File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9706, message 264


From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: On Transition... Now on "Majoritarian methods"
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:34:12 -0500 (CDT)






Jason Shulman writes:
>
> Andrew Austin:
<SNIP>

The term "democratic socialism"

> ....
> wasn't used until after the advent of
> Stalinism.  <SNIP> refers not so much to a specific mode of
> production <SNIP>   was used to [refer to]
> the means of achieving it [socialism]--
> by majoritarian and thus democratic means. (Marxists are democratic
> socialists, unlike Blanquists, for example.)
>
> -- Jason
> _____

    To speak of achieving even a new elected bourgeois government by
"majoritarian means" is a trifle odd, giving the filtering system
and the number of non-voters. (In 1776 supposedly about 15% of
the colonists favored independence from GB.) A revolutionary over-
throw is achieved by a struggle between two minorities, with the
majority remaining passive for most of the struggle.

    But really, the idea of the working class achieving power *either*
legally and peacefully *or* by a conventional or unconventional military
struggle (which is what Louis G seems to have in mind when he speaks
of the U.S. working class's potential for revolution) is fairly absurd.
I
    It cannot (even were it desirable) be peaceful because of the
established willingness of the U.S. capitalist class to shed blood
indiscriminately. Several times on this list posters have grossly
misquoted (by only partly quoting) Marx on a peaceful struggle in
England or the United States. He said that *might* be possible because
there was no developed state and military bureaucracy in those two
nations. Could anyone describe the U.S. as without a developed
bureaucracy now?

    It is not desirable that it be wholly peaceful for the reason
implicit in the third of the Theses on Feuerbach:

    ...forgets that it is men that change circumstances and that
the educator himself needs educating. Hence, this doctrine necessarily
arrives at dividing society into two parts, of which one is superior
to society....

    The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of(f
human activity can be conceived and rationally understood only
as *revolutinising practice*.

    That change (in effect) in "human nature" is not going to be
brought about by distributing "Get out the Vote" leaflets door to
door. A "democratic" or "majoritarian" move to socialism would have
exactly the same effect as a Blanquist coup: it would leave the
working class (human activity) unchanged, and thus would result
in an authoritarian state.

    In fact, has it not been mentioned off and on over the last
70 years that one of the elements that twisted the Russian Revo-
lution was that it was too easily won to begin with. (All the
bloodshed came afterwards, in a Civil War, which offered slight
material grounds for the revolutionising of human activity.)

    The protracted struggle involved in both the Chinese and
Cuban revolutions was a plus for both. (The protracted military
struggle against the invading U.S. forces was a negative for
the Vietnamese Revolution, for in that more or less "pure military
struggle" all the gains of the prior "revolutinising practice" were
lost.

Carrol


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