From: topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au
Date: Fri,  3 Jan 2003 21:14:04 +1100
Subject: Re: AUT: Three viewpoints on Venezuela and revolution


On 2/1/2003 9:03 AM, "Scott Hamilton" <s_h_hamilton-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:

> , because only socialism can give bourgeois
> democratic rights to a semi-colony 


Why do you insist on believing in this? It is manifestly false. And the fact 
that it is false is demonstrably lethal for your argument.

As I understand it, you are saying this: those popular frontists are bad 
because the workers will be suckered by the bourgeoisie if they make an aliance 
with them to win certain rights. The ultra-leftists are silly because without 
the resources monopolized by other classes the reactionaries will win and wear 
anarchist heads on pikes. (Which, incidentally, is speculation - more on this 
later.) Now there is a clear difference between the strategy you propose and 
this later view. That front, for you, is safely guarded. Your worries are on 
the other front, where you engage the Stalinist-Liberal argument for class 
cooperation. That argument hinges on the suggestion that between a military-
capitalist junta and bourgeois capitalist fake-democracy, it is preferable to 
have the later, as civil liberties permit the organizations of workers without 
being harassed. Hence workers ought to cooperate with the bourgeoisie to ensure 
that they get command of the state; then in the stagist mode, they can turn 
their backs on the capitalists whilst using the civil liberties to organise the 
second wave, which is usually thought of as a take over of state instruments. 
However, you argue that in a 'semi-colony' - meaning, apparently, everything 
from Palestine to East Timor to Indonesia to Venezuela and Brazil- this is a 
futile road to take because only socialism can guarantee civil liberties. The 
argument is thus found to rest on this false contention. Alternatively, you can 
show that you argument is vacuous by pointing out that there are no actually 
existing socialist states to meet your specifications, and hence the notion 
that only such states could guarantee civil liberties is baseless speculation.

Furthermore, consider the possibility that forming a united front with classes 
ostensibly holding onto resources necessary for revolution, whilst remaining 
'politically independent', is _precisely_ the idea at work in the Stalinist-
Liberal plan. That's at least a plausible rendering of actual stagist rhetoric. 
Now consider that: we have here a doctrine that predicts that class 
collaboration will accomplish stage x - capitalist democracy or socialism - 
from which a social revolution can be launched because bourgeois rights have 
been assured. _How_ worker autonomy will be preserved is a mystery, but it is 
also a mystery in your theory, for the simple fact that you start off assuming 
an alliance which in practically every instance it has occurred has resulted in 
the suckering of the working class. Permanent revolution is functionally 
indistinguishable from Stalinism-Liberalism. Needless to say the rhetoric of 
stagists was radically at odds with the behaviour of Stalinist-Liberalist 
alliances where they have occurred, notably in Spain. But had we not the 
testimony of history we would be as in the dark about the outcome of their 
strategy as we are about your putative permanent revolution; but since the 
immediate demands are in fact indistinguishable in practice, I cast thee to the 
flames with so much Diamat fodder.

Above I said that cross-class alliances have resulted in the suckering of the 
working class in practically ever instance that I know of. I qualify because 
there is one very obvious instance where the workers did manage to keep some 
sort of autonomy - Spain. The result in that case is instructive. The 
Stalinist-Liberalist coalition there crushed the autonomous workers, and 
rigidly opposed the social revolution. The rhetoric they used was identical to 
the one you are now using against the Argentine position: it is not feasible, 
the bourgeoisie holds the key resources, they will kill you all (an eerie 
prediction cum threat). In Spain, the rhetoric of assuring bourgeois rights in 
the future republic was simply farcical.  It does not show the theory to be 
wrong, it shows it to have been a smokescreen: Some things, specially in 
politics, aren't even false.

Now why should I think that you theory, which is for practical purposes 
indistinguishable from the Stalinist one, be any less pointless?

Class collaboration is bad news, no matter what band-aid you use, it's still 
collaboration - it demobilizes, it coopts, it channels subaltern fury into 
manageable categories.  The basic fact is that the bourgeoisie's resources 
which you think are critically needed are in fact the working class itself.

Don't ask me how this squares with my position on Timor, because I don't know. 
I suppose in extreme cases - a genocide - I would tolerate it. Sooner my theory 
be trashed than people be killed in huge numbers.

Thiago Oppermann











   

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