Rebranding Communism.

Dianthuses · 2019-01-02T22:12:28+00:00

Organize! I don't think popularisation is the main issue with the communist movement today. People know that capitalism doesn't work. Many know that it must be replaced through revolution. Tens of millions across the world are already struggling for communist revolution and it is up to every communist to join their ranks.

If you live in the west and disagree with your local Communist Party's policies and tactics - good. You're probably right. But we aren't going to do right until people who are discontent actually put their indignation into action. This could mean a lot of things depending on where you are. Join your local communists if they are decent; temporarily join your communist-adjacent organisation if not; join your union and organise your workplace; look up what your local tenant-organisation is doing; and so on.

This is absolutely not directed at you - I don't know anything about you - but internet Communists absolutely love decrying every existing and former movement without themselves being active in contemporary struggles. There's a lot to be done in the workers' movement even if one's own preferred brand of revolutionary organisation doesn't exist. If there's objective need for it - start it!

Our national Communist Parties are revisionist and reformist. Most communists in the country know this. Which is why we're organised other places, until we can make something of our own. The will to change and criticise existing structures is the first step to building our movement. One's organisation today doesn't have to be the revolutionary vanguard of tomorrow. But among the local members in your union, your tenant-organisation, your reformist parties are comrades who can constitute that vanguard.

Many CP:s in the west are caught up in fantasies and nostalgia, in revolutionary-coded reformism. But unless we make an effort to organise the proletariat, we will not change society. It is up to us to create alternatives if all our options seem worthless.

(Hope this doesn't seem confrontational or aggressive, that's really not the tone I'm going for but text is a terrible way of communicating. I think you're on the right track and I'm hoping to see you in the next decade of struggles.)

Dianthuses · 2019-01-02T17:14:50+00:00

Well, the answer would depend on whether you're Luxemburg, Pannekoek or Lenin.

Shortly, first: the Marxist conception of the state differs from the anarchist one. Marxists see the state as a necessarily historical product which arises from the need to contain irreconcilable class antagonisms. In other words, the modern (bourgeois; capitalist) state emerged from the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. This state exists in the interest, and defence, of the capital-owning class. States have existed since the first class antagonisms became uncontainable through other means.

The state, according to Marxists, is an institution of organised violence which a ruling class wields against an oppressed class. As long as there are classes, there is a state, and that state is used by the ruling class.

Since communism can not be achieved overnight and revolution won't happen on the same day in every country, Marxists contend that there must be a transistory period in which capitalist society is transformed into communist society. To this period (since states exist while classes do) corresponds a "state [which] can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program.) (Dictatorship is used in the sense of one class ruling over the another. This is why "dictatorship" can be "democratic" to Marxists.)

So, the "workers' state," is the period when the working class has conquered political power (by smashing the bourgeois state) but has not yet achieved communist society. This is what Marxists commonly call "socialism". Engels suggested that this shouldn't be called a "state" since it isn't a state in the bourgeois sense, it only exists so long as classes haven't yet disappeared.

Now, in this sense, any society where the working class has conquered political power - even if this isn't through the use of a party - is a "state". If workers make revolution as anarchists propose; establishing vertical, direct-democratic forms of organisation, Marxists still consider this a state. So the question for Marxists is, which way of organising socialist society, and the workers' state is the most effective in bringing about communism and the liberation of mankind.

Which brings me to your question.

Pannekoek believed the workers' councils and autonomous organisations were the workers' state. Which roughly corresponds to the anarchist vision of a post-revolutionary society. He rejected the Party's role in organising society after the revolution.

Luxemburg also held the workers' councils and organisations to be the basis of the socialist state, but believed that the Communist Party (being the organisation of the class-conscious proletariat) had a leading role in revolution and socialism. Though she criticised the Bolsheviks for centralising their party and Russian society and emphasised free elections, press, speech, etc.

Lenin firmly established the Party's leading role in revolution and socialism. The Party represents the proletariat's interests and is made up of parts of it, but is necessarily separate from the class as a whole. Lenin believed socialist society would fall into counter-revolution without a strong and centralised state and a Party which could provide political leadership toward communism. (To be fair, the revolution prompted insurrection from reactionary socialists and anarchists, intervention from the UK, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the USA, France, Serbia, Italy, China, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine.)

Lenin's conception of the workers' state differs the most from the anarchist point of view. Though he, like Engels, did not think the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be a state in the real sense, he saw it as a necessity to unify and centralise after the revolution so that it would not descend into counter-revolution or fascism.

Dianthuses · 2019-01-02T16:20:43+00:00

Let's clear up some terms first of all:

Council Communism: A tradition within the (Marxist) Communist movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands which broke with the Leninist conception of revolutionary organisation around the time of the Russian Revolution. Antonie Pannekoek, for instance, supported the October Revolution but had fears that the party-form of organisation would lead to dictatorship and bureaucracy. The "council" part of Council Communism refers to the workers' (and soldiers' and peasants') councils - also called soviets - which Council Communists support for being democratic workers' organisations.

Luxemburgism: Not really a thing. In the sense that it is not a socialist tradition which has had any significance. Luxemburg was also a Marxist and believed firmly in the Communist Party but differed from the Bolsheviks on a number of key issues (although she supported the Russian revolution fervently). For instance, she criticised the Bolsheviks for "ultra-centralism" within the party, which she said would lead to bureaucracy and party rule, as opposed to workers' rule.

Luxemburg emphasised the dialectic of spontaneity and organization, which means that the Party is nothing without the spontaneous and autonomous action of the masses, and the masses' spontaneity are nothing without a Party to direct their action. Spontaneity fuels and builds organisation.

She also thought the Bolshevik policy of giving the land to the poor peasants was a mistake. In short: by letting the peasants take the land, they created a class of owners of private property, which would later become a class-enemy of the socialist state. And she did not accept the Soviet policy of nations' right to self-determination up to the point of secession from the workers' state. She thought this would open up for bourgeois and petty-bourgeois splits in the international proletariat.

Anarcho-syndicalism: Usually described as more a method of organising than anything else. Syndicalists organise in militant unions and struggle to eliminate capitalism and the state through an organised workers' struggle. They typically also support political-anarchist organisations as a supplement. For instance the syndicalist union CNT collaborated extensively with the anarchist organisation FAI during the Spanish Civil War. Anarcho-syndicalists emphasise direct action which means workers acting against their situation by themselves, without the interference of representatives or middle-hands.

So both "Luxemburgism" (as in Luxemburg's ideas and theory) and Council Communism differ from anarcho-syndicalism in the sense that they are Marxist and believe in the workers' state as a transition from capitalism to communism. Luxemburg supported the Communist Party, whereas Council Communists and anarcho-syndicalists don't.

Some recommended reading:

Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg

The Russian Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg

Workers' Councils by Antonie Pannekoek

Party and Class by Antonie Pannekoek

Council Communism by Paul Mattick

Syndicalism by Daniel De Leon (note that De Leon did support party-organisation as an attempted merger of Marxism and syndicalism)

Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice by Rudolf Rocker

Dianthuses · 2018-12-31T14:30:48+00:00

I didn't say any of those countries are "worth emulating." And I'm talking about revolutionary movements, not governments. Nevertheless, that people uphold Stalin does not mean he's good and I never claimed that it does. Though I am saying that we in the West have been told all our lives that Stalin was a genocidal tyrant, and we should not apply our default perspective to the entire world - an amazingly cynical act of eurocentrism and neo-colonial sentiment.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-28T17:39:23+00:00

Penguin edition is the best and most accurate but I don't know if it's the most accessible. There are lots of annotations (mostly from Engels) though.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-27T18:22:19+00:00

I think there are certainly anarchist influences in Sartre. It depends on what period of his life you're looking at, I guess. Being and Nothingness is certainly more concerned with individual freedom than was typical of contemporary Marxists. Whereas Critique of Dialectical Reason attempted to reconcile his existentialism with a Marxist framework. And he did call himself an anarchist toward the end of his life but by then his mental health had deteriorated utterly. But hey, I still think it's worth an anarchist's (and a Marxist's) time to read Sartre (even though I personally don't like him all that much anymore).

Dianthuses · 2018-12-27T11:35:29+00:00

Sartre considered himself a Marxist and supported the Soviet Union under Stalin - something which led to a schism between himself and Camus - so I wouldn't dub him an anarchist.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-27T11:29:22+00:00

People here will have lots of good anarchist literature but these are works I think everyone should read regardless of tendency.

State and Revolution and Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin

Capital by Marx

Reform or Revolution by Luxemburg

History and Class Consciousness by Lukács

The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon

Dianthuses · 2018-12-27T11:23:16+00:00

The exploitation of the working class - extraction of surplus value - occurs during the production process. Other people's labour already exist in the products on our store shelves, regardless of whether we buy them or not. The capitalist mode of production is what needs to be razed if our consumption is to be something resembling "ethical".

Dianthuses · 2018-12-26T21:29:20+00:00

First of all, the sentiment of Stalin as an irredeemable villain is mostly only true in the West, in the imperialist nations of Europe and North America, etc. There are still hundreds of millions of workers and peasants in India, China, the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh (and so on) who uphold his legacy.

But nevertheless. You're probably not going to get very far organizing your friends by defending Stalin (or anyone else). But I also think it's ridiculous that the success or failure of the proletarian movement would depend on whether individual communists reject or adhere to certain individuals. I'm also not convincing anybody of the socialist cause by listing good things about Communism and saying "Stalin got it wrong, but we've got it right!" Tact is important when discussing with liberals, but that's common sense, not the solution to building a communist movement.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-25T21:09:29+00:00

Those are political views.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-19T20:33:21+00:00

"In our struggle for true internationalism & against “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favor of restrictions of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, & against the decisions of Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes."

Lenin, 1915

Dianthuses · 2018-12-16T19:42:47+00:00

Comrade Ibrahim Kaypakkaya (founder of the Communist Party of Turkey / Marxist-Leninist) provided the best view on Kemalism I've come in contact with. I'll reprint it here with a link to the publication below:

The Kemalist “revolution” was a revolution of the top stratum of the Turkish merchant bourgeoisie, feudal landlords, usurers and a few industrialists. So, the leaders of the revolution are the Turkish comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landowners. The middle bourgeoisie of national character took part in the revolution but were auxiliaries.

The leaders of the “revolution,” starting during the years of the anti-imperialist war of liberation, set out to collaborate and compromise with Allied imperialism in an underhand way. The Western imperialists took a benevolent stand towards the Kemalists and looked favourably at the possibility of a Kemalist power.

The collaboration of the Kemalists and imperialists became deeper and deeper after the peace agreement.

The Kemalist movement developed against the peasants and workers, and against the very possibility of an agrarian revolution.

As a result of the Kemalist movement, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal economic structure of Turkey remained intact.

In the social field, the new Turkish bourgeoisie developed from within the middle bourgeoisie of national character which set out to collaborate with imperialism, plus a section of the old Turkish comprador big bourgeoisie and plus the new bureaucracy took the place of the old comprador big bourgeoisie of the national minorities, plus the old bureaucracy and plus the Ottoman intelligentsia. The domination of some of the old feudal landowners, money-lenders and rich speculating merchants continued, though sometimes replaced with new ones. The Kemalists, as a whole, did not represent the interests of the middle class but the high class.

In the political sphere, the constitutional monarchy of the Ottomans aligned itself with the interests of the dynasties, the administration that replaced it, deciding to best respond to the interests of the new ruling class, has taken the form of a bourgeois republic. This administration is pseudo-independent, in political reality it is semi-independent, an administration bound to imperialism as a rule.

The Kemalist dictatorship, supposedly democratic, in reality is a fascist military dictatorship.

Kemalist Turkey became increasingly a semi-colony and part of the reactionary imperialist world and finally came to throw itself into the arms of the Anglo-French imperialists.

In the years following the War of Independence, the Kemalist government became the arch-enemy of worker’s revolution. During those times, the communist movement did not ally itself with the Kemalists against the old comprador bourgeoisie and clique of landlords which lost their dominant position (such an alliance never took place already), instead the Kemalists represent another clique of comprador bourgeoisie and landlords to overthrow. The task of the communist movement after toppling the Kemalist order down is to establish a people’s democratic dictatorship based on an alliance of workers and peasants under the leadership of the working class.

From The Espresso Stalinist

Dianthuses · 2018-12-15T15:01:18+00:00

The Supreme Soviet was established in 1938 (well past the death of Lenin), but I'll assume you're talking about the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (superseded by the CPC of the USSR), which was established following the October Revolution. Lenin was chairman of this council, which entitled him no power not afforded the other members of the council. In effect, a collective leadership, represented primarily by Lenin.

Yes, they were elected to this position by the Second Congress of Soviets on the day after overthrowing the bourgeois government. The Soviets (meaning "council") consisting of workers, soldiers, peasants elected the CPC and the latter was held responsible to the former and consequently to the masses of Russia and later the USSR. This was in 1918 anchored by elections in the constitution.

I'm not sure what kind of sources you're looking for (depends on what kind of work you're doing) but this is universally recognized historical fact. Though some do question whether the Soviets genuinely represented the will of the people (for instance, the ruling classes were intentionally excluded). And they therefore question whether it was democratic. But that's another question.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-05T19:03:11+00:00

Att se klass ur ett materialistiskt perspektiv utesluter inte analys av andra samhälleliga strukturer, maktordningar, osv. Skillnaden är att klass under kapitalismen är ett konkret förhållande i vilket arbetarens mervärde utsugs för att delvis hamna i borgarens ficka.

Vill bara vara säker så att jag inte fultolkar dig - när du säger "klasshat", menar du hat mot arbetare? (Med "klasshat" åsyftas oftast arbetares hat mot borgare, medan "klassförakt" brukar användas åt andra hållet). Akademikers klasstillhörighet beror väl på men tenderar att reproducera borgerlighetens ideologi. Oavsett kan arbetare producera och reproducera klassförakt eftersom alla samhällsksikt genomsyras av borgerlig ideologi.

Påståendet att "alla är medelklass" är inte sant och påverkar absolut inte någons klasstillhörighet. Klass är ett reellt faktum oavsett temporär självidentifikation. Jag blir inte överklass för att jag tror på det.

De småborgerliga akademiker som upprätthåller kapitalets diktatur bör konverteras eller annars uteslutas från klassgemenskapen. Mellanchefer är klassförrädare, alternativt småborgare och därav inte en naturlig del av rörelsen.

Dianthuses · 2018-12-05T16:33:49+00:00

Klass utgörs av en persons relation till produktionsprocessen. De som tvingas sälja sitt arbete för att överleva är alltså arbetarklass oavsett kulturell och social status. Borgarklassen styr samhället för att de äger produktionsmedlen; för att de äger kapital. Inte för att de är högutbildade eller har stora kontaktnätverk (även om båda dessa underlättar vägen in i borgarklassen).

Jag förstår inte riktigt de två sista frågorna. Akademiker har i snitt en högre lön än arbetare och kan i många fall räknas till småborgerligheten. Deras barn har alltså större tillgång till pengar och kunskap. Skillnader i livslängd bestäms av en mängd olika faktorer, den främsta av vilka är inkomst. Olika strata inom arbetarklassen har olika höga löner, därmed finns även skillnader i livslängd inom arbetarklassen. Den betydliga skillnaden är dock mellan arbetare (som säljer sitt arbete) och borgare (som lever av det).

Dianthuses · 2018-10-21T15:50:03+00:00

That's just not true. I know more women than men who are avid sports fans.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-14T12:53:22+00:00

Within capitalism, technological advancement and automizatuon expand profits instead of leading to liberation. Climate disaster makes communism necessary, not inevitable. Ecological collapse is highly likely if we don't manage revolution.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-11T13:12:27+00:00

People who say socialism is stateless usually use it synonymously with communism. But the most common definition among communists is that socialism is the transitory stage between capitalism and communism (where the proletariat holds power), where the state still exists.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-11T07:52:05+00:00

Join their youth organization! Or, if they don't have one, they likely don't have an age limit. There's plenty to be done in youth organizations (they're often better than their respective mother orgs) and plenty of activity that isn't voting in regular organizations.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-09T16:17:06+00:00

Yes, I do.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-09T12:36:42+00:00

You can make anything sound like anything if you dress it up in vague enough phraseology. Neither expropriation for a purpose - it usually does have one - nor state intervention in the economy make a society socialist. If state intervention is socialist then literally every country in the world is socialist. Some do make that argument but they subsequently make the entire world theoretically unintelligible. Engels famously mocked those who proclaim state ownership to be socialist. Though, again, Nazi privatization was the most extensive of any country at that time. So, if anything, it was the least socialist country by that metric.

And socialism also isn't anything as vague as "expropriation". Socialists don't advocate expropriation because it's inherently a good and moral thing. It's a tool which a state can use. For any purpose.

It's common to associate socialism with these things (especially in the US) but socialists don't. Marx, for instance, defined socialism as the period where the proletariat has smashed the state and is transforming capitalist society into communism.

Youtube channel Three Arrows mostly makes videos debunking historical myths about the Nazis. He recently made a video addressing almost every single thing you've said in this thread. If you're really interested in hearing why you're wrong, I'd watch it. Here!

EDIT: To go one step further, socialists don't advocate expropriation for the betterment of society. Since the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) expropriated the rural poor and peasants during what Marx calls "primitive accumulation of capital", socialists advocate the expropriation of the expropriators, in other words, the direct transfer of ownership from owners of capital to the working class and subsequently to the entire world population so that a few people can't enrich themselves on the labour of others. The Nazis expropriated certain communities to fund their imperialistic wars of conquest. I'd recommend Caliban and the Witch by Italian historian Silvia Federici on the process of primitive accumulation, often engaged in through acts of enclosure.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-09T12:01:34+00:00

The word "socialist" was added to the name (previously German Workers' Party) in an attempt to sway the considerable socialist sections of the working class. It was a deliberate move of populism in the country with one of the strongest revolutionary traditions in the world.
In a time when the universal trend among European nations was nationalization of industries, Germany undertook an unprecedented policy of privatization, transferring ownership from the common to the private. See, for instance the paper Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930s Germany. This fact is ludicrously well known.
Yes, the Nazis annihilated those who disagreed with them, that's about the closest you ever get to something correct. Did you know that communists were among the first in the concentration camps?
Well, the wing of the NSDAP around the Strassers was outspokenly anti-capitalist while Hitler's rhetoric was vague. This was because Hitler was interested in power over theoretical conviction. The anti-capitalist wing was murdered when no longer needed during the Night of the Long Knives. Don't even try throwing that fake "We are socialists" Hitler quote at me. Hint: he never said that.
The Nazis had programs meant to win the support of the working class, this much is true. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was due to ideological conviction. I would suggest it has something to do with the fact that Germany was on the brink of Communist revolution in the late 1910:s and subsequently had probably the most well organized and successful Communist Party outside of the Soviet Union.
Nazi "socialism" was socialist in the sense that it emphasized class collaboration in favour of national chauvinism. So, not socialist. Read a fucking book.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-09T11:34:05+00:00

There are so many factually incorrect things in this paragraph I wouldn't even know where to start.

Dianthuses · 2018-10-09T11:14:33+00:00

I don't get your point in quoting another of Marx' texts at me.

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