From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Re: M-I: MR Sept 1968. French Upheaval and Leninism (fwd)
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:34:21 -0600 (CST)


This is a discussion carried over from m-i because I had used up my 3
posts there and wanted to continue the discussion now.

Carrol

Barkley wrote on Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:08 (e.s.t.)
> Carrol,
>      I think that you have defined this in a circular way.  
> What is a revolution?  If by a revolution one implies a 
> phenomenon in which the existing order is overthrown by 
> violent acts, often thought of as a necessary condition for 
> a political (if not economic or social) revolution, then 
> one is almost by definition dealing with "illegal acts".  
[SNIP]

I don't think so. Clearly an insurrection itself is tautologically illegal
("revolution" as I use *includes* but is far from confined to
insurrection). But from what I know about the Russian Revolution from
(say) 1905 to 1916, many if not most of the activities which would be
"legal" in the U.S. today would have been illegal. The most obvious of
course was precisely what we are doing now: communicating to each other
about revolution. I can declare here that I hope to overthrow the U.S.
government by violence, force, and subversion and appropriate the means of
production from their capitalist owners--and not only am I not going to be
sent to Siberia or shot, I'm not going to lose my retirement pay and my
wife is not going to lose her job with the post office. In fact I can say
this over an isp financed by the state of Illinois. I can also produce the
material for 10 to 30 letters to the editor on social security, distribute
that material to the contacts I have made here in Bloomington over 30
years of political activity, and make it clear to those potential writers
that while all I expect of them is agreement with me on the heinousness of
destroying social security I myself hope this will contribute in some ways
to making further contacts some of whom may agree with me as to the
necessity of the smashing of the the State and the institution of a
proletarian dictatorship. For 30 years I have made no bones in public or
private about those intentions.

How do you or anyone know that I am not just blowing smoke. That *is* Lou
Godena's conception of me. For all anyone, including me, knows, it might
be true. But supposing it isn't true now. Suppose my understanding of
marxism is more or less correct and I am in truth ("sincerely"??)
committed to revolution. After another 10 years of mostly (a) talking
about the importance of revolution and (b) fighting to protect social
security through electoral and non-electoral means (even including
occasional demonstrations that turn into riots), what is the probability
that by that time I will "sincerely" feel that the time is not "ripe" for
revolution, that even though suddenly 100s of thousands of men and women
are pouring into the streets, and a few have attacked police stations or
burned down national guard posts, that is all just chaos and our duty to
the revolution ("now") is to stop the ultra-leftism of the masses and
continue our "war of position" as Gramsci called it.

That is what happened in France in 1968. Only religionists like Rodwell
would believe that merely having the right dogma and reciting the right
rituals would automatically keep the "right leadership" from such a
"betrayal" of the working class. What Sweezey and Huberman in effect
suggest is that, without the discipline imposed on us by having many of
our activities, this discussion for example, "illegal," this will always
happen.

Being pure of heart and strong of intellect are *not* in themselves
sufficient assurance of revolutionary action when suddenly the masses are
in the streets, occupying the factories and schools, but need
coordination, need to have named for them what they are doing. And if
whatever revolutionary parties are around in fact are only "revolutionary
parties" afraid of revolution, what then.

We are looking at the period from 1905 to 1917, not the period from
February to October 1917, the period in France from 1945 to 1968, not just
May 68.

This is why Mark can claim that Wood is a reformer, not a revolutionary:
there is no test in practice *now* of one's commitment to a process moving
towards insurrection 5 or 10 or 20 years down the road.

Carrol

> > Lou P writes:
> > 
> > <<My problem with the MR article is that it conceives of a Leninist party
> > in an orthodox Cominternist fashion. This is no surprise since the entire
> > Marxist left in 1968 had not really thought through the question of
> > "democratic centralism", the "vanguard", etc. After the Marxist left
> > imploded in the 1980s, it was up to many of us to perform an autopsy.>>
> > 
> > I don't think the core point Sweezy and Huberman raise is necessarily
> > implicated in their (or our) conception of "the Party," but rather how
> > *any* communist party, primarily engaged in certain varieties of "reform"
> > or "defensive" struggles, can *remain* a communist party and not sink into
> > some variety or other of social democracy, thus becoming a barrier rather
> > than a part of revolutionary action.
> > 
> > Their two empirical points are historically accurate:
> > 
> > (1) No workers revolution has occurred in a bourgeois democracy
> > 
> > (2) All revolutions that did (even temporarily) succeed were led by
> > parties engaged in illegal struggle.
> > 
> > That does *not* establish *in principle* that a wholly legal party can
> > remain committed to workers revolution, it is merely an empirical summary,
> > but as Thoreau said someplace about finding a trout in the milk can, it
> > should give one furiously to think.
> > 
> > Lenin's point about *What Is To Be Done* being outmoded does justice to
> > only one aspect of the work. If one abstracts from its more concrete and
> > immediate content, it has surprising accuracy as a *description* and
> > analysis of *actually existing* organizations of all kinds inside
> > capitalist society. That is, "democratic centralism" can be read as
> > descriptive rather than merely prescriptive.
> > 
> > This perspective would not refute Lou's critique of what he calls
> > "orthodox comintern" interpretation of "Leninism," but it would require
> > some restatement of the critique.
> > 
> > Please, everyone, note that *all* conceptions of revolutionary strategy
> > and revolutionary parties in the advanced capitalist world exist only in
> > the mind: we have no positive models with a record of success.
> > 
> > Carrol
> > 
> > 
> >      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> -- 
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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