I think Rob makes some good points about the problems of leftists looking at Leninist or Trotskyist parties and being put off by the splits and fusions which they take as evidence of an inability to agree, unite in action, or worse, of sectarianism.
This is the basic problem that bedevils discussions on this and other lists because Rob and others do not isolate what was absolutely crucial for the Bolshevik revolution to occur, namely a split (between Lenin and the rest of the Bolsheviks over his April Theses) and a fusion (between Lenin and Trotsky over the course of the revolution after April).
On the face of it the split and fusion looked like Lenin had gone mad. But in reality it was a necessary shift in the programme to deal with the reality. The split was to remove the influence of left Mensheviks over the party. Stalin and co were prepared to act as left critics of the Kerensky government. Lenin put a stop to that. The fusion was over the need to go beyond a bourgeois revolution immediately to a socialist revolution i.e. permanent revolution.
The split and fusion was the result of an existing Bolshevik organisation formed in the split with the Mensheviks after 1902 and going through numerous tests before 1917. It demonstrated the central importance of democratic centralism in which the party tests its programme and changes it if it is wrong, and then through splits and fusions wins first the party then the soviets to the new programme.
So if Rob rejects the vital factor which made October possible, he has to take responsibily for endorsing today a political tradition that stood against the revolution. Similarly he asks us to take some responsibility for its subsequent failure. I don't take any responsbility for this failure. This can be explained in the same terms of its success. What was possible in Russia, was made impossible in Germany because of the intervention of Mensheviks in the SDP centre like Kautsky, and the SD's who murdered Luxemberg and Liebknecht.
This subjective failure in an objectively revolutionary situation sealed the fate of the Russian revolution. Those responsible were those who rejected Bolshevism in the name of Menshevism in which the working class follows an historic schema determined by petty bourgeois socialists. Stalin reverted to this menshevik line when he took power in the name of defending socialism in one country.
The point is that in Germany in 1919 the Robs of the day did not think that workers were ready for socialism. The current SA/menshevik position is that workers cannot go beyond the completion of the bourgeois revolution and the way to do this is to adopt Lenin's pre-April 1917 position, that the working class can at most push the bourgeoisie to the left and create an advanced bourgeois republic.
This appears to be the 'new realism' because of the apparent collapse of the 'socialist project'. The left retreats back to 19th century (read Marx's
Critique of the Gotha Programme) attempts to humanise capitalism through various options of market socialism. I deal with these reactionary utopias in my article on Market Socialism on my website. They are utopias because the bourgeoisie will not lie down and expropriate itself. They are reactionary because to suggest that they will sets up the working class for repression when it is not prepared.
THis is an urgent problem in countries like Indonesia or Latin America were strong stalinist/Maoist traditions are holding back mass movements from going beyond the bourgeois revolution.
Most recently in East Timor we have seen the Australian left call on its Government to send in troops to defend Timorese 'democracy'. This was the same government that conspired with the Indonesians to kill over 200,000 since 1975 and kept the Fretilin and FALINTIL resistance fighters confined to quarters while the UN supervised ballot allowed East Timorese to be killed in the streets.
If Rob's view on market socialism is that of a 'revolutionary reform' i.e. akin to Trotsky's transitional demands, and not an open endorsement of a separate bourgeois revolutionary stage, then it needs to be posed in these terms. It needs to be made clear that attempts to win socialism within the framework of capitalism requires a struggle for a workers government, workers committees, workers militias and the seizure of power. And this is not going to happen without a Bolshevik vanguard party.
If Rob and others on the left who genuinely think that they are acting in the best interests of workers do not make the full implications of the 'revolutionary reforms' clear then they are inevitably acting as a left cover SD and the Mensheviks.
Dave
On 2 Apr 00, at 21:08, Rob Schaap wrote:
> G'day Dave'n'Hugh,
>
> A really really quick 'un ...
>
> Sez Hugh of the little disagreement of late:
>
>
> >it's part of the struggle for the leadership of the working class,
>
>
> It might be an analogue of some such struggle in some place and time, but I
> doubt anyone here really seeks to lead the working class. I don't anyway.
>
> >Need to qualify this: true, revolutionary Bolsheviks -- there's a lot of
> >fakes around, causing problems until a clear and trustworthy international
> >leadership crystallizes.
>
> 'Clear and trustworthy' to whom, Hugh? Whilst purported socdems may
> purportedly 'lead' the class now, an awful lot clearly don't trust 'em.
> Yet no other international leadership' has arisen of late. Why's that,
> d'you think?
>
> Dave taxes my like thusly:
>
> >>SDs are sectarian because they substitute
> >>themselves for the proletariat, betray it, and generally shit on it as
> >>unable, incapable, unprepared etc for the holy state of SD
> >>enlightenment.
>
> How do we do that?
>
> And Hugh agrees with Dave:
>
> >Bureaucratic, moralizing and intolerant are words that spring to mind to
> >describe the disorganizing activities of the Social-Democrats. And the
> >bureaucrats (of whatever school) can always be told by the vitriol they
> >spray on the working class for being "unable, incapable and unprepared".
>
> Well, Hugh blames poor or treacherous leadership. And I reckon the western
> working class is not willing, or feels it would be too risky, to overthrow
> the capitalist system. I certainly don't think the vast majority of the
> world's people is 'unable' to do, or 'incapable' of doing, anything.
> 'Unprepared' I'll go along with. They must be, else they'd recognise the
> enduring Truth of at least one of the schools of Trotskyism - no, Hugh? If
> prepared they are, where is their leader?
>
> >>The most recent name for this enlightenment
> >>seems to be 'market socialism' - well actually that has been
> >>overtaken by 'radical democracy'.
>
> Reckon I might be happy with the tag 'radical democrat market socialist',
> but ...
>
> >My favourite is the "New Realism" of the British Labour Movement.
> >Marvellous phrases they think up to cover their capitulation to capitalist
> >exploitation. You see, they never ever consider the capitalist system as
> >one based on exploitation.
>
> Well, I'm certainly convinced by Marx's theory of exploitation (so was
> market socialist Justin Schwartz, incidentally).
>
> >>SDs and Bolshelviks can bloc in defence of workers
> >>democratic rights,
>
> Let's settle for that then.
>
> >>but as soon as a pre-revolutionary situation
> >>emerges, SDs sellout, witness Luxemburg and Liebknecht.
>
> So because I favour a market socialism scenario, I'd murder the likes of
> Rosa Luxemburg? How dos that follow?
>
> >I don't think Rob, for instance, is really very aware of the similarities
> >between some of his own principles and the principles of the leaders he
> >understands to be betraying the historical needs of the class.
>
> Fair comment. I haven't a clue as to what I have in common with 'New
> Labour' or the ALP ...
>
> >>Bolsheviks can claim responsibility for the only socialist revolution
> >>in history.
>
> It seems ahistorical to take the credit for October, but not a deal of the
> responsibility for what happened afterwards.
>
> >>Cut the shit and get down to some serious politics.
>
> Like that sad list of splits and purges on the new web site of your new
> party, Dave? You see, the degree of agreement you demand of others
> (generally before the event of the shared practice in which theory is
> supposed to be constituted) will ever lengthen lists like that. I can't
> discuss anything to do with market socialism, because it's treacerous to do
> so. So I can't get in for a start, and no interested lay person gets to
> weigh the arguments - nor would s/he feel tempted to chance a speculative
> post on the question. Just as nearly 90 Thaxists don't.
>
> >Serious politics requires contact with the shit -- that's part of the price
> >to be paid.
>
> That much is very true, Hugh.
>
> Then you say of my argument that:
>
> >Cos what he writes here
> >is largely irrelevant. The subjective consciousness of the working class is
> >not what determines a scientific view of how society works or what needs to
> >be changed to make it better. Hiding behind distorted mass consciousness is
> >apologizing for the shit.
>
> To recognise something, and to consider it important, is not quite the same
> thing as hiding behind it. And I don't think a fear of bolshevik takes on
> 'scientific socialism' constitutes a 'distorted mass consciousness'. But
> that'd be because I've a distorted subjectivity, I s'pose.
>
> >But obviously to make serious progress in politics, these distorted
> >elements of working-class consciousness have to be taken into account
>
> I'm 'hiding' when I say that, but you're being scientific, eh?
>
> >is made very clear in the outline of the transitional method in the
> >Transitional Programme. The transitional method is the interface between
> >the masses with their distorted consciousness (instilled in them by the
> >miseducation system and their treacherous mass leaders, naturally) and the
> >objective scientific requirements of a real socialist revolution.
>
> An objective scientific bunch of facts upon which no-one seems to agree,
> especially within the Trotskyist churches themselves.
>
> >The positions themselves can in fact
> >be mutually exclusive if seen in an abstract fashion,
>
> Thus not necessarily in practice ...
>
> >but if the people who
> >support them fight together for certain goals, then the possibility of
> >future and more general joint action becomes much more real.
>
> So we should be pulling together?
>
> >Here I agree with Dave's criticism. What Rob writes about is the way it
> >will appear at first in the struggle.
>
> Well, it appears that way to me. Perhaps I'm assuming that the struggle
> has yet to transcend 'at first'?
>
> >taking the situation as is with the minimum defensive and collaborational
> >positions Rob mentions (as if they were the only ones) and developing
> >consciousness in the mobilizations so that more radical and more
> >confrontational steps can be taken that challenge the root problem of
> >bourgeois control of society.
>
> I'm agin oligarchy myself. Which capitalism produces as a matter of
> course, natch. It's a 'root problem', for mine. Of capitalism, of
> feudalism - and of the Soviet Union (right back to the first famines, and
> the structure at the peak of which Uncle Joe seated himself).
>
> Yours somewhat indignantly,
> Rob.
>
>
>
>
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