File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-10-02.060, message 55


Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 20:21:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: the state redux & socialism



Aha, now I stand exposed as the bourgeois counterrevolutionary I always
really ways, soliticious of the righrs of Rupert Murdock (an American
citizen, by the way, who has no vote in Britain, but has one here), and
contemptuous of the workers' capacity for self rule. Jolly good thing that
I will rounded up as soon as I start to orate such dangerous nonsense on
the morrow of the revolution and shut up properly, of coyrse by the most
democratic of all institutions, the worker's Extraordinary Committee for
the Suppression of Counterrevolution, knwon fondly to all as the Cheka.

Fortunately, all true revolutionaries can see that any connection between
this and totalitarianism is a cold war slander of Lenin's great
achievements. For naturely it follows from the fact that it's a good thing
if workers defend revolutionary against any counterrevolutionary attempts
to re-establish the old regime, that anyone who was anyone in the old
regime, and anyone who speaks on their behalf, and indeed anyone who is
suspected for being objectively oin the side of the old regime, has no
rights at all. Rights, after all, are bourgeois rubbish. The only only
thing taht counts are workers' interests, as defined by their proper
leaders in the Socialist Workers Party, the Bolshevik-Leninists.   

--Justin

On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Adam Rose wrote:

> 
> Justin's attack on the Marxist idea of a workers state has
> a long pedigree. While of course it was used by reformists 
> and outright pro capitalists during the era of the cold war,
> it actually goes further back than that.
> 
> As I argued previously, a workers state is a tool to deprive the
> bourgeoisie of its rights, just as a democratic state is a tool 
> that the bourgeoisie uses to deprive workers of their rights.
> This is really all that a workers state is, and this is precisely
> why as soon as it is established, it starts to whither away.
> 
> Because the working class is a large class, and the largest class
> in society, this state will be the most democratic, in fact the
> only truly  democratic [ in the sense of the imposition of the
> will of the majority onto the minority ] in history.
> 
> Depriving, for instance, Rupert Murdoch of his right to free 
> speech, and giving control of his newspapers to the workers that
> produce them, would be IMO one of the first tasks of any revolution.
> In fact, I don't even know whether or not Rupert Murdoch has a vote
> in Britain - the point is, this, for him, is the least important
> of his civil rights. As far as he is given civil rights, he will use
> those rights to reestablish a bourgeois dictatorship, with or without
> a democratic veneer.
> 
> Of course there will be grey areas. I hope a new workers state could be
> as liberal as possible. Having said this, one of the earliest and worse
> mistakes was to let the counter revolutionaries captured in the winter
> palace go "on their word as gentlemen" that they would not plot
> against the workers state. Every single one of them went on to command
> one or other of the white armies. Can you believe it ? These people should
> have at least been deprived of their liberty and probably of their lives
> as well.
> 
> My first answer is to the "how do you decide ?" question is that it is
> a political question. Are these people using these rights for the purpose
> of overthrowing the workers state ? How do we best prevent their success 
> in the present political circumstances ? It's not a question of "how many
> shares do you own ?" or anything like that.
> 
> My second  amd most important answer is that it is not the party that decides,
> but the working class through its democratic, anti parliamentary, institutions
> created during the revolution itself. The health and vibrancy of this working
> class democracy is the only guarantee anyone can give about the potential decline
> of workers power and the rise of counter revolution, "Stalinist" or otherwise.
> 
> But any abstract nonsense about giving the Rupert Murdoch's of this world any
> rights at all weakens workers democracy and strengthens all its enemies.
> 
> Adam.
> 
> 
> 
> Adam Rose
> SWP
> Manchester
> UK
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
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