File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1996/96-12-29.013, message 41


Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:53:29 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re: M-G: Worker-Communism?


>Robert Malecki wrote:
>> 
>
>> It is not really very interesting that you say that "Trotsky was a great
>> revolutionary  and writer" it sounds like a bookworm spreading peanut 
butter on bread, > but the revolutionary  programatical and tactical 
positions of both Lenin and Trotsky > we or at  least I am talking about. 
And these positions are opposed to the fundemental
>> line of the "worker-communist document.
>> 
>
>You are probably right in not being sactisfied with my reply. I wrote it
>in a sleepless night and in somewhat painful conditions. Then my english
>doesn't come easy and I get lazy and careless. On the other hand, it's
>true that I'm far more acquainted of Trotsky as a revolutionary figure
>and as a
>historian than of his "programatical and tactical" positions, of which I
>only know generalities. I'll read (or re-read, I'm not sure) the
>"Transitional Program" and I get back to you soon. OK?

Fine! And know let us see what you have written.

>>Malecki wrote; 
>> Well, your admission about thinking then  Lenin "bends the stick" too far
>> here is your problem. And you dig at Trotsky being a "luxemburguist" is just
>> ridiculous in light of the history and programatical positions of the Left
>> Opposition and the founding documents of the Fourth International. 

Joao replied;
>Actually, Lenin retreated from some of the most extreme positions of
>"What's to be done?" (1903). And he did it not long after, in 1905,
>speaking of the working class as being "instintively social-democrat"
>(which at that time meant socialist).
>Lenin was a "political animal" as they say here, he had an acute
>perception of the necessities of the moment. He had to fight the
>"economists" and so he did it, throwing everything he could muster
>against them. Not long after, he was saying: "Any movement of the
>proletariat, however small, however modest he may be at the start,
>however slight its occasion, inevitably threatens to outgrow its
>immediate aims and to develop into a force irreconcilable to the entire
>old order and destructive of it. The movement of the proletariat, by
>reason of the essential peculiarities of the position of this class
>under capitalism, has a marked tendency to develop into a desperate,
>all-out struggle, a struggle for complete victory over all the dark
>forces of exploitation and oppression."
>He was saying this when he saw that the "spontaneous" revolutionary
>outburst of the russian proletariat was going far beyond what any
>political organization at that time could accompany, let alone lead.

OK! However I do not see anything here that says Lenin contradicted himself. 
I think that he describes the contradictions of the workers movement. On the 
one hand "the "trade union conciousness" being "bougeois" conciousness in 
his polemics against both the Bernsteins and "terrorist" factions in What is 
to be done and on the other hand saying that;

"Any movement of the
proletariat, however small, however modest he may be at the start,
however slight its occasion, inevitably threatens to outgrow its
immediate aims and to develop into a force irreconcilable to the entire
old order and destructive of it. The movement of the proletariat, by
reason of the essential peculiarities of the position of this class
under capitalism, has a marked tendency to develop into a desperate,
all-out struggle, a struggle for complete victory over all the dark
forces of exploitation and oppression."  

Joao continues;
>Now, Hekmat doesn't go half this far. All he says is that there has
>always been present in the working class a tendency that "aspires to,
>and constantly tries to, push the entire class in a socialist
>direction." I am prepared to say a little more: that with the
>development of the productive forces, the enlargement of technical
>skills and the awakening of class-consciousness among the workers, the
>push for apropriation of the means of production is likely to become
>stronger and stronger - with or without a political party. Which doesn't
>mean we can do without one.

This is not what i was critising about the workers Communist trend. It was 
in fact there classical modern day "economist" turn to the working class 
albeit with a Maoist twist. Thus they think that right wing trade union 
leaders should be treated as anti imperialist allies all the time. Whereas 
the classical Leninist-Trotskyist tactic is the proletaian United Front. In 
other words if these traitors take one step in the right direction we will 
march with them, however keeping the right to ruthlessly critise their 
politics which ultimately keep the workers in chains.
>
>Now, back to Lenin. The thing is, he was probably right on both
>occasions. What happens is that we can't have a ready-made,
>passe-partout leninist formula on this question as on many others. As
>for Trotsky, sorry again. I'll get back to you later. What I can say
>right now is that it hasn't worked until now and I'm not seeing any
>historical jackpot falling in old Leon's hands all of a sudden. History
>isn't about fairness. 
>I wouldn't be the least surprise to find Trotsky to be a far more
>profound and powerful political strategist than Hekmat. The problem is
>that he hasn't been around for some time and his real-time leadership is
>not available. As we have just seen with Lenin, this is absolutely
>crucial. You just can't find a substitute for that pondering moment of
>political feeling and judgment. Leadership skills can be cultivated and
>refined by reading past experiences. But they must not be
>straight-jacketed in "theoretical" steriotypes. If we start making
>things by the book, Lenin (or Trotsky) is likely to burn in pure rage on
>his grave with our stupid, proselitistic mistakes.

First you say that Lenin was right on both counts. Then you go on to say 
that these experiences along with Trotsky must not be "straigt jacketed in 
'theoretical' steriotypes". But that is the whole point. Either Lenin and 
Trotsky were correct on this stuff or they were not. The only substituting 
going on here is that their are quite a few tendencies Internationaly who 
are trying to revise "Marxism" and "Leninism"
along the political lines of the very same kind of people who they were 
arguing politically against in the first place. Thus in this case with the 
Worker Communist trend they appear to without admitting it openly have the 
position of the "party of the whole class"...It has nothing to do with 
whether Lenin or Trotsky are dead. But the political line that they 
historically represented.
>
>The workers' conception of the world is marxism - it gives them a theory
>of history and a materialist philosophy. The rest is politics, tactical
>stuff. You can bent the stick at will - careful, now, don't break it.
>I'm not for that constant adding of ever new (mor or less) barbed men's
>profiles to the picture: marxism-leninism-maoism-hoxhism, or
>marxism-leninism-trotskyism-mandelism or cliffism or lambertism or
>maleckism. The "correct" line is geting narrower and narrower till
>there's only you left holding this historical Ariadne's thread. You're
>absolutely right, but you're alone. The correct line has been
>succesfully decanted from generation to generation but you look around
>and there's no-one listening to you anymore.

All of the above have very specific political clarification. And do you 
really think that if Lenin or Trotsky were around they would use your 
reasoning. I mean Lenin was quite alone in 1914! But it certainly didn't 
stop him from trying to argue the correct political points. 

>You see, the point is that I believe more in the working class
>self-emancipation as a living historical process and less in
>intellectual formulas engendered by privileged brains to be imported by
>the workers for their salvation. And that's what worker-communism is all
>about and where I decisively side with it. As Hekmat says: "Socialism is
>not a model, a Utopia or a profound design for society, only waiting for
>us socialists to implement it. It is not an arbitrary design, or a
>prescription exported from the real of reason to the realm of practice.
>Socialism is, first and foremost, a framework for a certain social
>struggle that is being waged inevitably and independently of the
>presence or absence of a party".

Ahh! Now we come to it. Here is the problem. No longer Marxist arguements 
but organic arguements! The only honest answer to the above is the the 
Proletariat is alive and well! But beheaded of a leadership which can show 
it the way forward. 
And the above is not just talking about "Lenin bending the stick to far" but 
the classical modern day version of the "economist" trend of the early 
1900's. You are arguing as the great, great, great, great grandson of the 
Bernsteins!
>
>Now, I have said before that "What's to be done?" can be a receipt for
>non worker "communism", including state capitalism. I want to emphasize
>now, in Lenin's honor, that , this being possible, it is not necessarily
>so. For sure, I'll say that this isn't where we should be looking for
>the reasons of our defeat in the russian revolution.

And after the "economist" confession of Joao, he throws in a classical 
Schatmanite state capitalist arguement. Where onlt two parafgraphs before he 
was talking about those horrible "Cliffites"! So you are blaming the 
degeneration of the Soviet Union on Lenin and Trotsky and not Stalin and his 
henchmen. And doing it with a "plague on both your houses" Schactminite 
line. Neil! Here is your chance!
>
>I didn't say Trotsky was a luxemburguist, though he did have Rosa in
>great regard, or at least said so. All I said is that Trotsky (with "Our
>Political Tasks") actually sided with her against Lenin on
>organizational questions back in 1903-4. You can't deny that, can you?

OK! Trotsky was a Menshevik on the party question in 1903-04. But as one of 
the leaders of the October Revolution he was a Bolshevik on the Party question.
>
>> And my
>> answer to you about your thinking that Hekmat does not bow to the reformism
>> of workers is not true! He bows to the reformist leadership quite openly in
>> the document. 
>
>Not so. Anyway we've got two problems here. I was saying that he doesn't
>bow to the reformist disposition of the bulk of the workers in normal
>times. He set himself the task of building a party specifically for the
>revolutionary workers. As for the union leaderships, he certainly has
>lots of questions to ask them and the idea seems to be bringing
>revolutionary ideas and discussions to everyday union life. The line is:
>we should stay in the unions, questioning the leaders' behaviour and
>shotsightnesses... until we have something better - the workers'
>councils. Don't the trotskyists subscribe this? To my knowledge only the
>bordiguists (and lately not even Bordiga himself) are against this.

And I said that the Worker Communist Trend had a stagest theory on party 
building in the workers movement and the above by you just clarifies the 
correctness of this very economist line. What is the difference between the 
above and Lenins arguements against the economists on just the very same ideas.
>
>> Another big mouth ballon! Or at best the "wolf" in the story of the
>> three little pigs saying "I huff and i puff and i blow your house down." The
>> only differences is that you are both the wolf and the pig who is supporting
>> backhandedly a straw house of politics while beating your breast about
>> Trotsky being a Luxemburgist and Lenin "bending the stick" to far! Naturally
>> I am prepared to take this back when and if you can give me a serious reply!
>
>Please don't. I never had such a great time as on reading this

Glad you liked it! And the last part i take back because you finally gave me 
a serious, seriously wrong! answer at least..

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki

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http://www.kmf.org/malecki/

Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!

COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people
NOW ON LINE
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