Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

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blindpig
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Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 01, 2018 1:52 pm

Proletarian issue 11 (April 2006)


Theory: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Living in an imperialist country, where the movement is weak and at a low ebb, it is easy to get discouraged or disillusioned with communist work. Here is a timely reminder from one comrade to another about why we carry on doing what we do.



Many people, overcome by pessimism and overwhelmed by the difficulties we face, allege that it is not possible to do communist work in the present climate. Because the working-class movement is so thoroughly imbued with bourgeois thinking of every kind, and we therefore cannot set up a large powerful party, therefore, they say, we should not set up a party at all! Apparently, if we wait around a while longer while the bourgeoisie gets going pauperising the working class, then the general level of consciousness will rise and it will then be possible to set up a communist party.

This is a totally false argument: although the working class will no doubt spontaneously rise up when their conditions of life become totally unbearable, without the leadership of a genuine communist party that has been steeled in struggle, the spontaneous resistance of the masses will not be capable of overthrowing the bourgeois ruling class.

To develop a party that is capable of giving leadership to the spontaneous revolt of the masses requires the gathering together of all those who can, exceptionally, see ahead the need for revolutionary leadership and who are prepared to undergo the sacrifices that are necessary in the course of fighting to raise both their own class consciousness and that of the masses in general. Such people are few and far between today, but it is their duty to collaborate and cooperate in trying to bring in the next layer of thinking workers, and then the next.

We should understand that the shortcomings of our party, which are undoubtedly many and various, are neither proof that a party cannot be built ‘at this time’ nor an excuse for ratting out of the struggle. There never has been and never will be a party that is perfect in every respect, nor any individuals within the party who are perfect in every respect. Our members are just as much subjected to the siren songs of bourgeois reaction as anyone else and will therefore tend to make woeful errors. The way to deal with this is not to walk away but to learn to fight backwardness within the party the better to be able to fight it outside the party.

The struggle is pitiless and never-ending. It requires stamina enhanced by revolutionary consciousness, with very little hope of being appreciated ever. The reward is simply knowing that you are preparing the weapons for a successful revolution, which will lead humanity onto the next stage of civilisation when there will be no hunger in the world, no war, and when a stop can be put to the ecological destruction of our planet. The reward is only to know that you are trying your very best to do your duty to the working class – an absolutely essential duty that few in Britain are currently prepared to undertake, since it all seems far too hard.

Our party is in its infancy, and as a result is particularly vulnerable. People abound who are anxious to strangle it at birth before it gets too strong. These include not only the bourgeoisie and its secret services – at least they get paid for doing the dirty work – but also individuals who, because of a petty-bourgeois or labour aristocratic outlook, have absolutely no faith in the working class and therefore see no point in making sacrifices for its benefit. They are brought up to ‘believe in themselves’, ie, to believe that their successes are down to their individual genius, and those who remain downtrodden remain so because they are not fit for anything else. The only way to help the downtrodden, they think, is by do-gooding acts of bountiful charity on the part of ‘better’ people such as themselves. Such people cannot but pour scorn on a party such as ours, which, contrary to their most deeply held beliefs, was formed to prepare the working class masses to seize power and hold on to it. They delight in our party's difficulties, in a manner of Trotsky's gloating over everything the Soviet revolution had not managed to achieve; it confirms them in their class prejudice that the cause of proletarian revolution is quite hopeless.

When the struggle is at its most difficult, it is understandable that comrades can succumb to reaction. It is very dispiriting that the struggle is so hard and shows little immediate evidence of any success. What people don't always realise, however, is that every major breakthrough is preceded by long periods when nothing much appears to be happening. But the work we do does have an effect – it's just that we don't always see it. The cumulative effect of our work, however, could one day make the difference between a successful outcome to revolution and a failure – failure being certain if that work is not done.

One of the important functions of a party is to give courage to members when they are discouraged, to remind them of their historical mission and try to rescue them before they are lost forever and the working class is deprived of one of its precious soldiers. If a comrade who is undergoing doubts refuses to speak to those who could help, then it is almost certain that their wavering will consolidate into a permanent and cowardly retreat.

We cannot allow ourselves to give up the struggle just because it is difficult, leaving others to shoulder the burden alone. If we abandon party work so as to have more time for family teas with Auntie Gertrude, will we really be able to enjoy these feasts knowing that every five seconds a child is dying unnecessarily while we do nothing at all to get rid of the imperialist system that is causing those deaths? When we sit with our children in front of the television and images come up of other people's children who have been killed and maimed in imperialist wars, will we be able to live with the fact that we are not working the only way it is possible to work to get rid of imperialism – that we ratted out of building the party of the working class because other things seemed more important or more enjoyable?

We have only one life to live. Let the immortal words of Nikolai Ostrovsky be our guide:

“Man’s dearest possession is life and, since it is given to him but once, he must so live as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose; so live as not to be seared with the shame of a cowardly and trivial past; so live, that dying he can say: ‘All my life and all my strength were given to the finest cause in the world – the liberation of mankind.’”

http://www.cpgbml.org/printable.php?art=188
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:39 pm

bump
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:54 pm

we oughta pin this
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:43 am

blindpig wrote:
Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:54 pm
we oughta pin this
Tbh, we had a discussion about "parties" some years ago and came to a very different conclusion (remember Nikos?)

Here is the crux of the issue:

1. This is written by the CPGB -- they already have a party. So..they wanna build another one?

2. Conflating "doing communist work" with "building a party (right now)"

3. Materialism: Remember "Man makes his own history but not under the circumstances of his choosing"?

Notice that they offer no proof whatsoever (empirical or otherwise) that their proposal is not an empty gesture and quite a bit of proof that the party they intend to build (based on looking at THE ONE THEY ALREADY HAVE) is a fetish. Anyone who points this out is going to be deemed an obstructionist, counter-revolutionary (ha! "counter"-ing that revolution they could just about never quite make) and so on.

Meanwhile I am doing the opposite of obstructing them. My message to them is -- do it. Build the party, show the results for the whole world to see, make it clear why the party you have built matters. If they can't do those simple things -- show your work, demonstrate meaningful results -- then instead of doing the truly difficult tasks of laying groundwork for a revolutionary proletarian party what they are doing is PLAYING HOUSE.

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:51 am

We're going to come together based on shared goals, common work+struggle, joint projects, tightly synchronized analysis and every other form of fraternal comradely relationships and collaborations (and, more obviously by the day, the wheels are in motion).

Eventually, momentum builds to consolidate and formalize those relations into one unified structure with a more rigorous framework of guidelines, governing institutions and etc. Rushing into those things just causes you to ramble obsessively about things that have to evolve of their own accord ("today, let's talk about *rules*, comrades".. peep, peep). They might as well sit on a corner and ask me to put a quarter in their cup -- for the Revolution.

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 11, 2019 11:56 am

As I recall the discussion of party with Nikos centered on entryism/CPUSA. I think that post a good general admonishment, not a specific call to action. The various half-hearted half-starts we've seen in the last few years stand as evidence that you are correct in that 'we ain't there yet'. Yet those efforts are part of the process/learning experience too.

Yeah, I'm antsy, and we oughta be. But always with an eye to what is doable within our grasp. Too much time on twitter with all of the insane gibberish that is passed off as Marxism, the wretchedness of the PSL, a party without a 'line' or ideology, jfc. Just don't know what else I can do, an old hermit in the woods.

One thing I'm kicking around is taking up the obsession with 'conspiracy', which leads to assigning every act to cia puppetry, lending our enemies omnipotence. This is the road to despair and idealism. Sure the bosses got their hands in a whole lot of shit,history screams this, but everything, every time? The role of class interest is diminished, particularly that of the petty booj. Is this because of the correspondent's class affiliation/identification?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:53 pm

blindpig wrote:
Fri Oct 11, 2019 11:56 am
As I recall the discussion of party with Nikos centered on entryism/CPUSA. I think that post a good general admonishment, not a specific call to action. The various half-hearted half-starts we've seen in the last few years stand as evidence that you are correct in that 'we ain't there yet'. Yet those efforts are part of the process/learning experience too.

Yeah, I'm antsy, and we oughta be. But always with an eye to what is doable within our grasp. Too much time on twitter with all of the insane gibberish that is passed off as Marxism, the wretchedness of the PSL, a party without a 'line' or ideology, jfc. Just don't know what else I can do, an old hermit in the woods.

One thing I'm kicking around is taking up the obsession with 'conspiracy', which leads to assigning every act to cia puppetry, lending our enemies omnipotence. This is the road to despair and idealism. Sure the bosses got their hands in a whole lot of shit,history screams this, but everything, every time? The role of class interest is diminished, particularly that of the petty booj. Is this because of the correspondent's class affiliation/identification?
It's hard to tell where we're at, honestly. Take Roger Harris who is a solid contributor to MLToday and by all accounts I know of a good labor guy.

But he writes glib articles that mostly replace substantive analysis with flip sound-bite style offerings.

This one, for instance, just feels off even as it makes a fairly important point:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/unfaithfu ... ent/262275

Garble about establishment politicians "taking a hit for the Empire" and candidates as budding/wannabe reality tv stars.

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Fri Oct 11, 2019 6:03 pm

One thing I'm kicking around is taking up the obsession with 'conspiracy', which leads to assigning every act to cia puppetry, lending our enemies omnipotence. This is the road to despair and idealism. Sure the bosses got their hands in a whole lot of shit,history screams this, but everything, every time? The role of class interest is diminished, particularly that of the petty booj. Is this because of the correspondent's class affiliation/identification?
The conspiracy mongers and their claptrap basically write the mission statement for The Bell (if The Bell wasn't currently dormant).
and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
It's not fair to say the conspiracyoid purveyors have lost the plot because they probably didn't know it to begin with (or long ago rejected it). But at some point they have to get real -- that means confronting the reality of capitalist society with eyes open using the rigorous, principled groundwork put in place by multiple generations of revolutionaries before us. That is the essence of materialism and the only pathway that takes us to legitimate worker's power in the present day. Until they do that nothing they've ever said will matter..not even when they are right (operating under the principle that where there's smoke there's fire -- and there's a crook under tree rock in bourgeoisie society not to mention reactionaries with hypersonic missiles and nuclear submarines).

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by solidgold » Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:52 am

kidoftheblackhole wrote:
Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:53 pm
This one, for instance, just feels off even as it makes a fairly important point:
Maaaan, that's unfair to Harris. The writing of the left in general is overwhelmingly wack. The above Hallmark card written to the comrades included. Membership should come with a Zoloft prescription.

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Re: Letter to a comrade overcome by pessimism

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Tue Nov 12, 2019 10:40 pm

solidgold wrote:
Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:52 am
kidoftheblackhole wrote:
Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:53 pm
This one, for instance, just feels off even as it makes a fairly important point:
Maaaan, that's unfair to Harris. The writing of the left in general is overwhelmingly wack. The above Hallmark card written to the comrades included. Membership should come with a Zoloft prescription.
Excuse me for missing this comment for so long. Yes, it is somewhat unfair to Harris to single him out when his left bona fides are quite good overall. However, as Anaxarchos used to say, 'the way to elevate the bar is to elevate oneself'. It is incumbent upon the ones who are most seriously (including us) to take up that mantra. Even if that means a reprise of Lenin's "better fewer, but better" (in a VERY different context).

Here is something interesting about Harris to (maybe) spice things up a bit. One of, if not THE, defining features of the Counter Terror (by any other name it is still the same..) that felled the Soviet Union was the dismantling of the entire socialist state and LENINISM. Virtually every leftist seems to miss this (we have never had the necessary discussion about *ideology* -- the issue is that once you start pillorying ideology you are Howard Zinn who cheers the new found "freedoms" from the wall of the Berlin Wall as referenced in our other recent thread -- if you don't stand for something you will fall for anything).

One of the chief ways Leninism was dismantled was through propaganda (check the snake Stephen Cohen on this) and especially the elevation of Bukharin as a "the path not taken" and thus a viable alternative "brutally suppressed" by Stalin (who was already long deprecated). The Stalwarts on the Left who opposed Gorbachev and all of his west-aligned henchmen took the propaganda to heart. Understandably, it is very hard for Harris et alia to viwe Bukharin in a measured way -- they end up repeating more or less the same propaganda but as a slur (thus Bukharin becomes the direct precursor to Khrushev and the father of revisionism).

This is a MAJOR recurring theme for Harris. It is not necessarily a dead end in terms of digging into the history but it is certainly a dead duck for advancing the left today (which is not in a position to write off post-Mao China -- and the clear parallel to the NEP of which Bukharin is cast as the standard bearer)

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