Ideology

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blindpig
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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:44 pm

Continued from previous post. There are four posts in all,)

The Bolsheviks needed democracy only at the first stage of the party creation, for the involvement in the movement, for the FORMAL discipline of the party members, who at that time belonged to the exploited masses, and had petty-bourgeois values. If not, yesterday’s agricultural laborers and middle peasants would not turn into kulaks [bourgeois peasants], and yesterday’s proletarians, turning into trade union leaders, would not sell out to their masters and fascists. But intellectuals, peasants and proletarians have dual nature. Industrial proletarians are characterized by this duality and double-dealing in a less degree than the proletarians of mental labor and peasants.

But on the days when these lines were written, the miners of the Kemerovo region asked Medvedev… to increase their working day from six to eight hours. It shows how primitive the brains of today’s miners are. They do not even understand that now the owners of the mines will fire 30% of their comrades, increase a little the wages of the rest workers, transferring the wages of the dismissed to the mines owners profit. Of course, this is the most disgraceful moment in the history of the world working-class movement, but the consequences of this folly will thoroughly clear the brains of the fired miners, who have recently believed that there is nothing more important than beer after work.

It feels especially ashamed for these wage slaves of the 21st century, because at the end of the 18th century and at the end of the 19th century, workers demanded from the capitalists, firstly, to reduce the working day and, secondly, to increase wages under a shorter working day. They wanted to live. They knew the price of free time. Today it seems to the workers that they can earn, sacrificing their priceless health and life.

Few of them now understand that if socialism in the USSR was not destroyed by miners’ strikes in 1990, today the whole population of the country would have free accommodation, and the working day in all sectors would be no more than 4 hours a day, with a two-month paid vacation, with, figuratively speaking, the same wages, with free education, medicine, free public transport, children’s pre-school institutions, sanatoriums, tourist camps, without terrorism, religious obscurantism, nationalism, fascism and organized crime.

But the proletariat without a real Communist Party, becomes a self-destructive force. Only the history of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party is enough to disprove the view of the proletariat as an self-developing revolutionary force, especially a communist one. The proletarians throughout Europe produced weapons against the USSR, the proletarians furiously walked over their own dead bodies on the way to Moscow, stormed Stalingrad, shot and hanged partisans. Considering that the proletariat is revolutionary by default means to understand nothing in The Communist Manifesto, which quite definitely states that the proletariat is just the EXPLOITED class, i.e. the class, which mostly does not understand that it is exploited, and moreover it is happy to be exploited. These proletarians stand in long lines at the employment exchange and, if they have not found themselves in the lists of dismissed workers, look down on all other losers. The proletariat is the most revolutionary class of market society only because all other classes of capitalist society are either absolutely REACTION, or petty-bourgeois, or passive, indifferent to everything that happens.

Without its vanguard, without a party of scientific world outlook, the proletarians of mental and physical labor are not able to free themselves from exploitation, which is brilliantly proved by the many hundred years experience of the proletarian movement in the developed market countries. But this would not be so terrible if the proletarians did not take the most active part and were not the main victims of world and colonial wars, did not just blindly execute the will of the fascists and militarists in the insane race of nuclear weapons.

Only people with the scientific world outlook can unwaveringly carry out only one line, due to finding it really scientific and not due blind faith in the Program.

After formation of the Communist Party, or the Party of the Scientific World Outlook, the degree of its development can be defined not by the growth of its members, but by the decrease of democracy in the PARTY and by the increase of science-based CENTRALISM.

Seems like it is enough to look at the experience of Gorbachevism to draw a final conclusion about how much the inner fool in the party, or a supporter of democracy in the Communist Party, is more dangerous than an external enemy. Does appeal to the masses of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, or their “consultations with the people”, show their great intelligence? Of course, you can call them democrats, but intelligent and, moreover, educated — you cannot.

Can we call a person a chief designer, if he tries to find out by a democratic vote among the employees of the drafting department, which brand of steel should be used to create a nuclear reactor?

Can we call smart presidents and prime ministers, who privatize state-owned factories under the slogan: “Entrepreneurs are smarter than we are”?

If these statesmen do not know how to manage the economy of the country, then how can they run the country? But there are still people who do not understand that the whole “system” of the authorities under market democracy exists only to make the demos obey big capital, no matter how “smart” the oligarchs are. At least this is how it works in all developed democratic market countries. The oligarchs “rule” the entire economy as they want, and the police pacifies the unemployed and robbed depositors according to scientifically developed program of the demos pacifying, using the most advanced technology and techniques and the democratic government spares no expense on it.

Thus, if we do not hesitate to answer the question, why the Communists League, the First and Second Internationals, the CPSU, all the communist parties of the CMEA countries collapsed, why the CPRF and the RCWP are also close to this, then we must admit that only such communist organizations can collapse, which has no communists among its leaders, i.e. those who know perfectly the methods of scientific world understanding. Strictly speaking, the historical practice of China and North Korea showed that under certain historical conditions, even one really competent communist is enough for the entire country to implement the really Communist Party program.

When the CPSU collapsed, it turned out that republican organizations did not have the educated communists. There were only some heroes, strong and inflexible internationalists such as Anpilov, Shenin, Burokevičius. There is an interesting theorist on the problems of world development, Jermalavicius. But there are no scientists who have answered scientifically the critical question of our time about the cause of the collapse of the CPSU and other parties of the CMEA countries so that at least one “post-CPSU” organization with a communist name could be like a Bolshevik one. As a result, on the wreckage of the CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR, their clones emerged: the RCWP, then the CPRF and several other very small communist parties with their leaders. The history of all these parties decay has proved that they did not and do not have a single person who, under conditions of a high, for the bourgeois country, degree of freedom of speech, could persuade the proletariat, at least in anything. Everyone are plunged into the parliamentary infighting and collecting signatures. Some of these party members showed firmness of character, fidelity to principles, good memory for some quotations, but not the ability to think and act in a Leninist way.

If the members of these parties continue to be too lazy to learn methodology, it is clear that there is no communist perspective on the territory of the former USSR in the next five years.

The gradual expulsion of real communists from the Internationals, all communist parties and editorial boards, is the result of religious trust in democratic centralism.

Then, naturally, the question arises. If democratic centralism is an instrument of seizing the party leadership by opportunists, then how to build a party on the principles of science-based centralism?

The saddest thing is that there is hardly a theorist in the modern communist movement, who studied the examples of applying the principle of science-based centralism in the history of the CPSU, or described in detail the mechanism of applying the principle of science-based centralism in building the Communist Party, where opportunism cannot exist in spite of all the efforts.

What should be the Party of Science-based Centralism?
The analysis of the collapse of all Internationals and most of the parties with communist names leads to the indisputable conclusion about a discrepancy between the rules of these parties and the essence of the working-class party. In other words, the method of forming the political organizations of the proletariat did not fully correspond to the unique tasks to be solved. Therefore, it was easier for parties to overthrow fundamentally rotten regimes than to create a new economic form of society.

It is quite obvious that since Marxism-Leninism has not been disproved theoretically and is confirmed by victorious practice on all “fronts” of the USSR of the Stalin period, the following collapse of the CPSU can be explained only by the contradiction between the objective law of the correspondence of the party cadres to the priority of strategic tasks and imperfect principles of party building. These imperfect principles increase the number of fools and anti-communists in the governing bodies of the party, and as a result, turn the party of the dictatorship of the working class into a counter-revolutionary organization.

Each new stage of qualitative transformation of society demanded from party members higher level of intellectual training, but the system of party education and recruitment, deformed by democratic centralism, lagged further and further behind the needs of the epoch.

The collapse of all parties with communist names shows the inadequacy of the standard formulations used by the candidates for the party to demonstrate their readiness to be a communist: “I accept and commit myself to carry out the Party Program and the Party Rules”, or “I want to be in the forefront of the builders of communism”.

Admission to the Communist Party is not a legal act and not a marriage contract. The communist activity is not a matter of desire. The communist activity must bring scientific and theoretical competence in social practice and, first of all, in the political activity of the proletariat. The communist activity in current conditions is like the activities of those volcanologists who know exactly where, when, why and what will happen, try to inform people, but they think, almost like at Fukushima, that they are safe from the political tsunami in the form of, for example, World War III.

Therefore, the text of an application for admission to the party of a new type should be essentially different: “I have mastered the theory of Marxism-Leninism and have creatively practiced it in the ideological and political form of the class struggle. The publications are attached. I take an active part in… trade union’s activity”.

These are competent members, who differ the Communist Party from any other type of a party. Communist work in any conditions can be conducted only by competent people, who are able to understand the essence of objectively determined goals, who realize the NECESSITY of observing party discipline dictated not by obstinacy, not by fear of responsibility, not by personal career interests, but by scientific understanding of the cause-effect relationship, ignoring of which leads the party and the whole of society from mistakes to tragedy.

The discipline of a communist is a form of the most uncompromising following the requirements of SCIENCE-based NECESSITY. Strength of the organization, coordination of actions are possible only under domination of the scientific consciousness among the vanguard participants of the political process. Candidates who join the party with the phrase “I accept and commit myself to carry out the Party Program and the Party Rules” must remain candidates until their publications and practical work with proletarians reach the necessary scientific level and obvious results.

However, during the Civil War in Russia and in Stalin’s period, the standard form of application for admission to the party corresponded to the sincere attitude of most joining members, proved their readiness for self-sacrifice and unquestioning observance of the party discipline, since the stay in the party for a long time did not promise any material benefits, and sometimes even threatened their life. But even in those days, using the procedure of democratic centralism, adventurers and careerists, even enemies of the working people, joined the party for power and sabotage, that was confirmed by memoirs of Yakovlev, the last secretary of the CPSU Central Committee on ideology.

While the Bolshevik Party was led by Lenin and Stalin, their competence was sufficient to ensure the expected results by the unquestioning obedience to all the decisions of the party. Even the Trotskyites, due to the instinct of self-preservation, sometimes had to obey the party decisions. However, when there had already been no geniuses in the party leadership, it turned out that the moral and psychological readiness of incompetent party members was not enough to rebut the opportunists and neutralize their subversive plans. The “collective party mind” could not compensate for the personal illiteracy of democratically elected under-educated leaders. Many people still do not understand the absurdity of the phrases: “an ordinary member of the Communist Party” or “a true Bolshevik with bad knowledge of Marxism”.

Seems like the difference between “a communist” and “a party member” is insignificant, but in fact there is a gap between the party membership goals of a competent person and an illiterate careerist. Consciousness of an illiterate party member cannot contain any significant social goals, especially goals related to the building of communism. On the basis of political ignorance only petty-bourgeois consciousness can develop. That was democratic centralism that guaranteed to such party members vast majority in the leadership of the party.

Many members of the party have understood literally the Engels’s idea that since communism has become a science, it must be studied. That’s all. This task was fulfilled strictly by the CPSU members. They obediently memorized and repeated citations almost all their life, without thinking about what it means to master completely the science of communism. Their greatest achievement was saying the necessary quotations of the classics at appropriate times, but more often at inappropriate ones and with distortion of the meaning. In this matter almost the entire membership of the Central Committee did not notice that they were in fact the Bernsteinians: no one cared for the process of party study or the final result. Periodic examinations concerned only the matters of the lectures timetable, the presence of a poster and the text of the lecture prepared by an educator. Already under Brezhnev, the examiners did not realize that the educator should DEEPLY understand the material, but not read it as a sexton. It was easier for the examiners to find out that there was no summary or that a lecturer was late than to catch his conscious distortion of the root of the matter.

The educators in social sciences were paid per hour, but not per mental workload.

That was the lack of understanding of the scientific depths of the program tasks by the leading workers of the party, their overestimation of their readiness to put into practice scientific truths, the primitive method of working with young people to prepare them for the party membership, the absurd system of training cadres for law enforcement agencies, the Marxist underdevelopment of most Soviet poets, novelists and publicists, all of it gradually led to full theoretical and political degradation of the CPSU, its system of propaganda and agitation.

When representatives of the artistic intelligentsia and “great” actors gather on Russian TV to tell each other vulgar anecdotes, they honestly admit that at school they were non-achievers and did not understand anything in Marxism, also because they never studied it in their student years. And they think it is very funny.

The overwhelming majority of writers, screenwriters, directors by their world outlook turned out to be ordinary philistines, unable to rise above bedroom scenes, but they presented their triviality, artistic mediocrity, as purposeful dissidence. The problem of building truly free society of humanists was too complicated for these “social engineers”. The spiritual deafness of most Russian intellectuals of that period, their undying philistinism are well shown in the novel Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak.

Taking all this into account, today’s young people who want to devote their life to the struggle for building a truly progressive, humanized, scientifically organized society, i.e. those who want to join the Party of Science-based Centralism (the PSC), must join its primary organizations at the place of residence or work in order to become real party activists and to develop personal scientific, theoretical and organizational level. The period of being a candidate member should not be limited to a formal time frame, but should be entirely determined by the real progress of a person in the theory of dialectical materialism, by the necessary propagandist and agitator skills, by the results and scope of his work in the party mass media.

Certainly, if a candidate does not have progress in his practical explanatory work with the proletarians of mental and physical labor, if he does not feel up to study the theory and to be a successful propagandist of scientific knowledge and a political organizer among proletarians, then there is no reason to admit him to the party.

Of course, with genuine desire to win over parasitism one can always participate in this struggle ACCORDING TO HIS POSSIBILITIES, without joining the party. But, in any case, the SELF-CRITICAL attitude to the OWN scientific potential, the proved right to work in the ranks of the party as an organizer and leader, must be the standard of behavior of each leftist.

The collapse of the CPSU and the Young Communist League proved that the party membership cannot depend on any formal democratic arguments, norms and recommendations. A young man must be acknowledged by the party organization due to his attitude toward the matter.

There are people who will say that this approach will antagonize a huge number of people. And we reply that competent, proven, and therefore a reliable headquarters is more attractive for normal people than any party card, which offer exciting possibilities for a formal party career. People who are satisfied only with the party membership and parliamentary illusions are good with the CPRF. Today everyone is accepted there, that is why the CPRF has already experienced more splits than the RSDLP, since many CPRF members are more interested in today’s State Duma career than in tomorrow’s communism. Most likely, for the leadership of the CPRF communism is not interesting at all.

A person, who is afraid of the difficulties in mastering the communist theory, who avoids real propaganda work among proletarians, will find something easier than scientifically organized struggle. At least Lenin wrote that it is much better when ten men, who work, do not call themselves communists, than one talker, who calls himself a communist. It is hard to disagree with Engels, who said that it is better if the enemies accuse the communists of cowardice than if the proletarians consider the communists to be fools. This is one of the reasons why the proletarians sometimes prefer to follow Putin, not Zyuganov.

But the success in the struggle for a happy life depends on the number of ACTIVE participants in this process. It is the objective fact and the law of history. Therefore, Marxism is not about the accomplishment of a revolution only by the forces of one party, even the most NUMEROUS one. Marxism is not about the substitution of the proletarian class by the party, but about the educational and organizational work of the party to rouse the proletarian masses for their creative, conscious, active participation in the qualitative development of society. And keeping the content of propaganda and agitation at high level requires improvement of scientific and theoretical level of every party agitator and propagandist.

In brief, the party successes in enlightenment and organization of the masses are directly proportional to the QUALITY of the party ranks, and not to the number of passionate, but illiterate, members.

It may be said that the RSDLP was created in other way. Yes, the RSDLP was formed at the time of history, when, on the one hand, the activity of the proletarians in the economic struggle increased all over the world, which also happens today, and on the other hand, there were some individuals who saw themselves as established leaders. They all had exiles and penal servitude behind them, so they naturally had a wish to unite in the party all ready, tested by prison, practical revolutionaries, in spite of the “insignificant”, as it seemed then, differences in their theoretical views on the most important problems of practice. For a long time there was a hope that the formal principle of democratic centralism, i.e. the majority rule, will cope with the theoretical disagreement. But realization of this principle only sharpened contradictions between the “branches” of the party, making opportunists eager for revenge and reversal of the party policy after each their defeat. The RSDLP experienced several big splits just because the majority of the congresses was captured by opportunists.

In these situations, the Leninists, or the science-based centralists, had to organizationally separate from the conscious opportunists and in such a way to implement the only scientific, brilliant Leninist policy in the proletarian masses.

Today’s practice of the Communist Party building is complicated by the fact that in the communist movement of the world there are practically no authoritative and mature Marxist theorists, acknowledged by the proletarians of mental and physical labor. Therefore, a new generation of party builders will face a difficult and intensive struggle to solve this problem.

The creation of a new Communist Party in the present conditions is fraught with joining of young people who have learned only one meaningless slogan — “We want changes”, but they absolutely do not know the laws of objective conditions for that changes.

But this lesson did not teach anyone, even the members of the former CPSU. Since the very establishment, for example, of the RCWP, all attempts to organize serious party studies and the party press were not supported by the leadership of the party, and in this way twenty years were lost. In the RCWP, as soon as someone young appeared, he was immediately elected to all governing bodies, appointed to the leadership of the RCYL or to the presidium and, eventually, this “young person” degenerated.

Unfortunately, there are no cases in the history of pedagogy, except for Marx, when a young man by the age of 18 have already learned at least the foundations of the dialectics of Hegel, Marxist-Leninist philosophy, have read and mastered four volumes of Capital, have written at least one serious work, updating the positions formulated by the classics of Marxism a century earlier, and have felt deeply the problems and tragedies of social being that make a person an uncompromising, persistent and consistent fighter against the deadly vices of capitalism.

One can advise to admit a young person to the party in advance, on the basis of his activity, and then teach him.

But, Proriv prefers to work in the reverse order. Learn from the party without joining, understand properly your own motives, test yourself in practice and, if you do not change your mind at the age of 23, then join. At least Lenin, already at the age of 23, wrote and published mature scientific works, was widely acknowledged as a scientist, and only after that, at the age of 28, he joined the party with the clearly formulated principles of Bolshevism.

There are good examples to follow, and it is mean to join the party without hard work on self-education in the way that Lenin did.

Therefore, the PSC will not create separate youth organizations (based on the age criteria). Proriv sees the solution of the problem in the development of a party-oriented educational process, mainly virtual one, with using modern information technologies. As Karl Marx said, the best education is self-education. Lenin taught that without an independent work, universities can give nothing. Therefore, the ultimate success entirely depends on the degree of perseverance and constancy in the fulfillment of the main party duty of a young man: to master the science of victory in the political struggle.

When the entire primary organization of the left-wing youth consists of persons under 23 years old, such organization can be considered as an organization of the PSC supporters, but nothing more. The regional organization of the PSC coordinates the activities of the PSC youth organizations in the region. The evaluation criterion for the work quality of such primary youth organizations is not the number of conducted actions, not the number of arrests by the police, but the growth of the quality of propaganda materials and the growth of the number of experts in communist science.

As the experience of the RCWP and the CPRF showed, all attempts of the modern left-wing youth to create united youth organizations were objectively in vain, in spite of the highly-developed means of communication. The gap in today’s young people knowledge of social science, intense rivalry, the lack of the real authority of youth “leaders” among the young people, all this led these initiatives to failure.

The absurdity of the RCWP and the CPRF youth “policy” is that the leadership of these parties was engaged in “Sisyphean labor”: they created centralized independent youth organizations that played the role of a political sandbox for future opportunists and careerists.

While Stalin leaded the CPSU, and the Young Communist League had just an executive role, there were no big political problems. But, after the party was headed by people who were not literate enough, and therefore, unauthoritative, especially Gorbachev, the Young Communist League became a kind of for-profit organization. The Young Communist League expectedly dissolved itself before the party did.

It can be said without exaggeration that, the CPSU did not find the more productive form of youth organization, and by creating a centralized youth organization, paradoxically, used the Trotskyite type of organizing youth in the USSR. Strictly speaking, the party influenced the young communists through the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. It is characteristic that the main destroyers of communism, Andropov, Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Yeltsin, came to the party through the leadership of the Young Communist League. But it is well known that if a young man is addicted to careerism and cynicism, then his re-education, according to the laws of pedagogy, is the most thankless task.

The complete collapse of the CPSU proved how harmful the creation of centralized all-Union and republican organizations of the Young Communist League type was. But this experiment, like any other experiment, is an option of usual optimistic tragedy, that teaches those who are able and want to learn. It is a pity that no one drew attention at the time to a detailed warning about the futility of creating centralized republican youth organizations of communist orientation, about the negative aspects of this project described in the full version of Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel How the Steel Was Tempered. But the novelty of the tasks solved by the communists in the 1920s posed unprecedented challenges for pedagogical science and the whole party. It was necessary and possible to experiment. However, in the future, the theory and practice of Makarenko were not only unappreciated by the majority of party members, but also were consciously “oppressed” by pedological careerists, most of whom were direct enemies of communism. As a result, the Young Communist League became not a school of communist education, but an incubator of Trotskyism and degeneration of the youth, the source of many undereducated party careerists, cynics and deserters. For many ordinary members of the Young Communist League among the working youth, this period of their lives remained in memory as a romantic and honest, heroic and creative period of their youth, their Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Factory, Stalingrad, virgin soil, the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

The Young Communist League, at times, was a school of courage, but did not become a school of political maturity.

The collapse of the CPSU also proved the absolute impropriety of the centralized University system of teaching Marxism, based on the principles close to the educational systems of class societies. Successful and effective education of communist activists depends on the close COORDINATION of theoretical studies and practical activities, self-education and self-improvement in the process of fighting for the actual tasks of real party politics.

As shown by the age-old practice, students who have the potential to master philosophical and social problematics, they by themselves come to the necessity of a thoughtful, intense study of the objective laws of the social development. But most of the today’s students, who are deformed by tests and motivated only by the mercantile side of education, should be prepared to fulfill consciously their civic duties primarily on the basis of feature and documentary films, because, on average, the modern youth culture of reading tends to decline. But some feature films made in the USSR are still able to play the role of a social alarm clock.

It may seem strange that a science-based centralist criticizes centralism in the system of the party education and the youth movement. After all, everyone knows that in civilized countries all social sciences are taught by professors, according to the approved programs. How can we reject the centuries-old experience of the best universities in developed capitalist countries?

Only those who do not understand dialectical materialism, can offer to use the experience and methodology of bourgeois universities for the communists education. The fact is that the system of high education of class society is opposite to the real education, that is transfer of scientific knowledge and improvement of thinking level.

The process of intellectual growth needs not the premises of teaching, or officially approved programs and professors, but the real educator with constantly developing knowledge and skills, who is able to know and understand what has not yet been learned by a young man on the basis of his own life experience.

The role of such a teacher must play the Central Organ of the party, which includes people who have perfectly mastered the communist science and systematically test their knowledge in practice.

It is enough to take into account the experience of self-education of the first Bolshevist leaders to draw the correct conclusion about what the system of the new Bolsheviks education should be. Nevertheless, this did not happen. Lenin and his comrades became an icon for worship, but not for mass practice of their experience.

Why did the CPSU collapse? First of all, because after Stalin the theoretical work in the party degraded, and during the perestroika, the magazine Communist (the theoretical organ of the CPSU Central Committee), was empty and very far from the scientific point of view. And it could not be otherwise, since the magazine was headed by the “developed socialist” Richard Kosolapov, and the editor of the economic department of this magazine was the outspoken anti-communist Yegor Gaidar, who turned out to be a heavy drinker. In August 1991, there were no Bolsheviks in the CPSU who could lead at least anyone.

In short, never confuse formal and real centralisms.

For example, the first religious universities in Europe had highly-developed freedom and autonomy from secular feudal lords, but at the same time, they also had highly-developed centralism in everything related to the content of teaching. The students learned, first of all, what the professors gave them. And only those became the professors who had outstanding knowledge of the Bible. Only few names of the first university professors remained in history, but Copernicus and Galileo made their marks on the world by their deep and substantiated centric systems of the universe and world understanding. Darwin remained in the history of science not because he had a degree, but because he had the highest scientific conscience and therefore became the center of attraction of all thinking people.

Therefore formal democratism and real science-based centralism are the diamatic contradictions that transformed the system of the higher spiritual “education” of the Middle Ages to the higher secular education where scientific truths gradually supplanted other motives of the universities existence. But the market relations of capitalism did not allow to destroy the influence of profit on the official professorship.

Certainly, the lowest level of corruption in the university system was during Stalin’s period of the USSR history. However, mercantilism in the higher education system was not completely liquidated even in that brilliant period. Marxism is not an ideology, but a science. The bourgeois ideology tries to doubt scientific base of Marxism and to impose on a philistine the thesis that Marxism is also just an ideology, like any social concept that existed before it, like any religion. Today, many great scientists of the Stalin era are accused of their secret religiosity, which they skillfully hid from the party committees. This is, for the most part, true, because, firstly, these scientists were formed in the era when praying did not seem like savagery, and secondly, very narrow education does not necessary lead to scientific world understanding. Very often there is a situation when a proton expert, or a virtuoso, who has proved Poincarй conjecture, solves all other crucial problems at the level of a teenager.

It is obvious that improvement of the system of young people education requires a reduction of formalism and the monopoly of science in its complex form. Young people should be united on the basis of the scientific truths they have learned, on a practical functional basis, but not according to the numerical principles of building an organization. And, the earlier, the better.

The trouble was that, even in the USSR, especially after Khrushchev’s election as the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, the work on narrow specialists education at the local level was formal. As a result, even in the space and aviation industries, developed in the USSR from non-existence to the record world height thanks to communist Stalin, even in these industries between general designers and party members often there was not a competition of communists for the victory over imperialism in these branches of science and technology, but a personal petty-bourgeois, vindictive rivalry. Conceit and mercantilism gradually became a visiting card of most representatives of the scientific, technical and artistic intelligentsia.

The narrowly focused specialist became just a formal superior who had the legal right to manage, without paying attention to the level of understanding by workers the socio-historical meaning of their labor. Labor from affair of honor, valor and glory, with the help of Khrushchev, again turned into means of getting an individual wage.

It was during the time of Khrushchev when the philistinism began to revive among the intelligentsia, it was forgotten that the communist level of competence and comradeship, in contrast to competition, excludes administrative formalism, let coordinate actions and fulfill duties of the participants proportionally and optimally, really help each other, in time and constructively respond to the initiative, work towards a common goal. It is a must for competent communists.

People who have adapted to cannibal market democracy, to competition through contract killings, to mutual undisguised hatred, they, of course, cannot take delight in true brotherhood and equality. The communists find these people deeply psychically defective. Most things that make an everyday life happy are not available for them in the same way as color perception is not available for the color-blind person.

What should the system of party education be?
As you know, the Bolshevik wing of the party was formed under the influence of the first issues of the newspaper Iskra and the first five books of Lenin. The most consistent and developed minds of Russia rallied around this diamatic wealth. The real revolutionaries did not need any formal voting to unite around their intellectual center. The faultless logic of Lenin’s works, more powerful than the logic of Euclidean geometry, could not lead scrupulous readers astray, especially if readers set themselves one goal, as Karl Marx taught, “to figure out what is the matter”. Only those denied this who were interested in the very process of confrontation with the genius and in the satisfaction of their ambitions, but not in the ultimate result of the struggle. Ignorance, megalomania, cult of a leader among the market intelligentsia influenced by the feudal reality of tsarist Russia, provoked this type of people to “dissent”. They were not able to think constructively, therefore they could just deny the expediency of Lenin’s strategy and make proposals on tactical issues, opposite of those that Lenin worked out.

Thus, when the bourgeois-democratic revolution was transforming into the socialist revolution, they demanded refusal of decisive actions. During the struggle for the necessary Peace of Brest-Litovsk guaranteeing survival to the power of the Soviets, they, on the contrary, demanded the most reckless struggle to save the “revolutionary face”.

Only the correct organization of the party education system will not let the loss of a real authoritative leader tragically affect the content of the political strategy. After all, it is not about one approved educational program or one rector, but these are the objective truths that need to be studied and creatively developed. Dialectic materialists know that these objective truths are the center of attraction for all party activists.

Leaders of today’s protest movements, for example, in Russia, literally buy their leadership position in the real protest movement. Having money, from foreign sponsors in particular, they pay for the rally time, in advance defining themselves as organizers of the protests and the main propagandists. Certainly, this scheme does not consider any suggestions of the masses. The masses are at the mercy of such guides because most people used to get the ready truths from the “leaders”.

But according to dialectics the truth is not a statement, which is relatively true at the given time, for example, “The party is our vanguard”. But the truth is the level of understanding by each party member the essence of the problem, for example: “The party is our vanguard when not only the leaders, but the whole party constantly and uncompromisingly works on the real growth of the QUALITY of its ranks”. In other words, the centralizing power of Marxism is its ABILITY to bring up assertions to the level of absolute truths. The method of dialectical materialism allows the party not to rely on the past truths, turning it into dogmas, but to adapt the current policy to the concrete, contradictory realities of the present time.

Figuratively speaking, there is no truth in social science except for DEVELOPING Marxism, and only by mastering this truth the party becomes its prophet.

The core of the class system of education is the principle of corrupted administrative centralism, when the organizers of the education system watch precisely so that the knowledge of the students does not go beyond the religious dogmas and professional cretinism of the UNIVERSITY PROGRAM. In this system, professors are highly paid supervisors, and the student’s professional training is measured by the professor’s SUBJECTIVE evaluation, i.e. the size of the bribe.

The longer a student is not allowed to study the real current problems, the more education turns into formalism.

The old system of party education in the CPSU also had a cult of professors with a degree, and any educational program got through subjective professorial perception and his examination grades. Therefore, in the new conditions, when the majority of graduated communists proved their incompetence and betrayal, the education and self-education of the party activists must be based on the local and central party organizations, scientific research institutions and mass propaganda and agitation bodies, i.e. to be in indissoluble unity with the REAL scientifically-understood PRACTICE.

Of course, the specific character of scientific personnel training allows, and sometimes involves, a narrow specialization of workers in some branches of knowledge and professions. But often it is not determined by the principles of effective pedagogy and the needs of communist practice, but by the limited talents of many people whose intellectual abilities were formed in the conditions of the market Bologna process of education, pop “art” and early use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs.

However, narrow specialization is not permissible in the system of party education, because objective dialectics requires a system, complex and multiple-factor approach at any level of reality.

History has proved many times that encyclopedic education is possible, and that this level of education is the most effective. The diamatic theory of universal education aims to achieve this level by the whole physiologically healthy part of the population.

It is clear that a good specialist in the grammar of the ancient Egyptian language will take little by the knowledge of Capital, Volume I. Although reading of Capital can help any narrow specialist to have meaningful life and not to become a scum. It is impossible to make someone master diamatics perfectly if he does not want to. But there is no need to make these specialists join the party, which authority must be based on the competence of its activists in social science, but not on the popularity. A communist must convince them that it is necessary to culturally develop themselves and all young people, to make their contribution to the physical and aesthetic development of the oncoming generation, but not to entertain the oligarchs at private parties.

The better the communists master diamatics and apply it to understand complicated current problems, the less they have to influence people through the use of politics and force.

Practice constantly proves that the power of scientific enlightenment is the most constructive, creative and victorious. And vice versa, ignorance is the most destructive force capable of destroying Bolshevism from within.

The primary difficulty in preparing a communist, and moreover the communist leader, is that a communist does not have the right to be either a philosopher or an economist or an expert only in the field of “scientific communism”. Strictly speaking, a person only with the higher physico-mathematical education has not a ghost of a chance to become a communist. There is nothing in “calculus”, “strength of materials” and Einstein’s theory that would prevent a person from developing into a scum, like, for example, Berezovsky or Yeltsin did. Moreover, today, like never before, mathematics and physics serve the sordid, cannibalistic appetites of most oligarchs and their graduated servants.

Therefore, or a man tries to master all parts of Marxism, or he is not a communist. Moreover, if a party member does not understand that his economic and political literacy should be based on diamatic literacy, he has no chance at all to become a communist.

The collapse of the CPSU became possible because there was not a single true Marxist in the ranks of the party leadership of the Gorbachev period, as well as in the whole system of higher party education. The party philosophers in the CPSU, as well as their present-day market colleagues, did not understand anything either in diamatics or in economy. Party economists did not know diamatics at all. And the “scientific communists” did not know anything profound and concrete, except for several cut and distorted quotations of the classics.

Those, who really studied the biography of the classics of Marxism, know that their formation as acknowledged leaders of the proletariat and the advanced intelligentsia took place under INSEPARABLE unity of their theoretical encyclopedic self-education, literary and organizational practice in spite of the difficulties made by the gendarmes, the bourgeoisie, the democrats and the opportunists.

The complex scientific and political growth of a party candidate is a necessary requirement of the party cadre policy. Figuratively speaking, if a candidate does not aim to master the theory of Marxism, there is no genuine desire to become a communist.

An individual who wants to be in the ranks of the communists, but who does not persevere in SELF-education and SELF-improvement, who cannot find his place in political practice, in organizational work, he must realize his professional impropriety to function as an activist of the Communist Party, and party organizations must expel mentally lazy, non-inventive, passive members who claim leadership.

At least, the CPSU for the last two decades of its existence, was full of idlers and mercantile careerists. Precisely because of the ideological weakness, after August 23, 1991 almost the entire CPSU went home, joined democratic parties, and many CPSU leaders turned into national-democratic leaders. Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Yakovlev, Shevardnadze, Aliev, Snegur, Kravchuk, being the presidents pursued a reactionary, often obviously fascist policy, and thereby revealed their true face, their ignorance of the theory of Marxism. It was once again proved that there is no pure consciousness. Human consciousness, if it is unscientific, then it is aggressively reactionary.

Therefore, the main duty of a party member and one of the key criterion for his stay in the party is his attitude to personal self-education. The criteria of an activist ability to fulfill his program duties are the qualitative and quantitative results of his participation in propaganda and agitation work and successes in involving citizens in the political life of the country and the party. If such criterion was used in the CPSU, Yeltsin would never become a member of the Young Communist League, and, especially, a member of the party.

The problems of building communism is the main direction of all scientific work in the party. Therefore, a party member may be considered as a mature activist if his scientific and theoretic level is high enough, i.e. if he is able to construct logical models, which, on the basis of objective and subjective conditions, help to accelerate the dying away of market rudiments and to develop the communist relations.

The organizational work of the party is just the implementation of the scientific theory, and the scientific theory has primacy in political practice, so the tactical steps related to temporary departures from the strategic line, should be analyzed by all party activists before the decision of the central organ of the party. No discussion on such decision of the central organ shall be permitted. All suggestions on improving the realization of the taken decision in specific regional and local conditions should not contradict the general line of the party, should be considered and approved by the party organizations at the regional and local levels with immediate reporting to the central organ on the found solutions.

Science-based centralism requires, firstly, the science-based action strategy, secondly, the members with scientific approach, whose competence is confirmed by the practice; thirdly, the system of recruiting the central organ members according to the results of their scientific, theoretical, propaganda and organizational work.

Strictly speaking, the Leninist and Stalinist period in the party leadership had consistent victories precisely because of the supremacy of science-based centralism and the reasonable restriction of democracy, which, firstly, helped to solve the problems extremely quickly, and secondly, to neutralize the opportunists, to reduce the number of their representatives in the directing bodies and to minimize demagogy in the party policy.

As the opponents of Lenin and Stalin said, during their leadership the party activists worried about how to fulfill strategic decisions of the leaders rather than what to do. And it was not a matter of restrictions or “arm twisting”, but the QUALITY of Lenin’s and Stalin’s genius decisions, which made it possible to gain the victory over the opportunists at the stage of approving these strategic decisions by the congress of the party.

It would be even faster if in the Party Rules the congress had not a legislative but an informational role, if the scientific and theoretical level of cadres allowed them to resist the attack of opportunism at the local level. But every year it was necessary to assemble the party activists at the congresses in order to fight against the idiotic attacks and provocations of the opportunists for a few days, and by the method of democratic voting to force the opportunists to carry out the decisions of the congress. Unfortunately, the party rarely used the practice of excluding dissenters. It is quite obvious that if the opportunist opposition was sure in the scientific character of their strategy, they would create their own party, win the confidence of the working class and lead them. The fact that the opposition has never left the party clearly proves the conviction of the opportunists in their total lack of talent and their ability to exist only by parasitism.

Therefore, in the PSC, any person convinced of the existence of an alternative line of propaganda and agitation, tactics and strategy, should immediately get an unlimited opportunity for self-expression and organizational actions, but outside the PSC.

Valery Podguzov, Proriv

https://prorivists.org/eng_source-of-opportunism/
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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:10 pm

What is Trotskyism?
Translated by Petr Yakovlev

Trotskyism is the worst enemy of communism.

Trotskyism has nothing to do with the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism.

Trotskyism of all sorts is the forefront of the bourgeois ideology of the denial of communism in the era of the end of imperialism and the victorious communist revolutions.


Trotskyism manifests itself in three hypostases:

i) as an ideology in the arsenal of imperialism in the form of «socialist» concepts and theories of philosophers, historians and publicists — which is designed for the broadest masses, primarily for the intelligentsia and youth;

ii) in the form of leftist organizations — which is designed for politically active youth and the proletarian strata;

iii) as opportunism.

The most dangerous disguised Trotskyism is the dissemination of Trotskyist ideas, Trotskyist deviation, and half-Trotskyism since it leads to opportunism and, consequently, to a distortion of the theory and practice of the struggle for communism.

What is Trotskyism?

It is wrong to look for the roots of Trotskyism in the works or deeds of Trotsky. Trotsky’s activity led to the introduction of the term „Trotskyism“, but not Trotsky gave birth to Trotskyism, but Trotskyism gave birth to Trotsky.

At all times, unprincipled people hung around the revolutionary movement with goals completely alien to the revolution — from overtly provocative or mercantile to adventurous or careeristic. Long before Trotsky, many political crooks who frantically attacked the First International were spiritually Trotskyites; in fact, the modern unprincipled scum who ranks himself among the Communists is also Trotskyists. The main distinguishing feature of Trotskyism as a political phenomenon is unprincipledness. The term „Trotskyism“ was spread because Trotsky laid down the ideology of unprincipledness.

In the pre-October period, the ideology of Trotskyism was a frenzied struggle against Lenin, his scientific position and his collaborators. Trotsky’s activity was generated by the situation of the struggle of the Bolshevik faction against the opportunist factions, in which the specific ideology of double-dealing became popular with the oscillating elements. Trotsky, who did not have stable ideas and hated Bolshevism, rallied everything similar to himself through phrasing and intrigue. Furthermore, the Trotskyists have always acted under the guise of Marxists, Communists, revolutionaries, and after the death of Lenin — completely impudently under the guise of Bolsheviks and Leninists.

After the victory of the Communist Revolution in 1917 and the first successes in building a society of the lower phase of communism, the ideology of Trotskyism took shape in its usual present form, as anti-Stalinism. If right-wing anti-Stalinism is the whole openly open exploitative political ideology, then left-wing anti-Stalinism is Trotskyism, that is, the denial of the theoretical and practical experience of building communism on the left.

Processes 1936 — 1938 showed that the Trotskyist „oppositionists“ led by Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, since 1917, were in a conspiracy against Lenin and Leninists. They aspired to disrupt the Brest Peace, condoned the S.R. rebellions and the attempted assassination of Lenin, with all their might sought to impose democracy on the Party in order to undermine the organization and lead the Party off the scientifically substantiated Leninist-Stalinist path. Trotsky himself and his closest employees have been connected with foreign intelligence services since the 1920’s, and in the 1930’s became Gestapo agents. Under their leadership, the Trotskyists united all the anti-communist and anti-Soviet elements within the USSR, forming a relatively single anti-Soviet underground, and organized many terrorist attacks, including the assassination of Kirov, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky. Trotskyite bandits prepared the assassination of Party leaders and the implementation, together with a group of Tukhachevsky, of a military coup with the subsequent dismemberment of the country. Thus, as the class struggle intensified, the Trotskyists, following the Mensheviks and S.R. party members, finally and naturally turned into a gang of unprincipled and devoid of ideas wreckers, saboteurs, scouts, spies and killers, employed by imperialism.

The next historical form of Trotskyism was Khrushchevism. If classical Trotskyism inside the USSR was defeated theoretically and practically, and in the 1930’s — 1950’s it was exploited mainly in bourgeois countries, then after Stalin’s death Khrushchevism hit the USSR from the inside. The Khrushchev group that seized leading positions in the CPSU declared the truly Marxist Stalinist policy essentially criminal and unscientific. All that Khrushchev preached was Trotsky’s rehash. Khrushchev’s activities were aimed at shattering the dictatorship of the working class, curtailing the building of communism and the collapse of the international communist movement.

It should be noted that not a single renegade in the post-Stalinist history of the communist movement justified anti-Stalinism with any theoretical study from the point of view of Marxism. Moreover, all of these khrushchevs, mikoyans, togliattis, gomulkas, ulbrichts, todors, kadars, torezes and others were not Marxists at all. After decades, we can confidently say that these people were agents of world imperialism in the leadership of the parties. They initiated and conducted the anti-communist (anti-Stalinist) course based on the falsification of history and the Trotskyist theory of the personality cult of Stalin. Referring to separate quotes from Marx and Lenin, these Judahs and Judushkas, not shying away, of course, from using nationalism, mobilized the party and non-party masses to undermine the unity of the world communist system, ultimately counting on the collapse of the building of communism throughout the world. The anti-Stalinist line of these figures today organically, following the „classical“ Trotskyism, merged with the liberal-democratic denial of communist construction in the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp. Only China, Albania and Korea, due to the competencies of Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxha and Kim Il Sung, revealed the viciousness of this course and maintained a relative commitment to Marxism-Leninism.

Besides, Trotskyism was a trend of thought of the Soviet intelligentsia. Even under Stalin, it was not possible to uproot Trotskyism from the educational system, including from the Party, academic institutions and the artistic environment. In these areas, the Trotskyists constituted something like secret clans, manifesting themselves not only in the field of dissidentism but also in the official „Dialectical Materialism“, „Historical Materialism“, „Political Economy“ and „Scientific Communism“. Moreover, the activities of the Trotskyists are far from being not only state conspiracies and the struggle for power in the party, but also petty dirty tricks, cowardly injections secretly. Unfortunately, the VLKSM (Komsomol) turned out to be not a forge of communist cadres, but a nursery of Trotskyism and the institution of decay of Soviet youth.

Moreover, Trotskyism became the generator of the content of anti-communist ideology. So, the basis of the modern bourgeois history of the USSR is Trotskyist historiography. The historiography of Trotsky is exposed by the bourgeoisie as the authentic position of the „organizer» of the October Revolution, directed against „Stalinism“. Trotsky’s books „The Stalinist School of Falsifications“ and „The History of the Russian Revolution“ are the first and main principles of anti-communist historiography in an academic form, which is still in service with the world bourgeoisie. All the basic concepts of bourgeois history about the USSR — „Stalinist repressions“, „Stalin’s dictatorship“, „cult of personality of Stalin“, „collusion of Stalin and Hitler“, „the power of the bureaucracy“ were created in their works by Trotsky and his henchmen.

History has shown that unprincipledness provides Trotskyism with exceptional ideological and organizational „mutagenicity“. The concepts, arguments, theories, opinions of the Trotskyists, as well as their many societies, movements, parties, fronts, internationals are extremely diverse, sometimes they are desperately squabbling among themselves, but they represent an identical quality — the denial of communism in the USSR in theory and practice. Moreover, Trotskyism, in comparison with the other varieties of bourgeois ideology, today is the forefront of anti-communism.

Trotskyism is based on ignorance in theory, fashionability and bourgeois ideology. Trotskyism is not only a political phenomenon, but also a psychological one, a special form of social mimicry, implicated in narcissistic pomp. Trotskyism, like a virus, strikes the most precarious, unstable elements in the communist movement, including forcing them to primitive work, actionism, economism and trade unionism. The left-wing movement of Russia in many respects remains in an insignificant position of insipid, isolated from the masses of the multi-party system due to the infection of Trotskyism in the form of interspersing Trotskyist ideas, Trotskyist deviation and half-Trotskyism.

The low theoretical level of the left-wingers, that is, ignorance, leads to vacillations among activists, and, in turn, to an indifferent attitude towards Trotskyism, indulgence, and even conciliationism.

The new form of Trotskyism is „Shapinism“, that is, the concept of „reconciliation“ between Stalinism and Trotskyism or „removal of the confrontation“ of Stalinism and Trotskyism. To use of Shapin’s tactics is what various „friends of youth“, who rally in their societies the most illiterate, politically naive young cadres, are doing today. Taking into account the diminished influence of traditional Trotskyism, which denies Stalin and communism in the USSR, the position of such Trotskyists and half-Trotskyists is very promising from the standpoint of the growth points of opportunism in the current conditions of increased interest in the Stalinist USSR.

The centers of the spread of Trotskyism in Russia, popular among youth and the left, are as follows:

I. The Skepsis magazine and A. Tarasov’’s group.

II. The Rabkor edition and other activities of Kagarlitsky, the Institute Collective Action and Carine Clement.

III. The Propaganda magazine.

IV. The Spinoza edition and Engels societies.

V. The Alternatives, Issues of Political Economy magazines and other activities of Buzgalin and Kolganov.

VI. The Social Compass magazine.

VII. The LeninCrew edition.

VIII. The September magazine.

Furthermore, several purely Trotskyist parties and groups, which exist for the most part due to Western capital, are acting in Russia.

Taking into account the above, we note the need:

I. To wage a consistent and implacable struggle against Trotskyism and Trotskyist organizations. Defend the Stalinist historiography, the history of Bolshevism, propagandize and develop the Leninist and Stalinist theoretical and practical heritage.

II. To wage a consistent and implacable struggle against all manifestations of Trotskyism in theory, propaganda and agitation. Strongly reject all materials containing even elements of Trotskyism.

III. Conduct theoretical and educational work on the basis of a thorough study by all the activists of Marxism-Leninism from the primary sources, i.e., the works of the classics and official documents published in the Leninist-Stalin period on the history of the party.

It should be noted that the victory over Trotskyism as a bourgeois ideology and counter-revolutionary practice, as well as opportunism generated by Trotskyism, does not guarantee the purity of the Marxist-Leninist line and the complete absence of opportunism. Opportunists are also full of anti-Trotskyists. Only consistent ideological and theoretical sanitation against all opportunism, based on the mastery of Dialectical Materialism, the development of Marxist theory and the mobilization of conscience, can guarantee the purity of personnel and the correctness of our policy.

https://prorivists.org/eng_antitrotskyism/
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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:39 pm

The Crypto-Fascist Group Infiltrating the Online Communist Community
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 7, 2022
Rainer Shea

Image

Marxist Anti Imperialist Collective, a crypto-Strasserite group, has advocated for Socialism with Richard Spencer characteristics by endorsing the idea of a white state. Big surprise. Why should we care so much? Well, this group is using certain tactics to spread its ideas widely.

MAC runs several “communist” subreddits that are easy to mistake for being trustworthy, namely;

EuropeanSocialists,
AsianSocialists,
AmericasSocialists and
AfricasSocialists.

They lure normies in, then use their favored members who’ve been trained in their rhetoric to push their ideas. What are these ideas? They’re cloaked in communist language, but they consistently serve to nudge people towards the position of supporting white nationalism. The starting point in this ideological pipeline is that any pluri-national socialist countries are chauvinist.

This idea that no nations can even voluntarily share in a singular state alliance, no matter how much autonomy the nations in this alliance have, is used by them to vilify the USSR and the PRC. They claim the DPRK is the only real current socialist country for this reason. If this all-encompassing view of what “chauvinism” means sounds like it’s pro-balkanization, that’s because this is exactly what they promote as an absolute for the conditions of any region. Even I no longer want to balkanize America, and instead desire a post-colonial federation.

This obsession with promoting balkanization naturally feeds into an imperialism-compatible view of Yugoslavia and the balkan region’s current hostilities, which I’ve also seen promoted by ultras. But these people are worse than ultras. Racism is at their ideology’s core. When you accept their idea about nationalism being necessarily front and center to communism, you can come to other imperialism-compatible conclusions, like that Ukraine’s regime isn’t actually fascist but merely concerned with “the nation.” They argue this, by the way.

The logical conclusion of their ideas is that whites need to form their own state in America for the sake of combating U.S. imperialism, and that white nationalism can’t be fascist because it supposedly stands in utter opposition to the imperialist state (i.e. ZOG rebranded). In reality, white nationalism has only two potential roles, neither of which are anti-imperialist. One is to serve as a rival imperialist force to the current settler state, seeking to break from the U.S. so that whites can occupy Native lands with less restrictions on their ability to carry out racial terror. The other is is to serve as a proxy for the existing settler imperialist state, carrying out terrorism against Blacks, Natives, Brown people, and communists – the people who the state seeks to continue repressing.

The way the mods of the MAC subreddits are trying to create a substantial platform is by roping in communists, then diligently picking arguments with posters from outside their community. They meticulously pick apart people’s arguments, extrapolating points that aren’t intended so they can sow doubt. They don’t need to change the minds of the people they’re arguing with, just create threads in which they appear to be the smarter and more theoretically informed ones to onlookers. Their “so you’re saying…” arguing tactic reveals how vacuous their points actually are.

Indigenous erasure is ironically part of their agenda as well, despite them claiming to care so much about national self-determination. Their idea that whites need to form a state on this continent implies the settler-colonial occupation should continue. It also deliberately ignores the nature and reality of colonization, acting as if whites were an equivalent social category to Blacks under our current conditions. Under settler-colonialism, whites are the colonizers, and don’t require “self-determination” because they already have disproportionate power as is. Communists must unequivocally reject white nationalism, and not enable those who seek to normalize it within communist spaces.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... community/
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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:07 pm

On the anti-communist argument about the so-called human nature
No. 4/68, IV.2022

Nationalists and liberals of all stripes love to "prove" that communism is impossible because of so-called human nature. Here is an example of such reasoning:

“For more than a hundred years, it has not been possible to create a successful communist society. Communism contradicts the social essence of mankind: private property is one of the most important social institutions. The denial of private property leads society to degradation and collapse.

This conclusion can be reached from two positions - vulgar materialism or idealism. Vulgar materialists take external, geographical conditions, the technical improvement of tools of labor as the main force of social progress, or delve into questions of population. Human nature, according to them, is the action of instincts that have been formed for hundreds of millions of years in all animals, incl. and even the most distant human ancestors. They allegedly make it impossible to change consciousness to a communist one, and sooner or later it will become egoistic again. Rejecting dialectics, they do not see in production relations the main force that determines human consciousness, and therefore they do not understand that by changing production relations, social consciousness can be changed, because geographical and climatic conditions will remain the same, as, indeed, and instincts, which were also formed under these conditions. The most vulgar materialists are the nationalists. As Valery Alekseevich Podguzov said, the fact that nationalists also pray should not mislead anyone. You can't spoil the porridge with oil. Almost all capitalists are also vulgar materialists.

For centuries, idealists have proposed various elements of social consciousness - theories, morality, faith - as a source of social development. They believe in the primacy of consciousness, and therefore they also do not understand that by changing the relations of production, it is possible to change consciousness to a communist one. They do not pay attention to the material existence of society in this matter, in their opinion, consciousness should strive for some eternal standards - religious, nationalistic, abstract humanistic. They do not understand that these "standards" are nothing but the product of the contradictions of material life, primarily economic relations.

Thus, both vulgar materialists and idealists are forced to recognize the inviolability of private property relations.

Firstly , the relations of private property are five to seven thousand years old and humanity has not known them for most of its history. Vulgar materialists do not take into account the fact that for several hundred thousand years there were already communist relations in the communities, which, however, disappeared with the advent of the division of labor during the Neolithic revolution, then commodities, and then money. By the way, the existence of communist relations in antiquity means that they were much more efficient than market ones, since they arose in conditions of extremely limited resources and low labor productivity. We will return to this later.

Secondly , today private property causes enormous harm to society. But you need to correctly scientifically understand its essence. Private property is called forms of production relations, that is, relations in the process of production, distribution and consumption that arise between people due to the rejection of material and spiritual conditions of existence and development from each other. Private property gives rise to crises of overproduction, wars, poverty and wealth, national strife, in general, all the most disgusting antagonisms between people.

Thirdly , the transition from one, more primitive, mode of production to another, more perfect, is synonymous with social progress. After all, in order for society to be able to reproduce more and more effectively, it needs to produce material and spiritual goods in an expanded qualitative and quantitative form. The mode of production is determined by the level of development of the productive forces, that is, the level of development of the people themselves and the instruments of production, and the nature of the production relations that unite these people. The relations that develop in the course of production, distribution and consumption of material and spiritual goods are primary in relation to the entire political and spiritual superstructure of society.

And vulgar materialists offer a source of rather semi-animal progress, when there was still an appropriating economy, thereby stuck deep in the past. And idealists generally believe that consciousness is primary. Thus, their ideology stands even further from scientific truth.

Fourthly , consciousness stands above instincts. Instincts are primary, but consciousness dominates them. Consciousness, even in the activity of a modern person, a person from the prehistory of mankind, even a person who has not stepped further in intellectual development beyond the Unified State Examination, plays a decisive role in his behavior. The person on that and the person that has consciousness. And vulgar materialists are actively trying in their explanations to identify man and animal, apparently, in their own image.

Fifth , all critics of communism ignore Stalin's victorious experience in building communism. Then the consciousness of people really changed. Initially, it was necessary to distribute according to work (although such a system of distribution is a banal law of value, rather a compromise between personal and public interests, while the public consciousness is traumatized by consumerism). Then, in the USSR, a way was outlined to overcome the narrow horizon of distribution according to work through the development of public consumption funds - the development of free cafes, canteens, ateliers of free individual tailoring (so that it would seem pointless for people to buy all the clothes from stores), develop free children's camps, rest homes, etc. .P.

Of course, the consciousness of modern people is full of animal atavisms, social instincts, such as selfish interest or the desire for unprincipled adaptation to social conditions. But that's why they are atavisms, that the future in the development of consciousness lies in their elimination. Vulgar materialists do not grasp the trend in the development of consciousness.

What is happening now? And now there is a progressive decay of the entire market society, approximately according to the Roman scenario. People keep getting stupid, even bourgeois scientists can see it by measuring IQ. On average, it has been decreasing by seven points for each new generation since the 70s.

So, in the Norwegian Center for Economic Research named after Ragnar Frisch, they analyzed the results of 730 thousand IQ tests conducted over several decades. It was found that the intelligence of the subjects decreased from year to year. They scored less and less points.

These tests, of course, are not a real indicator of intellectual development, but only fix the level of mastery of skills typical of the bourgeois education system. But they also fall. A more vivid picture of decay is the general decline in the cultural level, the growth of infantilism, the formalization and vulgarization of art, the growing importance of fashion and the irrational, mystical in all spheres of life, including science and politics.

The market economy has never had a human appearance, but its aggressive anti-humanity is now especially visible. Such an economy only causes degradation, like late slavery, from which, in fact, it differs little.

I would also like to talk about the transition from primitive society to exploitation. In the entire left movement, the cause of this transition is considered to be completely objective. This is not entirely true. Reason is both objective and subjective. As soon as the economy became productive, a surplus appeared, which the primitive leaders began to distribute in their favor, primarily due to the lack of a scientific worldview and the dominance of semi-animal atavisms in the minds. Thus, while slavery developed the productive forces, the elements that hinder the development of society were fixed in the mind. This process is not completed even now.

But here is an interesting fact: human consciousness (cognitive processes of logical thinking, happiness, conscience) was formed exclusively under primitive communism. True, at that time the level of scientific outlook was extremely low, but relations in the community were human, that is, communist. The communities, it is true, were at war with each other, since at that time humanity was not yet bound by the ties of production. Imagine what a rapid development of consciousness will be in a communist society based on science and freed from private property!

Thus, we can conclude that both vulgar materialists and idealists are fundamentally wrong. Communism is possible and even inevitable, unless, of course, the bourgeoisie has time to destroy humanity. And now the objective prerequisite for it is absolutely ready - a sufficient development of the productive forces to satisfy the material and spiritual needs of all the people of the earth. It remains to prepare only the subjective factor - to create a party for the revolution in order to involve the proletariat. The staff of the Proryvist newspaper is working on this.

M. Novin
27/04/2022

https://prorivists.org/68_anticom/

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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 27, 2022 3:04 pm

The festishism of Trotskyism by Trotsky-stas
JONATHAN NINHO RODRIGUEZ 21.Aug.22

Just as in the last century they veiled the contradictions resulting from the bosom of the capitalist relations of production, those resulting from the development of the law of value, the intelligentsia has renewed the objects of study, in the spoken and written media the presumed opposing enemies in the present, North versus South, men versus women, left versus right, ethnic problems, nationalities. Yesterday and today they continue to try to deny the engine of human history, the class struggle.

From pay television channels, through the dominant university discourse (S2), the problems of building a socialist-communist society have focused on the rivalry between two people, Stalin and Trotsky, between two opposing personalities, giving as valid his own thesis: different forms of revolutionary fanaticism for wanting to build a utopia. It is necessary to situate the taking of position of one or another subject in the development of the struggle of opposites.



The festishism of Trotskyism by Trotsky-stas *

Just as in the last century they veiled the contradictions resulting from the bosom of the capitalist relations of production, those resulting from the development of the law of value, the intelligentsia has renewed the objects of study, in the spoken and written media the presumed opposing enemies in the present, North versus South, men versus women, left versus right, ethnic problems, nationalities. Yesterday and today they continue to try to deny the engine of human history, the class struggle.

From pay television channels, through the dominant university discourse (S2), the problems of building a socialist-communist society have focused on the rivalry between two people, Stalin and Trotsky, between two opposing personalities, giving as valid his own thesis: different forms of revolutionary fanaticism for wanting to build a utopia. It is necessary to situate the taking of position of one or another subject in the development of the struggle of opposites.


Trotsky, Trotskyism in its Context and Development


It is necessary for this point to begin by defining and characterizing the Trotskyist current as opposed to Leninism. It is a duty of the communists to unmask this petty-bourgeois sect which has been tried to dress in red robes; being nothing more than chameleons because they modify their discourse according to their interests as a revisionist group within the revolutionary struggles.

Trotskyism defines itself as Marxism. In addition, his prophet, Trotsky, describes his current as Marxist internationalism. When it is precisely Trotskyism that denies how many revolutions in the world raise the flag of Marxism. From Cuba to Vietnam, from China to North Korea, passing through Albania. Stalin (1953) in his text From him The social democratic deviation in our party. Report to the XV Conference of the PC(b) of the USSR. November 1, 1926 he conceives Trotskyism with three peculiarities that make it insoluble with Leninism.

First. Trotskyism is the theory of permanent (uninterrupted) revolution. Such a theory is to play the seizure of power, it is the theory of the rupture of the proletariat with the poor peasantry, it is to continue with the dispute between Leninism and Trotskyism that has taken place since 1905. To make this first characteristic of Trotskyism clearer, Stalin quotes the Trotsky himself in a letter to Chkheidze in 1913; and in it, Trotsky writes that the entire edifice of Leninism today is based on lies and falsification and carries within it the poisonous principle of its own decomposition.

Second. Stalin conceives of Trotskyism in terms of organization as the theory of coexistence of revolutionaries and opportunists in the same party. Lenin (1976) in the text About a violation of unity that is covered up with cries for unity describes Trotsky as a repeater of liquidationist slanders.

Third. Mistrust and discredit of the Bolshevik leadership.

Understanding the three peculiarities of Trotskyism implies placing it in the context of the practical intellectual development of Leon Bronstein himself. In this article the difference is given in the theoretical, the same in the practical, not between two subjects, but the differences in taking a position: one, the position of Marxism (Stalin), the other, the line of Trotskyism (Trotsky ). The year was 1928, the second characterized the first as "empiricist", as follows:

... Stalin was always an empiricist, who never had a greater attachment to theory and who subordinated most of his interventions opportunistically to his tactical and conjunctural needs of the moment, that is why he lived in zigzags, it is also plausible to maintain that, more Beyond this notable eclecticism, Stalin did have his own vision of Marxist theory (Trotsky, L. 2004: 157).



This excerpt has richness behind its manifest content, firstly by describing Stalin as an empiricist. Calling Stalin an empiricist is linked to Trotsky's superiority complex. Passing off Stalin as a practitioner, not as a thinking subject, despite contradicting himself –again– by recognizing in his enemy someone who did possess a vision of Marxist theory. Second, the “zigzags” were Trotsky's; as early as 1906, in Stalin's writing Anarchism or Socialism? the latter not only positioned itself on one side – Bolshevism – it also expressed apprehension and theoretical development. With Leon it did not happen the same.

S1 is carried out by social communicators, journalists, actresses. They abhor socialism and accept Trotsky as a revolutionary. Stalin, on the other hand, is characterized as executing someone else's ideas. “Trotsky was a dreamer, an idealist, passionate; Stalin a pragmatist, a calculator, a cynic” (Lecomte, B. 2018: 84). The way in which the French journalist adjectives is in tune with that of Bronstein, seeing in Stalin a pragmatist, an executor of ideas without the prominent intellectual capacity that under that discourse would characterize Trotsky.

Trotsky's desire to be what he was not, a revolutionary; his desire to surpass Lenin theoretically and practically, something similar to Dussel's present and his desire to be S1, –written, commented by himself– to surpass Marx, Marxism for his so-called Transmodernity [1] . Trotsky linked his life, throughout it, the desire to become what he did not become with something for which there were material means available, extolling the intellect with his clothing:

The boy's appearance and character were already forming. He was good-looking, dark-skinned and with prominent but well-proportioned features, myopic eyes that showed his liveliness behind his glasses, and thick, well-combed black hair. He took great care of his appearance: neat and well-dressed, even elegantly, he had a “very bourgeois” appearance (Deutscher, I. 1966: 27).



With the foregoing, it is not a criticism of clothing, much less Leontyevich's neat appearance, but to show that in Trotsky – like any subject of being desiring subjects – the desire was based on wanting to be someone who did not become on par with the development of his superiority complex (become his own inferiority complex). In this regard, his biographer writes that “the boy from Yanovka understood that he was worth more than the others. The companions around him surrendered to his superiority” (p. 27).

In My Life , Trotsky relates that when he was in high school, in 1896, he came to Nikolaev. In the family where he was staying they talked about socialism, but he called those terms “socialist utopias”. He distrusted the “rabble ideology”. At the age of 17, writes Deutscher (1966), Leon was not yet attracted to any political ideas. The previous year Engels had died, but the event did not resonate with the Menshevik, nor had the name of Karl Marx reached his ears.

The foregoing is understood in the narcissistic development of Trotsky. Isaac Deutscher narrates, in the chapter titled In search of an ideal, in the first volume of the biography dedicated to the creator of Trotskyism, the obstinate arrogance of Leontievich; extolled his ego by not accepting distant ideas or positions until he felt like the "great thinker," before believing that, "after his inner defenses crumble, his self-confidence begins to fade" (Deutscher, I. 1966: 34). It is necessary to reveal what is apparently empirical: Trotsky's self-confidence, being undermined, resulted in increasing his desire to be that subject to whom the masses would pay homage. Trotsky and his Trotskyism, since 1905, were antagonistic to Marxism, that is, antagonistic to Marxism-Leninism.

1905 was not a distant year from 1896. At that time Bronstein asked a Marxist with whom he coincided in Marxist study circles, Sokolóvskaya: "How is it possible that a girl so full of life put up with such arid, narrow and impractical nonsense?" (p.39). Whether in 1896 or 1905, Trotsky did not feel like a Marxist, but rather superior. The desire to be what he was not, and what he wanted to become, would lead him to make a fetish of Trotskyism.

Lenin in his article Marxism and reformismclarifies the practical essence of the reformists in situations of ebb and flow of the revolutionary movement. "Reformism," says Lenin, "is a way in which the bourgeoisie has to deceive the workers, who will continue to be wage slaves, despite some isolated improvements, as long as the rule of capital continues." Reformism has tried to pass off that wage slavery, through reforms, will cease to be the constant of the working masses. That is, perversion through the use of reforms. Lenin wrote that reformism, even when it is completely sincere, in fact becomes an instrument of the bourgeoisie to corrupt the workers and reduce them to impotence. The experience of all countries shows that the workers have been outwitted every time they have trusted the reformists.

Trotskyism, being an anti-Marxist current, reproduces the comparison between Stalin and Hitler: both dictators, both murderers of their peoples. Far from such comparison coming from a scientific analysis of material reality, it actually comes from subjective questions, that is, from contradictions of a personal nature. Personal contradictions that Trotsky never overcame. Trotsky's impulses, far from remaining stagnant in psychological matters, come from the practice of the subjects. Thus, the revolutionary practice of one and the revisionist practice of the other is precisely what is behind Trotsky's demerit towards the person of Stalin.

Hate is, after all, a kind of personal bond. Stalin and I have been separated by events so terrible that everything personal has been consumed in flames and reduced to ashes, without leaving the slightest residue. Now, for me, I think and feel that the unprecedented exaltation of Stalin represents the deepest sinking. Stalin is my enemy. But so is Hitler, and Mussolini, and many others (Ibid., 1963).

Trotsky denies that personal hatred was what motivated him to agree to Menshevik practice. Trotskyism denies substantive differences between Bolshevik and Menshevik concepts, since for the former it only refers to the majority and the minority; however, history testifies to the contrary, beyond the nuance in terms of quantity of one and another group of the POSDR.

Trotsky, despite the fact that he had an excellent pen, in his biography of Stalin, manifests on each page, in each section, hatred, racism, denigration of Stalin's proletarian class origin, of his birthplace Tbilisi, Georgia ; for he sees in Stalin, as in the rest of the residents of the Caucasus region, primitive people, lacking intellect. Then, at his a priori of denying personal hatred as the most important thing, the development of his own text, coupled with his practice until his death, made his denial a fallacy, words that have become evident .

In the aforementioned biography, Trotsky comments on the hatred embodied in his pen towards Stalin: "I do not deny that the resulting portrait is gloomy and even sinister." The semblance of the Menshevik is clear, a story that unsuccessfully tries to make Stalin a "sinister subject". Following such a statement, Trotsky launches the following challenge: "I challenge anyone who extracts another more human figure from these facts that have scandalized the imagination of humanity in the course of these last years." Years, decades, passed for us Marxist-Leninists to raise our fists and pen to throw out the historical falsehoods against the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the USSR, not only of Trotskyists and other revisionists, but of imperialism through of both its military and intellectual organs.

The Menshevik hatred was a true petty-bourgeois characteristic, expressed so furiously in the person of Stalin. That is what Trotskyism has tried to pass off, a hatred of a personal nature, but in reality it is nothing but hatred of the Communist Party, of Leninism.

…both representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, [which] at this time is incapable of adopting original ideas or creative leadership of its own. Both Hitler and Mussolini have plagiarized and imitated just about everything and everyone. Mussolini stole from the Bolsheviks and Gabriel d'Annunzio, and found inspiration in the field of big business. Hitler imitated the Bolsheviks and Mussolini (Ibid., 1963).



Both the practice and the theory of Trotskyism are clear: it did not hesitate to be a petty-bourgeois current, a current opposed to Marxism-Leninism. It is not by chance that Bolshevism is equated with Italian fascism and German Nazism; This comparison has its cause in seeing Leninism as a right-wing current.

Personal hatred became latent in every writer, man of letters, intellectual who produced something about Stalin. The simplistic criticism of the great intellectual Trotsky minimized the subjects for the fact that they dedicated their works to their hated enemy. One of the cases was in relation to Alexis Tolstoy when he wrote the following:



You, shining sun of the nations,

sun without sunset of our time,

and more than the sun, because the sun is not sapient…



About these verses Trotsky writes:

Stalin is pleased. And he rejoices even more, no doubt, when some writer of the second rank comes closer to his own literary level with the following Song of the Returning Sun, which he says, among other things:

From Stalin comes the light,

and from Stalin our prosperous life…

even the good life of the tundra beaten by the snow

we saw her united with him,

to the son of Lenin,

to Stalin the Wise .

Such verses by Alexis Tolstoy represented for Trotsky (1963) literary effusions that sound more like pig grunting [than poetry]. Apparently for his intellectual capacity Tolstoy's verses were insults to his intellect. Trotsky states the following, the literary level of Alexis Tolstoy was close to that of Stalin. However, in the biography he wrote, the subject of poetry that won Stalin the national novel prize in his hometown is not addressed. Trotsky was unaware of Stalin's making of him, enjoying poetry, for being only "snarls of pigs".



It has not been about Differences Between Personalities



Trotskyist reformism asserts that the interpretation of Stalin and his “gang of accomplices” (as Trotsky refers to the members of the Central Committee) regarding the practical-ideological conflict between Lenin and Trotsky was actually an invention of Stalinism. The truth is the opposite: Trotsky's class origin was present in his practice and in his theory opposed to Leninism.

Self-proclaimed leftist organizations state that it is no longer necessary to debate or resume the dispute that occurred "between two people." This is not so, because it is not a fight rooted in the 30s of the 20th century for the "leadership of power within the Party", but rather the debate and analysis of the history of the revolutionary movement, and this lies in continuing revolutionary dialectics. The practical as well as the ideological struggle is not something optional, rather it is a historical necessity of the communists in order to unmask the chameleons that cover themselves with red cloaks.





*Unpublished text.





BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

Deutscher, I. (1966). Trotsky the armed prophet. DF, Mexico, Era Editions.

Lecomte, B. (2018). The secrets of the Kremlin. CDMC, Mexico. Ed. The Athenaeum.

Lenin, VI “On a violation of unity that is covered up with cries for unity”. In Volume V. Selected Works in XII Volumes. Moscow, Progress.

Stalin, I. (1953). “Anarchism or socialism?”. In Volume 1. Complete Works in 13 Volumes. Foreign Language Editions Moscow. Pp. 301-399.

………. (1953). "The Social Democratic Deviation in our Party". In Volume 8. Complete Works in 13 Volumes. Foreign Language Editions Moscow.

Trotsky, L. (2004). "The philosophical tendencies of bureaucratism" Philosophical writings. Buenos Aires, CEIP.

…………… (1963). Stalin. DF, Mexico, Editions Lauro.







[1] MORENA and, in a peculiar way, AMLO, were given the presidential flag in December 2018. After three and a half full years of populist government, the intellectuals of MORENA do not miss an opportunity to deny the triumphs of socialism in the Soviet Union; as well as occupying the place of the theory developed by Marx with the pseudo-Marxist intelligentsia of the academy, and denying or separating from Marxism the theory developed by Engels, then by Lenin and later concretized –according to that S2– in a dogmatic form of Marxism developed by Stalin.


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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:51 pm

Pretty sure I've already posted this but I can't seem to locate it and it's so damn good I'm posting it again as the best possible reply to those communists who insist that we take a theoretical stance of 'a pox on all of their houses' despite the reality on the ground.
About the armed conflict in Ukraine
No. 8/72.VIII.2022

A step from peace to war, or peace as a respite in permanent war

Very few people are capable of scientifically, adequately treating military operations before the start of artillery cannonades. And in the course of the ensuing battles, attention is completely obsessed with private phenomena, tragic events and superficial political fuss. And if you start the study of a fundamental problem from any arbitrarily chosen moment in history, then it is very difficult to come to the truth. Therefore, the majority strays in the darkness of "geopolitics", "denazification", "demilitarization", "Putinism", "de-Putinization" and strained historical analogies either from the First World War or from the Soviet-Finnish one. Adjusting theoretical research to a conception deliberately proposed by the bourgeoisie of one side or another is the most impudent anti-Marxism and anti-science.If the essence of the phenomena lay on the surface, from where the conclusions of all the experts and analysts without exception come, then there would be no need for science.

Every war, just or not, liberation or predatory, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, is predetermined by the laws of the economic basis of class society . Violence in general is an integral part of private property relations, and the state form of violence, that is, systemic, operational, professional and concentrated coercion, is a qualitative component of the superstructure.

Not a single war in the world has been unleashed by monarchs, presidents and prime ministers themselves, although the role of the state creates the illusion that the exploiters are not directly involved in violence. The war is always and everywhere waged only by the ruling class , although the representatives of this class themselves may not understand how a howitzer differs from a cannon, and a tank from an infantry fighting vehicle. The independence of the top of the state apparatus from the will of the ruling class is relative, and the dependence is absolute. The policy of the state as a whole is a concentrated expression of relations generated by exploitative private property. Therefore, the victory in the war of one bourgeois state over another bourgeois state never leads to a change in the economic system, only superstructural elements, jurisdictions, political institutions, persons in power and detachments of the oligarchy change, the redistribution of property which is the main motive for the outbreak of hostilities.

The key to understanding the essence of armed conflicts is fixing in the minds of the moment when the peaceful development of capitalism enters the phase of clash of armies and navies, that is, the main institutions of state violence. Outwardly, it seems that there is a fundamental difference between the era of peaceful life and the period of warfare, that these are two completely opposite states of society. Bourgeois ideology and bourgeois theory of wars are filled with hypocritical pacifism and focus all attention on the moment of the outbreak of hostilities, on the validity, political expediency or inexpediency of the external side of the conflict. The conflicts between states themselves are considered as a product of the will of individual politicians, a clash of some abstract "national interests".

However, if we consider the moment of transition from peace to war from a diamatic point of view, then we will see that hostilities become only a more radical means of resolving the contradictions of competition , which was, is and will be, as long as private property dominates. Volleys of MLRS differ from exchange takeovers, duties, ousting from the market, nationalizations only in the form and speed of the desired economic consequences.

Within the framework of a single country, competition between capitalists, with the exception of contract killings, proceeds in a relatively peaceful form and consistently leads to monopolization. But outside the national market, the growth of individual capital runs into the sovereignty of other states, which also have their own oligarchs, dreaming first of regional and then of world domination. Each class of capitalists not only has its own police force, but also its own national army, which guarantees all the necessary conditions for the existence of the given economic system and the economy which they consider to be their patrimony.

Consequently:

“War is a necessary phase in the functioning of the capitalist economy, and the higher the concentration and centralization of capital, the higher its objective propensity to absorb the weakest capitals, its natural aggressiveness” (Podguzov).

Capitalism is not constantly at war just because war requires resources and forces that need to be accumulated and concentrated. Peace under capitalism , therefore, is only a natural stage in the preparation for war . If the capitalists had the opportunity to continuously wage war, they would do so. But since the waging of war depletes human resources, and the instruments of destruction are technologically more deadly and destructive, so war under capitalism is periodic and seems something out of the ordinary.

War in the broad sense of the word under capitalism never stops, since it is one of the forms of objective economic relations between owners . But the difficulty of this perception of the war for the majority of ordinary citizens, the future victims of every war in the narrow sense of the word, is that open mass battles occur only from time to time, although they sometimes last for decades.

Consequently, when considering the moment of the onset of war, we have before us two phases of the same economic process of capital accumulation: commodity-money, or peaceful, and violent, or military. Their content is the same—the production relations of capitalism. That is why wars are a natural companion of capitalism and, in general, of all exploitative formations . In pre-capitalist private property formations, war appears in a more visual form as a means of concentrating slaves, peasants, arable, ore-bearing and logistically valuable land in the hands of magnates.

Moreover, the phase of open war gives capitalism a more dynamic way of concentrating capital, allows you to quickly get rid of "bubbles" and "imbalances", from superfluous, weak capitalists and destroys a large number of material and virtual values. The human cost and suffering of war are as little of a concern to the capitalists as the poverty and unemployment of a peaceful period.

It is easy to see that where there is a self-growth and concentration of capital in a peaceful period, there is an active accumulation of special means of warfare, in which practically all entrepreneurs are involved. And for the formation of a submissive consciousness of cannon fodder, all the forces of market arts, "Bologna systems", nationalism and religion are mobilized. War in the narrow sense of the word, as a series of battles, with its roar, the brilliance of thoughtless "heroism", tragedies overshadows in the minds of even many theorists war in the broad sense of the word, as a side of the capitalist formation as a whole.

“In the military-political, narrow sense, imperialist war is an extremely violent, immanent form of the policy of the bourgeois state, and at the level of a higher-order entity, in a broad socio-economic sense, war is a violent form of economic relations that periodically and inevitably arises between exploiters about the appropriation, distribution and redistribution of the world's material wealth" (Podguzov).

War serves as a natural means of eliminating the discrepancy between the growth of productive forces , primarily in the idiotic form of capital accumulation, on the one hand, and the division of spheres of influence for finance capital, on the other . Take, for example, this Leninist truth:

The epoch of modern capitalism shows us that certain relations are taking shape between capitalist alliances on the basis of the economic division of the world, and alongside this, in connection with this, certain relations are developing between political unions and states on the basis of the territorial division of the world, the struggle for colonies, the struggle for economic territory.

So, between the capitalists of the West, primarily the USA, England, France, Germany, certain relations have developed on the basis of the complete economic division of the world, which look like the hegemony and dictatorship of Western transnational corporations from military-industrial conglomerates and oil and gas corporations to IT giants and "big pharma. And next to this, in connection with this, an alliance of states has formed, including in the form of the NATO alliance, which suppresses the sovereignties of individual countries and resorts to force of arms where necessary, or provokes wars through the hands of crazed nationalists.

As soon as the Soviet state was destroyed and the dictatorship of capital prevailed, all conditions were created for entrepreneurs, firstly, to tear the country to pieces, and secondly, to fall into general competition, that is, the war of all against all, creating many configurations like between themselves and with their Western "partners", thus setting fire to more and more "hot spots" on the territory of the USSR. The mass death of people and rampant fascism is the payment for the bungling shown by the people in 1991 .

From a general theoretical approach to the specifics of a particular

On February 24, 2022, the bourgeois Russian Federation, represented by President Putin, announced a special military operation in Ukraine, referring to the NATO expansion policy and a number of other circumstances that led to the outbreak of hostilities. In essence, we are talking about the fact that one bourgeois state is openly intervening in a civil war in another bourgeois state on the side of the rebellious people of Donbass and the subsequently emerging bourgeois "people's republics".

Let us recall some conclusions about the situation in Ukraine that we made in 2019. So, we argued:

1 . After 2014, a pro-Western group of oligarchs seized power in Ukraine, finally turning the Ukrainian state into a puppet, primarily of the American oligarchy. Ukraine, like Poland and the Baltic countries before, has become an outpost of US imperialism in Eastern Europe.

2 . Power in the Russian Federation is in the hands of the oligarchy, that is, finance capital, and is guided solely by the interests of preserving state-monopoly capitalism in Russia and expanding its dominance outside. All the talk about the protection of the "Russian world", the multipolar device is a screen and a cover.

3 . The civil war in Ukraine was unleashed by the Western oligarchy:

“Maidan, the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, the formation of the LDNR and the civil war, with all the complex and contradictory course of these processes, are primarily a product of the policy of the American and European oligarchs. The Russian bourgeoisie in this case acted according to the situation, trying not to weaken its position in the face of the loss of influence in Kyiv.

4 . The participation of the bourgeois Russian Federation in the civil war in Ukraine through the so-called Minsk and Normandy formats, that is, in fact, the conservation of the conflict, was dictated by the political motives of countering American imperialism. The bourgeois Russian Federation, feeling its weakness, did not openly intervene in the civil war in Ukraine, but did not allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to seize the Donbass. Such participation of the Russian Federation was not of an imperialist nature, it was not aimed at seizing territories or reshaping spheres of influence. However, at the same time, we noted that, quite possibly, the Russian oligarchy was hatching expansionist plans regarding Ukraine.

5 . We pointed out that the principled position of Marxism in any such conflict is that the proletariat needs to turn its weapon against any bourgeoisie: Ukrainian, Russian, American, European, Donetsk, Luhansk. But since such a slogan would be empty air shaking in the current situation, since there are no appropriate conditions for its promotion, the most productive solution to the situation would be the defeat of the Ukrainian government in the civil war.

6 . We predicted the three most likely scenarios that could lead to the end of the civil war: 1) if a communist revolution takes place in Russia, Ukraine or the Donbass and the dictatorship of the working class resolves the issue peacefully or militarily; 2) if power in Ukraine passes into the hands of the pro-Russian oligarchy; 3) if the Russian oligarchs need to resolve the issue by military means.

However, since 2019, there has been a significant change in the international situation. The confrontation between world imperialism and China sharply escalated, the American oligarchy essentially unleashed a new cold war against the PRC, in which the bourgeois Russian Federation is a springboard on the path of encircling and isolating China. The pressure of American and European imperialism on the bourgeois Russian Federation has increased significantly in all directions, including through internal attacks on Belarus and attempts to provoke an “orange revolution” in Russia (poisoning Navalny and activating the liberal opposition). There were many publications about this, in which we developed the idea that the world system of imperialism is on the verge of a new world war.

The behavior of the bourgeois Russian Federation in the changing situation was consistently mercantile and "business". First, proposals were made to Western imperialism, led by the United States, to voluntarily leave Eastern Europe, primarily Ukraine, that is, to recognize the sphere of influence of Russian financial capital, which would guarantee the neutrality of the Russian Federation in the confrontation between the United States and China. And after ignoring these proposals, the Russian Federation initiated a special operation in Ukraine on its own initiative.

There has clearly been a change in the strength of the potentials of the Russian and Western oligarchies, since the first time the conversation went on an equal footing. And also the fact that the degree of pressure from the US turned out to be critical for the Russian oligarchy. The military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, expressing the interests and needs of the Russian oligarchy, considered that further passive delay only worsens the situation of the country, and the “fight” is still inevitable. It cannot be ruled out that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were indeed preparing a massive offensive against Donbass and even Crimea.

The outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine completed the period of preparation for the open struggle of American imperialism to preserve its hegemony and the world order that had taken shape after the collapse of the USSR . There was a sharp mobilization of Western countries, they all as one began to pump up the Ukrainian army with weapons, supply intelligence and recruit mercenaries. In the domestic politics of Western countries, exactly the same rejection of bourgeois-democratic freedoms is taking place, which was observed in the 1950s during the so-called era of McCarthyism.

In turn , the actions of the United States as an imperialist state are dictated by the tasks of maintaining the hegemony of American corporations and the business interests of all the main subjects belonging to the structural Anglo-Saxon system of the globalized economy, which stretched its tentacles around the globe after the collapse of the USSR. They can be conditionally divided into two sides - political and economic.

The political side is the unleashing of a new cold war against China, in which the Russian Federation has an important foothold on the outskirts of the PRC. In it, economic benefits appear indirectly through competition with Chinese state capital, and, of course, there is a moment of fear of communism and the socialist state as such. The dynamics of modern China's development clearly demonstrates the high efficiency of communist power even in a market economy.

The economic side of the actions of American imperialism is associated with direct benefits from specific decisions, for example, in the form of enrichment of the private military-industrial complex from the supply of arms and the arms race in general, oil and gas giants from the redistribution of the European gas market, the ruin of the masses of small proprietors, etc.

The same is true in the position of the imperialists of France and Germany, with the only difference being that it reflects the balancing act and relations between the monopolists of these countries and their American "colleagues", that is, in this case they directly and openly support the United States in the confrontation with the Russian Federation, but are somewhat staggering. , not wanting a direct confrontation with China. Inter-imperialist contradictions between the US and the EU are also growing, as the US oligarchs directly use Europe in their own interests, regardless of the economic and social damage to the power of their "partners".

The complexity of the moment showed the theoretical helplessness of the left

The beginning of the special operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine was an event in the assessments of which left-wing figures and organizations diverged. But the special operation not only caused a split in the left into supporters and opponents of the war, but transferred the entire theoretical assessment of the situation to the plane of purely external phenomena. From some leftists Putin and Russian imperialism get it, from other leftists Zelensky, Biden and American imperialism get it. Much of the discussion revolves around Ukrainian fascist gangs and the role of NATO countries in the conflict. However, almost no one reveals the role of capitalism proper in the war.

None of the left dared to reason from the general to the particular. So, all entrepreneurs are competitors, and they are much more internationalists than proletarians. They do not need to be called to internationalism, they themselves are always looking for combinations on the side. No wonder some Russian oligarchs kept money abroad, they are always for any war, but on the side of the potential, as it seems to them, the winner. Another question is that the Russian Federation is full of entrepreneurs who have nothing to look for over the "hill", but they never pay attention to race, nationality, or religious affiliation. From time to time, political leaders appear on the scene expressing the aspirations of some groups of capitalists, not only large ones, but also small ones, sometimes comprador, sometimes nationalist, but this does not change much in the overall picture. So all wars in general are conducted exclusively by the bourgeoisie, regardless of what nation they belong to, what country they live in, and in what combination they entered the war. But the state and the army always become the scapegoat. There would be no entrepreneurs, there would be no competition between them, there would be no bourgeois parties and presidents reflecting the interests of groups of entrepreneurs, warring for life and death, both small and large, both strong and weak.

Therefore, whatever the specifics, no matter how significant the nuances of a particular military campaign may seem, while the masses of the townsfolk are under the impression of political chatter, the militaristic component, state policy, the role of presidents and field commanders, they are immersed in an attempt to embrace all these nuances in the process of searching for personal culprits nothing threatens capitalism itself. The modern left considers the topic of capitalism in war so sluggishly and fadedly that there are no claims, hatred and contempt among the mass of citizens for capitalism as the source of all wars. The fact that today there are borders, countries, governments, political systems and figures - all this is secondary, inherited by the earthly community as remnants of slavery, feudalism, clerical fragmentation. That's what's important.

We are not opposed to identifying specific nuances and the role of superstructure institutions, but only after our readers begin to see clearly that all wars are prepared and unleashed by ordinary entrepreneurs, including the smallest ones .

This position is dictated both by the general considerations of promoting the theory of Marxism, and by the fact that the most that we are capable of in fact is to formulate a scientifically sound point of view on current events, without being able to exert a practical influence on it. If our point of view is scientific, then this is what will eventually work and generate a constructive practical reaction from the masses and their leaders closest to the left.

For a more detailed consideration of the position of opponents of the special operation of the Russian Federation, we will resort to a joint statement by the Communist Parties of Greece, Spain, Mexico and Turkey, which, in its theoretical content, covers almost all the arguments of the left. Thus, fairly large and respected communist parties claim that the Russian-Ukrainian war is an imperialist war between the US, NATO, the EU on the one hand, and the Russian Federation on the other, in the struggle for control over the markets, raw materials and transport networks of Ukraine. A similar risk of wars is present in other regions, as the confrontation between the US and China for supremacy in the capitalist world intensifies. The anti-fascist rhetoric of the Russian Federation is recognized by them as false, designed to disorient the workers.

What specific outcome of the special operation of the Russian Federation is seen by the data of the Communist Party as the most acceptable for the cause of communism is unclear. They are simply against imperialist wars, that is, they take the position of abstract pacifism. It is clear that the statement "no war" in the current circumstances means the actual support for the military defeat of the Russian Federation.

It is difficult to call such a position anything other than schoolboy, it is the product of some compromise between organizations that do not want to substantively understand the situation. And again, in their criticism there was no place for capitalism proper, the origins of the conflict are not considered in connection with the collapse of the USSR and the transition from communism to capitalism. Equating American and Russian imperialisms, equating American imperialism and the socialist PRC looks especially obscene, which again only plays into the hands of preserving the hegemony of the Western oligarchy. The confusion that these communist parties have created is further delaying the introduction of the Marxist worldview to the masses.

At least now there are a number of socialist states in the world (China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos), and communists are obliged to consider all international political processes through the prism of the needs of their existence and development. They oppose world imperialism, and in this class struggle we must firmly take the side of the forces of communism. The fact that some leftists do not like "Marxism with Chinese characteristics" or Juche, that, in their opinion, the socialist government in these countries is not correct enough, and the policy is opportunistic, is a manifestation of dogmatism and Trotskyism. We have the right to form our opinion in the field of the theory and practice of communism in these countries, but it should not run counter to their support. It is not for us to teach Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese, Cuban and Laotian communists, and certainly not Greek, Spanish,

In addition, there are a number of states of socialist orientation (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Nepal, Syria, Eritrea, Belarus, Transnistria), there is a national liberation struggle of different peoples. Of course, communists are sympathetic to all anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist processes and are obliged to take them into account when evaluating certain political events and phenomena, especially global ones of international significance.

But all this has been forgotten by the left and sacrificed to "Marxist" dogmatism and "revolutionary" posture. Such theoretical assessments cause nothing but regret.

Important nuances in assessing the situation

The first important nuance in assessing the situation is that the basis of imperialism corresponds to the superstructure of imperialism, the ideology of which is fascism.

“The highest stage of the development of capitalism, i.e. imperialism, also corresponds to the highest, i.e., the ideology that is limiting in its genocidogenicity, which is the subjective prerequisite for the withering away of market capitalist relations, since private monopoly property has exhausted its possibilities for ideological maneuver, for generating theories masking the reactionary essence of exploitative formations. The bourgeoisie of every nation is forced to openly admit that under the dominance of monopolies, those who want to continue the growth of the profitability of their capital have no other way to do this than to “wet” their competitors on a global scale. Free-trading, fascism and globalization differ somewhat in the terms used,

The total strength of imperialism of one or another group of oligarchs and the states controlled by it is proportional to the degree of its reactionaryness . In contrast to the era of the First World War, the contradictions of modern imperialism are not a struggle between two blocks of equal potential. The world market is already under the control of US imperialism, and the oligarchies of other nations are trying to free themselves from the dictates of Washington. That is, we already live in a world of victorious American fascism, even if his terminological flair revolves around the doctrines of neoliberalism and globalization. The situation with political regimes in Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, Taiwan, Japan, Kosovo and the like shows how easily American democracy on the ground turns into nationalism and support for openly fascist gangs when it is beneficial to Washington patrons.

Further, American imperialism (USA, England, Canada, Australia, Israel, Japan, Poland, the Baltic States and other openly pro-American regimes) is not equal to EU imperialism (France, Germany), Turkish imperialism, Indian or Russian imperialism. They treat each other as strong to weak, block, compete, enter into open confrontation at the regional level.

Consequently, fascism as the ideology and practice of the desire of the financial capital of one nation for world domination is inherent in all bourgeois countries, but to varying degrees, depending on the strength and correlation of the potentials of the bourgeois classes ruling in them . Countries in which national capital, due to their size and total subordination to the world market, is not able to reach the level of financial monopolization, become the arena of the struggle of foreign financial capital and fall into political dependence.

Thus, Ukrainian fascism - Banderaism - with all its gangs, nationalism, terror is an element of the superstructure not of Ukrainian capitalism, but of American imperialism . Ukrainian oligarchs are not capable of claiming world domination, but are a mere rump of American corporations, typical compradores, who are allowed to exist and enrich themselves for the time being.

The second important nuance in assessing the situation is the understanding of the objective nature of the inter-imperialist class struggle that follows from what has been said above. The fact that American imperialism = fascism does not imply unconditional approval of the fight against it, because it is also carried out by an imperialist force, albeit a weaker and less reactionary one in this connection.

Communists regard the war in Ukraine as an objective reality of capitalism . As already mentioned, capitalism is generally a war of all against all, and concrete military operations are only an undisguised, frank form of this war. That is, under capitalism, war is something like a natural disaster, it is inevitable, because such is the very basis of capitalism, which permanently gives rise to military conflicts here and there.

Fascism in the United States and the West as a whole is a superstructure that serves the imperialist basis. The struggle of the bourgeois Russian Federation for spheres of influence with the West is a squabble between two imperialists , which, strictly speaking, does not bother the proletariat, since the weakening of one leads to the strengthening of the other with all the ensuing consequences in the superstructure.

The bulk of people with a petty-bourgeois consciousness are fixated on Putin, on his personal role in the war, or at best on the fact that it is not Ukraine that is at war with the Russian Federation, but NATO countries. Entrepreneurs of the Russian Federation are mastering the Crimea perfectly and will not “choke” on the territories of the LDNR and Ukraine if the war ends in their victory. Yes, and the Polish capitalists will gladly send their troops to Galicia in order to enthusiastically develop the Lviv region.

The current war in Ukraine was initiated by the presidents, but above all by the American ones, as in Vietnam, in Yugoslavia, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria…, at the behest of the most aggressive detachment of the business class. Until 2014, there was not a single sign, not a single thesis was voiced that Putin personally, or even more so the Russian Federation, have territorial claims to Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states or Ukraine. On the contrary, there were systematic calls: guys, let's live together in the CIS and the CSTO. But the territorial claims to the market RF on the part of the listed states for the sake of obtaining loans from the USA and the EU have not stopped since 1991, although the Russian Federation bought equipment, for example, in Ukraine, paid for the transit of oil and gas, for renting the Sevastopol Bay at world prices, and Poroshenko's factory worked quietly in Lipetsk. The population of Ukraine had no objective reasons for inflating nationalism and fascist hysteria. This means that it was inflated in the interests of the United States for the billions of dollars that they invested in the politics of Ukrainian presidents and the insanity of the masses over several years.

Although now, in comparison with Ukraine and the West, the regime of the Russian Federation is softer and more loyal, but nevertheless, the imperialist basis guarantees that as the power of the Russian oligarchy grows, the mug of the same fascism will more and more clearly manifest itself . The Russian and Ukrainian proletarians, having fought and drunk the cup of military suffering, must understand that capital is the force that drove them into the trenches. Groups of financial capital playing "table monopoly" with the lives of ordinary proletarians of different nations.

However, in the struggle of any forces against the dominant American imperialism (even in the weather vane of the oligarchy of France, Germany, Turkey, India, the opposition of the Ayatollah regime of Iran and the armed struggle of the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis) there is a progressive moment . The weakening of US and NATO hegemony plays into the hands of the socialist states, the countries of the socialist orientation and all anti-imperialist forces in different regions . The loss of hegemony by the US oligarchs creates a more favorable configuration in the world. In this connection, and only in this connection, one can speak of a sympathetic attitude towards "anti-Americanism", as well as towards those internal political processes in Western countries that undermine the potential of American and, in some cases, European imperialism.

The third important nuance in assessing the situation is the practical implementation of the thesis of Marxism about supporting any just struggle of the people, because the struggling people learn more willingly and better in the course of such a struggle, including communism . The struggle of the people of Donbass to be independent or even part of the bourgeois Russian Federation, and not Bandera Ukraine, is just and liberating. It demands our unconditional sympathy.

As for the position of the Khersonians or the Cossacks, it is difficult to say something definite at the moment, therefore, the inclusion of Zaporozhye and Kherson in the Russian Federation should be treated simply as a political fact. In any case, firstly , there are no signs that the population of Ukraine perceives the war as domestic, and secondly , they are somewhat loyal to both the pro-American regime in Kiev and the Russian bourgeois authorities. Marxism teaches that all countries on a market basis and with a market ideology tend to collapse and redistribute borders.

The fourth important nuance in assessing the situation is the unconditionally positive attitude of the communists to the physical extermination of ordinary fascists by the armies of the Russian Federation and the LDNR. These are incorrigible subjects who will be the first to rise in armed struggle against communism and the first to unleash terror against the working class. The righteous anger of the people regarding the crimes of fascist gangs in Ukraine is worthy of all support.

At the same time, when Russian nationalists and chauvinists die in the ranks of the “allies”, who took up arms to build the “Russian world”, it is also difficult to perceive this as something other than the cleansing of our people from rot.

The fifth important nuance in assessing the situation is the presence of nostalgic-emotional references by Russian and DPR fighters to the USSR and a request for social justice as a motive for conducting hostilities. This creates favorable conditions for the propaganda of communism and the introduction of Marxist consciousness into the masses both at the front and in the rear. The tactical task of our propaganda is to transfer attention from the external form, from the emotional attitude to the essence of political processes.

Summing up, the following should be noted.

Firstly , the reasons for the emergence of this particular war, which rather resembles a kind of national liberation movement from the pro-fascist and pro-American regime, must be attributed to the entire hundred years of the immediate history of the class struggle after the end of the civil war in Soviet Russia.

Secondly , the answer to the question of whether the current war is purely imperialist in nature must be sought not through historical analogies, but diamatically.

Communists in their work for scientific and theoretical authority among the proletarians of mental and physical labor must be able to demonstrate a diamatic approach to the study of events and, from the standpoint of essence, “dissect” them in all “colors and colors”, shades and halftones, and not demonstrate a schematic rr-revolutionary, as many leftist Kisa Vorobyaninovs do today. We fully approve only the struggle of the people of Donbass against American fascism and local Bandera and are not going to in any way interfere with the leadership of the Russian Federation to provide them with comprehensive assistance .

Classical imperialist wars, as they were recorded by the classics, had practically no subtexts - the imperialists openly fought for the redistribution of colonial possessions: the US war with Spain, World War I, World War II until 1941. But even the Second World War cannot be called unambiguously imperialist, if we keep in mind its transformation in 1941. In those wars before 1941, dumb Western cannon fodder did what the oligarchs told them to do.

If we talk about the fact that in fact two market systems of the same type entered into an armed conflict in Ukraine, in which the main role is played by national big capital, the oligarchs, then yes, this war has a lot of imperialist features. From the point of view of official statements, the leadership of the Russian Federation tried to implement the Minsk agreements, according to which Ukraine retained the sovereignty and territory of the LDNR (that is, it lost only Crimea). But this was not part of the US plans. On the part of US billionaires and democrats, this war is indeed unequivocally imperialistic, and if during it the Ukrainian and the entire European economy collapses as a result of sanctions or the explosion of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, then this will be an acceptable outcome for the US oligarchs.

What policy the current leadership of the Russian Federation is pursuing in relation to, for example, South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Syria, proves that so far the Putin government does not intend to pursue a policy that is anything like the bloody predatory tyranny of England, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium in its colonies or US policy towards North Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria.

And if we proceed from the fact of the abundance of cases of demonstrations of red banners by the warring contingent of the LDNR, the mindset of the masses, it is clear that people perceive hostilities somewhat differently than they did at the beginning of the 20th century. Although in the First World War the Russian soldier seemed to go to war with the Germans with understanding in order to protect the brothers of the Serbs, nevertheless, until 1917, there was no talk in the trenches about any red banner or about turning the imperialist war into a civil war. And in our case, for eight years, the people of Donbass waged a struggle of a predominantly national liberation nature with minimal material and moral support from the bourgeois Russian Federation, however, with mysterious losses among the leaders of the LDNR of the left and leftist persuasion - which also fully fits into the laws of the class struggle.

So that:

1) war is a product of capitalism, it is the natural and organic policy of the entrepreneurial class—the objective reality of capitalism and the counter-revolutionary destruction of the USSR;

2) the Ukrainian conflict on the part of the West is purely imperialistic in nature;

3) the imperialism of the Russian Federation is also present, but so far limited by the specifics of the Bonapartist regime;

4) the struggle of the people of Donbass is just, and the collapse of the Kyiv regime and the weakening of US imperialism in the region are progressive.


If we examine the line of conduct of the CCP and the WPK in relation to the Ukrainian conflict, then it is generally consistent with these conclusions.

EDITION
22/08/2022

https://prorivists.org/72_ukraine-war/

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These folks at Breakthrough', are very serious communists of the sort desperately needed and I think have a better grasp of the situation than westerners tainted by New Left pacifism.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:50 pm

A Final Word on “MAGA Communism” and Social Conservatism
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 21 Sep 2022

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Image: @ComradeKingZ Twitter

Opportunism and foolishness have resulted in the latest example of U.S. decline, the concept of "MAGA Communism." This absurdity is proof that a true socialist movement is badly needed.

A fashionable online trend has emerged that presumes social conservatism and “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), the Trump-inspired ideology, as sufficient responses to the liberal branding of the Democratic Party. Some have even called for a “MAGA” communist movement. The reasoning behind this is simple. MAGA inspired millions of mostly white workers to support Trump’s anti-Free Trade, anti-NATO, and pro-détente with Russia campaign message. Trump’s political base therefore is assumed to possess more revolutionary potential than the Democratic Party camp.

The problems with this formulation are many. For one, it belies even the most recent history. Movements cannot be judged by a portion of the slogans communicated to the masses by a single or even a handful elites. They should be judged by how closely these slogans match the actions of movement leaders and those following them. By this measure, the Trump “movement” has quite obviously served the ends of the elite and not the working class.

Donald Trump’s administration failed to improve U.S. relations with Russia. NATO strengthened under his reign. Trump’s efforts to reverse NAFTA didn’t weaken corporate free-trade agreements, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership was essentially dead upon his arrival to the Oval Office. Trump did succeed in escalating a New Cold War against China, placing starvation sanctions on Syria and Venezuela, and bringing the U.S. to the precipice of war with Iran. The military budget increased under his administration, as did privatization and the reductions of taxes on the capitalist class.

Of course, the Democratic Party’s unhinged crusade against Donald Trump played a leading role in the depravity of the Trump era and all that has come after it. Democrats didn’t demonstrate any outrage when Trump bombed Syria , killed leading Iranian General Qasem Soleimani , pursued Julian Assange’s assassination , or stole Syria’s oil. When Trump was derided, it was for conspiracy theories such as Russiagate. Democrats picked up a strong case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and became immobilized on any issue that didn’t directly relate to a Trump controversy. This created a kind of gridlock in the foreign policy establishment where key items on the imperialist agenda such as the militarization of Africa and the deportation of undocumented migrants decreased in tangible ways due to elite infighting.

Others in the Trump camp like Marjorie Taylor Greene have made rhetorical gestures to “abolish” the FBI and oppose weapons transfers to Ukraine whenever it has been deemed serviceable to the GOP’s political legitimacy. But just as with Trump, these are just words. Words themselves do not constitute a movement. The MAGA polity is no monolith but that doesn’t mean that MAGA is a movement. MAGA is simply an ideological expression of a political moment where the duopoly has lost legitimacy with the masses, and a reactionary one at that.

Some have argued that MAGA consists of millions of fellow workers who must be won over to socialism. That means approaching them with language they understand instead of bashing them over the head with “woke” terminology, a popular critique of so-called “ultra-left” or “liberal” activists and journalists. This again misses key aspects of the material reality confronting the working class. Even if there are millions of workers who vote in the MAGA camp, another arguably more essential dynamic exists within the Democratic Party. Young workers who lean Democrat are more anti-capitalist than ever . Union members and Black workers vote Democrat every four years yet none of these constituencies have received the same kind of attention from those calling for “MAGA communism.” It is clear that the work resides in peeling away the entire working class from the duopoly, not tailing a particular faction of it.

There are several other practical issues that have yet to be addressed by “MAGA communists.” The Rust Belt has been evoked as a stronghold of white workers without any attention to the fact that the most populous cities in the region are majority non-white. These cities include Detroit, Flint, Cleveland, and Baltimore. Many of these cities possess Black majorities or heavy pluralities. Black Americans vote overwhelmingly Democrat and while Barack Obama took Black politics the furthest right that they’ve ever been, Black workers have historically been the most socially and economically progressive constituency in the United States.

This alone makes “MAGA communism” a losing message for communists attempting to build socialism in the United States. But the problems don’t end here. A particular emphasis has been placed on the “conservatism” of white workers and a deep derision of “woke” politics. Neoliberal Democrats, we are told, have weaponized “identity politics” at the expense of working people. The solution, therefore, is to appeal to “traditional” sentiments around issues of gender, race, and sexuality.

My book on American exceptionalism devotes two chapters to the dangers and limitations inherent in the Democratic Party’s weaponization of diversity and identity. Democrats have indeed created a mass graveyard of social movements and rebranded them to the liking of the capitalist class. This doesn’t negate the fact that the “culture war” politics of the GOP are but another version of identity reductionism. The GOP has served as the White Man’s Party since the late 1960s when a mass of Southern Democrats left the Democratic Party in response to their mild concessions to the struggle for Black self-determination and desegregation. This is the root of the GOP’s “social conservatism.”

Social conservatism is neither inherent to socialism nor the working class. The CPUSA’s biggest successes came when it followed Lenin’s leadership on the National Question, leading to heroic decisions such as the mass mobilization in defense of the Scottsboro Boys and against Jim Crow. Internationally, socialist Cuba, China, the DPRK, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union to name a few have all at major points in their history came to the aid of anti-colonial movements abroad and supported the struggle against racism in the United States. Cuban troops were decisive in the defeat of South African apartheid . The Soviet Union was the first nation to legalize abortion and placed the rights of women at the forefront of socialist development.

Social conservatism makes just as little sense for socialists in the United States. While Democrats detach social relationships from class to protect the interests of capital, this doesn’t mean that class is in and of itself a monolith. Racism, gender, and much more are profoundly influential in the social relations embedded in the class struggle. Ignoring or going so far as to characterize them as merely a neoliberal “woke” agenda is a declaration of defeat to the neoliberal capitalist class. Neoliberal capitalists have created the conditions for the emergence of “culture war” politics whereby any and all social issues are divorced from the question of power, class, and exploitation.

As communists, material conditions must guide our ideology rather than the other way around. All issues deemed as “woke” and “identity politics” have a class element to them. Take, for example, the conditions faced by transgender workers. Trans workers face rampant economic discrimination, making average wages of as low as $.60 to every dollar paid to their cisgender counterparts. One in three transgender adults experience homelessness at some point in their lives.

Let’s take another example: the condition of Black American workers. Black workers face brutal forms of racial and economic exploitation across all measures. On average, Black workers are paid twenty percent less than a white worker for the same level of employment and education . Black workers are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white workers and twice as likely to be shot and killed by police. Life expectancy for Black workers declined by three years in 2020 alone.

None of these issues can be divorced from the class struggle and require unconditional solidarity from anyone calling themselves a communist. MAGA has shown no interest in forging such solidarity and instead has latched itself onto Trump’s incoherent use of racist red meat (the “China threat,” for example) and “populism” for political gain. Placing the word communism after MAGA doesn’t erase its problems. “Make America Great Again” is an abstraction only until the history and current reality of economic order that built the foundations of the “American nation” is reckoned with. The U.S. is a settler colonial state turned imperialist albatross, making “MAGA” little more than nostalgia for an American exceptionalism that never was.

We don’t fight capitalism or imperialism with American exceptionalism or MAGA. We build unity around concrete issues and then develop the organization and channels for people to develop the ideological clarity necessary to achieve victories on the road to socialism. This should be clear to anyone who has engaged with workers in the real world. I have. I have defended Black workers from discriminatory treatment from management, held a working class white mother after her son overdosed on heroin while we worked together to fight for better conditions, and stood with the Syrian people as they waved the American and Syrian flags in the streets of Boston amid real attempts to destroy their country.

In none of these cases did I shy away from the people about the true history of the United States or the fundamental contradictions of imperialism. Communists must be clear with the masses, tell no lies, and claim no easy victories. They must have a program which clearly outlines their demands, all of which should reflect their ideology. At this time, MAGA communism repeats the fundamental rightist error of tailing a subsection of the masses, one that represents a minority of the U.S. population in the electoral arena. Serious class struggle looks to the masses of people in their entirety, and builds broad unity from a combination of struggle, criticism, and self-criticism.

It is my estimation that “MAGA communists” needs to engage in self-criticism and a lot of it. Their followers should humble themselves and not engage in sectarian online squabbles that only build more disunity. They should take criticism as an opportunity to learn when it is done in good-faith. Both “Marxists” and “MAGA” are small sections of the United States. The real work is in developing a greater understanding of Marxism among people already in motion against capitalism and imperialism, what Lenin called the “advanced” forces of the workers. If those espousing MAGA communism were truly interested in this endeavor they would drop the “MAGA” label for its lack of utility outside of online spaces.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/final ... nservatism

I had not heard of this ridiculous shit, but having been on Twitter for 4 years it doesn't surprise me. This is the kind of dangerous nonsense that a certain former member of our group would have pushed. Always a Dem at heart, talk Left, pull Right....
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 29, 2022 3:00 pm

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Dockers in the East End, London. (Photo: British Library / Public Domain)

The Great Denial: Why they don’t want us to talk about class
By Chris Nineham (Posted Sep 28, 2022)

Originally published: Counterfire on September 24, 2022 (more by Counterfire) |

The first of a series of articles on class by Chris Nineham.

This summer’s strikes in Britain and the announcement by the RMT’s Mick Lynch that ‘the working class is back’ will have sent a collective shudder through the ranks of the establishment. They hoped they had buried the whole idea of a combative working class. One of the great paradoxes of the last 40 years has been that just when society has become more unequal than at any time for a century, class had dropped out of the discussion.

This was something the British ruling class has worked at very hard right from the start of the Thatcher project. Alfred Sherman, a key adviser to the Tories’ then new leader Margaret Thatcher, gave a series of lectures in the 1970s aimed at proving that class was a ‘Marxist term which has no meaning in any non-Marxist schema’. Thatcher echoed this later with her claim that ‘class was a communist concept’. Keith Joseph, one of Thatcher’s closest confidantes, saw the aim of their project as creating a society in which it would be possible to claim ‘we are all bourgeois now’.1

These themes have been enthusiastically taken up across the establishment. In universities, industrial relations departments have closed and business studies has flourished. Newspapers long ago sacked their labour correspondents and focussed on stock prices instead of strike statistics. Ignoring their roots in working-class organisation, social-democratic parties everywhere have dropped the rhetoric of class. Intellectuals from the right, the liberal centre and parts of the left have fallen over themselves to dismiss class by introducing a range of new social categories, separating class from any economic basis, reducing it to one division among many others or just denying it altogether.

The neoliberal denial of class is however only an extreme case of a long-held aversion. Ever since independent working-class organisation emerged in the 1830s and 1840s, discussing class has been regarded as largely improper in polite society. Up till then, the writing of history had from time to time recognised class and even class struggles as central to human development. But from the mid 19th century, history turned into a celebration of evolution and progress or the mere description of facts and events with no inner logic.

Economics, which had admitted certain contradictions in capitalism, morphed at around the same time into the purely mathematical harmonies of vulgar liberalism. Sociology emerged in the late 19th century as a science of society which recognised various connections between the individual and society but went out of its way to avoid making class central to its analysis.

Ever since, mainstream academics, politicians and journalists have tended to deny the existence of class, or when that wasn’t possible, to break it down into multiple categories, treat it as one division amongst many or as purely a matter of culture. In too many cases, these kind of arguments have been echoed on the left.

These efforts have peaked in the neoliberal years. It may at first seem puzzling that class has been so successfully swept under the carpet just as inequality has reached levels not seen since the 19th century, but there is a logic to it. Achieving a society as unequal as ours depended on smashing key bastions of working-class organisation in a series of set piece battles. Serial defeats for the working class around the world lent credibility to the idea that workers had less social weight. The wave of new technology, plant closures and international restructuring that accompanied it appeared to give objectivity to the notion that we were dealing with a whole new social set up.

Attacking the very idea of class was, however, an important element of the class war that was unleashed by the New Right in the 1970s and 1980s. Ironically, surrender on this issue, and acceptance by parts of the left that class was no longer key, is one of the reasons why employers have achieved success in their class war.

The ‘innermost secret’

Why the obsessive concern to bury class? The first problem for capitalists is of course is that working class militancy eats into their profits. So it is partly a matter of narrow, immediate, self-interest. The extent of the operation however, betrays wider anxieties. Denying or suppressing class is a more deep seated, ideological necessity for our rulers. First, even the most superficial discussion of class is bound to focus people’s minds on the shocking levels of inequality that disfigure our world. To maintain legitimacy, the capitalist class and its supporters need to do everything possible to distract attention from the fact of their minority rule.

There is more at stake here even than concealing rampant inequality however. Class in its Marxist rather than sociological sense describes an active relation between groups of people in society, it explains how people fit into the way the economic fundamentals of society are organised. Because of this, it illuminates the economics on which society is based and the conflicts of interests it generates. This is why Marx argued that class reveals the ‘innermost secret’ of society, ‘the hidden basis of the entire social structure’.

Class societies have existed for thousands of years, ever since humans produced enough for a surplus—goods over and above what is needed to survive on a daily basis. But in capitalism class relations have reached their fullest development. Exploitation in previous class societies was driven by the immediate needs of the rulers. In the Middle Ages, for example, feudal lords used the surplus they extracted from the peasants to fund their armies and their own luxurious lifestyles.

The unique characteristic of capitalism is that the expansion of wealth has become an end in itself: capitalism is driven by competition without limit to accumulate capital. In order to survive, the capitalists have to try constantly to increase these profits so that they can generate the maximum amount of new investment to buy the new technology necessary to achieve the economies of scale that will keep their prices competitive. That accumulation takes place in the main by generating profit from workers, by paying workers less than the value of the labour power they have expended to produce goods. This is what explains capitalism’s dynamism, the speed with which it came to dominate the globe and the ruthlessness with which it exploits workers.

As a result, working people are completely dependent on capital for their livelihoods, for their very existence. Supporters of capitalism claim it is based on free choice. It is true that workers may in some circumstances be able to choose between different employers, but those employers will all be competing to maximise profits, meaning they will all be trying to drive wages down to the minimum and constantly pressurising staff to work faster and more efficiently. As a result, capitalism has increasing inequality built into its basic economic drive.

An understanding of the way capitalism exploits workers makes a mockery of the various ways in which the establishment explain the world. Their preferred model of society is a giant market in which individuals interact freely and equally. In reality, of course, people come to the market with wildly different levels of buying power. The distribution of wealth is determined by people’s position in the productive process, by their class position.

Politicians also like to tell us ‘We are all in it together.’ The idea can’t survive contact with an understanding that the whole system is driven by a tiny minority forcing profit from the labour of the many. We are also told that capitalist investors are ‘wealth creators’. Looked at from the point of view of class, the capital that an investor brings to the table has been stolen from past labour. The investor is simply recycling the spoils to make still more money.

A class analysis also challenges the idea that capitalism will ‘lift up’ the poor over time. Capitalism has produced unimaginable wealth, but as Marx predicted, its drive to keep wages down means that for most of its existence the distribution of that wealth has become more and more unequal. Two and a half decades of capitalist boom after the Second World War, combined with high levels of working class pressure helped to reduce inequality after the terrible experience of the 1930s. But 40 years of neoliberal capitalism has more than reversed these gains. Neoliberalism’s class struggle from above has brought us to the extraordinary point at which just eight men are worth as much as half the world’s population. Grasping class as a social relation leads to the devastating conclusion that the poor are poor because the rich are rich. Generalised poverty and inequality are a necessary outcome of a system based on competition for profit.

A universal class

For Marx, however, the nature of modern exploitation and the exclusion of workers from the fruits of production had three further, deeply subversive implications which are less frequently discussed and are in many ways the most important.

The first is that capitalism has created a ‘universal class’ which has no interest in exploiting or oppressing any other group. The bourgeois revolutions resulted in the replacement of one ruling class by another. The emerging capitalist class fought the fixed bonds and the backwardness of the feudal system, but they did so to establish a new, more dynamic regime of exploitation. Because the economic project of the bourgeoisie depended on the exploitation of a new class, the new rights it offered for the great mass of people, even at their most radical, were limited. For all its achievements, the equality announced in the French Revolution’s central slogan of ‘liberty, fraternity and equality’ turned out to be formal and political rather than material or economic.

The nature of the subordination and exploitation of workers puts them in a much more radical situation. Not only is the working class unable to exploit any other group, but for working people, political freedom without social and economic liberation counts for little. Real liberation for workers can only come by dismantling the whole edifice of society, and that means in the process challenging every form of discrimination that the system generates. As Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto:

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.2

The sheer comprehensiveness of its exploitation and oppression made the working class a subversive force like no other, ‘a class which is the dissolution of all classes’, a class in short, ‘with radical chains’.3

The second point is implied in the first. The position and experience of the working class provides a unique vantage point from which to understand the way capitalism works. The experience of exploitation, constant attacks on conditions and tension between boss and worker produces some level of class consciousness at all times. This explains why, despite the defeats and the propaganda of the neoliberal years, a solid 60% of the population in Britain has continued to self-define as working class throughout this time.4 We will come on to the issue of the unevenness of working class thought and opinion later in the series, but despite current snobbish caricatures of working people as socially backward, prejudiced, ‘nativist’ and so forth, workers in fact tend to have the most progressive attitudes in society on a whole range of economic and social issues.5 There is always some feeling of ‘us and them’ amongst workers: dislike for the boss, sympathy with or participation in unions. This is why most workers who participate in elections vote for social democratic parties and so on.

In periods of social tension and crisis things can go much further. Vivek Chibber probably expressed a widespread view when he suggested last year that the highpoint of workers’ revolutionary struggle in the period between the two world wars was in some sense a historical exception.6 The period around the Russian revolution remains indeed the peak of workers struggle thus far. It needs restating, however, that workers have been at the forefront of cycles of insurgency from the inception of capitalism. These struggles, from the Chartists to the great working class struggles of 1968 and after, including the Second World War wave of anti-fascist struggles in Europe, many anti-colonial uprisings and a number of recent insurgencies in the global south, tend to raise the spectre of socialism anew. Working class struggle has as a result without doubt been the most important source of radical ideas and revolutionary, anti-capitalist movements.

Crucially of course, as well as having an interest in change, workers have the means to make it happen. Just as workers rely entirely on capitalists for their livelihood, capitalists are completely dependent on workers for their profits. Powerless as individuals, collectively, workers have immense potential power. By forcing huge numbers of workers together at the point of production, capitalism creates a counter-power. By very publicly demonstrating the fact that nothing happens without workers, and by showing what can be achieved when workers organise together, every major strike contains within it the suggestion, the hope of a different way of organising society. In Marx’s words:

Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance—combination…If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages…In this struggle—a veritable civil war—all the elements necessary for a coming battle unite and develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.7

The ruling class of course dislike working class militancy because it can hit them in the pocket. But just as workers’ economic struggles can grow over into political challenges, for the bosses every strike is an insolent challenge to their overall authority. They expend so much effort and energy trying to stop class consciousness developing because they know from history that class struggle can threaten the very basis of their world. This reveals some understanding of the most important reason that class matters. Working people are in a unique position to be able to comprehend the systematic robbery at capitalism’s heart and have both an interest and an ability in bringing it to an end.

Notes:
1.↩ For an interesting discussion of this effort, see: Jon Lawrence and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (2012), ‘Margaret Thatcher and the decline of class politics’, in Ben Jackson, Robert Saunders (2012) Making Thatcher’s Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.132-148.
2.↩ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (2015) The Communist Manifesto, Penguin, London, p.19.
3.↩ Karl Marx (1844) ‘Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, in Karl Marx (1975) Early Writings, Penguin, London, p.256.
4.↩ See for example, Patrick Butler (June 29, 2016) ‘Most Britons regard themselves as working class, survey finds’, The Guardian, available at: www.theguardian.com
5.↩ For a discussion of the data about working-class opinion see Chris Nineham (2017) How the Establishment Lost Control, Zero, Hants, pp.22-3.
6.↩ Vivek Chibber, ‘Labor’s Long March’, Jacobin August, 2021.
7.↩ Karl Marx (1955) Poverty of Philosophy, Progress, Moscow, p.79.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/28/the-great-denial/

'Class' confused me as a child in the early 60s. Unless you were rich or abjectly poor you were 'middle class', the Red Scare dogma was already firmly set. The confusion came from the TV, watching those early sit-coms, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver & so forth I wondered how, if we were all the same, that those TV dads went to work in suits, they lived in much larger houses in green, verdant neighborhoods while we were in narrow row houses with no tree for 10 blocks, our fathers wore 'work clothes'... At the time I reasoned that we were 'lower middle class'.

That the use of the word has become tolerated again is testimony that the bosses fear it no more and it is useful to accuse less than nakedly savage politicians of waging class warfare for the least concession to the masses. Of course, it's never class warfare coming from the other direction...
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Taking that last quote to mind it seems to me that the very large industrial plants, like the Sparrows Point complex outside of Baltimore, were shuttered not so much because they were inefficient at producing products, but rather that because of the massed strength of labor were inefficient in producing profits, which is the end game.

We are a long way from class consciousness in this country. But for me despising(not envying!) the rich was a good start.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:10 pm

Libertarianism: New Tales of the Old
No. 2/30, II.2019

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Practice is the criterion of truth. The practical experience of humanity in the last century is indisputable evidence that capitalism, as a socio-economic formation, has long completed its progressive historical "mission", which consisted, first of all, in the organization of large-scale industrial production, and became a brake on the further development of human society. Along with scientific and technological progress, which became the reason for the rapid development of industrial production, which promptly introduced all its achievements, the system of production relations and the political structure of society corresponding to it remained unchanged, carefully preserved in a mothballed state. This unevenness in the development of two interrelated aspects of social life has reached such proportions by the beginning of the 21st century that

Such a development of events, on the one hand, is a strong catalyst for the process of cleansing the minds of the layman from the liberal-democratic rubbish accumulated over decades of propaganda, and is a natural prerequisite for the unification of the proletariat into an organized working class, on the other hand, it forces the ruling oligarchic class to take measures to delay as much as possible or completely exclude the political enlightenment of the masses. The most effective means, as history shows, is the artificial limitation of the volume and quality of the knowledge that, in the opinion of the ruling class of capitalists, the average person should possess. The system of "highly specialized" education, excluding the formation of a holistic picture of the world, religious propaganda, in its various forms,

At the same time, work on the "rehabilitation" of the capitalist system in the eyes of the population and the search for an object that could be blamed for all the troubles of the modern world does not stop. A prominent representative of the "teachings" pursuing this goal is libertarianism.

Libertarian theory is based on several principles:

1) a person from birth is endowed with natural rights, namely: the right to own oneself (self-ownership) and the right to freely dispose of one's property (inviolability of private property);

2) the principle of non-aggression, postulating unlawful any encroachment on a person's private property, including his body;

3) the state is an object of non-economic regulation of various spheres of public life, based on violence and coercion; is the main source of destabilization of the economy, systematically violating the principles of the "free market";

4) the scope of state power must be strictly limited and aimed only at protecting the natural human rights listed in paragraph 1, or the state must be completely abolished;

5) areas that were previously fully or partially subject to state regulation: the education and healthcare systems, the pension and judicial systems, etc., should be privatized and work according to the principles of a market economy; state property, including land holdings, rivers, lakes, forests and other natural resources must be transferred to the private ownership of individuals.

Justifying their views, libertarians refer to the theory of natural rights by J. Locke. So, D. Bergland in his book “Libertarianism in One Lesson” writes:

“Libertarianism is based on what Western culture has called the “natural rights” tradition. The people who signed the Declaration of Independence were well educated, familiar with this tradition of natural rights and deeply embracing it. The main founder of their philosophy and the mainstream of libertarian thought was the thinker John Locke.

The famous libertarian "thinker" M. Rothbard echoes him:

“... it was the Lockean individualist tradition that later profoundly influenced the American revolutionaries and the mainstream tradition of libertarian political thought in the revolutionary, new nation. It is upon this tradition of natural rights libertarianism that this essay attempts to build.

Recognizing Locke as one of the founders of their doctrine, the modern guardians of the private property system, however, literally tear out from his theory some places that correspond to the goals of their doctrine and freely discard and reject everything that does not fit into it.

First, in describing the concept of natural rights, Locke indicates that it applies to what he calls the "state of nature":

“In order to properly understand political power and determine the source of its origin, we must consider the state of nature in which all people are, and this is a state of complete freedom in relation to their actions and in relation to the disposal of their property and person, in accordance with what they consider suitable. for himself within the boundaries of the law of nature, without asking permission from any other person and without depending on anyone's will.

Secondly, Locke writes that at a certain stage of development, political communities begin to form and, consequently, a person leaves the "state of nature", with his inherent "natural rights":

“I affirm that all men are naturally in this state and remain in it until, by their own accord, they become members of any political community.”

If we compare this thesis with historical science, it becomes clear that the “state of nature” described by Locke corresponds to the period of the primitive communal system and the history of ancient people preceding it, that is, the period when society, not divided into antagonistic classes of exploiters and exploited, did not need a political apparatus of coercion - the state. Due to the absence of a state, in this society there was also no system of rights in its scientific understanding, that is, a set of legal norms that regulate people's relations and have a compulsory-compulsory nature of execution, secured by violence. The regulation of relations between people in primitive communities was carried out on a different basis - customs and traditions. Since they expressed the objective interests of the community as a whole, the violation of these norms was a rare occurrence, leading, as a rule, to a deterioration in the position and condition of all members of the community.

It is clear that libertarians are unlikely to want to return to primitive communities and the economic order that is inextricably linked with them, which does not involve any private property. Why, then, do the spokesmen of liberal doctrine turn to this aspect of Locke's theory?

A common place in libertarianism and the teachings of Locke is, in fact, the recognition of the existence of natural rights, as well as the natural or divine nature of their origin. Moreover, if Locke in his works speaks of a person’s personal freedoms in relation to their actions and disposal of property, then libertarians interpret “natural rights” exclusively as property rights. The perverted thinking of the apologists for private property considers even moral norms and principles relating to human life, personal inviolability, freedom of movement, freedom of thought and speech, purely in the context of a person's ownership of his body. And this is no coincidence, in this way the ideologists of the libertarian doctrine lead their adherents to the idea that there is only one “natural right” - the right of private property.

Unceremoniously discarding Locke's thesis of the finiteness of the "state of nature", to which his theory of natural rights is applicable, the ideologists of libertarianism in their books try to convince readers that in fact the relations of private property and the law associated with them have always existed - regardless of time, neither from the social structure, nor from anything else . Such an idealistic interpretation of rights forces the avant-garde of liberal thought to look for the essence that gives rise to them, while carefully avoiding the facts and studies of materialist historians.

By the natural origin of natural rights, libertarians mean that they are the objective law of our world, as if "contained" in the very nature of man. But then, objectively, there should also be a natural mechanism for protecting these rights, which would be activated after their violation. The centuries-old history of the exploitation of man by man, countless wars in which people parted with both their lives and their property, at least casts doubt on the thesis of the existence of any objective mechanism that does not depend on people for the “protection” of natural rights. And if so, then this right itself turns into an empty declaration, which reflects only the naive idea of ​​liberals about “how it should be”, and not “how it really is”. It is on this principle that all kinds of bills are written,

Moreover, libertarians try to derive natural rights from the essence of the individual, from the individual as a subject. They ignore the indisputable fact that man does not exist outside of society, that the individual is a particular manifestation of society, but not vice versa. Human nature can be understood only on the basis of the objective laws of the development of society.

Some libertarians, counting on the intellectual inferiority of the adherents of their “teaching”, simply declare the divine origin of property rights and offer to accept this thesis on faith, which automatically removes all further questions and naturally puts the libertarian doctrine on a par with other scriptures. Here, for example, is what D. Bowes writes in his book “Libertarianism: History, Principles, Politics”:

“As the Declaration of Independence makes clear, rights are not a gift from the government. They are natural and unchanging, inherent in human nature, and people have them because of their belonging to the human race, especially because of the ability to answer for their actions. Whether rights are given by God or by nature is irrelevant in this context. Remember the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence talking about "the laws of nature and its Creator"? It is important that the rights are inalienable, i.e. they are not bestowed by any other person. In particular, they are not bestowed by the government; people create governments to protect the rights they already have.”

Thus, having resolved in absentia the "basic question of philosophy" in favor of idealism, the advanced theorists of liberal thought close the discussion about the origin of relations and private property rights, they say, they exist, and that's it!

But, as you know, the “invention” of private property by a person did not happen immediately and had specific economic prerequisites. Thus, the purely social, joint nature of the labor activity of primitive people: hunting, gathering, building dwellings, clearing and cultivating the soil - determined the social ownership of the means of production: land and forests for gathering food and hunting, tools of production and the resulting products.

The gradual growth of productive forces and the social division of labor greatly increased human productivity. The increased productivity, firstly, led to the withering away of the primitive community and the emergence of separate privately owned farms in its place, and secondly, it created the economic possibility of exploiting a person by withdrawing the surplus product. Private property made it possible to separate the means of production from the direct producers : farmers, pastoralists, artisans, and to concentrate them in the hands of a new emerging class - the slave owners.

Under the tacit prohibition of mention among all liberal figures and ideologists is the fact that the discovery of private property, i.e. legalized method of systematic robbery of people, led to the emergence of the first states in the world and became an omen of all future exploitative formations : slavery, feudalism and, finally, capitalism.

This state of affairs forces the ideologists of libertarianism in their writings to avoid describing the modern realities of the capitalist world and turn to the historical period when private property relations were still in their infancy, were of a spontaneous nature and did not fully manifest their exploitative nature. This period, almost fleeting in historical terms, is a transitional phase from the primitive communal system to slavery. Thus, Rothbard, using this trick in his book, tries to fool his readers by presenting modern society as a kind of collection of individual privately owned farms, where each person has free access to the means of production:

“But man is not a free son of the ether, he is not something self-sufficient - in order to survive, he has to hold on to the earth. For example, in order to survive, people need to stand on the ground, they must process natural resources into consumer goods, into items necessary and suitable for life. We need to grow food, extract minerals and turn them into capital and consumer goods, and so on. In other words, a person must own not only himself, but also the material objects that he uses.

The fact that labor, i.e. expedient human activity to transform the environment presupposes that a person has certain resources and tools, i.e. means of production, is still far from saying that these means are in his ownership . The bourgeois low-worshipper Rothbard is modestly silent about the fact that hired workers, i.e. the vast majority of the world's population in the modern world are completely alienated from the means of production , due to the fact that most of all production and natural resources are already concentrated in the hands of an absolute minority - the oligarchy, capitalists of large and medium caliber.

Enshrined legally by the right of private property and physically with the help of the army, police and bureaucracy, i.e. state machine, this state of affairs leaves two alternatives for the wage worker - either to sell himself on the "free market" to the capitalist, at the price and on those conditions that will be beneficial to the latter, or to die of starvation. And if Rothbard and other servants of the oligarchy call this "voluntary cooperation based on mutually beneficial conditions," then, being consistent in his reasoning, he would necessarily have to admit that this "cooperation" grew out of the "mutual advantage" of the relationship between the slave owner and the slave, after all, the latter had the same, quite a “democratic” choice: to be in slavery, or to die of hunger or from the sword of his master.

Deliberately missing in all his writings the fundamental difference between personal property and private ownership of the means of production, Rothbard brings confusion into the minds of his readers, instills a superficial approach to understanding these specific economic phenomena, which has already spawned a cohort of liberal-minded idiots who sincerely believe that owning an apartment, a TV or an iPhone automatically transforms people, if not into the category of full-fledged capitalists, then at least into the category of petty bourgeois.

Considering the relations of private property, the conscience did not allow even such an anti-social element, an ardent anti-communist, of which Rothbard was an adherent, L. von Mises, to bypass this issue:

“On the economic side, property can by no means be uniform. Ownership of consumer goods and ownership of the means of production are different in many respects, just as different are the ownership of durable goods and the ownership of goods that are consumed at one time.

But Rothbard and other current chanters of private property, due to the “harmfulness” of this provision, which undermines the very foundation of libertarian theory, it is beneficial to miss this thesis, completely exclude it from consideration.

The tacit identification of personal and private property allows preachers of libertarianism to use a unified approach to resolving the issue of “legitimate appropriation” by a person of both consumer goods and natural resources, i.e. transferring them to private ownership. Justifying their vulgar fabrications on this score, the pillars of liberal thought again refer to the philosophical teachings of Locke.

Bergland writes:

“Locke laid the foundation for our understanding of property. He showed us that first settler rights are the source of property rights. When a man comes to an unoccupied land, in order to establish ownership of any part of it, he must "mix labor with the land." An obvious example would be clearing the land of stones and preparing it for farming.

Once acquired property is under the control of the owner, who can use it at his own discretion, and, most importantly, can prevent others from accessing it. The concept of private property continues to be a central idea in libertarian political philosophy."

Rothbard reproduces the same idea, considering it in the context of land ownership:

“The justification of land ownership within the framework of the concept of natural rights is no different from how the ownership of any other property is justified. After all, as we have already seen, no manufacturer actually “creates” matter, he takes what he finds in nature and transforms it with his labor energy in accordance with his ideas and vision. The pioneer settler does the same when he takes previously unused land into private ownership.

This approach to defining the "legitimacy" of private property is "ideal" in two respects: firstly, it does not contradict the current state of affairs, when the oligarchic stratum owns the lion's share of all the Earth's resources, alienating all other people from them, and secondly, even agreeing with this condition, it does not create any real mechanism for checking the legitimacy of the appropriation of property. The layman is again offered to take on faith that the property of all kinds of Deripaskas, Vekselbergs, Abramovichs and their foreign "colleagues" was the product of inhuman diligence and diligence or pioneering, which means it must be respected!

Locke, in contrast to the libertarian "theorists", realizing that private property relations inevitably lead to the centralization and concentration of resources in the hands of a small group of people and, consequently, the alienation of these resources from everyone else, indicates a measure of ownership, which, in theory , could limit this process:

“The same law of nature that gives us property in this way also limits the size of this property ... A person has the right to turn by his labor into his property as much as he can use for any needs of his life before this object is damaged . And what goes beyond these limits exceeds his share and belongs to others ... ".

But such a restriction is completely unacceptable for the ideologists of libertarianism and their masters, the oligarchs, who have not been engaged in any labor activity for a long time, which, however, does not prevent them from concentrating an enormous amount of resources and benefits in their hands. It is clear that the intensity of labor of the modern capitalist is inversely proportional to the size of his capital: if the small shopkeeper works no less than the proletarian, the average capitalist, as a rule, at least performs managerial functions, then the more or less big bourgeois simply does not need this: all the necessary activities are assigned to the shoulders of hired workers, led by the most privileged part of them - top management. For the capitalist himself, something completely different appears as "labor activity" - the struggle for the preservation and, if possible, increasing their capital by robbing not only employees, but also ruining their “comrades in the shop”, i.e. in a scientific way - competition, and competition is often political.

Further, Locke actually describes the mechanism of the natural concentration of capital in a society dominated by private property, using the example of land holdings:

“... I dare openly state that the same rule of property, according to which each person should have as much as he can use, could still hold power in the world without embarrassing anyone ..., if only it were not for the invention of money and the tacit agreement of people to give them value did not introduce (by agreement) large possessions and the right to them ...

It is evident that men have consented to a disproportionate and unequal possession of land, having discovered, by tacit and voluntary consent, a way whereby a man can honestly have a much larger amount of land than from which he can use the product; it consists in receiving, in exchange for one's surplus, gold and silver, which can be accumulated without harm to anyone: these metals do not deteriorate or decay in the hands of the owners.

In this reasoning, Locke points out two factors that created the opportunity for the concentration of resources and goods: private property relations and the invention of money, i.e. in a more general sense, commodity production. Adding to these two factors the third one - the presence of an exploited labor force - slaves, peasants or modern wage workers, the results of whose labor will be alienated, including through unequal payment for the ability to work, the owner of the means of production gets the opportunity to increase his property indefinitely, i.e. to appropriate more and more resources, alienating from them all the rest. Moreover, the latter is impossible without the former; In order to make exploitation possible, the means of production must first be separated from the workers, i.e. establish in society the relations of private property, which,

But these arguments of Locke and the conclusions that follow from them are clearly in no way consistent with libertarian theory, so the adherents of the “free market” are absolutely free to write them off as scrap, they say, they did not fit into modern economic theory!

Concluding his tirade on the sacred nature of private property in Power and the Market, Rothbard no longer hesitates to make these frankly pro-fascist confessions:

“Something else deserves to be noted. After all, property rights are not only an important component of human rights, but in a deep sense there are no rights at all, except for property rights . In short, the only true human right is the right to property. This statement is true in several respects.

First, every person from birth is a master of himself, of his own personality. In a truly free society, the "human" right of every man is, in essence, his right of ownership over himself, and from this right of ownership flows his right to the products of his labor.

Secondly, the so-called "human rights" can be reduced to the right to property, although in many cases this fact is vaguely recognized. Take, for example, the “human right” to freedom of speech. This right implies that every person can say whatever he wants. Usually they miss the question: where? Where does a person have the right to speak? In any case, not on the private territory of any stranger. In short, he has this right only when he is in his own territory or in the territory of someone who allows him to do this - on the basis of a contract of gift or lease of real estate. Thus, there is no separate “right to free speech”; there is only the right of ownership: the right to freely dispose of one's property or to enter into contractual relations with other owners.

We will not dwell here in detail on the frank shameless lie that, as if by virtue of “ownership of oneself”, a product produced by a person becomes his property. It is obvious that private property relations imply a diametrically opposite approach: the entire product produced by the wage worker is appropriated by the capitalist in full. In return, the hired worker receives a handout in the form of wages, the amount of which is obviously less than the price at which the goods produced by him will be sold on the “market”. But the most interesting thing in this passage is not this blatant deception of readers, but the reasoning contained in the last paragraph. What is most clearly seen in these perverted fabrications is that for Rothbard the so-called "ownership of oneself" is secondary,Those. human rights to life, freedom of speech and thought, freedom of movement, etc. in an "ideal" libertarian society, they work if and only if a person is in his own territory! From this logic it follows, for example, that half of the inhabitants of Europe, a third of the population of the United States, a tenth of the Russians living in rented housing are deprived of any human rights whatsoever, unless they are specifically prescribed by the owner in the lease agreement; an employee who is daily at the factory or in the office, i.e. on the private property of the employer, is also deprived of rights and can, for example, be quite “legitimately” killed if the owner considers that the presence of this person on his territory is an “act of attack” on his property. “No property, no rights” is a formula that succinctly reflects the essence of the “free” society that the ideologists of libertarianism so actively urge us to build.

Along with these fascist statements, Rothbard scares his readers with "the horrors of the statist communist regime." True, instead of briefly summarizing the conclusions made by Marx and Engels in their works, at least as a first approximation to reveal the concept of "communism", Rothbard slips his adherents his own idea of ​​communism, born of the author's sick fantasy:

“... The second alternative, which could be called “communalism of direct participation” (participatory communalism) or “communism”, proceeds from the fact that everyone should have the right to his share in each other. If there are two billion people on the planet, then everyone owns one two billionth of every other person. First of all, the absurdity of this ideal should be noted: everyone has a right to a share in any other person, but at the same time has no right to himself. Moreover, it is not difficult to assess the viability of such a society where no one is free to take any action without the prior approval or even order from every member of the society. In such a communist world, no one can even start any business, and the human race will quickly die out ... ".

What follows is a no less "brilliant" disclosure of the concept of "public ownership of the means of production" and its inevitable "refutation":

“... Again, all the same three alternatives arise before us: either the land belongs to the one who first began to cultivate it, or it must belong to a group of people, or to humanity as a whole, so that everyone owns a certain share of each acre. Henry George chose the latter option, hardly solving his own ethical problem: if the land should belong to God or nature, why is it more morally acceptable that each acre belong to all people than that it be privately owned? In practice, it is obviously impossible for every person in the world to be the effective owner of his one four-billionth share (if the population of the planet, say, four billion) of each acre of the earth's surface. In practice, of course, a handful of oligarchs will control and own, and not humanity as a whole.

According to these arguments, it is absolutely impossible to understand what "communism" is, nor what is "public property", but on the other hand, it is possible to fully appreciate the degree of pathological attraction of Rothbard and other liberal figures to "take everything and divide" into parts, i.e. i.e. turn into private property. But Rothbard's fantasy, distorted and disfigured by the "logic" of capitalism, apparently not satisfied with private ownership of land and other natural resources, is trying to "try on" private property in relation to human society, dividing each person into "two billion shares." And this schizophrenic nonsense Rothbard with a clever look preaches among his readers, look, they say, what communism is. On the other hand, after he "scientifically revised" the teachings of the "founder of libertarian thought" Locke, it would be difficult to expect anything different in relation to Marx: unable to reasonably oppose the scientific knowledge embedded in Marxist works and confirmed by all socio-historical practice, Rothbard is forced to resort to the basic methods of liberal "science", i.e. slander, pervert, wishful thinking, in other words,deceive, first of all, their own readers .

Rothbard does not understand and does not want to understand that the relations of private property, which were the basis of slavery, feudalism and capitalism, are historical and at a certain stage in the formation of society become the force that limits the further development of the productive forces and humanity as a whole. The artificial nature of imposing on humanity the relations of private property, i.e. relations built on animal instincts and selfish interests is becoming more and more obvious, and the more people realize all the stupidity, absurdity and destructiveness of the "market", "competition" and "private property", the more urgent the question of a scientifically sound alternative to the social order becomes, t .e. communism. Public ownership of the means of production is the foundation of communist society,

“In a system of private property, the capitalist is smart enough only to spend part of his personal income on paying the “wages” of his wage-slaves. Under communism, each individual is smart enough to understand that the entire planet Earth is his personal property, and none of the other individuals is going to in any way deprive him of access to any part of the planetary wealth . At the same time, each individual under communism will understand that the availability of planetary wealth for him became possible only due to the joint development of these forces by all mankind according to a single “technological map”.

A society is called communist if it recognizes itself as a vital element of the human environment, as necessary as oxygen, water, etc. Therefore, concern for the suitability of society for individuals to live in it will not be opposed to concern for the environment, for the conditions for the production of material goods. For the first time, the triad: man - society - natural conditions of existence, will be devoid of antagonistic contradictions and the objective dialectic of their interconnections will be consciously used by man.

The absence of antagonistic classes within communist society will lead to the natural withering away of the apparatus of organized violence and coercion, the state, which has been engendered by these antagonisms.

As you know, libertarians are ardent opponents of the state and declare irreconcilable war on it. In their books, they set out in detail all their claims to the state: intervention in the economy, aggressive military policy, and so on. However, against the backdrop of this detailed exposition of the depravity of state power, which, as a rule, occupies a large part of any libertarian work, the coverage of the key issue of the origin of the state by the ideologists of libertarianism looks completely pale . In their books one cannot find the slightest hint of an attempt to scientifically comprehend the process of development of states, to understand its relationship with the economy, to understand why, after the bourgeois revolutions in America and Europe, along with the triumph of "free market" and "competition", new state formations grew like mushrooms, their bureaucracy and military apparatus stubbornly grew.

Bergland writes:

“The history of the development of the state (government) shows that this institution arises from conquest. One tribe or group conquers another, imposes an agreed tribute (taxes), in return allowing the conquered people to live. Usually the ruling tribe undertakes to protect the conquered from other marauders. It would be more accurate to define such relations not as a "social contract", but as a racket or "roof".

... The reality is this: the social contract is a dangerous myth. The government must be recognized for what it really is - a group of people who have significant, and sometimes even deadly power at their disposal. They can and do use power to govern the rest of the citizens.”

Rothbard defends the same point of view:

“In Western Europe, as in many other civilizations, the state usually arose not as a result of the conclusion of a voluntary social contract, but as a result of the conquest of one tribe by another. As a result, the original freedom of the tribe or peasantry became a victim of the conquerors. In early times, the victorious tribe killed the vanquished and left with the booty. Later, the victors decided that it would be more profitable to settle next to the conquered peasantry in order to rule and rob them on a permanent basis. The periodic collection of tribute from subjugated peasants eventually became known as taxation. Over time, the leaders of the tribes distributed the lands of the peasantry to their military leaders, who were able to live a settled life and collect feudal rent from the peasantry. Peasants were often turned into slaves, or rather into serfs, i.e.

Both criticize the theory of the "social contract", one of the most famous representatives of which, by the way, was the "founder of libertarian thought" Locke, who logically derived it from the same infamous theory of "natural rights". And although this theory of Locke is a gross distortion of reality, nevertheless, there are grains of objective truth in it, which are much more valuable material for study than the “conquest-tribal” theory of modern ideologists of libertarianism, especially considering that the process of the emergence of new states occurred much later, after the social formations called tribes ceased to play any significant role in history.

Locke writes in his treatise:

“If a man in the state of nature is as free as has been said, if he is the absolute master of his own personality and possessions, equal to the greatest men and subject to no one, then why does he part with his freedom, why does he renounce this empire and subjugate himself authority and leadership of some other force? This begs the most obvious answer, that although in the state of nature he has a similar right, yet the use of it is very precarious and he is constantly threatened by the encroachment of others. For, since all are rulers as much as he is, since every man is equal to him, and the majority of people observe equality and justice, since the use of the property that he has in this state is very unsafe, very unreliable. This prompts him to give up willingly such a state, which, although free, is full of fears and continuous apprehensions; and it is not without reason that he seeks and is ready to join the company of those who have already united or are about to unite for the mutual preservation of their own lives, freedoms, possessions, which I call by the general name "property".

Therefore, the great and main goal of uniting people into states and placing themselves under the power of the government is to preserve their property ... ".

Thus, Locke actually states the fact that the state is an instrument created by the class of ownersto protect their property, to preserve the established order of things. On the other hand, Locke proceeds from the false premise that a society united under state authority consists of only "proprietors", and therefore the state is the spokesman for the interests of the whole society. If we turn to history, it becomes obvious that in addition to the class of owners, since the era of slavery, there has always been a class in society, alienated from this property, and, consequently, exploited (even in the broad sense of "property", which concept of Locke). Spontaneous awareness by representatives of the oppressed class of their position gave rise to periodic uprisings and civil wars; then, what bourgeois ideologists, in relation to the era of capitalism, called the neutral word "competition". In order to reduce the degree of chaos in such a society based on bestial relations of private property, an institution was introduced not only to suppress the exploited class, but also to streamline and keep "competition" between individuals of the class of parasites within some limits of "decency" - the state.

Of course, a liberal, after reading this reasoning, will accuse me of distorting and trying to reduce everything to class theory, saying that Locke wrote about something completely different. Well, let's not argue and turn to the "conquest-tribal" theory of libertarians, perhaps it will shed light on the "mystery" of the emergence of states, offer some other point of view. In his writings, Rothbard, when describing his hypothesis of the origin of the state, refers to F. Oppenheimer:

“No one has described the violent and parasitic nature of the state with greater clarity than the great German sociologist of the late nineteenth century, Franz Oppenheimer. He noted that there are two and only two mutually exclusive ways to get rich. The first is the path of production and voluntary exchange, the path of the free market, or, in Oppenheimer's terminology, "economic methods," and the second is the path of plunder and violence, or "political methods."

Bearing in mind with what "scientific conscientiousness" Rothbard approaches the works of other researchers, with what "amazing" accuracy he conveys other people's thoughts and conclusions, it becomes an absolute necessity to refer to the original work of Oppenheimer.

Already in the preface to his book The State, he writes:

“Several eminent ethnologists … have attacked the basic principle formulated and revealed in this work, but they have failed, because their definition of the state presupposes a great deal, which in itself must be proved. They collected a large number of facts proving the existence of certain forms of government and leadership even before the emergence of classes, and they defined the essence of these forms as a “state” ... It is obvious that in any group of people, no matter how small, there must be power that resolves conflicts and in emergency situations. takes the lead in situations. But this power is not a "state" in the sense in which I use the word. The state can be defined as the organization of one class dominating the rest of the classes.. Such a class organization can only arise through the conquest and subjugation of some ethnic groups by another dominant group ... ".

So, Oppenheimer, contrary to Rothbard, argues that the state is a product of the struggle of antagonistic classes, an instrument for the suppression of one class by another, i.e. the state is not an independent entity that opposes the whole of society, as the preachers of liberal ideas try to present in their books.

Describing the era of bourgeois revolutions, Oppenheimer notes:

“The system based on the exchange of money develops into capitalism and leads to the formation of new classes, along with the already existing class of feudal lords. The capitalist demands equal rights with the landowner and finally gets them by revolutionizing the lower classes. In this attack on the sacred, ingrained order of things, the capitalists are united with the lower classes, of course, under the banner of "natural law". But as soon as victory is achieved, the bourgeois class, also called the "middle class", turns its weapons on the lower classes, makes peace with its former enemies and calls them to their reactionary struggle against the proletarians ...

The ruling class wages this struggle [against other classes] with all the means that its dominant position affords it. As a result, the ruling class sees to it that the laws conform to its interests and serve its purposes - class legislation... The ruling class in any country uses the state power in their interests in two aspects. Firstly, he leaves behind his adherents all prominent places and all influential and profitable positions: in the army, in the highest branches of the state apparatus, and secondly, he controls all the politics of the state with all these bodies; this class politics can be the cause of commercial wars, colonization, protectionist levies, laws that improve the position of the working class to some extent, reforms in the electoral system, etc.”

One gets the impression that Rothbard simply snatched out the only quote that “seems to” fit his libertarian theory, and, with a sigh of relief, closed Oppenheimer’s book forever, never having read it to the end. How else to explain the fact that Rothbard nowhere mentions Oppenheimer's main conclusion that it is the class struggle that is the driving force behind the development of any class society, and the state is only an instrument of one of these classes, and not at all an independent force acting on its own?

The facts from the history of the formation of the most ancient states are also contrary to the "conquest" theory. So, if we analyze the experience of one of the states of antiquity that distinguished itself in the field of conquests - the Assyrian state, then we have to admit that it never had strong state power in the conquered territories, despite the fact that the policy of its rulers was based on brutal violence and the collection of tribute from conquered peoples. On the other hand, we have before us the history of two ancient states that existed for more than one millennium - Egypt and Mesopotamia. Their rulers quickly guessed that the strength of the state is determined not so much by conquest as by the strengthening of private property relations in the territory subject to them. Having expropriated the most valuable resource at that time - fertile lands in the valleys of the rivers flowing there,

But what is history and what is Rothbard? Did objective historical facts ever become an obstacle for liberal "theorists" in building their fantastic worlds that exist exclusively on the pages of their books and in their imagination? In general, this is one of the fundamental principles of liberal "science" - ignoring facts and denying the cognizability of objective reality as such, which makes liberal figures somewhat related to medieval theologians. If theologians for many centuries denied the cognizability of the world, ignoring the fact that ancient science had already known and described the essence of many phenomena and brought great benefits to mankind, then modern ideologists of libertarianism, in particular the economists of the Austrian school, set as their main goal to prove the unknowability of "market relations". " after that,

Having done away with the “boring” description of reality, in which one’s guesses and fictions still need to somehow be combined with reality, the vanguard of libertarian “thinkers” plunges headlong into their native world of dreams, where no one and nothing can forbid them to fantasize serenely on the subject of how their free stateless class society will be arranged. It is indicative that the most heated in the libertarian environment are disputes on the topic of how in their ideal free-market society, based on "voluntary mutually beneficial relations" of private property, to ensure order and prevent a legitimate war of all against all. Obviously, the proclamation of the "principle of non-aggression" is not a sufficient condition for the functioning of a "free" society.

In order for everyone to unquestioningly observe "freedom", Rothbard proposes that the functions of protecting property be entrusted to private security companies, which should operate on a "market" basis, without any privileges.

A very vivid description of the "free" society of the future, which does not require additional comments, was presented by one of the adherents of this current of libertarian thought (anarcho-capitalism):

“The privatized police (roof) will perform the function of insurance against aggression for each client. It competes with other roofs and will adhere to a certain industry standard (something like a privately crafted code of laws).

The privatized courts will only perform the function of arbitration in those rare cases when both roofs cannot agree among themselves (because it is more expensive to go to court than to solve problems on the spot). Roofs will be forced to comply with the court's decision, even if they do not agree with it, otherwise they will lose their reputation as those who do not follow the standards.

There will be no prisons (in their modern form), because of their inefficiency. Prisons today simply keep a lot of prisoners at the expense of the taxpayers. In a free society, private companies will force aggressors to repay the damage they have caused to the private property or person of others. Since a private company is not interested in keeping the aggressors on their necks, the guilty will earn their own living, while living in captivity, until they pay the required amount.

Speaking of national security, there is no forced army in the ancap. Instead, the big security agencies provide defense services against states and other aggressors. Perhaps even with nuclear weapons. The protection of such insurance will be higher near the borders with states and lower away from them. Defense doesn't have to be difficult, since private traders are interested in minimal losses in a war and, if one starts, the rooftops instantly send out squads aimed personally at the individuals responsible for the war (from the government) instead of fighting with a large army of states. This is not like what states are doing today - they are interested in a full-fledged real war.

Another trend - minarchism - is professed by Bergland, already known to us. The minarchists, whom even anarcho-capitalists laugh at, after the "victory" over the old state, are going to build ... a new state. This time, however, according to Bergland's assurances, the state will be honest, limited in its functions, aimed solely at protecting the "natural rights" of private property:

“People in government should be seen as representatives of the citizens. The functions of the state should be limited to helping citizens protect their rights from any individual or group that violates or threatens those rights.

Therefore, laws punishing such acts as murder, rape, theft, robbery, embezzlement, fraud, deceit, hostage-taking, intrusion, pollution (a form of intrusion) are the proper use of state power, for such acts imply a violation of one's rights.

Conversely, any activity that is peaceful, voluntary and honest must be free from punishment or government interference. There should be no laws, for example, penalizing those who dodge military service, offer goods and services that consumers desire, or own property that others find objectionable.”

The fact that Bergland devoted half of his book to describing how such a “minimal” state, formed after the revolution in the United States, somehow “miraculously” grew to its current enormous size, mired in the swamp of bureaucracy and the military, his and other minarchists, apparently , does not bother at all.

The "theory" of contractual jurisdictions has become quite popular, apparently gaining the confidence of libertarians with a number of internal logical contradictions and self-denials:

““Contract jurisdictions” can be described as follows - states, or rather organizations that supply public services, have lost their territorial monopoly.

In short, contractual jurisdictions (as an idea) understand a certain need for violent intervention in the actions of individuals in order to establish order. It recognizes the importance of institutions, even those based on violence, while defining the main problem of the state, as a phenomenon in general, not in its aggressive nature and origin, but in inefficiency.

Contract jurisdictions are the idea of ​​demonopolizing the power of the state in a particular territory. Contracting jurisdictions don't impose what is good and what is bad on you, as libertarianism or conservatism can do. Contracting jurisdictions do not consider the state a priori "unethical" and unnecessary - they understand that at the current stage of the development of society, it is quite possible that centralized control and legal uniformity are still required. But contract jurisdictions look to the future with the hope of more effective measures to regulate social processes. They see the sluggishness of modern states, the over-politicization of mere administrative resources, the trend towards neo-totalitarianism and the need for diversity.”

Recognizing the “importance of institutions based on violence”, not considering “the state is a priori “unethical””, this “theory” contradicts, firstly, libertarianism itself at its very core, and secondly, accepting the state as a full-fledged market “player”, she proposes a "non-market" way to demonopolize it, which, in turn, contradicts the ideas of the "free market". It is also unclear why the currently existing states do not “self-improve” in the course of competition among themselves and why the same competition will suddenly work “as it should” in relation to contract jurisdictions.

As we can see, the eclecticism of the foundation of the libertarian doctrine is fully reflected in the "theories" of the transformation of society that follow from it. Considering as a whole the whole process of the development of liberal “science”, the crown of which was libertarianism and the psychological school, we have to admit the fact that Marx gave the most accurate assessment of it back in the 19th century, when he noticed that the scientifically very valuable works of the first bourgeois economists were gradually are replaced by works that are more or less covert apology for the bourgeois system. It remains only to state that the ideologists of libertarianism have come as close as possible to the limit of this “development”, diligently excluding the scientific, cognitive element from their teaching and devoting it entirely to defending not even capitalism as such, but private property relations in general.

The methods that libertarians have chosen to achieve their goals are also very indicative: for example, the US Libertarian Party bravely fights the state in ... state elections, storming the 5 percent mark over the past 30 years, though so far without success. The still fragile libertarian party of Russia is trying to repeat its “victorious” experience, recognizing elections in its program as an important tool for implementing libertarian reforms and bravely fighting in alliance with other democrats for the economic freedoms of the oligarchs. Propaganda of libertarian ideas in Russia is also largely based on "world practice", if in the United States the oligarchy directly sponsorsuniversities and other educational institutions to promote a class-correct political economy theory, then in Russia there are a number of state institutions to cultivate the “correct” leaders of the liberal opposition, one of which, proudly called the “Higher School of Economics”, claims to be the main hotbed of libertarian obscurantism in RF.

Thus, the ideologists of libertarianism consistently, with the highest scrupulousness, fulfill the social order of the ruling classes in strengthening the monopoly of idealism and obscurantism in the social sciences, strictly adhere to the fundamental, fundamental goals of the entire liberal doctrine: zealous preaching of the sacred and indestructible essence of private property and zealous anti-communist propaganda.

In the meantime, a herd of inhabitants, fed by liberal and libertarian nonsense, will enthusiastically discuss the imaginary charms of private property and competition, the bourgeois state, under the slogans of mental and moral freaks nurtured in the economic faculties of various HSE, will already now freely implement such libertarian reforms as the abolition of pensions, social benefits, compulsory education, the destruction of the remnants of the health care system by transferring it to "market rails", the legalization of prostitution, drugs, gambling and other "achievements" of the free market and democracy ...

S. Korelsky
09/02/2019

https://prorivists.org/antilibertarianism/

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Re: Ideology

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 14, 2022 2:54 pm

ERIC HOBSBAWM

IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE LEFT

My lecture is about a surprisingly new subject.footnote* We have become so used to terms like ‘collective identity’, ‘identity groups, ‘identity politics’, or, for that matter ‘ethnicity’, that it is hard to remember how recently they have surfaced as part of the current vocabulary, or jargon, of political discourse. For instance, if you look at the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, which was published in 1968—that is to say written in the middle 1960s—you will find no entry under identity except one about psychosocial identity, by Erik Erikson, who was concerned chiefly with such things as the so-called ‘identity crisis’ of adolescents who are trying to discover what they are, and a general piece on voters’ identification. And as for ethnicity, in the Oxford English Dictionary of the early 1970s it still occurs only as a rare word indicating ‘heathendom and heathen superstition’ and documented by quotations from the eighteenth century.

In short, we are dealing with terms and concepts which really come into use only in the 1960s. Their emergence is most easily followed in the usa, partly because it has always been a society unusually interested in monitoring its social and psychological temperature, blood-pressure and other symptoms, and mainly because the most obvious form of identity politics—but not the only one—namely ethnicity, has always been central to American politics since it became a country of mass immigration from all parts of Europe. Roughly, the new ethnicity makes its first public appearance with Glazer and Moynihan’s Beyond the Melting Pot in 1963 and becomes a militant programme with Michael Novak’s The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics in 1972. The first, I don’t have to tell you, was the work of a Jewish professor and an Irishman, now the senior Democratic senator for New York; the second came from a Catholic of Slovak origin. For the moment we need not bother too much about why all this happened in the 1960s, but let me remind you that—in the style-setting usa at least—this decade also saw the emergence of two other variants of identity politics: the modern (that is, post suffragist) women’s movement and the gay movement.

I am not saying that before the 1960s nobody asked themselves questions about their public identity. In situations of uncertainty they sometimes did; for instance in the industrial belt of Lorraine in France, whose official language and nationality changed five times in a century, and whose rural life changed to an industrial, semi-urban one, while their frontiers were redrawn seven times in the past century and a half. No wonder people said: ‘Berliners know they’re Berliners, Parisians know they are Parisians, but who are we?’ Or, to quote another interview, ‘I come from Lorraine, my culture is German, my nationality is French, and I think in our provincial dialect’.footnote1 Actually, these things only led to genuine identity problems when people were prevented from having the multiple, combined, identities which are natural to most of us. Or, even more so, when they are detached ‘from the past and all common cultural practices’.footnote2 However, until the 1960s these problems of uncertain identity were confined to special border zones of politics. They were not yet central.

They appear to have become much more central since the 1960s. Why? There are no doubt particular reasons in the politics and institutions of this or that country—for instance, in the peculiar procedures imposed on the usa by its Constitution—for example, the civil rights judgments of the 1950s, which were first applied to blacks and then extended to women, providing a model for other identity groups. It may follow, especially in countries where parties compete for votes, that constituting oneself into such an identity group may provide concrete political advantages: for instance, positive discrimination in favour of the members of such groups, quotas in jobs and so forth. This is also the case in the usa, but not only there. For instance, in India, where the government is committed to creating social equality, it may actually pay to classify yourself as low caste or belonging to an aboriginal tribal group, in order to enjoy the extra access to jobs guaranteed to such groups.

The Denial of Multiple Identity

But in my view the emergence of identity politics is a consequence of the extraordinarily rapid and profound upheavals and transformations of human society in the third quarter of this century, which I have tried to describe and to understand in the second part of my history of the ‘Short Twentieth Century’, The Age of Extremes. This is not my view alone. The American sociologist Daniel Bell, for instance, argued in 1975 that ‘The breakup of the traditional authority structures and the previous affective social units—historically nation and class...make the ethnic attachment more salient’.footnote3

In fact, we know that both the nation-state and the old class-based political parties and movements have been weakened as a result of these transformations. More than this, we have been living—we are living—through a gigantic ‘cultural revolution’, an ‘extraordinary dissolution of traditional social norms, textures and values, which left so many inhabitants of the developed world orphaned and bereft.’ If I may go on quoting myself, ‘Never was the word “community” used more indiscriminately and emptily than in the decades when communities in the sociological sense become hard to find in real life’.footnote4 Men and women look for groups to which they can belong, certainly and forever, in a world in which all else is moving and shifting, in which nothing else is certain. And they find it in an identity group. Hence the strange paradox, which the brilliant, and incidentally, Caribbean Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has identified: people choose to belong to an identity group, but ‘it is a choice predicated on the strongly held, intensely conceived belief that the individual has absolutely no choice but to belong to that specific group.’footnote5 That it is a choice can sometimes be demonstrated. The number of Americans reporting themselves as ‘American Indian’ or ‘Native American’ almost quadrupled between 1960 and 1990, from about half a million to about two millions, which is far more than could be explained by normal demography; and incidentally, since 70 per cent of ‘Native Americans’ marry outside their race, exactly who is a ‘Native American’ ethnically, is far from clear.footnote6

So what do we understand by this collective ‘identity’, this sentiment of belonging to a primary group, which is its basis? I draw your attention to four points.

First, collective identities are defined negatively; that is to say against others. ‘We’ recognize ourselves as ‘us’ because we are different from ‘Them’. If there were no ‘They’ from whom we are different, we wouldn’t have to ask ourselves who ‘We’ were. Without Outsiders there are no Insiders. In other words, collective identities are based not on what their members have in common—they may have very little in common except not being the ‘Others’. Unionists and Nationalists in Belfast, or Serb, Croat and Muslim Bosnians, who would otherwise be indistinguishable—they speak the same language, have the same life styles, look and behave the same—insist on the one thing that divides them, which happens to be religion. Conversely, what gives unity as Palestinians to a mixed population of Muslims of various kinds, Roman and Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox and others who might well—like their neighbours in Lebanon—fight each other under different circumstances? Simply that they are not the Israelis, as Israeli policy continually reminds them.

Of course, there are collectivities which are based on objective characteristics which their members have in common, including biological gender or such politically sensitive physical characteristics as skin-colour and so forth. However most collective identities are like shirts rather than skin, namely they are, in theory at least, optional, not inescapable. In spite of the current fashion for manipulating our bodies, it is still easier to put on another shirt than another arm. Most identity groups are not based on objective physical similarities or differences, although all of them would like to claim that they are ‘natural’ rather than socially constructed. Certainly all ethnic groups do.

Second, it follows that in real life identities, like garments, are interchangeable or wearable in combination rather than unique and, as it were, stuck to the body. For, of course, as every opinion pollster knows, no one has one and only one identity. Human beings cannot be described, even for bureaucratic purposes, except by a combination of many characteristics. But identity politics assumes that one among the many identities we all have is the one that determines, or at least dominates our politics: being a woman, if you are a feminist, being a Protestant if you are an Antrim Unionist, being a Catalan, if you are a Catalan nationalist, being homosexual if you are in the gay movement. And, of course, that you have to get rid of the others, because they are incompatible with the ‘real’ you. So David Selbourne, an all-purpose ideologue and general denouncer, firmly calls on ‘The Jew in England’ to ‘cease to pretend to be English’ and to recognize that his ‘real’ identity is as a Jew. This is both dangerous and absurd. There is no practical incompatibility unless an outside authority tells you that you cannot be both, or unless it is physically impossible to be both. If I wanted to be simultaneously and ecumenically a devout Catholic, a devout Jew, and a devout Buddhist why shouldn’t I? The only reason which stops me physically is that the respective religious authorities might tell me I cannot combine them, or that it might be impossible to carry out all their rituals because some got in the way of others.

Usually people have no problem about combining identities, and this, of course, is the basis of general politics as distinct from sectional identity politics. Often people don’t even bother to make the choice between identities, either because nobody asks them, or because it’s too complicated. When inhabitants of the usa are asked to declare their ethnic origins, 54 per cent refuse or are unable to give an answer. In short, exclusive identity politics do not come naturally to people. It is more likely to be forced upon them from outside—in the way in which Serb, Croat and Muslim inhabitants of Bosnia who lived together, socialized and intermarried, have been forced to separate, or in less brutal ways.

The third thing to say is that identities, or their expression, are not fixed, even supposing you have opted for one of your many potential selves, the way Michael Portillo has opted for being British instead of Spanish. They shift around and can change, if need be more than once. For instance non-ethnic groups, all or most of whose members happen to be black or Jewish, may turn into consciously ethnic groups. This happened to the Southern Christian Baptist Church under Martin Luther King. The opposite is also possible, as when the Official ira turned itself from a Fenian nationalist into a class organization, which is now the Workers’ Party and part of the Irish Republic’s government coalition.

The fourth and last thing to say about identity is that it depends on the context, which may change. We can all think of paid-up, card-carrying members of the gay community in the Oxbridge of the 1920s who, after the slump of 1929 and the rise of Hitler, shifted, as they liked to say, from Homintern to Comintern. Burgess and Blunt, as it were, transferred their gayness from the public to the private sphere. Or, consider the case of the Protestant German classical scholar, Pater, a professor of Classics in London, who suddenly discovered, after Hitler, that he had to emigrate, because, by Nazi standards, he was actually Jewish—a fact of which until that moment, he was unaware. However he had defined himself previously, he now had to find a different identity.

The Universalism of the Left

What has all this to do with the Left? Identity groups were certainly not central to the Left. Basically, the mass social and political movements of the Left, that is, those inspired by the American and French revolutions and socialism, were indeed coalitions or group alliances, but held together not by aims that were specific to the group, but by great, universal causes through which each group believed its particular aims could be realized: democracy, the Republic, socialism, communism or whatever. Our own Labour Party in its great days was both the party of a class and, among other things, of the minority nations and immigrant communities of mainland Britainians. It was all this, because it was a party of equality and social justice.

Let us not misunderstand its claim to be essentially class-based. The political labour and socialist movements were not, ever, anywhere, movements essentially confined to the proletariat in the strict Marxist sense. Except perhaps in Britain, they could not have become such vast movements as they did, because in the 1880s and 1890s, when mass labour and socialist parties suddenly appeared on the scene, like fields of bluebells in spring, the industrial working class in most countries was a fairly small minority, and in any case a lot of it remained outside socialist labour organization. Remember that by the time of World War i the social-democrats polled between 30 and 47 per cent of the electorate in countries like Denmark, Sweden and Finland, which were hardly industrialized, as well as in Germany. (The highest percentage of votes ever achieved by the Labour Party in this country, in 1951, was 48 per cent.) Furthermore, the socialist case for the centrality of the workers in their movement was not a sectional case. Trade unions pursued the sectional interests of wage-earners, but one of the reasons why the relations between labour and socialist parties and the unions associated with them, were never without problems, was precisely that the aims of the movement were wider than those of the unions. The socialist argument was not just that most people were ‘workers by hand or brain’ but that the workers were the necessary historic agency for changing society. So, whoever you were, if you wanted the future, you would have to go with the workers’ movement.

Conversely, when the labour movement became narrowed down to nothing but a pressure-group or a sectional movement of industrial workers, as in 1970s Britain, it lost both the capacity to be the potential centre of a general people’s mobilization and the general hope of the future. Militant ‘economist’ trade unionism antagonized the people not directly involved in it to such an extent that it gave Thatcherite Toryism its most convincing argument—and the justification for turning the traditional ‘one-nation’ Tory Party into a force for waging militant class-war. What is more, this proletarian identity politics not only isolated the working class, but also split it by setting groups of workers against each other.

So what does identity politics have to do with the Left? Let me state firmly what should not need restating. The political project of the Left is universalist: it is for all human beings. However we interpret the words, it isn’t liberty for shareholders or blacks, but for everybody. It isn’t equality for all members of the Garrick Club or the handicapped, but for everybody. It is not fraternity only for old Etonians or gays, but for everybody. And identity politics is essentially not for everybody but for the members of a specific group only. This is perfectly evident in the case of ethnic or nationalist movements. Zionist Jewish nationalism, whether we sympathize with it or not, is exclusively about Jews, and hang—or rather bomb—the rest. All nationalisms are. The nationalist claim that they are for everyone’s right to self-determination is bogus.

That is why the Left cannot base itself on identity politics. It has a wider agenda. For the Left, Ireland was, historically, one, but only one, out of the many exploited, oppressed and victimized sets of human beings for which it fought. For the ira kind of nationalism, the Left was, and is, only one possible ally in the fight for its objectives in certain situations. In others it was ready to bid for the support of Hitler as some of its leaders did during World War ii. And this applies to every group which makes identity politics its foundation, ethnic or otherwise.

Now the wider agenda of the Left does, of course, mean it supports many identity groups, at least some of the time, and they, in turn look to the Left. Indeed, some of these alliances are so old and so close that the Left is surprised when they come to an end, as people are surprised when marriages break up after a lifetime. In the usa it almost seems against nature that the ‘ethnics’—that is, the groups of poor mass immigrants and their descendants—no longer vote almost automatically for the Democratic Party. It seems almost incredible that a black American could even consider standing for the Presidency of the usa as a Republican (I am thinking of Colin Powell). And yet, the common interest of Irish, Italian, Jewish and black Americans in the Democratic Party did not derive from their particular ethnicities, even though realistic politicians paid their respects to these. What united them was the hunger for equality and social justice, and a programme believed capable of advancing both.

The Common Interest

But this is just what so many on the Left have forgotten, as they dive head first into the deep waters of identity politics. Since the 1970s there has been a tendency—an increasing tendency’ to see the Left essentially as a coalition of minority groups and interests: of race, gender, sexual or other cultural preferences and lifestyles, even of economic minorities such as the old getting-your-hands-dirty, industrial working class have now become. This is understandable enough, but it is dangerous, not least because winning majorities is not the same as adding up minorities.

First, let me repeat: identity groups are about themselves, for themselves, and nobody else. A coalition of such groups that is not held together by a single common set of aims or values, has only an ad hoc unity, rather like states temporarily allied in war against a common enemy. They break up when they are no longer so held together. In any case, as identity groups, they are not committed to the Left as such, but only to get support for their aims wherever they can. We think of women’s emancipation as a cause closely associated with the Left, as it has certainly been since the beginnings of socialism, even before Marx and Engels. And yet, historically, the British suffragist movement before 1914 was a movement of all three parties, and the first woman mp, as we know, was actually a Tory.footnote7

Secondly, whatever their rhetoric, the actual movements and organizations of identity politics mobilize only minorities, at any rate before they acquire the power of coercion and law. National feeling may be universal, but, to the best of my knowledge, no secessionist nationalist party in democratic states has so far ever got the votes of the majority of its constituency (though the Québecois last autumn came close—but then their nationalists were careful not actually to demand complete secession in so many words). I do not say it cannot or will not happen—only that the safest way to get national independence by secession so far has been not to ask populations to vote for it until you already have it first by other means.

That, by the way, makes two pragmatic reasons to be against identity politics. Without such outside compulsion or pressure, under normal circumstances it hardly ever mobilizes more than a minority—even of the target group. Hence, attempts to form separate political women’s parties have not been very effective ways of mobilizing the women’s vote. The other reason is that forcing people to take on one, and only one, identity divides them from each other. It therefore isolates these minorities.

Consequently to commit a general movement to the specific demands of minority pressure groups, which are not necessarily even those of their constituencies, is to ask for trouble. This is much more obvious in the usa, where the backlash against positive discrimination in favour of particular minorities, and the excesses of multiculturalism, is now very powerful; but the problem exists here also.

Today both the Right and to the Left are saddled with identity politics. Unfortunately, the danger of disintegrating into a pure alliance of minorities is unusually great on the Left because the decline of the great universalist slogans of the Enlightenment, which were essentially slogans of the Left, leaves it without any obvious way of formulating a common interest across sectional boundaries. The only one of the so-called ‘new social movements’ which crosses all such boundaries is that of the ecologists. But, alas, its political appeal is limited and likely to remain so.

However, there is one form of identity politics which is actually comprehensive, inasmuch as it is based on a common appeal, at least within the confines of a single state: citizen nationalism. Seen in the global perspective this may be the opposite of a universal appeal, but seen in the perspective of the national state, which is where most of us still live, and are likely to go on living, it provides a common identity, or in Benedict Anderson’s phrase, ‘an imagined community’ not the less real for being imagined. The Right, especially the Right in government, has always claimed to monopolize this and can usually still manipulate it. Even Thatcherism, the grave-digger of ‘one-nation Toryism’, did it. Even its ghostly and dying successor, Major’s government, hopes to avoid electoral defeat by damning its opponents as unpatriotic.

Why then has it been so difficult for the Left, certainly for the Left in English-speaking countries, to see itself as the representative of the entire nation? (I am, of course, speaking of the nation as the community of all people in a country, not as an ethnic entity.) Why have they found it so difficult even to try? After all, the European Left began when a class, or a class alliance, the Third Estate in the French Estates General of 1789, decided to declare itself ‘the nation’ as against the minority of the ruling class, thus creating the very concept of the political ‘nation’. After all, even Marx envisaged such a transformation in The Communist Manifesto. footnote8 Indeed, one might go further. Todd Gitlin, one of the best observers of the American Left, has put it dramatically in his new book, The Twilight of Common Dreams: ‘What is a Left if it is not, plausibly at least, the voice of the whole people?...If there is no people, but only peoples, there is no Left.’footnote9

(More, but concerned with British Labour politics of the time.)

Taken from the New Left Review I 217. I had to pay for this essay. After the revolution 'leftists' who put up paywalls will spend some time in re-education facilities. Because my home email is attached to the pdf I must forego the link.

Identity politics is bogging us down and creating division where there should be none. Liberal governments and corporations champion identity politics, should that not raise alarms? Another variation on 'divide and conquer' because the bosses fear nothing more than class consciousness, which I.D. preempts. This is not to diminish the oppressions, current and historic, faced by groups within the working class. We can accomplish much more together.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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