Dear Cde Xoli,
My researches for this series have brought me to discover a
most direct reply to your assertion that “In South Africa, the most
fertile
ground for the seeds of socialism will be the rural areas.”
It is the
following, from Lenin’s “Petty-bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism”. I
will
also attach the full document. In the original document you will find
it as a
long paragraph starting in page 2 and going over on to page 3, but I
have
broken it up here into smaller paragraphs to make it easier to read.
The
emphasis on the question of allies is also mine, not Lenin’s.
Here are Lenin's words:
“That is why we have to go over the ABC once again. What is
the present-day peasant movement in Russia striving for? For
land and
liberty. What significance will the complete victory of this movement
have?
After winning liberty, it will abolish the rule of the landlords and
bureaucrats in the administration of the state. After securing the
land, it
will give the landlords' estates to the peasants. Will the fullest
liberty and
expropriation of the landlords do away with commodity production? No,
it will
not. Will the fullest liberty and expropriation of the landlords
abolish
individual farming by peasant households on communal, or
"socialised", land? No, it will not. Will the fullest liberty and
expropriation of the landlords bridge the deep gulf that separates the
rich
peasant, with his numerous horses and cows, from the farm-hand, the
day-labourer,
i.e., the gulf that separates the peasant bourgeoisie from the rural
proletariat? No, it will not. On the contrary, the more completely the
highest
social-estate (the landlords) is routed and annihilated, the more
profound will
the class distinction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat be.
“What will be the objective significance of the complete
victory of the peasant uprising? This victory will do away with all
survivals
of serfdom, but it will by no means destroy the bourgeois economic
system, or
destroy capitalism or the division of society into classes - into rich
and
poor, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Why is the present-day
peasant
movement a democratic-bourgeois movement? Because, after destroying the
power
of the bureaucracy and the landlords, it will set up a democratic
system of
society, without, however, altering the bourgeois foundation of that
democratic
society, without abolishing the rule of capital.
“How should the class-conscious worker, the socialist,
regard the present-day peasant movement? He must support this movement,
help
the peasants in the most energetic fashion, help them throw off
completely both
the rule of the bureaucracy and that of the landlords. At the same
time,
however, he should explain to the peasants that it is not enough to
overthrow
the rule of the bureaucracy and the landlords. When they overthrow that
rule,
they must at the same time prepare for the abolition of the rule of
capital,
the rule of the bourgeoisie, and for that purpose a doctrine that is
fully
socialist, i.e., Marxist, should be immediately disseminated, the rural
proletarians should be united, welded together, and organised for the
struggle
against the peasant bourgeoisie and the entire Russian bourgeoisie.
“Can a class-conscious worker forget the democratic struggle
for the sake of the socialist struggle, or forget the latter for the
sake of
the former? No, a class-conscious worker calls himself a
Social-Democrat for
the reason that he understands the relation between the two struggles.
He knows
that there is no other road to socialism save the road through
democracy,
through political liberty. He therefore strives to achieve democratism
completely and consistently in order to attain the ultimate
goal-socialism.
“Why are the conditions for the democratic struggle not the
same as those for the socialist struggle?
“Because the workers
will certainly have different allies in each of those two struggles.
“The democratic struggle is waged by the workers together
with a section of the bourgeoisie, especially the petty bourgeoisie. On
the
other hand, the socialist struggle is waged by the workers against the
whole of
the bourgeoisie.
“The struggle against the bureaucrat and the landlord can
and must be waged together with all the peasants, even the well-to-do
and the
middle peasants. On the other hand, it is only together with the rural
proletariat that the struggle against the bourgeoisie, and therefore
against
the well-to-do peasants too, can be properly waged.”
VC
Xoli Dlabantu wrote:
Cde Dominic,
Let me start by thanking for you for such a profound dimunitive on the
subject of working class consciousness.
You see, that is exactly the spirit of engagement that is prevalent at
my party branch as we are preparing for the December Special
Congress.Let me again thank you for raising these issues.
Allow me to disagree wth you on the objective analysis of the level of
consciousness of Cosatu in particular as a working class federation.
Remember that Cosatu is a conglemeration of various trade unions that
have specific mandates of engaging bosses at shopfloor level. Cosatu
as an entity is inherently political and constantly engages capital at
all fronts: the state,Shopfloor as well as at different sectors.
Cosatu is essentially a worker's parliament that surpasses the role
that its founders mandated it to play in the NDR. It stands more than
able to single handedly advance our society towards socialism(
without any exageration, I can literally furnish you with a projected
plan on how to achieve this: The plan is termed Project 2020).
Secondly, as a financial advisor who engages Municipal and Government
entities on LED's in terms of Industrial Policy as well as Rural
development Strategies, I'm literally planting the seeds of socialist
transformation in the rural areas( again i can supply you with
information on request). So that's only how scientific I can argue on
these issues.
Comradely regards,
Xoli
On 10/2/09, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Cde Xoli, comradely greetings reciprocated.
The first thing that we have to seize hold of in this matter is the one of
the "working class consciousness" that you refer to.
"Working class consciousness", all other things being equal, is not
different from bourgeois consciousness. The ideology of the entire society
is the ideology of the ruling class. That is the situation as we find it,
and it is the reason for having a vanguard party of professional
revolutionaries. This case was made most succinctly by Lenin, in "What Is To
Be Done?"
Lenin (and Marx before him, in e.g. "Value, Price and Profit) wrote that
trade union struggles, whether won or lost, would not change the nature of
the society. For that revolution to happen, a higher form of struggle is
required. Gwede Mantashe, in a lecture on Con Hill, also said that trade
unions are reformist. It is the truth.
So that is something we have to take on board, and nail down. The working
class is not automatically revolutionary. The working class can learn
revolutionary lessons in direct class struggle, and the job of the
professional revolutionaries - the communists - is to assist this process of
revolutionising class struggle, through education, organisation and
mobilisation.
As to what the state of class-consciousness is at any time, well, that is a
matter of fact and you need empirical research to find it out. Or, you need
experience of class struggle. In my experience, it is true that the South
African working class is quite outstandingly class-conscious. That is my
impression. It is also the case that the intellectuals of the labour
movement in South Africa are predominantly reformist, in my opinion, with
the exception, generally speaking, of the SACP communists. Put simply, while
the working class is very advanced in South Africa, COSATU and the ANC are
currently sitting with reformist blinkers on. This is the nature of the
current conjuncture, in my opinion, although it is disguised by "militant"
rhetoric. The reformists are often the ones who shout loudest.
As to the peasantry, well, there are academic researchers who will say that
there are several million people in South Africa who continue to survive by
subsistance agriculture. I can't say from personal knowledge whether this is
true or not, but I do think it is very possible, and even likely. There will
be many more who are in an intermediate position, no doubt.
It is undoubtedly true that the peasantry and the working class are very
closely connected. They can be brothers or sisters in the same family. For
some workers it may be a surprise and a shock to be told that your brother
is in a different class to yourself. But the lesson here is not that the
classes are far apart, like two distant armies, but that they are intimately
connected, and that it has always been so. Undoubtedly the working-class do
influence the peasantry, but also the peasantry when working for wages often
remain to an extent peasants. That is why so many workers in South African
cities still regard themselves as "temporary sojourners", which is exactly
what the old apartheid regime used to call them. They dream of buying a
house or a little farm, and going back to the individualistic life of a
peasant.
The close connection between workers and peasants is a good thing insofar as
it can assist in an organic way, the consolidation of a class alliance, but
it should not make us think that these two classes do not exist as different
classes.
I suspect that you are mistaken to say that "the most fertile ground for the
seeds of socialism will be the rural areas". Where is the evidence for that?
What is the state of the co-operative movement in the rural areas? Where is
the literature of this rural revolution? I think you are presuming that work
has been done, which still remains to be done. I think that the SACP Special
National Congress is going to review these matters, and will help us to a
better assessment.
In struggle,
VC
Xoli Dlabantu wrote:
I think it is a very dangerous and gravely wrong to view South african
peasants in particular as petty beorgoise particularly because:
1. The South African development path (CST) has left the South African
society with no peasants but semi-peasants who have been for decades
been subsidised by the proletariat, which without saying therefore
subjects them to working class consciousness inclination or
affinity.This in turn has far reaching implications on the logical
negation in terms of the consequent rural development strategy that
has to be informed by the same working class hegemony. In South
africa, the most fertile ground for the seeds of socialism will be the
rural areas.
Comradely regards,
Xoli
On 10/1/09, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote:
<http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/SsSchsl02GI/AAAAAAAABbM/GrCJP5bp5Nk/s1600-h/EbenezerHowardThreeMagnets.jpg>
[CU for Friday, 2 October 2009]
The politics of class alliance at national level are well understood and
well executed in South Africa in terms of the *National Democratic
Revolution<http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum/web/national-democratic-revolution-console>
* (NDR) policy developed during the last nine decades, which led to the
democratic breakthrough of 1994 and which remains the dominant framework
of
South African politics, having been refreshed at Polokwane in 2007. At
national level, the interests of the working class continue to be well
articulated through the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the
trade
union movement whose largest centre is COSATU.
The petty bourgeoisie, on the other hand, has no dedicated political
_expression_ at national level, and nor has the peasantry. They are
compelled
to rely on others. This is in spite of the large size of these segments
of
the population in South Africa. It is a consequence the
“sack-of-potatoes”
nature of both of these two classes, the rural petty-bourgeoisie who are
the
peasants, and the urban peasants, who are the petty-bourgeois.
Both classes are made up of individualists, who aspire to live
autonomously, with everything of their own. The working class must
represent
the interests of these (mostly very poor) sections of the population at
national level, while the established bourgeoisie would wish to exploit
them
as political foot-soldiers for capitalism, and also to exploit them
directly, in the predatory way that the big bourgeoisie likes to feed off
the small bourgeoisie, which Rosa Luxemburg described so well in Chapter
2
of “*Reform or
Revolution?<http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/index.htm>
*” (linked below).
At local level, the situation is reversed. In South Africa, the
organised
working class has hardly any formal presence at, in particular, electoral
ward level. Here the petty-bourgeois individualists are working on home
ground and at the same scale as their own business operations. COSATU
Locals
and Socialist Forums are in the shade, if they exist at all. The SACP
generates cadres, and organises and assists the masses, including the
ANC,
in many different ways, but it does not stand candidates in elections.
In terms of theory, too, there is very little that would serve as
ideological guidance to the working class, locally. Whereas the
petty-bourgeoisie has an abundance of material and history to rely on,
some
of which is linked below. The town is the birthplace of the bourgeoisie
and
the natural territory of the petty-bourgeoisie, and the municipality is
the
“executive committee” of the local bourgeoisie. Not only is it their
instrument, but it is their regenerator, whose job it is to reproduce
bourgeois relations at local level and to bring forth new generations of
bourgeois-minded councillors and bureaucrats.
In the past, one effective working-class tactic was to confront this
concentration of local bourgeois strength with an organised workers’
democratic power. In Russia, this took the form of the “soviet”. The
first
one, as *Vladimir
Shubin<http://africanactivist.msu.edu/video.php?objectid=5>
* relates, was set up in the textile manufacturing centre of
*Ivanovo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanovo>
*, in 1905. Another tactic, problematic though it has been, is the
setting
up of producer and consumer co-operatives. This discussion will have to
develop both of these perspectives in due course.
For today, our CU job is to review some of the debate in the literature
of
petty-bourgeois development. Let it be understood that it is not the aim
of
the working class to drive any other class to early extinction. In the
spirit of the same “*18th Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm>
*” wherein Karl Marx described the peasantry, though sympathetically, as
a
“sack of potatoes”, because they could not unite, the working class must
lead the weaker classes and make provision for them in terms that will
satisfy them. For the classic peasantry, this meant giving them land and
a
market for their produce. For the petty bourgeoisie, it is the freedom to
do
business, and the guarantee, against the predatory monopolists, of a
market.
We, as the proletariat, also need these classes as allies against the
monopoly bourgeoisie. Therefore, as partisans of the working class, we
should read these works with a serious interest.
*Housing by
People<http://yclsa-eom-forum.googlegroups.com/web/1503%2C+Housing+by+People%2C+C1%2C+C6%2C+Who+Decides%2C+Turner.doc?hl=en&gda=-kJ15nQAAAAFjQ6FFq8vKuwi7yizXsX1_KIka77lHkVwTxhqgZ9g09x8AV9R8GfbyynxPODKU-sQy1id3x8cInJTS_Ccdrzs0WB9P8W3Z_Kkr7uLRS4DprnCy8f58nL8bUvXB44>
* (click this link for an MS-Word download, which includes diagrams that
do
not come through on the web page), by John Charlewood Turner, is a
discussion of housing, from a partly-idealised but well-educated point of
view, of where decisive power should lie, who should act, and how these
responsibilities should be divided up. It can serve us as a small link to
the great, beautiful and necessary field of study called urbanism, of
which
very little emerges into the general public realm. Urbanism is a site of
ideological struggle. It is also a labyrinth, in which it is easy to get
lost.
“Barking dogs and building bridges” is Lauren Royston’s subtle and
patient
destruction of the simplistic bourgeois platitudes of Hernando de Soto.
Glen
Mills’ 2006 Business Day article “Thinking out of the matchbox” briefly
summarises the general situation in South African housing, which has not
changed in the mean time. There is still no public discussion of design,
except at the “Top billing” level of snobbery and eclecticism, or at the
level of the most banal, hopeless utilitarianism, in the press. [Click
the
links below]
How will things change? The communists must strive to reproduce, in
every
locality, the same well-expressed and solid class alliance which has up
to
now underpinned the NDR at the national level. This means providing for
both
the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry, and the working class. Both must be able
to
see a clear way forward, in alliance with each other, at local level,
where,
at present, it is working-class organisation that is lacking.
[Graphic: Ebenezer Howard’s “Three Magnets”, from “Garden Cities of
To-morrow”, 1902]
*Click on these links:*
*Housing by People, C1, C6, Who Decides?, John
Turner<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1976,+Turner,+Housing+by+People>
* (7901 words)
*Barking dogs, building bridges, Lauren
Royston<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/2004,+Royston,+Barking+dogs+and+building+bridges>
* (5469 words)
*Thinking out of the matchbox, Glen Mills, Business
Day<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/Thinking+out+of+the+matchbox,+Glen+Mills,+Business+Day>
* (1199 words)
*Reform or Revolution, Chapters 2, 7, 9 & 10,
Luxemburg<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1908,+Luxemburg,+Reform+or+Revolution,+compilation+of+C2,+7,+9+and+10>
* (10250 words)
--
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