Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 15:20:47 +0000
From: Joćo Paulo Monteiro <jpmonteiro-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: M-I: Re: M-G: Worker-Communism?


>
> >>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."
>

Lenin is contradicting himself very strongly indeed here, reflecting the
"contradictions of the workers' movement" and its changing conjunctural
political necessities. You must be remembered that what he had said
before is that the workers, left to themselves, could never rise above a
trade-unionist conscience.


> 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.


"This" is what the all "spontaneism" polemics is about. Whether or not
the workers are an intrinsically revolutionary force in capitalist
society. Whether or not they absolutely need to be led and indoctrinated
>from outside in order to move decisively against their bosses and the
capitalist state.
The so called "spontaneist" position (v.g. Luxembourg) has nothing to do
with the economists or bernsteinists. You are abusively calumniating
Hekmat's and my positition.
I don't see any "maoist twist" or any sugestion that "right wing trade
union
leaders should be treated as anti imperialist allies all the time" in
Hekmat's document. You must be seeing things again, Bob.
Then, you say:

>
> 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 "whole point" is that Lenin wrote "What's to be done?" in 1903 and
then had a  "spontaneist" conversion, while Trotsky seems to have made
the reverse trajectory. I'm sure both of them could (or indeed have)
changed their minds again if the political needs of the time would
require it. This "stuff" is not theory to be writen in golden letters in
the book of Sinai, it has to do with the very immediate tasks of party
building and revolutionary organization. Beeing a "spontaneist" myself I
am prepared to look at things differently if, exceptionally, the
situation would require it. Anyway, and in last resort, the revolution
will be made by the workers and for the workers. That's what I've
learned from Lenin and Trotsky.


> 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 Worker-Communist Party of Iran is not a "party of the whole class".
Just read this bit here:

"In other words, it is neither a party derived from a
preconceived idea or theory that is now being held out to the working
class nor a party of all workers regardless of their social standpoint
or outlook. This is the party of the socialist workers who put forward a
more fundamental and comprehensive critique of the present system."

Why do you keep putting your preconceived ideas in front of serious
reading and analysis of clearly stated positions?



> I mean Lenin was quite alone in 1914! But it certainly didn't
> stop him from trying to argue the correct political points.
>

The "correct political points" can only be evaluated on a case by case
basis. If you read any biography of Lenin you will grasp this very
crearly. Yes, he was alone sometimes... inside the party. He wouldn't
split his way through, but fight with all his guts to make his points
prevail.

Then we have this discussion:

> >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!

I wish you would take back that Bernstein stuff. It makes discussing
with you very unpleasent.
There are no "organic arguments" here. What I say is that marxism is
nothing if not the self-reflection of the revolutionary elements among
the workers, who will prepare the way for the emancipation of the whole
class. I don't need to know if Marx and Engels were workers themselves.
Marxism is the living intellectual property of the workers' movement,
amassed and critically re-evaluated by all the workers who have,
anywhere and anyhow, stood against their bosses and fought back.
You say the working class is "beheaded" of leaders, but, in harmony with
your previous positions, what you mean is that no "revolutionary
professionals" are coming along with the "correct line" that will
imediately lead the workers to revolution like a magic flute. This is
very surprising indeed, since, according to you, the "correct line" is
already there since the beginning of the century. What's missing then? A
good barytone voice?


> 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!
> >

What I said is precisely that Lenin was not responsable for the defeat
(there was no "degeneration" here) of the russian revolution. He saw it
coming and diagnosed it correctly. I think he physically suffered from
it. But he could do nothing about it. There were no material conditions
for a workers revolutions to triumph, no matter how much amount of
"correct lines" and dedicated "revolutionary professionals" you would
throw at it.
Hell, if I dig anything of what else you're saying here!


> 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.
> >

Trotsky was not a menshevik on the party question in 1903-04. You just
don't get it, do you? Trotsky, at that time, was "spontaneist". He
emphasized workers' self-organization and warned against the dangers of
burocratism and the reaccionary potential of any entrenched party
apparatus.

Finally, this discussion:

> >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.
> >

Not a trace of stage theory can be found on Hekmat. About the unions,
nothing in it is substantially different from the 'Transitional Program'
(I've reached that part already). You have nothing serious against
Hekmat, except arguments from "What's to be done?" that Lenin himself,
on different circonstances, later disavowed.
What you do have is an entrenched sectarian mentality. It's like being
"blood" against the "creeps". A purely simbolic and imaginary identity,
with no rational content whatsoever. You think Hekmat and I are
stalinist babies and insist on making us kneal before Trotky's portait
and kiss 'Revolution betrayed' three times before you even consider
hearing what we're saying. I'll say that if we really are to have a
reconstruction of marxist politics, we must get rid of this mentality.
And damn those who won't move. That could mean you, Bob.


Warm salutes,


Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro



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