Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 08:41:14 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: A Deformed Wokkers' State


Forwarding and interesting piece to the lists.

Bob Malecki
>
>I am reading a book by Simone Weil (1909-43) - publisihed
>post-humously in 1958 called Oppression and Liberty    I have typed
>this peice - so hopefully not many typos.  The sentences are long,
>but then that is her writing I suppose.
>
>I feel it quite correctly assesses the situation then (1932).   The
>peice was probably written just before Weil went to the Spanish
>War.  She was 23 at the time. 
>
>Quoted from the Essay titled "Preospects" written by Simone Weil. 
>(Published in  "Revolution proletarienne Number 158" in August
>1933.) 
>
> "The Paris Commune was an example not only of the creative power of
>the working class masses in movement, but also of the fundamental
>impotence of a spontaneous movement when it comes to fighting
>against organised force s of repression.   August 1914 marked the
>bankruptcy of proletarian mass organisations, both on the political
>and trade-union planes, within the framework of the system.   From
>then onwards it became necessary to abandon once and for all the
>hopes placed in this mode of organisation. not only by the
>reformists, but by Engels.   On the other hand, October 1917
>ushered in new and radiant prospects.    At least the means had been
>found of combining legal with illegal action, the systematic labours
>of discipli ned militants with the spontaneous seething of the
>masses.   All over the world communist parties were to be formed to
>which the Bolshevik party would pass on its knowledge and technique;
>they were to replace social democracy, already described by Rosa
>Luxemburg, in August 1914, as a "stinking corpse", and very soon to
>disappear from the stage of history; and they were to seize power
>within a very short time.
>
>"The political regime set up spntaneously by the workers of Paris in
>1871 , then by those of St Petersburg in 1905, was to become solidly
>entrenched in Russia and soon to embrace the entire civilised world.
>Of course, the crushing of the Russian revolution by the brutal
>intervention of foreign imperialism might blast these brilliant
>prospects; but, unless sucha thing occurred, Lenin and Trosky were
>certain of introducing into history  precisely this particular series
>of transformations and nor any other.
>
>Fifteen years have elapsed.   The Russian Revolution has not been
>crushed .   Its enemies, both abroad and at home, have been
>vanquished.   And yet nowhere on the surface of the globe -
>including Russia - are there any soviets; no where on the surface of
>the globe - including Russia -is there any communist party properly
>so-called.   The "stinking corpse" of social democracy has continued
>for fifteen years to infect the political atmos phere, which is
>hardly the action of a corpse; if at last it has been largely swept
>away, this has been the work of fascism, not of the Revolution .
>The regime born of October, which either hand to expand or perish,
>has for fifteen years accommodated itself very well to the boundaries
>set by its national frontiers; its role abroad now consists, as
>events in Ge rmany clearly demonstrate, in stifling the
>revolutionary activities of the proletariat.   The reactionary
>bourgeoise have at last perceived that it has very nearly lost all
>force of expansion, and are wondering whether they could not now
>make us of it by arranging defensive and offensive all iances with
>it with a view to future wars (cf.  the "Deaust Allgemeine Zeitung"
>for 27th May).   The truth is that this regime resemblkes that which
>L enin thought he was setting up in so far that it excludes
>capitalist property almost entirely; in every other aspect it is the
>exact opposite.   I nstead of genuine freedom of the press, there is
>the impossibnility of ex pressing a free opinion, whether in the form
>of printed, typewritten or hand-written document, or simply by word
>of mouth, without running the risk of being deported; instead of the
>free paly between parties within the framework of the soviet system,
>there is a cry of "one party in power, an d all the rest in prison";
>instead of a communist party destined to rally together, for the
>purposes of free co-operation, men possessing the high  degree of
>devotion, conscientiousness, culture, and critical aptitude, t here
>is a mere administrative machine, a passive instrument in the hands
>of the Secretariat, which, as Trostky himself admits, is a party in
>name only; instead of soviets, unions and co-operative functioning
>democratically and directing the economic and political life of the
>country, there a re organisations bearing, it is true, the same
>names, but reduced to mere administartive mechanisms; instead of the
>people armed and organised as a militia to ensure by itself alone
>defence abroad and order at home, the re is a standing army, and a
>police force freed from control and a hundre d times better armed
>than that of the Tsar; lastly, and above all, instea d of elected
>officials, permanently subject to control and dismissal, who were to
>ensure the functioning of government until such time as "every
>crook would learn how to rule the state", there is a professional
>bureaucracy, freed from responsibility, recruited by co-option and
>possessing, t hrough the concentration in its hands of all economic
>and political power , a strength hitherto unkown in the annals of
>history.
>
>The very novelty of such a regime makes it difficult to analyse.
>Trotsky persists in saying that we have here a "dictatorship of the
>proletariat" , a "workers' State", albeit with "bureaucratic
>deformations", and that, as regards the necessity for such a regime
>to either expand or perish, Lenin and he were mistaken only over the
>time-scale.   But when an error in degree attains such proportions
>we may be permitted to think that an err or in kind is involved.,
>in other words a mistake touching on the actual nature of the
>regime of whose conditions of existance a definition is bei ng
>attempted.   Beside, to call a State a "workers' State" when you go
>on to explain that each worker in it is put economically and at the
>complet e disposal of the bureaucratic caste, sounds like a bad
>joke."
>
>Quote ends
>
>
>





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