Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 13:26:58 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-I: Hands up those who think Dave's lying!


Doubtless provoked by Rob S's amazing claim that: "Social Democrats
represent a powerful voice for  class politics at a time when the very
notion of class has been at risk of  disappearing" (for who? the working
class???), Dave B gives a very straightforward run-through of the choices
facing the working class and revolutionary socialists, under the heading of
"Jospin's compromise".

I'd be interested to see who's willing to say that Dave's lying when he
talks about the fact that "capitalism today is even closer to the polarised
and collapsing class system that Marx talked of" or capitalism's
willingness to "pull out the big stops and fascist shock troops" or "the
reformists will back down just as they did in the 1970's and early '80's".

In other words how many other list subscribers are willing to put their
faith in these delusions on the record like Chris B and Rob S have done?

We already have a long list of subscribers who have made it quite clear
that they have no faith whatever in the revolutionary potential of the
working  class, and a number of these see no working class at all in the
imperialist heartlands.

What a relief for all our no-working-class, no-revolutionary-party,
no-historical-development-of-capitalism-towards-socialism-or-barbarism,
no-Bolshevik-intransigence, no-money-where-your-mouth-is "Marxists" that
all the work's going to be done by someone else again! , Now all you lucky
people go and join Blair and Jospin in building a brave new Europe, the
perfect democratic republic where socialism will evolve without human
intervention and finally blossom without so much as breaking a bud as it
emerges!

Perhaps we should rename our lists Fairy-tales-international etc.

By the way, it's clear that there is a lot to discuss in the positions Dave
presents, but only on the basis of a class position that sees no solution
to the problems facing the working masses of the world without a socialist
revolution and an internationally viable federation of workers' states.

Cheers,

Hugh



PS Here's Dave's piece again:

>Seems that some people on this list are allowing themselves to become
>infatuated again with the promises of social democracy. Social
>democrats held back workers during the revolutionary crisis that
>brought an end to WWI. They prevented a European revolution.
>They, in the form of Stalinism, subordinated world revolution to the
>privileges of the bureaucracy. They, again, positing some historic
>schema failed to stop Hitler. They, collaborated with the bourgeoisie
>to smash workers revolutions during and after WW2.  Then they took
>credit for the post-war boom, and having failed abysmally to live up
>to their promises of humanising capitalsm, now they expect workers to
>line up behind them yet again even while they are abandoning any
>concept of class.
>
>No. If the Yaffe article on Globalisation proved anything, it is that
>capitalism today is even closer to the polarised and collapsing class system
>that Marx talked of. Capitalism will only offer reforms if it makes
>profits.  Otherwise it  pulls out the big stops and fascist shock troops.
>Today world capitalism cannot offer reforms. Jospins's shorter working
>week will be for less pay. Of course we should support it as a demand
>without loss of pay!   But the bosses will refuse to pay because it will
>cut into their profits.
>
>The reformists will back down just as they did in the 1970's and early '80's.
>Only if  workers are mobilised to carry through this demand be occupying
>workplaces and running them under workers control will there be any gains
>from a shorter working week. For that to happen the workers will have to take
>power against any "socialist" governemnt that will bring out the cops
>and the army to smash workers occupations. . And this will have to be Europe
>wide. So roll on a united Europe workers movement led by a Trotskyist
>vanguard!
>
>But these most recent delusions are part of a wider Menshevik
>worldview, itself the product of petty bourgeois cowardice in the
>face of the current period of bourgeois reaction.  Another thing that
>Yaffe's article on Globalisation showed was that the semi-colonial
>world outside the few favoured nations such as the Asian Tigers and
>now China, are being starved of capital. So there is going to be no
>Menshevik, social-imperialist schema that can work to propel these
>countries through a democratic stage of industrialisation and a
>growing working class in preparation for socialism.
>
>Louis Proyect worries about how socialist revolutions can occur in
>countries like Zaire-Congo which are fated to remain semi-colonial
>quarries for imperialism. How can the peasants and workers jump out
>of their tribal society and ready themselves for socialism? Well
>obviously the Bolsheviks had the answer - the struggle to complete
>the bourgeois-democratic revolution would pass over into the
>socialist revolution as permanent revolution, not in one country
>alone, but but  with the aid of revolution in other parts of
>Africa, against Mandela to be specific, and of course in the
>imperialist  countries like the US.
>
>Louis should stop worrying about how the Congolese will overcome
>their backwardness, and stand up against his own backwardness. The
>backwardness that really counts is that of the mensheviks in the
>imperialist countries who impose social imperialist schemas on 3rd
>world countries rather than fighting to overthrow their own
>imperialist rulling classes. It is menshevik backwardness to judge
>workers in semi-colonial countries  [like Russia in 1917 and Congo in
>1997) incapable of socialist revolution, all the while adapting to
>democratic imperialism, and some idealist notion of workers democracy
>that will have to exist  before any vanguard [horrors] party is worth
>joining.
>
>Such menshevik intellectuals are a ball and chain around the necks of
>workers and  will have to be removed before they are able to move
>forward.
>Dave.
>
>
>
>> Thanks for this Jorn.  You're very right about something very important.
>>
>> The lessons I take from this are: (1) Take seriously what people want in
>> the here and now; (2) Support for direct government-sponsored job creation
>> should be complete; (3)  Social Democrats represent a powerful voice for
>> class politics at a time when the very notion of class has been at risk of
>> disappearing; (4)  While revolutionary purists point to inevitable
>> back-downs by socdems they fail to notice that, hitherto, just about
>> everybody else has failed to notice them; (5) Revolutionaries who visibly
>> and actively struggle, as separate entity but in absolute solidarity, with
>> parliamentary socdems for explicit reforms will get noticed; (6)
>> Socialists have some reason to believe their cause is healthier today than
>> it was a decade ago (not that it could have got much sicker).
>>
>> Good stuff!
>>
>> Rob.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>
>Dave Bedggood
>
>
>     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---





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