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 --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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