At 03/05/02 09:15 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: >In a sense, your question reveals a different understanding of the >role of elections. I agree with Lenin's approach. They are >opportunities to raise socialist ideas. If a revolutionary party ever >came close to winning a national election, the bourgeoisie would >resort to a coup or fascism. > >"Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments >and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within >them because it is there that you will still find workers who are >duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; >otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags." > >http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/lwc/ch07.htm > >But Lenin never urged a vote for a bourgeois party. That was Stalin's >innovation who simply appropriated the disastrous "lesser evil" >electoral policy of the German Socialist Party.
Louis Proyect is correct that in the brutally entitled "Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder", Lenin does not describe the British Labour Party at the time as a bourgeois party. I agree with Jurriaan that we should not take quotations from Lenin mechanically But marxism is meant to be a method and it is possible to read Lenin's article, to consider the method and to decide how to apply it here, and whether that would be useful. Louis Proyect is not "correct" in saying in another post on the French election >What people do in the privacy of the ballot booth is their own business. I >wouldn't dream of telling individual human beings not to believe in god, >for that matter. Lenin's approach in LWD,ID is to pay a lot of attention to the consciousness of the masses, and whether they have illusions in a party. So the *way* they cast their ballots is crucial to the analysis. When progressive people have some illusions in a party then it may need to be supported, he argued. Hear the striking and tactless words about the way a rope supports a hanged man: (from Chapter 9) >At present, British Communists very often find it hard even to approach >the masses, and even to get a hearing from them. If I come out as a >Communist and call upon them to vote for Henderson and against Lloyd >George, they will certainly give me a hearing. And I shall be able to >explain in a popular manner, not only why the Soviets are better than a >parliament and why the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the >dictatorship of Churchill (disguised with the signboard of bourgeois >"democracy"), but also that, with my vote, I want to support Henderson in >the same way as the rope supports a hanged man -- that the impending >establishment of a government of the Hendersons will prove that I am >right, will bring the masses over to my side, and will hasten the >political death of the Hendersons and the Snowdens just as was the case >with their kindred spirits in Russia and Germany. > >If the objection is raised that these tactics are too "subtle" or too >complex for the masses to understand, that these tactics will split and >scatter our forces, will prevent us from concentrating them on Soviet >revolution, etc., I will reply to the "Left objectors: don't ascribe your >doctrinairism to the masses! Don't underestimate their intelligence! Now in the situation in France Chirac is an openly bourgeois politican and there are no illusions in him at all! Despite being the incumbent president he got a ludicrous 20% of the poll. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows he has various charges hanging over his head which are not being investigated while he is president. If they vote for the crook not the fascist they know well enough they are supporting him like a rope supports a hanged man. The political crunch is this concretely today. There has been a massive demonstration of a million people in France. Opinion polls predict a much higher vote next Sunday. Louis Proyect and others of a sectarian disposition clearly do not particularly want to see a lot of people going to the polls. For him it is a private affair, like whether you believe in God. Relying on others defeating Le Pen. But every additional million who come out to vote for the crook Chirac, who did not bother last Sunday, are not supporting Chirac! except like a rope supports a hanged man.... The act of solidarity will not be misunderstood so long as the left then criticises Chirac, and prepares for stronger resistance in a united front against fascism, yes, and the causes of fascism. That danger of fascism does not come from Chirac's " policies", Louis. Chirac is merely a vehicle of history. These are the tectonic workings of late finance capital which is intensifying the exploitation of the mass of working people at home, while creating ever increasing global migration unprecented in the history of the world. This creates endless occasions for conflict between working people about the price of their labour and the conditions of their social reproduction. But this list is dividing politically, and this is instructive, into those who wish to hear of Le Pen being decisively defeated on Sunday, and those who because of their mistaken and doctrinaire reading of marxism are studiously indifferent. But a concrete reading of Lenin's criticism of "left wing" communism, shows why we should be wanting to celebrate the resounding defeat of Le Pen! Chris Burford London
