CPUSA continues the slide into the abyss of revisionism
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Ten Worst and Best Ideas of Marxism
By Joe Sims
I've been thinking about the battle of ideas in the post-Bush era and the great opportunity it will present to the left, socialist and communist sections of the labor movement. These opportunities however may well pass us by unless, we shed some of the ideological baggage we've been carrying around, pretending some of it to somehow consist of “first principles” or foundation stones of political knowledge. Below are in my opinion, the top ten worst and best ideas of Marxism. As I wrote them, I came up with a lot more. Maybe this will be a series.
TEN WORST
1. “Dictatorship of the proletariat.” Probably the worst phrase uttered by a political theorist ever. Who wants to live in a dictatorship? Even if I agreed with it conceptually, (which I don't), the Machiavellian in me has enough sense not to repeat it. Indefensible. And by the way, working-class “hegemony” (whatever the hell that means, sorry Gramsicans), aint much better.
2. “Single party state.” Related to but not necessarily derivative from the “proletarian dictatorship,” the one party state became and remains the model of “existing socialism” (whatever existing socialism means as the old model with one or two exceptions, no longer exists). Created to facilitate a forced march and manage popular consent by controlling the flow of information, it became a substitute for democratic decision-making, ideological struggle by convincing and consent instead of directive and decree. Internet has rendered completely useless. The single party state is doomed.
(Also equally odious was the codification of the “leading role of the party in the constitution of the former “socialist” eastern Europe and USSR.)
3.”Developed socialism” The above shows that working-class humanity was about 5000 light years away from even approaching a developed socialist society, especially those in the “Third World” which led them to attempt a hybrid mixed duck-billed-platypus economy described directly below.
4. “Socialist Market Economy” At best utterly confusing to most and a euphemism for capitalism at worst causing the term “capitalism” to almost disappear from the socialist/capitalist lexicon, replaced by the “market.” It has created a huge ideological fog leaving many to scratch their hands and wonder what were we fighting for anyway? Sweden is not my model!
5. “Listing defense of Soviet Union under the 21 points for joining the Comitern.” The idea of “Defending Socialism” by detachments outside of those countries attempting to build it led to some of the biggest quagmires and mistakes of the 20th century. Still with us in many forms including the defense of the use of death penalty in by some ruling parties for “economic crimes” a practice not even followed in countries practicing Sharia law, who cut off your hand.
6. “Art is a hammer with which to shape reality.” First articulated by Brecht, primitive and almost obscene. Oh when will we learn to appreciate and engage something so gentle and so moving and so profound as our creative selves.
7. “Marxism, Marxism-Leninism.” Very bad idea to name a scientific world-view after individuals. Way too subjective and besides too many bad stories and nightmares associated with it. And, not very working-class sounding: too many syllables and hyphens. Replace it with “scientific socialism” or the “socialist and communist idea.”
8. “Organic intellectual.” Sorry Gramsci people. Great idea, but too much granola.
9. “Negation of Negation.” Most people have no idea what the heck that means, in dire need of reformulation, so people can at least understand it.
10. “Religion is the opium of the people.” Probably the second stupidest phrase ever uttered by a political theorist. Here again indefensible, even if it was taken out of context. Truly, God is not our enemy: capitalism is.
TEN BEST:
1. “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” At once a concept of contribution and distribution, it sums up a moment perhaps beyond “fairness” and “equality” (which is its pre-condition) and toward a new civilization. Utopian as all hell, but I love it.
2. “The history of all society is the history of class struggle.” The opening lines of the Manifesto gripped and grabbed me as teenager and retain all their truth and force.
3. “Labor theory of value.” “Value” arises from different forms – a chief contributor is the worker on the factory floor. It was refreshing to hear a auto worker in Mic hagen say precisely that on NPR this weekend. To paraphrase, “We do all the work, and they take all the profits.” Exactly.
4. “Labor in the white skin cannot be free while labor in the black is branded.” This phrase from Marx's capital captures the dynamic interplay of class and race and remains a foundation stone of the socialist and communist idea.
5. “No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.” Here again, Marx studying the Irish question in relationship to problems in the labor movement in England sets forth the guiding principle of the working-class movement in relation to democratic struggles, calling on labor to place the struggle for democracy at the forefront of its agenda.
6. “Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” This idea, largely attributed to Lenin, comes rather from Plekanov. stresses the signal importance of theoretical work, an idea that often seems lost to the non-ideological as well as “ideological” US left.
7. “The educators must be educated.” You can say that again.
8. “The point is to change reality.” A daring and to some dangerous idea. But change it to what? The 19th century idea, much repeated by Marx and Engels of “mastering nature” must give way to a new concept.
9. “An once of action is worth more than a ton of theory.” Engels here seems to diminish theory, however, he actually placed it on equal par with the economic and political struggle. It speaks to the vital, initiating role of the “advanced detachment” of the labor movement, a value that too often seems to get lost.
10. “I am not a Marxist.” This phrase was uttered once by Marx and I read recently also by Engels in relation to some narrow statement by some would be adherent. . However, the latter is unconfirmed. The sentiment, however, is understood, as the reader saw at the top of this list.
Ok folks, let me know what you think. Plenty of space below:
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If it is not too old-fashioned and un-hip, I would actually like to discuss one of your “Ten Worst” ideas of Marxism, number 6: “’Art is a hammer with which to shape reality.’ First articulated by Brecht, primitive and almost obscene. Oh when will we learn to appreciate and engage something so gentle and so moving and so profound as our creative selves.”
Even if Brecht did say this (as far as I know, it is not in his written work), he certainly did not say it first, and it is not the complete quotation. The remark probably originated with the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the full idea is: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
Whatever the origins of this idea, what precisely about it do you find primitive and obscene?
The quotation counterposes two metaphors. The metaphors suggest that art (is, can be, or should be) active, not passive, a tool not a vanity, a shaper of perception and reality, not merely a reflection of it. This seems pretty astute to me.
If you prefer another metaphor, propose it. From your remarks, I infer that you would prefer a metaphor of art as a mystery, a daydream or self-gratification.
If you are offended by the hammer metaphor, you would probably get apoplectic over the Picasso’s metaphor that art is a weapon. Picasso, who besides being a Communist Party member from 1944 until his death, was no slouch in the “moving,” “profound,” and “creative” departments, said,
“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only as eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he’s a poet, or even, if he’s a boxer, just his muscle? On the contrary, he is at the same time a political being, constantly alive to heart-rending, fiery or happy events to which he responds in every way. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people and by virtue of an ivory indifference to detach yourself from the life which they so copiously bring you? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments, it’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.”
As an artist and Marxist editor, you have a responsibility to think more deeply about your ideas on art.
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Well, you cannot have things both ways. Either the body of work that has come to be known as Marxism or Marxism-Leninism is a social science, or it is sacred dogma. These terms are mutually exclusive. If it is a social science then it, like any other form of science, is subject to the testing of the data and to the accumulation of knowledge. If this were not the case, we might still believe the earth is flat, that gravity is a philosophically contested concept, and that any number of physical and emotional illnesses are best treated by leeches.
How many of us were drawn to the Communist Party because we were moved to challenge "conventional wisdom," to rebel against racism and reaction, to dissent and take a stand for what we believe to be a more humane system we call socialism? Since when did that spirit of intellectual challenge and rebellion end the moment we decided to be communists?
That said, let me share some of my thoughts.
1. Dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, Joe is right that it is an awful formulation. It was used by Marx in the early years of his writing (he was, I think, 30 years old when he collaborated with Engels in the writing of the Manifesto). And Joe is equally correct that it hasn't been part of the communist movement -- unless you want to count the RCP and Progressive Labor Party, for instance, since both these groups use that phrase prominently -- for many years.
Nowhere in his post does Joe suggest that the working class is irrelevant, or that class struggle doesn't exist (see his "ten best" list). He's saying "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a terrible phrase and he's correct.
Gee whiz, Marx made a formulation in 1848 that the historical experience doesn't support and doesn't translate well to 2008. Go figure. That makes Marx human. To take issue with Joe for "revisionism" for raising this crosses the line from social science into idolatry, in my opinion.
2. Single party state. There is more to this than I could possibly address. But a couple of points. I tend to believe mainstream journalism in the US was better when there was more than one daily newspaper in a city. When there was only one daily paper, there was an arrogance and really poor reportage was the rule rather than the exception. I think the single party state became a mechanism for bureaucracy and careerism. I knew Russians who were CPSU members one day, and then embraced Yeltsin the next day, and that was a real eye opener for me.
3. Defending the Soviet Union as a precondition for joining the Comintern. I am sure that had I been a communist and been living when this was put in, I would have supported it. In the 80 or so years since then, I think we can objectively say that the CPUSA and much of the international movement was ill served by making international working class solidarity synonymous with the policy of a state.
I am not sure whether I would agree with Joe that this is one of the worst ideas of Marxism as much as it is one of the worst things consented to by a large number of people who considered themselves to be Marxists.
3. Marxism/Marxism-Leninism. Let's accept that Marx didn't call himself a Marxist and that Lenin didn't call himself a Leninist. Jesus Christ didn't call himself a Christian -- nor did the Apostles -- all of whom lived their lives as Jews. What occurs to me is that there is a pretty wide gulf between those who call themselves Christians, Marxists and Marxist-Leninists, and those who would so identify themselves and really have a clue as to what those terms mean.
On the other hand, its become a tradition. People are accustomed to seeing those terms if they've been around the communist movement for any length of time. It's rather like the fact that Paul McCartney would appear with his famous Hofner violin bass guitar for Beatles concerts, while in the studio he used a Rickenbacker 4001. He did it solely, he said, because people were used to seeing it.
Whether or not we use the terms doesn't, ipso facto, change who were are as communists any more than my deciding to call myself "Sid" would change who I am. The Pentagon could call something a "manually driven implosion device" and an "agricultural defoliation tool" and it would still be a hammer and sickle.
4. I won't comment on the Brecht terminology because I would like to take a hammer to the television set based on some of the stuff on TV, like the Lohan show (I agree with Anderson Cooper!) or the Fox network.
5. I like both Gramsci and granola, so I am not objective on this point.
6. You can add me to list of people who aren't sure what "negation of the negation" means. If you negate something that's negative, wouldn't you call that "positive," a "remedy" or a "cure?"
7. Religion as the opiate of the masses. Yes, something we don't really need. I've always taken it to mean people use religion like an opiate -- which is to say, it takes away their pain. It can also be used to keep people from questioning, challenging, or seeking to make things better. I think this was Marx's point -- also made by the rebel minister portrayed by Gene Hackman in the Poseidon Adventure. :-) But Joe is right: God isn't our enemy, capitalism is.
I agree with all Joe's "best" points, but would move his #4 on that side to #1. One of the strengths of the CPUSA throughout its history has been the recognition of the toxic role of racism. This is something that the "Marxist" parties predating the CPUSA, the Socialist Party and Socialist Labor Party, were slow to recognize and act upon.
And the SLP, by the way, is the perfect example of a political organization that has become a kind of secular church, printing endless passages from Daniel DeLeon (whose ideas, apparently, Lenin viewed as "not at all bad") but completely uninvolved with day-to-day struggles. In this discussion, let's not forget that this involvement in the real-life issues confronting us today is one of our great strengths.
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I personally think the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is fundamentally a paternalistic fallacy. It is true we cannot simply declare our brothers and sisters "free" by decree and expect them to immediately know what real freedom is. But by equal measure they will never learn it or perceive it if someone says since they do not yet know, we, whether one says of party or "leader", will "know" what it is for the masses.
I think the idea of the single party state was largely the result of historical accident, when the peasant party chose to walk away from the Russian revolution. It then became a pattern, and I happen to think a rather bad one. This should not be confused however with the importance of having a united front when facing the exploiter.
Of course, I personally believe rather than thinking of a compulsorily state, which I feel empowers a separate political class, whether in the sense of a party with a "special social role", or so called democratic "electoral" forms which accomplishes much the same, that political power should be held directly by the people, and expressed on a voluntary basis in participatory forms of democratic expression.
With respect to the "opiate of the masses", the one question that often is lost is how one applies socialism to an existing society already in place, with it's existing imperfections, rather than the ideal one which we may wish to see emerge. I remember when I first visited Minep (in Caracas), in 2005, where the motto of the building is "no capitalism takes place inside", they had christmas decorations up. Here we have an example of socialism applied with a social connection to the existing society it was being practiced in.
Also, we have to recognize the common nature of struggle, whether we speak of worker and human freedom or those who seek freedom of expression and thought that is unpopular and rejected by a hostile capitalist society. At times this certainly includes religious ideas and expression as well. Not all forms of such expression are tools used for control of the masses.
"Scientific Socialism" to me seems rather redundant, almost like saying "Scientific Science", and what would "unscientific socialism" then be?? I think, however, for different reasons, it might appear presumptuous to label oneself Marxist. Too many try to invoke his name for their own interpretation of what Socialism is to give their version a "genuine" label, and presume they know precisely what Marx thought and knew. Indeed, given how many have invoked his name for so many things, it would be interesting to have the "real" Karl Marx stand up and explain it one last time. Alas, the coffin is too short...
However, I think rather than using it as an individual label, when we refer to legacy of Marx, and the scientific ideas of historical materialism, one could rightly and appropriately apply the name Marxism to these ideas, just as one refers to Darwin's theory of evolution, or Einstein's theory of relativity. It's just that we do not have people calling themselves "Darwinists" and "Einsteinians" :)...
From the best....
The best of the best, certain, "from each according to ability, to each according to need". Revolutions have been fought seeking this ideal in places least ready even by Marx's thinking for such revolutionary change. Many came to the path of socialism not from scientific reasoning, but rather from the promise and desire to seek true social justice this very idea invokes. Definitely #1 :)
Class (and the necessity of class struggle) is the disease and cancer of civilization. Was the very initial emergence of class itself also a natural (and evolutionary) consequence of civilization, which Marx seemed to believe, or only a social consequence of the particular civilizations that came to dominate, we do not know. Anthropology and archeology might be the best way to examine that.
We do however know something of what a communistic society might look like, at least ones that have culturally internalized this. The best examples are found among surviving indigenous cultures, such as the American Indian. I recall Marx choose to study the Haudenosaunee near the end of his life, and I happen to believe there is much that can be still learned here.
Point 4 is a logical consequence of recognizing all people as human beings and divisions used to repress and exploit, whether purely class, race, gender, etc, as fundamental blights on this and as such an intolerable injustice.
I would extend point 5. No people can be free, and no form of political freedom and political equality can endure, without economic freedom and economic democracy. By extension economics trumps politics for individuals. Put in a more human context, the factory worker who is told he will be fired if he votes for the wrong candidate has experienced this reality directly. Those who vote in rigged elections with "candidates" pre-vetted by the capitalist class have experienced the very same thing.
Point 8 references a problematic one. "Mastering nature", actually is a judeo-christian meme, "in dominion over nature", rather than living "in communion with nature". One speaks to exploiting the natural world to exhaustion, something that capitalists are particularly good at, while the other speaks of a sustainable human society. Many people these days, I have observed, have come to socialism from the perspective of seeking the latter.
But those are my own thoughts in reading this article. I do not choose a label for myself or a specific affiliation. I am simply concerned with the broader questions of human freedom.
--
Capitalism - sacrificing the needs of the many for the greed of a few
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Any effort to review the basic precepts of the science of Marxism/Leninism, also called dialectical and historical materialism, in this context may be useful if it aids in better understanding the moment, and provides some guidance on how to seize the "opportunity".
Dialectical and historical materialism is not a popularization, it is a science like physics is a science. In that sense there is a technical language with precise meanings in the context of the science that may or may not translate easily into popular terminology. One example is the term "dictatorship of the proletariat". Rather than seeing this as "Probably the worst phrase uttered by a political theorist ever", I think it is a very useful concept in understanding what working people must win and the role of the state in our struggle. If we understand that the state is an instrument of oppression, is biased toward a dominating class in both capitalist and socialist systems then the "dictatorship of the proletariat" makes sense. On whose behalf is the state apparatus applied? Today the state is used to facilitate the extraction of profit by limiting workers ability to organize, to further the exploitation of workers by transferring worker's tax funds from state tax coffers to capitalists through bailouts like that going on right now for the mortgage industry, and to further the long term imperialist goals of the capitalist class such as in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The state is not used to meet the housing, health care, food, infrastructure, or education needs of workers. Integrating an understanding of the bias that must underlie the actions of the state in a society with a ruling class would be a useful addition to the discussion about the role of the state post-Bush. The term "dictatorship of the proletariat" describes a change in bias in how the state apparatus is used, from supporting the aims of the capitalists to supporting the aims of workers. This is a change that I would very much like to see, and which bills like Employee Free Choice and HR-676 take small steps toward implementing.
The term Marxism/Leninism as useful in putting a human face to the science of dialectical and historical materialism in much the same way as Newton and Einstein are used to put a human face to the science of physics or Darwin for evolution. I celebrate the founders of dialectical and historical materialism and think that their legacy should be recognized. I think that whether one sees Marx and Lenin as linked to "bad stories and nightmares" or not is a matter of point of view. I associate them both with great strides forward for working people; theoretically in Marx's case and practically in Lenin's. I also reject the concept of "working-class sounding" as part of a larger issue: are working people in the USA able intellectually to grapple with sometimes difficult ideas or does the world have to be spoon fed to us in sound bite format. In my experience, workers are hungry for and more than capable of learning and understanding concepts that help us to fight better for our lives, our communities, and our class brothers and sisters. The Fox News style of dumbing down discourse facilitates subjective responses to difficult issues like immigration or the environment. Popularization should be a window through which an interested person can be introduced to an area, and then the materials should be there to continue exploring to an arbitrary level of depth of interest. The needs of popularization should not be the limit of exploration or of the language used in scientific discussion.
One last point: "The point is to change reality", which I believe may be what appears on Marx's grave, was stated specifically in contrast to metaphysical theories that existed then and now. The focus of a social science today should not be to understand for understanding's sake, it should be to understand in order to change the world. The context for this statement was clear from the focus of Marx's life. The result of the attempt to understand is totally different when the focus is on changing something rather than academic description. This is a core difference between bourgeoisie capitalist academic apologies for the current situation under the guise of the social sciences and dialectical and historical materialism. Marx said, in "Theses on Feuerbach":
"Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."
I think this is true of both the fundamentally opposing forces. Capitalists have vast resources available to manage and exploit our social structures, though they mask the class struggle component behind concepts of human nature and ahistorical universals (i.e., its always been like this and always will be like this). Our understanding as workers is derived from the struggle to modify society to meet our own needs.
I'll stop here as I've already run on for too long. I am glad to see this type of discussion being invited and hope to see more discussion in the future.
Thanks for this very interesting blog discussion.
Eric Brooks
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I have to say that I think that, while I disagree with much of what Joe said, I can't help but be pleased with the spirit in which it was written, and, conversely, apalled with a number of the comments here (like those of "Proud Marxist-Leninist"). Nothing is more harmful to the Communist movement than turning its ideology into a religion, a bunch of dead ideas in old texts, not to be tampered with.
The spirit of science, and indeed of Marxism, is the spirit of inquiry, of always reexamining and re-evaluating new and older ideas, holding them up to the light of reality and seeing whether or not they hold up to it.
Joe raised the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and said he didn't accept it. Well, is he right or wrong? A real Marxist--really, anyone who's logical--should say why or why not they think he's right or wrong. What they should not do is say that the reason that Joe is or isn't wrong is because of a quote that they've pulled out of an old text--even if that text is written by Lenin (who certainly never used the term Marxism-Leninism).
This idea that an open discussion of ideas, where theoretical cows aren't sacred, will somehow destroy the Communist Party, or lead to a loss of membership, couldn't be more wrong. Actually, the idea that the Communist Party itself is becoming smaller and smaller, is factually incorrect. For the first time in many, many years, the party is growing in both influence and in numbers. And also notice that the Communist Parties currently in power—the ones that haven’t been overthrown and had their countries collapse—were the ones that threw off dogmatic ideas and began to experiment. (Think China and Vietnam, especially).
I want to add to the list of best things that have come out of Marxism:
“Seek truth from facts.”
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An interesting list of 10 worst / 10 best.
Here are some of my own thoughts. I never cared for the term "Marxist-Leninist," it's an invention of Stalin with no real content. But I think the term "Marxist" is much more appropriate than "scientific socialism."
Religion can indeed be the opium of the masses. It certainly has a long history of oppresion, and in the USA and Canada is, in general, a right-wing force. What's more all religions are lies and superstition, and no serious Marxist can be religious.
Organic intellectual and Negation of the Negation are not particularly difficult concepts. All sciences use unfamiliar terms and learning them is not so hard.
"Art is a hammer ..." Perhaps you just object to the word "hammer." Try "tool" instead and I think you will grasp Brecht's point.
As for the idea and practice of the "one-party" state, I entirely agree with you; but if in the end there is to be no "working class hegemony" I don't see how capitalism will ever be surpassed and a socialist state come to be.
David Lethbridge
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For some time, many on the left have been troubled with the direction of the CPUSA. Now with this unambiguous statement from the editor of the Party's theoretical journal, we see a candid statement of the road map favored by the Party's leadership. It is not a journey that revolutionaries would wish to take.
It would require an extensive, detailed essay to answer, point by point, Sims' cavalier "Ten Worst" list, but maybe the most serious error is his easy dismissal of the idea behind the often misunderstood expression "dictatorship of the proletariat"
If "dictatorship of the proletariat" is indeed, according to Sims, the "worst phrase uttered by a political theorist ever" he must live in a world vastly different from the one inhabited by 99% of working people. In a world cursed with "collateral damage", "illegal aliens", and "racial profiling", surely he has exaggerated in order to distance himself from the Marxist tradition.
When Cold Warriors adopted the term "dictatorship" to apply to every socialist state and movement in the world, Communists everywhere felt some uneasiness with the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" for fear that it be misunderstood. Nonetheless, Marxists sought to patiently explain the concept in a way that would put to rest the ugly connotation of "dictatorship" that arose, especially among anti-Communist intellectuals.
Sims, however, makes it clear that his quarrel is not merely with words, but with the concept. His argument is worthy of grade school debates: "Who wants to live under a dictatorship?"
But the fact of the matter is that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a concept that arose from the cauldron of working class struggle. Since history demonstrates that every ruling class imposes its interests upon the state, socialist thinkers concluded that capitalist dominance produced a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the capitalist ownership class. Marx recognized this dictatorship when he saw how determined and united the bourgeoisie was in brutally suppressing the Paris Commune of 1871, the first workers' government. Of course, this class-based concept had been demonstrated throughout history, from the slave revolts in Rome to the peasant rebellions throughout Europe and, in our time, to the counter-revolutionary movements in Venezuela, Bolivia, and other socialist-oriented countries. In every case, the socio-economic classes in power, regardless of the formal structure of government, imposes their will upon other social classes - a kind of dictatorship – until other classes are able establish their own dominance. Does twenty-first century monopoly capitalism in the US leave any stone unturned in furthering the interests of the rich and privileged? With Cuba, Venezuela, and Iraq in mind, is there any doubt that the US ruling class would, when pressed to the wall, unleash a brutal, death dealing repression against forces that threaten its rule - a veritable dictatorship? I would be surprised if those who rail against the fascist danger of the ultra-right would disagree with me.
For Marxists – those who are not ashamed to defend concepts against word-mongering – the only viable political answer is the dictatorship of the proletariat – a working class dominance of power that will defend to the end the interests of the vast majority of working people against any subversion of working class interests by other classes. The specific form of government – a parliament, Soviets, councils, a working class party, or whatever creative form would be suggested by the balance of forces - is best left to the people and not ideologues or lawyers.
Surely this idea – an idea that resonated with millions of working class activists - deserves a discussion and not a contemptuous dismissal.
One senses a frustration, a personal disappointment, with the ideas that have nourished the Communist movement in Sims' frivolous treatment. This is disappointing, especially from one who has given much to that movement. But it is no excuse for public ridicule.
Greg Godels
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I also think if one is going to make bold denunciations of individuals, the denouncer should have command of all the facts. The point of this blog is to promote discussion, and respondents should not be afraid to discuss.
I think reimagining the both how we describe the new form of government, how it comes into being, how it operates, and its aim is a worthy task.
I think the lesson of Venezuela, though I don't want to hold up any country as a model, a major error that I sense in many of these responses, is that a national democratic movement, a multi-class, multi-sectoral coalition, can win power without violence and with different strategic aims than a capitalist dominated party.
It also can win broader popular support by not making the error of imposing the dominance of a single party on the state or on the people, and by leaving the decisions of major transformation up to the people, even when leftists with the truly inspired written word of Lenin at their command have different goals and agendas.
The movement for socialism in Venezuela may become an enduring political coalition there, much like the left front in India, the communist party in Japan, and so on.
But its willingness to abide by decisions of the people, instead of imposing its will through dictatorship, is a major advance for the world movement.
I also appreciate how the venezuelan movement relies on its lived experience, not on borrowed experience from Europeans more than 100 years ago.
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The problem here are the terms used and the inability of the socialist and communist left to find substitutes. Generally we have a problem with language and use if far less creatively than the working class itself. Language, like the communist idea, is alive, its time to stop treating it like a dead thing.
Michael P is correct. More, the arrival of working-class intellectuals as a result of public education is the best thing that has happened to the left since the writing of the Manifesto.
"Organic" like "hegemony" where terms used with an eye toward censors. After 80 years we can do better.
So too with negation of negation.
Finally on "opiates" religious people find the phrase offensive and one can understand why. More, the church, mosque, synagogue and temple have been sites of important resistance and struggle. Yes there has been reaction there as well, but so long as we confront the reality of death, humanity will seek answers in religious explanations.
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"Labor theory of value.” Originated by the classical economist Adam Smith, borrowed by Marx.
In the list of bad ideas one might include the assignment of reactionary status to whole classes. Marx considered the proletarian revolution to be a subset of petit-bourgeois revolutionism but transformed by the role of the industrial worker. Liquidation of whole classes was a very bad idea.
So was and is the defense of Russian/Slav and Han Chinese imperialism.
But the worst of all was the idea of a compulsory collective social experiment. Every conception of socialism before that of Stalin saw the development of socialism as resting mainly on voluntary economic actions: planned, careful collectivization of industry and voluntary formation of agricultural collectives. The ex-Yugoslav republic of Slovenia is probably the closest country to the original idea of socialism now existing in the world. Its economy is about one-third private, one-third long-established cooperatives, one-third state enterprises. Works pretty well and has an excellent, democratic (small d) system. There is a positive sense of proletarian solidarity in society but it is based on historic traditions, not on state propaganda.
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I think blogging gives the opportunity for a freer flow of ideas: you can put stuff out there, make mistakes, be edgy etc. This is a great tool for discussion, debate and dialog and I am glad we are using it. In response to some of the posts, I would say the following. First I speak for myself and no one else. That said, most of what I laid in the negatives is not all that controversial and operates within the orbit of communist thinking over the last half century.
The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” hasn't been used in the world communist movement for over 50 years. Given the history of the 20th century the reasons are obvious.
The term arose in response to problems of the Paris Commune and its collapse and the search for answers as to how to retain power. Conceptually it is true that some parties while abandoning the term, have kept its essence. The search for many continues.
The problem facing US communists in the 21 century is how to overcome the concept that we are inherently undemocratic. Hence our attitude on this issue is no small matter. Various concepts have arisen to replace the old term: the Gramscian working-class hegemony (used for example by the SACP) or working-class power or working-class led state. A basic question in each is will working-class parties and socialist leadership abide by elections. In other words, how and by what means will they defend power. Hugo Chavez in my opinion gave a brilliant and correct answer to this question in relation to the recent national referendum – a big plus for socialism in the 21st century. (Chavez said he would abide by and respect the election results if he lost, which he did).
On the single party state it is no accident all countries professing socialism have adopted this model. All of these countries originally followed the example of the USSR not only with regard to the form of the state, but also the economy. The economic policies have changed but the form of the state largely have not.
By the way, for all of the quoters of Gus Hall my formulations on the purpose of the one-party state, the forced march and controlling the flow of information are his. He made the point a decade ago that in this regard the Internet has changed everything, including the forms and methods of maintaining power. In other words, no more short cuts, folks. The role of the ideological struggle is increased enormously in this regard. It is my opinion that yes, the single party state is doomed. It cannot stand indefinitely in light of the changes that have taken place. This does not mean socialism is doomed. In fact it means the opposite in my opinion.
It was Gus too in a number of YCL and Party schools who raised the problem on naming sciences after individuals. Those who promote “Marxism” as opposed to “Marxism-Leninism” in my experience tend to soften the initiating role of the Party, the national question along with the experience and lessons of attempts at socialist construction. On the other hand, “Marxism-Leninism” of late in US has expressed itself in narrow, sectarian forms. My own view, as I wrote in Marxism Reloaded several years ago, is to find another formulation, and here scientific socialism may fit well.
On “developed socialism” well it clear that countries attempting socialist revolutions have occurred in the most backward countries economically. This backwardness has made an indelible stamp. In fact finally most were unable to overcome it. The concept of “developed socialism” and “state of the whole people” was essentially idealist and wrong. The socialist market is an attempt at correction. It's success is still uncertain. It seems you cannot skip stages. Ideologically however, it would be more honest to call it what it is: state capitalism. Here one can pose an important theoretical question: does “socialism” exist anywhere in the world? Most countries utilizing market (read capitalist) methods no longer refer to themselves simply as “socialist countries.” The Chinese for example, now say it will take them 100 years to reach “developed socialism.” More realistic in my view.
Finally, on art and culture, consider that the US left has no real policy or position. The thinking here is indeed primitive. I stand for a committed and partisan art, one that is truthful even when it hurts. It is true that Brecht juxtaposed a mirror with a hammer, reflecting with changing, and is with Marx in insisting artists must help change the world. The metaphor however is very unfortunate and has given rise to unartful attempts at an extremely important task, requiring most times a very soft touch. I think a feather works better.
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I don't believe in dogmatic applications of theory as much as in dynamic development based on Socialist principles but neither do I believe that we can write off the non-party state as a possibility. Instead we must learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
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Regarding point 8 above,
of course "organic" has so taken on another meaning as in "organic foods" (the only kind we shd be eating), that 'organic intellectual' meaning one who arises from and serves the struggles of the people does get brushed by the organic food symbol. You cdve mentioned that this is why no one says 'organic intellectual', everyone seems to use 'public intellectual,' wch Gramsci also used and it means the exact same thing.
on point 8 below: Marx and Engels may have talked about mastering nature but Engels also said a few things about not abusing nature, for nature will have her revenge upon us. They both had some awareness of the terrible effects that industrial capitalism had on the environment but admittedly it was a centerpiece in 1870s.
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DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT. The basic concept was that under socialism, the working class would be the dominant force in society. Marx used the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” to contrast it with the existing dictatorship of the capitalists, but also indicated that this would in fact be the most complete form of democracy, as the proletariat is the vast majority of the society. Since the word “dictatorship” turns people off I agree one should find a substitute phrase for modern times, but the idea that the working class under socialism would share control of the society with unspecified others needs to be spelled out. WHO would the working class share this control with? In the early days of the USSR, Lenin’s idea was to ally the working class with the peasantry. That’s one thing. But for workers to share power with their exploiters, on the other hand, is not socialism, but social democracy.
SINGLE PARTY STATE is not a concept rooted in basic Marxist theory, but a response to situations that arose in socialist states around the world for specific reasons. So it is not really a “Marxist idea”, but a political practice which needs to be criticized or praised in terms of more specific contexts. You say that the single party state is doomed: Do you mean that socialism in Cuba, for example, is doomed?
DEVELOPED SOCIALISM and working class humanity. The idea that workers are backward (“working class humanity was about 5000 light years away from even approaching a developed socialist society”) and therefore socialism developed in backward ways is something that I can not accept. I do not think that a careful analysis of the development, for example, of Stalinism, can proceed from a denunciation of the backwardness of Russian workers as a class. Rather, it arose from the mixed-class nature of Russian society. You seem to be suggesting that because workers are backward, socialism as the genuine product of workers’ struggles turns out to be a deformed monster. This I can DEFINITELY not accept.
SOCIALIST MARKET ECONOMY: Here I tend to agree with you to the extent that the idea of “socialist market economy” needs to be fleshed out more, from an analytical and theoretical perspective. You say Sweden is not your model with which I heartily agree, but some of the other things you are saying here tend toward a social democratic approach. How do you make sure that a socialist project that does not try to seize the predominance of state power for the working class will not turn into Sweden, or Tony Blair’s “New Labour”, eventually? In those countries, the working class increased its power after World War II but did not take state power and in the conception of its own social-democratic leaders was only interested in “sharing” power with its own bourgeoisie, aristocracy etc. We have seen how that turned out long-run--the workers were crushed. Now, in the previous point you criticized the workers in third world countries for attempting a hybrid duck-billed platypus economy, by which I guess you mean “Socialist Market Economy”. For this you can’t mean Cuba or North Korea so I guess you must either mean China and Vietnam, who experiment with a lot of market mechanisms to the trepidation of some of us. Is that what you meant? If so, there is an ongoing discussion about it within Marxist circles, but you formulate the point vaguely.
LISTING DEFENSE OF THE SOVIET UNION UNDER THE 21 POINTS FOR JOINING THE COMINTERN. The problem was not defending the USSR against imperialist attack, which was a real necessity especially as fascism’s power grew stronger in European politics. Mistakes were made in terms of not being more critical while engaging in this defense. Would it be better if Churchill or Hitler had destroyed the USSR? Or should parties who were in favor of smashing up the USSR have been welcomed as part of the COMINTERN? That defense was absolutely essential. And who are you referring to when you say that we are still defending the death penalty when applied for economic crimes? I am an active opponent of the death penalty, as I think most communists and radical socialists in this country are, and have never defended its use to punish economic, or indeed any, crimes. I have said many times, as have many other people, that even the infrequent use of the death penalty in Cuba should be abolished. But that does not make capitalism somehow superior to socialism, or socialist practices worse than those of Sharia Law, which, as you say, cuts off your hand for stealing but stones women to death for adultery!
ART IS A HAMMER WITH WHICH TO SHAPE REALITY. I happen to enjoy a wide range of art and it does not all have to have a socialist-realism political purpose, but those artists, including the great Brecht, who have put their artistic talents to the use of advancing humanity, and have suffered as a consequence, should be praised, not called “obscene”.
MARXISM, MARXISM-LENINISM. OK, so you don’t think social movements should be named for their founders. This is a matter of taste, but I suspect that calling something “scientific socialism” will conjure up the image of Harold Wilson who used to use that term and was in no way a genuine socialist.
ORGANIC INTELLECTUAL. Gramsci’s terminology was often somewhat opaque and also, I suspect, not well translated from the original Italian into English. But if you think it is a great idea, what would you call it? The alternative or rival idea is of intellectuals as superior beings who float above society; Gramsci wanted to have an idea of intellectuals who were committed to use their intellects to support the working class struggle from within. To me this is a VERY great idea, which has defined my own life and I suspect yours as well.
NEGATION OF NEGATION is terminology derived from Hegel’s idealist dialectics, and I never liked the phrase either. But let’s not throw the basic concept of materialist dialectics out also.
RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE. The quotation is inexact, in the first place, and I think we can’t just jump from denouncing all religion as inevitably bad to embracing it as all sweetness and light. Even though religion today is not ALWAYS used in the way that led Marx to coin the phrase, it OFTEN still is. Marx’s comment about religion as the “opiate of the masses” was not part of a major, focused attention to the function of religion in capitalist society, and a thoroughgoing Marxist analysis of religious phenomena has to take into account the fact that in certain circumstances, the working class interest becomes represented within religious communities (Theology of Liberation and so forth). But the established religions of Europe in Marx’s day did not have anything progressive about them, and this is what he was referring to.
I don’t disagree with your “best ideas” but I think in several points in your “worst” ideas you are being quite un-historical and this is leading you pretty far afield, toward a vague sort of utopian, libertarian socialism. The world is not like that.
Emile Schepers
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What is to be Done?: Burning Questions of Our Movement – Lenin
The State and Revolution – Lenin
"Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder – Lenin
If Marxism-Leninism isn't for you, you can always go hang out with the liberals: http://www.democraticunderground.com/
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But I don't appreciate any individual today saying they get to determine what the correct "Marxist-Leninist" way of thinking is, like say Jerry Falwell might about Christianity and interpretations of the Bible, and get to invite others with whom they disagree out of the party.
That is not what the Communist Party USA is about. Maybe the Republican Party...
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It is possible for communists or Christians to disagree with other members of their own groups on many topics of lesser importance. However, there are certain basic aspects of their beliefs that can not be rejected, without also ceasing to be a part of the group in question. Joe Sims (and others here) have clearly done this.
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Here's an even more fundamental Marxist concept: if some idea is wrong, change it based on reality as it is, not on an unchanging belief in a text.
And BTW, you are the "individual" that made a pronouncement on what people who disagree with you should do, i. e. leave the communist party.
That is so arrogant. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't debate the point on its merits and try to convince someone you are right, instead of falling back on an argument like: "Lenin said it's true, so it must be true." That is a Jerry Falwell mode of arguing. I suspect Marx would be rolling over in his grave. Communists must be better than that. One would hope.
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If you reject the dictatorship of the proletariat, then you are no longer a Marxist. It is that simple. In fact, by doing so you have entered the realm of bourgeois liberal politics, which is precisely what the current "C"PUSA leadership has done.
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If Marxism is science it has to discard hypotheses that aren't proven by reality.
That is the method.
If you can't convince people that they should support the dictatorship of the proletariat and your organization disappears as a result, at least you had the warm feeling of thinking your literal interpretations of the holy text were correct.
But, my friend, your argument represents the worst kind of liquidationism, to use another ancient and sacred term.
Can't we move on and talk about the substance of the argument? If you don't have a substantive argument other than some Marxists way back when said something and that is what defines us today, I am going to move on. I hope you will too.
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extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of
the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is what constitutes the most
profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as
well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real
understanding of Marxism is to be tested." (from the State and Revolution).
BTW, the only reason the "C"PUSA's membership is in decline is because of the revisionist leadership. People who want to join a communist party do not want to uncritically cheer lead for imperialist candidates like Barack Obama and John Kerry, which is all that you do in the PA. Yes, you might be able to get a few liberals to subscribe to your journal, but not for long. Why should they become long term supporters? They already have The Nation. They do not need your journal. And liberals certainly do not need a "communist" party either.
Party liquidation is also not so simple as membership figures either. If a communist party has rejected the most basic concepts of Marxism-Leninism, then it has already effectively liquidated itself and joined the ranks of the bourgeois parties.
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I say clinging to silly notions because a book says too and watching the party slip into irrelevance is liquidationist.
Today, the party has avoided irrelevance because of its strategic policy of defeating the ultra right and the effective work it does.
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1) a liberal-democratic power-sharing arrangement with the bourgeoisie which the latter will inevitably dominate and eventually kick the working class out of, thanks to all of the accumulated advantages of their position. Portugal, the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Peronist Argentina, the most overt and disturbing example of Chile (wherein Allende's coalition mouthed pious liberal democratic talking points to the end, suppressing the very working class that had brought them into power and was eager to defend socialism by force of arms; thus setting themselves up for massacre and the two subsequent decades of hell that was the Pinochet regime) - this analysis is borne out in every historical case study you can think of.
2) the working class simply not taking power at all, and hoping to change the world anyway. I believe a fairly popular book was written to this effect. Unfortunately, ninety nine times out of a hundred, lack of access to state power means lack of access to basic resources needed for building society; take any given EZLN autonomous province in Chiapas, wherein the economy is moribund, social services are virtually nonexistent, and population figures are dropping like a brick. The Mexican government doesn't even have to suppress the Zapatistas anymore - the latter are doing a bang-up job of making themselves irrelevant.
And if you do not espouse the working class coming to power except in these completely ineffective forms which rejection of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" entails, you have no right to call yourself a Marxist, at least not as your primary orientation. Sorry.
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What would Lenin say?
"Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding of Marxism is to be tested." (Lenin, State & Revolution, 1917)
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Some of what you said I said much earlier in my response, namely that dictatorship has always meant power, sovereignty, and but it doesn't and frankly can't so easily mean that today anywhere. We should call for a government that is based on working class power, a government that organizes society around the interests of the working class, but to call that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and to try to educate workers to see dictatorship in a positive light is I think counterproductive
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A former Soviet ideologist rightly says that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is the crux of Marxism...The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat has naturally always been, and remains, the pivot of the struggle of Marxism-Leninism against reformism and revisionism." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)
Marxism-Leninism teaches that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is the only force capable of transforming society from capitalism to socialism. "What is the dictatorship of the proletariat?" Kuusinen writes: "it is power in the hands of working people, led by the working class and having as its aim the building of socialism." (Otto Kuusinen, Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)
The dictatorship of the proletariat ain’t one man rule. Dictatorship is a word that has got a "bad rap" in history, especially after fascism, but the old definition of the term simply means power. When we Marxists say the dictatorship of the proletariat, we mean the power and the rule of an entire class--the working class. The dictatorship of the proletariat, according to Marxist-Leninist theory, goes hand-in-hand with an expansion of democracy for the broad masses even as exploiters and reactionaries are restricted. Lenin said: "the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists." (Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917)
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Joe Sims says on this blog that one of the worst ideas of Marxism was the “Dictatorship of the proletariat.” Even if I agreed with it conceptually, which I don’t....Indefensible."
Gus Hall wrote of opportunists in Working Class USA: "the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is dropped, not because the words can be misused but because the concept of working class rule is objectionable to the capitalist class and those influenced by it." And "a classical feature of revisionism is its rejection of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)
Joe Sims said on this blog that one of the worst ideas of Marxism was the name “Marxism (and) Marxism-Leninism.”
Gus Hall, writing of the Communist leadership in "at least one" other Communist Party, said that "the opportunistic decay has reached the point of dropping Marxism-Leninism. When a Party leadership regresses to that level, perhaps dropping the claim to Marxism-Leninism is simply a reflection of the truth." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)
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Excellent point. Comrade Hall lived through periods or revisonism and knew of what he spoke.
The role of revisionism is to weaken the united struggles against capitalism-imperialism in the workers movements and diminish the role and the strength of socialist ideas, and also to undermine the understanding of the strength of the workers towards accomplishing the road to socialism. Their role is to divide the international working class in their struggles against international imperialism. Revisionism played a big role in the demise of the USSR and in other Eastern European socialist countriesl.
As Marxist Leninists It is one thing of formally not accepting revisionist policies, even stating that we all must fight against this menace- but it is another thing to show the concrete steps that have to be taken to defeat this cancer.
The struggle against revisionism cannot be made by only making statements. You must have political knowledge of Marxism-Leninism theory – this will help to struggle and defeat revisionism that affects individuals and the Party.
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The point is, IMO, that we are partisan, ultimately, for a democratic society in which the working class is the ruling class, but not in which "the" "revolutionary party" controls the reigns of power. I think it is possible to imagine a Bill of Rights Socialism that was adopted by a broad range of social forces, led by labor and the working class, but in which multiple parties compete for power with differing agendas, ideological orientations and so on. I think Venezuela is teaching us that lesson. And other socialist-oriented countries are teaching or have taught us about the difficulties of building a participatory democracy and building class hegemony with a single party system when the party becomes the state and so on.
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3 disregards the embedded nature of value in ecology just as much as capitalism does.
6 and 9 clearly contradict each other and can best be replaced by the obvious, bland 'thought needs to be bound to action, and vice versa'.
8 is too general to be distilled into consistently directed action (e.g. some elements of reality need to be changed, for which you need to work with and thereby reinforce others, which is a pragmatic equation, etc., etc.).
I agree with the other 5, though. And from the worst list I am fond of the 'Religion is the Opium of the People' quote and tentatively favour a 'social(ist(?)) market economy' (in the end I think how a society deals with information is more important than its economic system).
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Simple, powerful and ultimately true. It was, after all, "coined" by classical economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Ever since Marx adopted it, the capitalist economists have been fleeing the notion, trying their best to discredit it by adopting in its place the concept of marginal utility based solely on use value, which can occasionally be highly subjective.
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The full quote in context juxtaposes the bourgeois's concept of art as simply a mirror reflectingan idealized reality to the idea that art shapes reality. Brecht is right. Art shapes and influences ideas by showing new insightful ways of seeing reality which in turn change lives and reality itself. While I am opposed to the narrow definitions of Proletarian art that were put forth in the 30's and 40's, art remains a powerful tool in the shaping of concepts and class perspective and awareness. Art must first be art and not simply propaganda but cultural work cannot be underestimated and the ruling class knows it. Most artforms (music, cinema . . .) supported and promoted by the bourgeoisie are reactionary, and fascistic and the effect has been to move people conceptually toward nationalism, vengeance, and commodity fetishism.
We have a responsibility to promote progressive working class culture and the artists who create it. I continue to struggle with inadequate support and many obstacles to publish working class literature and have done so for over a decade. I have seen results in the progressive influence it has on readers in raising class awareness and consciousness. As Gorky pointed out, people respond to different things -- not all will take in political science and theoretical treateas but music, poetry, murals and painting, theater . . . will strike a chord with many that will lead them to the realization of militant class consciousness. -- indeed, art can be a hammer shaping reality!
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Thomas Kenny
New York, New York
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I think Joe has hit on some key points that will find better discussion than mere dismissal. I especially like and agree with Joe's points: 1-3, 5-7, and 9-10.
I hope other contributors to this blog will add depth to this discussion or additional points they think need to be rethought.
What he has done here, I think, is to pin-point some key modes of discourse and habits of speech we have gotten into that mean nothing to our constituency – the working class.
These habits need to be unlearned, and a new approach to talking about our ideas needs to be adopted. On top of that, some bad old ideas can be discarded in favor of
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tell me a old story with new words...
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But to this list, I might add the notion that dialectical materialism is somehow in tune with the most advanced physical sciences today.
I especially agree with the comment on art and culture. Dogmatic and reductive equation of art and culture to some economic base is thinking that just needs to go. This lead to an abuse of creative abilities to bend them into the service of some political agenda. Sometimes this works as art, but usually it is garbage. Beethoven never sat down and said let me express the emotions of the new bourgeois era, the inner feelings of the typical lawyer or shop owner; pluck the internal heart strings of the stock broker's wife. Please.
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This isn't what the quote about art being a hammer meant. Do some research into Brecht and his philosophy. And yes, believe it or not, Beethoven's compositions were embedded in a distinct class-based milieu from which analysis of them is inseparable. To conceive that the Ninth Symphony somehow doesn't embody a response to the emerging bourgeois reality of the of the 19th century ("Oh, no, not at all! It's all about the undying triumphalism of the human soul, see!") is just as ignorant and philistine as criticizing Beethoven for not changing the lyrics of "Ode to Joy" to hagiographize Robespierre. The Ninth is still sublime to us today because those elements of socioeconomic upheaval in Beethoven's era that are expressed through it still are as well, and because Beethoven the individual was particularly good at feeling and expressing them.
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I don’t really have any disagreements in your ten best section, but I do find a lot with which to disagree with in your ten worst section.
I can understand why one would shy away from using the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat”—it seems reminiscent of Stalin and the lack of democracy that came about in many socialist societies. But the idea behind it, that the overwhelming majority of people in society, would become the leaders—isn’t this democracy, what we would strive for? For example, if you had a truly democratic society—say, no corporations are in any way able to influence the state, there is no big money going towards swaying elections, and the economy itself were democratized: Given that the vast majority of the people are the proletariat, or working class, wouldn’t you in fact have a dictatorship of the proletariat, as Marx and the others used the term? Just as in a highly democratic bourgeois society no one would necessarily be disenfranchised, so would be the case in a state that was a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. If you have a society that isn’t that—I would rather use the term “working class-led state” or something of that sorts—if you didn’t have a society like that, then what would there be? No state at all, really, and no democracy.
The single party state… The idea that it’s a perquisite for socialism was a huge error, of course. Lenin spoke of a multi-party socialist democracy, and the single-party state in the USSR arose only out of historical chance. Even the Soviets thought it wasn’t a model that should be copied, though it generally was. But the point is that everything has to be looked at in its own historical circumstances. Chinese leaders argue that, at least for the time being, it wouldn’t be good for them to switch to a multi-party democracy; in Chile they began building socialism through an electoral alliance of different parties. I tend to think that what they have in China is right for now, and what they were developing, organically, in Chile was right for that situation. In the U.S., with our history of a couple of parties, I’d guess that we’d end up having some kind of two-party system even under socialism, and a multi-party system would likely arise in countries with parliamentary democracies. But who knows? More important than the formal number of parties is the question of whether the state is connected genuinely with the people, whether or not the working class, and the people as a whole, have the say in what is going on, control over the state. Even there, there’s the question of direction: In Russia, after the revolution, there was an initial leap of democracy; probably that was the most democratic time in Russia’s history. But then Russia began sliding backwards, especially under Stalin, far away from democracy. The state became detached from the people (and then there are the economic questions, tied in with the questions of the state), and it fell apart. In China, while there still isn’t a fully developed democracy, the trend has been in the right direction, as well as, I think, in Cuba, though I haven’t studied Cuba that much. Venezuela…it’s too early, and contradictory, to tell what’s going on.
I fully agree with you on the idea of “developed socialism.” We haven’t seen that anywhere; there are maybe six or seven countries building socialism, or in a very low level of it, but nowhere has there ever been a high-level, advanced socialism.
I don’t really understand the criticism of the SME, exactly. Do you disagree with the name, or with the plan of development that most of the socialist countries have taken on, especially China and Vietnam? If it’s the former, then it’s not really that big of a deal. If it’s the latter… then I’d disagree significantly. I don’t think, though, that it’s responsible for the term “capitalism” disappearing, nor do I think that term has disappeared. It’s problematic to associate the market economy with the capitalist system, a capitalist society. Markets have existed for some time, and will continue to exist: A big problem, it seems, with the Soviets and other former socialist countries, was that they didn’t recognize this. There have been capitalist command economies as well as market economies, but the underlying relations of power were different.
Kudos to your point about art being a hammer—art is something truly human, a way of expressing oneself. It’s true that art, like everything, reflects the society in which it was produced, and generally has some meaning, the idea that the purpose of art is to…or the idea that art has to have some purpose other than human self expression—that really is…let me scroll up…primitive and obscene. It was this kind of stupidity that got Picasso thrown out of the French Communist Party.
I have to say I was rather put off by the point on Marxism, though I agree with you in principle. The Japanese Communist Party uses the term “scientific socialism,” and I think that is a good terminology. I’m not as vehement in opposing naming a worldview or branch of science after individuals—it’s relatively common: Darwinism, Newtonian physics, and so on. But what really put me off was this quote about “not very working-class sounding: too many syllables and hyphens.” I hope that we think the working class is able to understand long words.
I’d like to see more elaboration on the point about organic intellectuals… Also: Negation of the Negation. I think it was Hegel who came up with this. But in any case, it’s an important law, and I’m not sure what the criticism here is. People don’t know what it means, for the most part, but what could you change it to? Synthesis? People don’t know what that means either.
And on the tenth point: It really is taken out of context. Why was it a stupid phrase? Marx never meant to say that religion is the enemy. It’s just another phrase that has been perverted in some socialist countries.
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
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once said one of his rank and file brothers once said to him, "Harry, how can
anybody as goddam smart as you are, BE SO GODDAM DUMB?!" What comes to mind are sayings involving babies, bathwater, and indisciminatory
disposal. Why did the average USSR citizen sit on his rear while the sisters-
under-the-skin of bushroveabramov appropriated the social work of nearly a
century? Did the CPSU neglect rank and file militancy, or was their grammar bad? How have the Cubans managed to avoid this eventuality? Nobody ever
passed a rule we must say "bourgeois dictators" instead of "those s.o.b.'s
who own the country."
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Harry's, but mine. Abramov -- actually, Jack Abramoff, leader in right-
wing Republican youth circles -- is one of the bush-rove flunkies who is
now up for prison time. I won't defend Khrushchev's attack; I hadn't heard of it before, and any anti-Semitism, implicit or overt, is, of course, opposed to any left political position, as well as being inhumane, disgusting, and historically untenable. Thanks for responding.
Warren
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I understand completely. Actually, I over-reacted and I figured out that it was Jack Abramov afterwards. The term also was Abramovitch, the anti-Semitic term, which means 'sons of Abraham" in a more focussed way.
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A couple specific responses:
"Socialist market economy" - I find your aversion to this puzzling, especially considering your past posts on how great it would be if Colin Powell were Obama's running mate and how the CPUSA must undertake a campaign of national unity with the right and center against Bush administration "extremists" (as if Bush &co. didn't represent perfectly normal and mainstream capitalism happily at work). On that note, Sweden may not be a Marxist's ideal model, but it's a damn sight better than anything that's ever existed in the U.S. If you don't like Sweden's welfare capitalism, how could you even look at the Democratic Party's current platform without instinctively hurling your cookies? And don't try to interpret this as a short-term vs. long-term matter either, because “market socialism” is as often as not couched in those terms as well.
"Art is a hammer with which to shape reality." - You call this "primitive and almost obscene." So, does art and our "creative self" (whatever the hell that means) exist on some independent "spiritual" plane? Or is it a diversion, akin to handball, carrying no consequences for the human reality in which it is enmeshed save a bit of stress-reducing leisure (or maybe a touch of emotional catharsis, in those instances where you wing the handball really hard)? You just seem to be homing in directly on the most vulgar possible interpretation of the quote, i.e. reading it as a call for propaganda. But consider this: Joyce's Ulysses is hardly propaganda in any sense, or even overtly political; in fact, it's often interpreted (wrongly) as the apogee of "writing for the sake of writing": yet, can you think of any one work that was more crucial to the radical assault that Modernism mounted on bourgeois aesthetics and morality (and by proxy, the broader bourgeois worldview), wherein a breach was at least temporarily opened and another world indeed seemed possible?
“Organic intellectuals” - dismissing the idea of the organic intellectual is to dismiss one of the key reasons behind capitalism's continuing existence. What do you think business schools across the country are churning out in support of the system every single day? What group of people was it that had the collective ingenuity to jury-rig some modifications in capitalism so that its contradictions were no longer so debilitating in the short-term, while their brethren in the State Department took care of things from a coercive/military angle? Whose voice saturates Western economic discourse down to its most demotic, ostensibly non-theoretical levels, blocking out all alternatives? Organic intellectuals of the late-capitalist bourgeoisie. Indeed, their collective dominance of everyday intellectual life (in other words, capitalist hegemony, another term of Gramsci's that you blithely dismiss as so much claptrap) is just as important a factor as things like imperialist exploitation and the degeneration of the Soviet bureaucracy in explaining why capitalism resurged after the Second World War and is still going strong. People like Friedman (Milton or Thomas) or Hayek would never have been anything other than voices crying out in the wilderness, and indeed probably wouldn't have even come into existence, had their not been this broad stratum of people who came to essentially the same knowledge through sheer class experience, fusing often only semi-articulated theory with their practice, their shaping of reality. And this is just in the strictly economic realm! At this point, I hardly even have to go in to those people in the entertainment industry who provide atomistic, vacuous, non-oppositional ways for the masses to spend their time so that the system may chug along unabated; those people in the field of “criminal justice” whose minds are focused on the suppression of “undesirable” elements, so that affluent “law-abiding” folks do not have to deal firsthand with the consequences of the stratification they perpetuate; etc, etc, etc. To use a Cold War era phrase, the left's weakness today stems partly from a vast “organic intellectual gap” between the exploiters and the exploited: it's absurd and paternalistic to think that the masses will rise up through the intervention of middle-class “professional intellectuals” alone. One of our first concerns in building an independent left should be finding ways to close this gap, thus giving the working class more internal strength for their confrontation with those who dictate the pernicious terms of their existence. Denigrating Gramsci's ideas as “granola” will not be helpful.
"opium of the people" - I had something written here but Charles said it better.
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Religion - opium of the masses. I'm afraid so, once it becomes organised. Right from the very beginning, when surpluses first appeared and grain store-keepers morphed into priests (see Chris Harman's "A People's History of the World") religious leaders have been essential supporters of the ruling classes and pacifiers of workers - your reward will be in the next world. If that isn't a tranquilizer i don't know what is. There have been exceptions of course, including priests in Latin america who have been murdered for supporting reformers if not revolutionaries.
Can't find much wrong with your "best ideas" and anyway i enjoy your website. Just lately ,however, it seems to me you are putting too much faith in the US elections solving anything, even if McCain is defeated. Why don't you write an article on "Polyarchy" and Gramsci's consensual mechanisms and its recent manifestations, which have been so well expounded by William Robinson in his books and articles?
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I'm sure it was not your intent to cause anyone to get any such impression, but I do believe that we need to be ready to confront this issue of getting normally objective, skeptical historians to deal with the Soviet experience the same way they deal--or are supposed to deal--with any other topic. With objectivity. Not without passion, perhaps, but basically using evidence and not making prior assumptions. I apologize for getting off on this; I think most of your points are very well taken.
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The statement I am not a Marxist, from my readings, comes from Marx commenting on french anarchists who were quoting him to support their position.
I would make a few old fashioned points about your negative ten. "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" should be dropped completely as a political slogan but it had a specific meaning in the 19th century, that is, the rule or sovereignty of the working class. We are living under the "dictatorship" or soveriegn rule of the capitalist class even though that "dictatorship" exists in a context of elections, and civil rights and civil liberties(which Marx and Engels were fighting for, the democratic struggle which is the first goal of the Communists, and, in terms of workiers sovereign power, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a "democratic" dictatorship. But as I said, it has no real relevance today.
Much of the rest is sloganeering of the past, which should be seen for what it is.
I do like you tip ten though and I don't have any real qualms about your ten worst, although I might add a few: like "the idea is nothing, the movement everything and a few others
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I would add "democratic centralism" to the worst ideas.
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