Dear Cde Morgan,
You have not quoted or drawn out any argument from the second part of
the Communist Manifesto (Proletarians and Communists). You have only
asked us to read the whole thing.
Let me demonstrate what I mean about quoting and drawing out an
argument, using the first page of the first part of Chapter 2 of
Lenin's 1917 "The State and Revolution" (see below).
You will see that Lenin starts with "the first work of mature Marxism"
(written immediately before the Manifesto), and then quickly moves to
the Manifesto itself, in order to make the point, using the Manifesto
in particular, that the State that we want is "the
proletariat organized as the ruling class".
The state that we have now is the bourgeoisie organised as the
ruling class. What you and David are proposing is a "mode of entry"
into the bourgeois state. It sounds like a Kama Sutra position, but
whatever it is, it is not revolution.
Read what Lenin has to say about it, please, comrade, and then don't
forget what the very same Manifesto says almost at its last end:
"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."
Here's Lenin:
1. The Eve of Revolution
The first works of
mature Marxism — The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto
—
appeared just on the eve of the revolution of 1848. For this reason, in
addition to presenting the general principles of Marxism, they reflect
to a
certain degree the concrete revolutionary situation of the time. It
will,
therefore, be more expedient, perhaps, to examine what the authors of
these
works said about the state immediately before they drew conclusions
from the
experience of the years 1848-51.
In The Poverty of Philosophy,
Marx wrote:
"The
working class, in the course of development, will substitute for the
old
bourgeois society an association which will preclude classes and their
antagonism, and there will be no more political power groups, since the
political power is precisely the official _expression_ of class
antagonism in
bourgeois society." (p.182, German edition, 1885)[1]
It is instructive to
compare this general exposition of the idea of the state disappearing
after the
abolition of classes with the exposition contained in the Communist Manifesto, written
by Marx and
Engels a few months later--in November 1847, to be exact:
"... In
depicting the most general phases of the development of the
proletariat, we
traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing
society up to
the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the
violent
overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the
proletariat....
"... We
have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working
class is
to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the
battle
of democracy.
"The
proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all
capital
from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in
the hands
of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class;
and to
increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible." (pp.31
and
37, seventh German edition, 1906)[2]
Here we have a
formulation of one of the most remarkable and most important ideas of
Marxism
on the subject of the state, namely, the idea of the "dictatorship of
the
proletariat" (as Marx and Engels began to call it after the Paris
Commune); and, also, a highly interesting definition of the state,
which is
also one of the "forgotten words" of Marxism: "the state, i.e.,
the proletariat organized as the ruling class."
This definition of the
state has never been explained in the prevailing propaganda and
agitation
literature of the official Social-Democratic parties. More than that,
it has
been deliberately ignored, for it is absolutely irreconcilable with
reformism,
and is a slap in the face for the common opportunist prejudices and
philistine
illusions about the "peaceful development of democracy".
The proletariat needs
the state — this is repeated by all the opportunists,
social-chauvinists and
Kautskyites, who assure us that this is what Marx taught. But they
"forget" to add that, in the first place, according to Marx, the
proletariat needs only a state which is withering away, i.e., a state
so
constituted that it begins to wither away immediately, and cannot but
wither
away. And, secondly, the working people need a "state, i.e., the
proletariat organized as the ruling class".
The state is a
special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for
the
suppression of some class. What class must the proletariat suppress?
Naturally,
only the exploiting class, i.e., the bourgeoisie. The working people
need the
state only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the
proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out. For the
proletariat
is the only class that is consistently revolutionary, the only class
that can
unite all the working and exploited people in the struggle against the
bourgeoisie, in completely removing it.
VC
morgan phaahla wrote:
|
Comrades,
In relation to the discussion, let's read chapter 2 of
Communist Manifesto on Proletarians and Communists, and develop a
position on this issue.
So far there is no dissenting view, except VC's only point
of difference. Otherwise he must give in, by the force of
circumstances, to be part of the whole.
Kindest regards
Morgan Phaahla
"Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology."
- Joe Slovo
--- On Tue, 8/18/09, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]>
wrote:
From: Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]>
Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Re: POLITICAL NOTES PRESENTED BY CDE MASONDO
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 4:42 AM
Comrade Mduduzi,
What is difficult is that you are trying to hold a bourgeois concept of
the State and a revolutionary understanding of it in your head at one
and the same time.
Unfortunately, if you cannot see the difference, you will tend to fall
to the bourgeois side. I'm sorry to be so blunt about this but when you
write "Much as the state is according to Lenin "an organ of
oppression", it can be progressive if policies taken in parliament are
pro poor," you must know that you are doing something terrible.
Because if people do not know better, they can think from what you have
written that Lenin thought that Parliament "can be progressive if
policies taken in parliament are pro poor," whereas nothing could be
further from the truth.
I think the best remedy for you and for others is to read Lenin's " The State and Revolution". It is
very direct and quite easy to read and it is relevant.
In Chapter 3, section 3, "Abolition of Parliamentarism" Lenin quotes
Marx as calling bourgeois parliamentarism a "pigsty".
In struggle,
VC
Mduduzi H Vilakazi wrote: Cadres,
The debate is too difficult for some of us. It needs
the highest level of analysis and some basic background of the
alliance. I would be happy to start at the beginning of the debate.
Cde David raised some sharp discussions on the
independence of the party within the reconfigured alliance. Put
differently, he questioned the big brother approach where the ANC
remains the only vehicle to state power. This approach questions the
hegemony of one party over the others within the alliance.
Set aside these structures, you have all of these
structures operating their own constitutions that guide their everyday
organizational activities. They hold their different conferences which
translates into different resolutions. It therefore becomes imperative
that activities of the structures of the various organisations in the
alliance will be measured by their separate resolutions.
The fact that one alliance partner is interested in
discussions and decisions of the other alliance partners does not mean
these structures becomes one. they still remain separate. For this
reason, I concur with comrade Masondo that the resolutions of the Party
shall independently find _expression_ in activities of the state. This
can only happen when the reconfiguration will clearly mean that the
Party will in its own right recall its members who functions contrary
to the resolutions, traditions and ideology of the Party.
This will save the Party from having members who
deliberately side with the bourgeoisie (other than tactical) on
policies of the state and hide with democratic centralism. Much as the
state is according to Lenin "an organ of oppression", it can be
progressive if policies taken in parliament are pro poor. This will not
come as a silver platter, it needs some strategic "mode of entry"
different from the one where the ANC holds the power of members of the
Party with regards to caucus, recalling and deployment.
I agree with the views of Phaahla and Masondo on
moving forward. Marxism cannot remain dogma. The current situation
needs current analysis that will provide current solutions to current
problems.
I pause.
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