to symbolise Stalinism. I don't get the impression that people are able to think in terms of class forces at all. And I don't think they understand what permanent revolution means, either.
There is also the issue of the narrow national outlook that everyone apparently shares that rides along with this one, that people are also inanely oblivious to.
This is the crux of the matter. Almost all discussions on the Russian question treat it as confined to Russia, when the whole point was that it could not be solved within the boundaries of the nation. This is the case for anti-Stalinists of all stripes as well. The labour movement could not advance any further in Russia without outside help. Any merely national perspective practically meant to argue for the party to no longer represent the interests of the proletariat. There may have been possibilites to buy time for the Comintern without immediately destroying the party, but it's impossible to secure the rule of the proletariat locally indefinitely. This is why people interested in the question should read Bordiga's and the left's interventions at the 6th ECCI.
There is also the issue of the narrow national outlook that everyone apparently shares that rides along with this one, that people are also inanely oblivious to. The international perspective was abandoned for the nationalist one, but this was already something that existed within most of those who attended the comintern congresses and also people who were supposedly "on the left" within the Russian party. Bukharin being the really obvious one. Do people honestly think that he just switched one day? Nothing about him changed from the days before the revolution, to his shifting position on the left to the right. His conception of communism was within the narrow confines of the nation and he slid naturally into socialism in one country (which really means socialism in Russia). The same goes for Radek and a whole host of other people.
And, in true tradition of history finding itself being repeated, we see petty nationalists of petty bourgeois backgrounds today out there who proclaim allegiance to communism and espouse the ideas of Bukharin. If it wasn't so funny it would be quite pathetic.
To clarify, if Bukharin had all these issues from the beginning, why are multiple of his texts listed under the "Recommended Reading" section of this subreddit? Are these texts still useful despite his narrow conception?
To clarify, if Bukharin had all these issues from the beginning, why are multiple of his texts listed under the "Recommended Reading" section of this subreddit? Are these texts still useful despite his narrow conception?
If people can't make out the problems with his Imperialism and World Economy then they shouldn't be posting answers to anything here.
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Even when production/exchange exist without commodities (things produced to be exchanged), like within palace economies or feudal economies, production for use can easily transform into production for exchange.
What the fuck are you talking about?
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There are several lines in Marx explaining that Capitalism is the generalization of the commodity form, in contrast to earlier modes of production centered around subsistence and the corvée and whatnot, wherein only a surplus product would be sold on the market. There are additionally some lines about the burghers and their privileges being the antecedent of the bourgeoisie. Some more lines about the wage-labour relationship being the seed of Capitalism.
When you have to search for lines in Marx then you don't have an argument.
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Shop steward (is that the correct term?) furious. The result is a betrayal of the bus drivers
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The bus settlement: Ørjan voted yes, Øyvind voted no. Now both are sending a warning to employers
Bus drivers in both camps hope that employers understand that drivers will not accept more weak wage settlements.
- It was on the hanging hair that there was no strike again, so this must be a very strong signal to employers.
Ørjan Takle, bus driver and club leader in the Fellesforbundet in Tide Buss in Bergen, says.
He himself doubted a yes, and thus became among the 50.44 percent who ensured that there was no new bus strike in this year's collective bargaining agreement.
Background: Less than 100 votes decided the bus settlement. Now the drivers get a new salary
Almost 83 percent of the drivers, ie just under 10,000 members, have voted. Of them, 50.44 percent said yes to the result, while 49.56 percent said no, and thought that they had to go on a new strike to get an even better offer.
Lose money
Takle is fairly convinced that the drivers would lose financially by going on a new strike.
- But would it be worth it? What is certain is that a strike will draw our attention. People listen, and we have received enormous support for our situation, says Takle.
Still, he ended up putting a "yes" ballot in the ballot box.
- It is important to see the total. We probably need a little patience. When we make a new settlement in 1.5 years, we will be stronger than before this year's strike. Then we will see what has happened and whether the employers have approached our requirements. If they do not, it will soon be a new strike, says Takle.
Ahead of the referendum: Magnus (20) is a bus driver. He hopes for another strike
(The case continues below the picture)
YES: Bus driver Ørjan Takle in Bergen doubted until a yes in the vote, which ended with there being no new bus strike by the narrowest possible margin.
Show caption
Would strike wholeheartedly
The number of votes in the four unions covered by the bus agreement varied. In the two LO unions Fagforbundet and Fellesforbundet there was a no majority, while in Jernbaneforbundet (LO) and Yrkestrafikkforbundet (YS) there was a yes majority.
Less than 100 votes differed from yes.
Ørjan Takle says that he was in any case willing to follow the result. Had there been a majority for a new strike, he would have rolled up his sleeves and taken out the strike vest.
- Then I would go wholeheartedly into it, says Takle.
The bus drivers won the people's support: - In 13 years we have lost 40,000 in annual salary. We see this as a theft
Must blow frame
Fellesforbundet colleague Øyvind Selnes, driver of Vy Buss in Slemmestad, belonged to the scarce minority who voted no. He believes this year's wage settlement is the story of a lost opportunity for bus drivers.
- The previous settlement was extremely bad for us. Again, employers would not go beyond the limits. If we are ever to get closer to the average for industrial workers, as the goal is, we must go beyond the framework for the front subject, says Selnes.
He hopes the tiny majority is a signal employers notice.
- But I'm not safe. I fear that they will just continue as before.
Much read: Bus driver Geir Håvard and colleagues are at work 55 hours a week - but only get paid for just over 35
(The case continues below the picture)
VOTED NO: How are we ever going to approach industrial workers' wages without getting more than the limits from the front subject, asks bus driver Øyvind Selnes. He voted no to this year's settlement, but ended up in the minority.
Show caption
Strike would demand more
Even though Selnes voted no, he believes there should have been a solid no-majority if one were to have a successful, new strike.
- A strong no would be a huge signal. A narrow no would be less favorable. Nevertheless, I hope that the employers see from the result that something is up.
The US Supreme Court hasn't exactly been friendly to unions, as can be seen from cases like Janus v AFSCME and NLRB v. International Ass’n of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, & Reinforcing Iron Workers, Local 229. But in the likely event that Trump and the Senate ram through a conservative judge before the next government, the Court will shift from a 4-4 balance of liberals and conservatives with a ninth conservative-leaning swing vote, to a solid 5-3 conservative majority plus the conservative swing. Since the Supreme Court has lifetime appointments and the oldest conservative justice is only 72, it will probably be at least 15 years before the Democrats even have a chance of tipping the balance from solidly conservative to slightly conservative. And that's assuming the 82 year old liberal justice doesn't die first and also get replaced with a conservative, further extending conservatives' hold on the Court. Again, the Court hasn't exactly doted on unions, but this could guarantee a strongly conservative, anti-organized labor Court for decades.
What does this mean for American labor law? What impacts could this have on the American labor movement, as well as things that could exacerbate the struggles of the working class like healthcare law or climate change law?
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I would like to know when you ever thought the US Supreme Court was friendly to the working class or organized labor? I also don't see how Ginsburg's death does anything one way or the other for working people. This is exactly the knee-jerk panic mongering we are already seeing by the DNC in why you should vote for their ancient cretin in lieu of the other bourgeois cretin in a different color. Ginsburg in life was a barely conscious corpse in the robes of a bourgeois political functionary so in death she is little different.
The US Supreme Court hasn't exactly been friendly to unions, as can be seen from cases like Janus v AFSCME and NLRB v. International Ass’n of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, & Reinforcing Iron Workers, Local 229. [...] Again, the Court hasn't exactly doted on unions, but this could guarantee a strongly conservative, anti-organized labor Court for decades.
How cucked by liberalism does one have to be to write down this post? You yourself list multiple court cases "unfriendly to unions", and then go on to somehow insinuate that a change in the balance of power within the US Supreme Court could have a profound effect on the labour movement. Why?
Some other sock account - it might have been you, it might have been someone else of the usual suspects - recently posted this piece by a conservative think tank from the US here, which the auto moderator caught and which we didn't care to approve. It seems relevant for your illusions, for it says:
The standard partisan arguments over labor have tended to accept our nation’s current legal framework as the only one, and thus to present its expansion or contraction as the only options. Entirely different arrangements deserve consideration. In parts of Europe, for instance, “right-to-work” is the norm, but so is sectoral bargaining. On one hand, labor and management in Germany often partner on “works councils,” which are illegal in the United States and opposed by American labor unions. On the other hand, such “co-determination” can also extend to labor holding seats on corporate boards, which American unions support but shareholders resist. In some places, unions manage functions like unemployment insurance and job training that we take for granted as government responsibilities. In Canada, collective bargaining offers the parties autonomy to depart from government mandates in regulating their own workplaces.
Conservatives should be willing to consider all these approaches, and others besides.
This is pretty much the programme of Bernie Sanders, and, as we have tried to drive home in this subreddit ad nauseam, it is a distinctly anti-communist programme: In the widest sense, it is "pro organised labour" in so far as it is organisation in the service of capital - it aims at proactively taking away any independence from the labour movement, it aims at integrating it into the state. The same policy could be adopted by the Democratic Party too, depending on conditions. In the same manner, the Supreme Court could shift in this direction, which would not make it even an ounce less anti-communist.
What does this mean for American labor law?
What difference do you think it makes for the immediate problems that confront the American worker?
What impacts could this have on the American labor movement, as well as things that could exacerbate the struggles of the working class like healthcare law or climate change law?
How are healthcare law or climate change law "struggles of the working class"?
This is stupid easy and cheap to do. Anyone with a little python knowledge and maybe some basic calculus can make their own heat maps of this sort. All they need to do is purchase the right data set from Amazon, Google or other data farming company and then hire an intern or two for 12 bucks an hour. This is likely Amazon showing off their capabilities to attract clients for this data. We can expect this practice to become very widespread.
I suppose though as the data always needs to be up to date, this would be on a subscription basis, meaning that one is at the mercy of those companies, right? I'm asking because such tools would also be important for the labour movement to have. This is why that article is interesting. It probably won't need any cloud-based computational power, as such rather simple scripts do not require any deep learning algorithms, or am I wrong?
That's most likely what it is.
There probably are similar solutions already in place at other companies, it's just that usually they are silent about such matters.
yeah Amazon and Google are advantaged on that front because they're basically dedicated to data collection. Everyone has a stupid "Alexa"/ "G home" device littered throughout their house, and every shitty phone app, every script on every web page is collecting data. But what's interesting about all that is that security is given lip service but in reality almost universally ignored, making these IoT devices, databases full of stored data and technologies extremely vulnerable to hacking, and these things are hacked so often that a lot of it just becomes public knowledge over time. Actually, most internet infrastructure is deeply and seriously vulnerable to hacking, more than most realize. International banks, power plants, you name it- it's all vulnerable and a single dedicated adversary can get in given enough time. I can imagine if the labor movement got powerful enough this is one of the things they'd attack eventually, just because it's such a serious vulnerability that would take decades and billions of dollars to remedy- the internet is basically being held together by duct tape and mammoth, ancient black boxes nobody knows how to work anymore. It's total anarchy and makes no sense, but that's how it is. That was sort of a digression but I think it's something to mention.
But anyway, my original point was that there are lots of ways to gather the data needed; buying it from Amazon is obviously an easy way, but data could always be independently gathered through other means, legal or illegal. I don't know if these other methods would confer as good of results as google's near constant data collection, but most of theirs is for advertising, so I don't even know how useful it would be to the labor movement. Besides, you don't always need your data to be second-by-second up to date to make quality predictions depending on what it is you're predicting.
The cloud is used often for machine learning when you need to train tons of data and are working with gigantic data sets, but it's not always necessary. I don't think that's a huge problem to surmount though because here are options here for parallel computation-- clusters can be built and can perform reasonably well even on older hardware, cloud services can be rented, and a third option could be the use of botnets- infect tons of machines with malware and steal their computation power, rent the use of such from the black market, or have lots of people donate computation power.
But you're speaking of individual IoT devices, don't you? Meaning that you wouldn't get blanket coverage of the parameters that you would need to know to create such heatmaps. Or does the variety of them mean that they are actually being hacked to such an extent that you can get area-wide information, at least approximately? I suppose you answered that question in saying that one way or another, it would be possible to get hold of the necessary data.
I'm not too sure about that. In a civil war like situation, I could see that happening depending on the circumstances, but before that it would hardly be useful. Immediately attacking bourgeois institutions like that would be like trying to bring about an economic crisis, so rather pointless. Capital cannot be positively done away with in such a manner, but will only be destroyed through the association of the proletariat. So I'd say that for the foreseeable future, positive solutions that help bring workers into contact with each other, or that help them defend against bourgeois attacks, are what will help the movement most. You surely remember the line from the Manifesto:
This is something good about the Chinese Labour Bulletin for example - their strike and injury maps can be very helpful for workers. Such matters do more for the communist cause than the majority of "communist" organisations, which preoccupy themselves - if they aren't outright campaigning for petty bourgeois concerns to begin with - with endlessly talking about Marxism. Besides aiding in practical struggles on the ground, in unions etc., this is an important area that needs to be looked at. The labour movement does not nearly make enough use of the opportunities that modern technology brings.
Right, I didn't think of the latter possibility. Distributed computing like what Folding@Home does might be a neat solution if a lot of computational power would be required for a task.
Well for part of their prediction Amazon uses:
Some of this is definitely public information or easily obtainable, except maybe the "labor incident tracker" (sounds like an in-house metric). Also:
Some of this data could be gathered by surveys, and stores often release their sales numbers. But I'm betting you don't even need all these parameters to make a semi-decent prediction. A team of people working on this could also find alternative parameters that might work, such as the Chinese Labor Bulletin you mention. That's actually an interesting tool, and I think its worth playing around with the strike/ injury data it tracks and maybe training some models with it to see what predictions it could produce.
Oh for sure. I wasn't suggesting that we should create a mesh-network of hacked IoT devices to farm data. As cool as that would be, I doubt it would be of much use to the labor movement.
So what's the biggest hurdle in overcoming that? Right now it seems like workers are using things like Facebook or their company's internal email system to communicate, which isn't ideal because those could be (are) easily shut down or tampered with. It seems like something better for the labor movement needs to be 1) resistant to DoS attacks 2) encrypted 3) not complicated to use 4) multi-platform, 5) one central party should control it
Do you think those are sufficient criteria for tools useful to the labor movement, and do you think tools like that would be worth developing and putting out there? Or are the tools there already, and problem is just lack of widespread use?
Right, I didn't remember what information they were basing themselves on.
If you're merely talking about a substitution for Facebook messaging or the company email service, then there are already enough alternatives in apps such as Signal, as you surely know.
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Unionization would be awesome.