Revolution is revolution, reform is reform, reformism means a dedication to reform and a rejection of revolution, nationalisation means the state taking over an enterprise, and nationalism is a devotion to the nation. These are five different things in my book, Comrade Mxolisi.
There is nothing wrong with a reform if it is a good reform. Reforms are necessary and not to be despised. Reforms don't automatically bring revolution. There is no such thing as a revolutionary reform in my book, comrade. It's either one thing, or the other. Economism is a belief that the workings of society will bring the desired goal of socialism, automatically. Lenin opposed this belief with by insisting that a conscious, active vanguard party was necessary. Economism and the formation of the party are discussed, as two polar opposites, in Lenin's "What is to be Done?" I think we need focus on how to increase working-class hegemony and power. The nationalisation discussion could be a diversion from that focus, or it could bring us closer to it. It depends on which way the discussion goes. In struggle, Domza. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mxolisi Mlatha Sent: 09 July 2009 03:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Re: the NP govt was more socialist than the ANC govt. Comrade Domza It is often said that social and economic reforms play a critical role in any revolution. We should not be guilty of one extreme that seeks to negate any revolutionary reforms, without equating nationalism with socialism we should explore how can the revolutionary forces be empowered if given greater economic leverage from the side of the state. Simultaneously, as we engage in this debate rather than just labeling nationalism as economism we can broaden the dabate to look at options of socialisation within communities; either in conjunction with state nationalism. So this debate has got much prospects and we can build on it rather than the approach of dismissing it outrightly. Some comrades have been arguing for the destruction of the current state, almost in a literal sense, before we can have nationalization as an option. In practice what does this mean? How do we relate such to the notion of the NDR? At this phase of our uninterupted advance of the struggle for socialism we need to define in practice what do we think is the role of revolutionary reforms without being reformist, we can also say the role of economic reforms without being economistic. Ofcourse the premise of all of these should be the conscious action and organization of a working class led movement within the alliance so that there is no class derailment of our efforts. Mxolisi --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
