Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Proyect wrote: > Joseph Green via Marxism wrote: > > So what does history show? The theory of permanent revolution was >> completely bankrupt with respect to the Arab Spring. > > [Proyect replied} To some extent, the Khiyana article that makes this point >reflected the influence of Sam Hamad who viewed any opposition to the Morsi > government as coinciding with the al-Sisi. Bull. An-Nar did not oppose agitation against the Morsi government, but called for a more intelligent form of it than backing the military coup. Moreover, the point isn't what Sam Hamad thinks, nor is it the many other debates among activists. The point is that in his article on the "democratic wager", an-Nar raised serious points of theory against permanent revolution. These should be dealt with. The theory of permanent revolution sees only two alternatives: a struggle that becomes a socialist revolution led by the working class, or the bitterest counterrevolution. But how can one support the Syrian uprising or the Egyptian ovement with this perspective when, even if they are successful, it is not going to lead to workers power? There is a long path between these struggles and the eventual socialist revolution. An-Nar raises another alternative: what he calls the "democratic wager". He points to the limited viewpoint of the working masses as well as the splits among them. A serious theoretical study would have to address this directly. I don't agree with all of the views and formulations in An-Nar's article. But he emphasized looking at the actual situation among the masses. This was in contrast to the revolutionary phrasemongering of permanent revolution. > If being a supporter of the "democratic revolution" means functioning as > an ideological handmaiden to the Muslim Brotherhood, I'll stick with > "permanent revolution" ... More bull. Basically this amounts to saying that anyone who recognizes the split among the working masses and seeks way to overcome it is an apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood. An-Nar searches for ways to deal with the political split among the masses, and this includes dealing with the "disenfranchised mass social base" of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is not easy, and mistakes will be made as one seeks for how to do this. But it is a path that the is needed for increasing the strength of the working class smovement. The type of super-revolutionary thinking that overlooks the trends of thought manifested among the working masses is part of what led the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) of Egypt to overlook the need for a protracted mass struggle rather than an immediate coup. At one time, the RS had dealt more seriously with the divisions among the people. But for a time they were euphoric over the masses in the street against Morsi, and didn't stop to think that the divisions among the workers were still there. During the Morsi presidency, the mass struggle had started to bloom. There were many strikes and protests. Moreover, this included such things as Muslims coming out to defend Coptic churches. The longer these struggles continued, the more possibilities existed to make progress in uniting the working masses. The struggle under the Morsi regime was difficult, dangerous, and required sacrifice, but it was possible and it had the possibility of leading to progress. An-Nar refers to "an alternative political space the revolutionary left could have occupied". I presume that he is referring to the squabbles and splits among the non-proletarian forces creating an opening for the working class movement. Under Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, the military, the judiciary, the Mubarak loyalists, and the liberals were divided among themselves. So they couldn't come to agreement against the masses. This was the class situation that created a certain "political space", but one which required determination, courage, and some political clarity to occupy. The coup would remove this space by uniting most of the hostile forces except the Islamists. But it was not just the hostile class forces that were divided. So were the working masses, and this too had to be kept in consideration. The large demonstrations against Morsi didn't mean that the splits among the masses had been overcome, nor did it mean that strong organization had spread widely among them. To have faith that the working masses could gradually unite against the hostile political trends is presumably part of what an-Nar means by the democratic wager. To believe that the military coup could shortcut this process was a profound mistake. The RS leaflets of the time illustrated how
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It was almost (ALMOST!) worth skimming through yet another copy and paste by Joseph Green of his obsessive hatred and willful misunderstanding of proletarian revolution to get to Louis's worthwhile remarks at the end. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 2/28/17 4:02 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote: So what does history show? The theory of permanent revolution was completely bankrupt with respect to the Arab Spring. To some extent, the Khiyana article that makes this point reflected the influence of Sam Hamad who viewed any opposition to the Morsi government as coinciding with the al-Sisi. It is the same logic that led him to become a vehement supporter of Hillary Clinton even though that support was expressed much more as virulent attacks on Jill Stein. If being a supporter of the "democratic revolution" means functioning as an ideological handmaiden to the Muslim Brotherhood, I'll stick with "permanent revolution" even if all that means is having a consistent orientation to the working class. I deal with some of these questions in a review of Gilbert Achcar's latest: https://louisproyect.org/2016/08/03/morbid-symptoms/ In the immediate aftermath of the al-Sisi coup in Egypt, there were bitter recriminations over the role of the left with some making analogies between the ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi and Alexander Kerensky. For example, John Rees wrote: But when the threat of Kerensky being overthrown by a counter-revolutionary coup led by General Kornilov became real, the Bolsheviks defended Kerensky’s government from the threat from the right. Trotsky helped organise the defence of Kerensky from the prison cell in which the very same Kerensky had put him. Considering John Rees’s regrettable tendency to demonize Syrian rebels as threats to secularism and democracy, one might accuse him of using a double standard. Perhaps if al-Sisi had a background as an “anti-imperialist” in the Gaddafi and al-Assad mold, there would have been greater readiness to back the coup. That being said, it is entirely conceivable that before very long, he will be seen as part of the anti-imperialist camp given the reports from as early as mid-2015 that Egypt and Russia would be strengthening their ties through the creation of a free trade zone and Egypt becoming part of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Kremlin’s competition to the EU. In my view, the Kerensky analogy has limited value. The Russian Social Democracy always considered the Social Revolutionary Party as part of the democratic revolution against Czarism even though it vacillated toward the Cadets. Lenin thought that a vote for SR’s was tactically permissible but never for the Cadets. In 1909 he wrote an article titled “How the Socialist-Revolutionaries Sum Up the Revolution and How the Revolution has Summed Them Up” that defended the Bolsheviks against Menshevik charges that they were adapting to the SR’s: Now that is where your mistake begins, we say to the Mensheviks. True, the Socialist-Revolutionary doctrine is pernicious, fallacious, reactionary, adventurist and petty-bourgeois. But these vices do not prevent this quasi-socialist doctrine from being the ideological vestments of a really revolutionary—and not compromising—bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie in Russia. Based on this criterion, the Muslim Brotherhood could hardly be put in the same category as the SR’s. Their commitment to democracy was always on a tactical basis, namely whether it could advance their own goal of creating an Islamic state. That being said, the best approach to Egyptian politics is not through the prism of Russian history but class relations within the most populous Arab nation that has historically played a key role in setting a pattern for other nations. To understand what political options the left was forced to make three years ago requires an analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood itself. For this, citations from either Lenin or Trotsky have limited value except as a reminder that the SR’s emerged out of the Russian revolutionary experience. After all, Lenin’s brother was a Narodnik. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis Proyect wrote: >. > I may or may not deal with Eric's article per se but I wrote a critique > of Lih here that is germane to the discussion: > > https://louisproyect.org/2015/08/15/lars-lih-and-lenins-april-theses/ > I read Proyect's critique of Lih. It has some notable points, such as raising again the question of permanent revolution. Proyect speaks to this as follows: >To start with, it is questionable whether permanent revolution was > any kind of theory. I always regarded it as an analysis of the class > dynamics of the Russian revolution and not something that could > be applied universally. In fact, Trotskyism turned [it] into a formula > that was always invoked in order to establish its own purity just as > it is doing now with respect to Greece. It says that unless nations > follow through with socialist measures, the goals of the > bourgeois-democratic revolution (land reform, democratic rights, > national independence, etc.) will not be guaranteed. For me > this has always been something of a tautology, amounting to > a statement that unless there is a revolution there will > be no revolution. Unfortunately, this passage is contradictory. It starts by asserting that permanent revolution is "not something that could be applied universally", and ends by asserting that it is "something of a tautology", which would mean that it is true universally. Proyect asserts that >It says that unless nations > follow through with socialist measures, the goals of the > bourgeois-democratic revolution (land reform, democratic rights, > national independence, etc.) will not be guaranteed. But the question isn't whether the gains are permanent. The question is whether democratic movements and revolutions are still of extreme interest to the socialist proletariat, even in the situation where these movements aren't going to be immediately followed by a socialist revolution . A revolutionary theory faces the problem of judging whether an uprising could lead to workers' power, which is much more than simply undertaking some "socialist measures". The question is whether it is true, as permanent revolution asserts, that all meaningful uprisings must either lead to workers' power, or end up accomplishing nothing. So what does history show? The theory of permanent revolution was completely bankrupt with respect to the Arab Spring. It was clear even in 2011 that the uprisings of the Arab Spring, even if they were victorious, were not going to lead to workers' power. Yet the Arab Spring deserved socialist support. Now, I don't agree with everything Assar an-Nar says, but some of what he writes about permanent revolution in "Socialism and the Democratic Wager" in the book "Khiyana: Deash, the Left and the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution" is right on target. Indeed, it is notable that he feels compelled to argue fiercely in favor of the "democratic wager" because he is writing for a milieu that is heavily influenced by Trotskyism and permanent revolution and hence has trouble understanding the role of the "democratic wager". He denounces various forms of Stalinism, which is important to do, but he is clearly also writing against much of the Trotskyist creed. He writes: >...Permanent Revolution suggested that there were either two > alternatives: socialist revolution led by the working class or > Tsarist counterrevolution." (p. 11) And an-Nar says: >We believe that this 'useless dogma' has become a substitute >for analysis and leads to catastrophism: the erroneous view > that there are only two courses in any historical situation--either > proletarian revolution or counterrevolution. Evidently this is not > the case for most history since 1917. On the other hand, it may lead > to the false conclusion that there is an automatic pattern of > radicalisation and that history is necessarily on our side. It leads > most obviously to repeated efforts to make reality fit our theory > instead of using theory to explain reality." (p. 14) Among other things, an-Nar is furious that the theory of permanent revolution had something to do with "the leftist misreading of the army coup [in Egypt] as the 'next wave' of the revolution", as the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists did briefly. But also it is one of the sources for denigrating the Syrian uprising, which is why an-Nar feels compelled to discuss it. Indeed, back at the start of the Arab Spring, a number of Trotskyist groups proudly and zealously applied the theory of permanent revolution to the Arab Spring and asserted explicitly and emphatically that these struggles would either lead to workers'
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 2/27/17 10:32 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: An important article, IMO, and I'm very much looking forward to the next installment. I have a lot of respect for Eric Blanc's writings on the national question but I think that there are problems with his attempt at making the pre-April Theses Bolshevik Party immune from criticisms. This has a lot to do with Lars Lih's scholarship as is obvious from his article. I may or may not deal with Eric's article per se but I wrote a critique of Lih here that is germane to the discussion: https://louisproyect.org/2015/08/15/lars-lih-and-lenins-april-theses/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * An important article, IMO, and I'm very much looking forward to the next installment. Wherever we all eventually come down on the question of who proposed what, when and why, the implicit thread in the article is that seizing power was necessary and correct, and Eric's aim is to seek to prove that all Bolsheviks did share that goal strategically if not always tactically. This matters for today of course when everyone from the Pink Tide to the CPs in the Philippines, South Africa, etc., still adhere to a "two-stage" revolution in theory and outright capitulation to the bourgeoisie in practice. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited | Historical Materialism
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * This is an article by Eric Blanc arguing that the Bolsheviks *did* intend to seize power before Lenin's April Theses. It is based on Lih's research. It appears on a new website (as far as I know) that is HM's attempt to engage with the public outside of its print and conference framework. http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/blog/before-lenin-bolshevik-theory-and-practice-february-1917-revisited _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
