New Forms of Democracy for a Future Socialist Mainstream
Posted by Mike E on March 19, 2010
Contested elections were an important arean for the earlier revolution against slave owners -- after the decisive armed civil war had shifted power.
by Mike Ely
Joseph Ball wrote, in an accompanying thread:
“It’s sometimes claimed that the multi-party elections in this system will take place under the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this makes no sense at all. If it’s a dictatorship of the proletariat how can you allow bourgeois parties to compete for power with the party of the proletariat? It is absurd to believe that elections could routinely take place between two parties both with a proletarian line. The proletariat has a common interest. It’s vanguard should be encouraging unity not institutionalising a split so we can blindly copy bourgeois democracy. Multi-party democracy has a material basis in capitalism because different factions of the bourgeoisie have different selfish interests. Not so the proletariat.”
Joseph articulates here a view and a logic inherited from the Comintern. It assumes that the Stalin-era state form is inherent in the process of socialist transition and in the very nature of the working class as a historic revolutionary agent. I think this views deserves a respectful discussion and repudiation. It is a view that I disagree with on almost every level. I think it is refuted by actual experience (including the experience of capitalist restoration). I think it has been deeply challenged by Mao’s view on continuing revolution — and needs to be challenged even further. This theory rests on a way of thinking that is deeply schematic and mechanical, and really doesn’t bother to look at living reality in a creative or penetrating way.
* * * * * * *
First, let me say, as an introduction… that I don’t believe that multparty competitive elections are a form that all future socialist society need universally adopt.
I think that it is not possible to assert or assume any single form of state organization. Capitalist politics have many forms — constitutional monarchy, electoral democracy, fascism etc. And I assume that socialism will have a great many diverse forms over its historical transition — and it already has had quite diverse forms already — starting with the Paris Commune, the Russian Soviets, the stages of Stalin-era state, and the many Chinese forms from Chingkang mountains to the Cultural Revolution.
But I am interested to see an experiment in such an electoral form in some future revolution — including the one that the Nepali Maoists want to initiate. Competitive electoral democracy may not be possible or appropriate in some countries or in some revolutions or in some moments — there may not be “other” parties able to participate in such a process. But I would not rule it out, either.
Besides competitive electoral democracy, there may be other radical forms of socialist democracy we should consider (or invent together with the people): commune forms, cultural revolution style formations, and perhaps even yet-unimagined forms made possible by modern communications.
I think there may also be future cases where a party-state remains the only option possible — though even there our experience shows we would need to incorporate radical new proposals for popular input and supervision.
(An example from history: In 1918, Lenin tried to have a coalition government with the Left Social-Revolutionaries, but that coalition broke down over signing a peace treaty with Germany. Then a Left SR shot Lenin. The assassin declared that Lenin was restoring capitalism and caving in to imperialism. In other words, you can try to have a broader approach, but sometimes you don’t find viable partners in the actual political moment. Does Joseph Ball want to argue that this Russian attempt was wrong in principle, because the Left SR’s were inherently a bourgeois party — rather than a quite radical peasant-and-middle-class party? Was Lenin violating the dictatorship of the proletariat by bringing them into the government? Was Mao wrong in bringing a wing of the left GMD into his 1949 government? Hasn’t previous communist theory held that a worker peasant alliance in early USSR, or even a broader governmental united front in China can be a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat?)
What About Democratic Forms in a Socialist North America?
Speaking about the United States (which is what I’ve studied most closely), I find it hard to imagine several things:
I don’t believe that a socialist society could emulate the “two-party” pattern of the old society — because that is too exposed as a shadow play. Radical people have (or should have) a real sense of how such a system can manipulate popular participation for quite reactionary purposes.
I also can’t imagine that people emerging from the former U.S. will ever adopt the patterns of multiparty European-style parliamentary democracy, even in the context of new socialist transformations. And, at the same time, (as should be quite obvious) there is a deeply rooted and overall positive belief among people in the U.S. that governments derive their legitimacy from periodic assessments of popular approval — i.e. that the governments and leaders should face contested elections with relatively unrestrained criticism and debate.
There will never be socialism in the U.S. (I believe) without some forms of unrestrained debate, structured competition over policy and popular legitimization. Or put another way: If the actual circumstances of socialist revolution force us to set up a state without these features (and this could happen) — it will be a weak state and an endangered one.
So what forms could socialist democracy take in a post-U.S. North America? How will patterns of self-determination and autonomy play out? Will this society be broken up into different states? Or will there be a new pattern of local decision and federation-wide decision (allowing for both national self-determination for oppressed peoples, and for different paces of radical change in widely desperate regions)?
Local rights have consistently been a vehicle for reactionary politics in the U.S. — posse comitatus and “states rights” — and specifically they have been a form of defending “peculiar institutions” of slavery and Jim Crow. In the Maoist movement, we have always joked that “States rights means ‘let the crackers decide.’”
But in a socialist society, local democratic autonomy could have a radically different character, finally acknowledging forms of self-determination and distinctive cultures. The danger is (of course) that it can also lead to major pockets of reactionary dominance (think Idaho, Texas or Montana) — or at least a different slower pace of social transformation (think Tibet under Mao). North America is a very large and diverse area — it is hard to imagine running it as a single, compact, homogenous political entity. Various forms of local autonomy, different policies, and different pacing are inevitable.
Will revolutionary nationalist parties contend with revolutionary communist ones in a future socialist society? Will the social democratic politics of a Michael Moore or a Bruce Springsteen have thoughtful expression alongside the more radical forces?
My thought is: Why not?
I don’t see why we should rule out a new form of competitive socialist electoral democracy, in principle or by using some schematic deductive logic. Certainly, it is wrong insist (as Joseph Ball does) that such a thing impossible by its very nature, or by the very nature of the socialist process.
A Mechanical Schema
Joseph makes a basic argument that starts with a basic assertion:
“The proletariat has a common interest.”
Therefore, (by deduction) it can only have one party. And further, it would be wrong to “split” into two parties. The bourgeoisie (which has rivalries and competing interests inherently) can have multiple parties, but we can have only one.
Further (by logical deduction from that initial assertion), a plan for a multiparty election under socialism must be a plan for allowing the supposedly overthrown bourgeoisie itself to repeatedly contest for power.
Then comes the second assertion: Allowing the bourgeoisie to organize and contest for power is inherently opposed to a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Finally, if you scan that list of assertions and deductions, you get presented with a conclusion that the plan for multiparty elections violates the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (QED.)
I think that every part of this is muddled and dogmatic.
First, I don’t think we can proceed methodologically from this kind of assertion.
The Contradictions of Revolutionary Interests
For one thing: Who says the proletariat only has one common interest? Who says that this can and should only be expressed in one party?
In fact, there are (among the radical revolutionary forces and working people) inevitably conflicts, different pulls, and different approaches. And only through struggle and debate does it become clear which road advance toward communism and which return to capitalism. Its not like “we have a common interest so our path is clear” — in some obvious and inherent way. (Negative example from the 1950s in East Germany: audio and text of “The Party is always Right.”)
On the contrary: the working class (and broader allied working classes) are stratified, and have complex different histories, nationalities, positions and layers of interest. Nationality conflicts may be resolved on the basis of internationalism through a real world process, but they are not simply identifyable or easily reducible to some facile “common proletarian interest.”
There are immediate sectoral interests in society, and (often in contradiction) long term and historic interest. (And example is the short term interest of workers in many countries against imports, and our common long term interest in an intertwined world.)
Working people may have a common historic interest in ending all oppression (and I think we do, and i think that common interest is shared with much of humanity, not just the proletariat) — a common interest in socialist revolution, in a classless world, of ecological sustainability, and so on. But that is precisely a long term historic interest — at a fairly high level of abstraction.
There is not a simple one-to-one correlation of that historic interest to immediate policy. And in fact, on policy and road, there is a lot of room for conflict, debate and public contention over line, policy, tactics, etc. What is the “mass line” if not a Maoist approach of winning people (broadly) to policies, and learning from people’s views in formulating policies?
In addition there is quite simply the contradiction between new and old –including the fact that historically revolutionary parties have aged, and turned into their opposite. And we have to grapple with that, and find method (including political mechanisms) for overcoming that.
The Nepali Proposal for a New Mainstream
The Nepali Maoists are not simply suggesting that their party contest with old bourgeois parties (i.e. not overthrow the political institutions of the old society — the comprador-feudal parties like Congress).
They are calling for the transition from an old semi-feudal political “mainstream” to a new peoples democratic mainstream. The assumption is that there would be a different (constitutional) framework, that the various parties would be (more or less) operating in the framework of supporting the revolutionary changes, and that the old parties of the old system would be overthrown (or split).
And in Nepal, where there are large numbers of radical parties and currents (including among oppressed nationalities) there may well be a basis for a lively and diverse new political mainstream — that engages in energetic supervision of the government, challenges at elections, and debate over policy.
Why is that impossible? Or at least, why is not possible at times?
Also: Is it true that you can’t have more than one revolutionary party?
Personally, I think this view (associated with Stalin) is rather reductionist and mechanical. And it also assumes that the “proletarian party” is rather uniformly proletarian (and correct). That view (of the monolithic party with an established class character) is contradicted by history. It has been proven false.
In fact, the victorious revolutionary parties have revealed a rather complex dual character — in which the bourgeoisie was quite able to contend and fight for power. the “dictatorship of the proletariat” did not consist of simply crushing the reactionary parties, abolishing the old property forms, and then creating a new happy society free of exploiters and their views. At the very moment that Stalin was proclaiming this (in the late 1930s), powerful anti-socialist forces were in fact ascendant, and were even prospering within precisely the purges intended to consolidate socialism. Don’t we have to draw lessons from that? Didn’t Mao in particular draw lessons from that?
Mao said (by contrast) that we have to learn how to expose our own dark side, and from below. He argued that revolutionaries should repeatedly “go through the gate” of popular criticism and approval. He said “what is wrong with going down?” (Meaning: being removed from your post under popular criticism, being replaced by others with different approaches, and learning from that experience of political defeat.)
Shouldn’t we creatively explore ways to do all that?
Mao tried through wavelike mass struggles that challenged (and even shattered and tried to rebuild) his own party during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. That is a powerful and important legacy. But again, I don’t think we should turn every episode into a solitary “model” or “universal.”
Shouldn’t we explore other ideas for “exposing our own dark side, and from below”?
So, to sum up:
I don’t assume that multiparty elections means that we are simply allowing the old reactionary parties a continued existence under socialism. I don’t assume that revolutionary ideas need only come from one anointed party forever — in fact I assume that such parties age and ossify, especially if they are not constantly shaken up, challenged by new upsurges, and drawn into critical debate. And finally, on a more theoretical level, i think it is highly reductionist to simply assert that “the proletariat has only one common interest” or that this leads (automatically) to a single expression in one party (with, i assume, an inherently correct line). In fact, the proletariat (as it actually exists in our world) has complex interests, complex pulls, nationality contradictions, stratification, different political currents, and a need to work those things through in a living political process (which could, potentially, include many party competitive elections).
PT Cruz said
The assumption we must challenge is that representation can only be apportioned by place of residence (in district-based systems) or by relative turnout (in party-list PR systems).
These are the unquestioned assumptions of bourgeouis parliamentarism – they are ideology in the purest sense.
There is no reason whatsoever why representation cannot be distributed by income, or by occupation, or by some other metric than residency. And in fact this has been done in various ancient and capitalist societies – voting in the Roman comitia centuriata was broken down by age and property, and even today the 26-county state in Ireland has Senate seats elected by graduates of a few elite universities. And then you have systems where individual electors have a weighted vote, as in many 19th century Europeans constitutions.
Status-based apportionment has a long history of use in favor of various ruling classes. It may have a place in future socialist societies as well.
Also,is the secret ballot sacrosanct? I don’t know. In US Democratic politics, caucus elections generally lead to (relatively speaking within the small shade of difference permitted) more progressive outcomes.
Again, sortition (selection for office by lot) was a mainstay of ancient democracy. It’s not used today except for juries. But why not?
Imagine a US Congress, with 10 Senators elected from and by each income decile meeting in local caucuses nationwide, and a large House of Representatives, say 1000 members, chosen by sortition.
You get socialism. Or a coup. But anyway the point stands.
Joseph Ball said
I don’t want to simply repeat what I’ve already said, so I’ll just confine myself to two points for now.
Mike writes:
No-one is saying that people in socialism shouldn’t express different views during debates within the party and the revolutionary organs of power. But why do people keep confusing this with the desirability of different parties existing? A party represents a class or a faction of a class and its aim is to seize power from other classes or other factions of classes. Is this the kind of competition we want when there is socialism?
It would hardly be a revolution if this is what serves for our political system. Revolutionary organs of power are about the working class exercising control over society as a whole. They are not about the working class passively ticking boxes to choose between different self-interested groups.
Mike also writes:
Mike might argue he is just repeating Mao’s critique of Stalin here. But look at the context he is saying this in-an argument for multi-party democracy. This seems to be a rehash of a line I am by now all too familiar with. This is the line that argues for multi-party democracy because the party is divided between capitalist roaders and socialist roaders anyway so we might as well allow different parties. This is a capitulationist line.
When Mao identified the capitalist line in the party, he did so in order to struggle against it and crush it. He didn’t identify this line as part of some celebration of political diversity and pluralism, as defenders of the UCPN(M) often imply. A revolution is not a dinner party. It is about getting rid of those who want to live their lives through the exploitation and oppression of others. It makes no sense at all to start from the position that a capitalist line exists within the Communist Party and then go on to argue that this means this line should be strengthened by allowing it the right to organise and the right to take power through elections. For middle class activists the rights of the capitalist roaders might be some academic question. For the workers and peasants the right of the capitalist roaders to organise means the difference between them being the controllers of their own destiny and being thrown back into lives of explotiation and oppression.
saoirse said
i have a whole jumble of contradictory feelings about multi party socialism. That said, I am for it. as a maoist, of sorts, I see the struggle for socialism continuing after the revolution. the “capitalist roaders” aren’t going to emerge and be neatly crushed once and for all. Deng led a long life while counter revolution and the restortation of capitalism may always be a possibility.
Mike E said
Joseph writes:
I think this raises a point worth clarifying.
First, i think Joseph misunderstands what is being said.
The Nepali Maoissts are not suggesting that the current parties be allowed to continue running in future socialist elections. They have explicitly pointed out that their conception of socialist democracy excludes parties (like the Congress) that represent feudal and comprador forces. And (as should be clear) feudal and comprador forces are (programmaticallyu and historically) hostile to the very framework that will define peoples democracy in a New Nepal.
Similarly (to use an example of the U.S.) no one is arguing that a socialist democracy would consist of the (current) Democratic Party and the (current) Republican Party plus some array of commuist forces.
The revolutionary transition to socialism needs the overthrow of the political forces of this society, and the repudiation of their politics, ideology, etc. REactionary forces will have been defeated and exposed (if revolutionary victory means anything).
There will always be forces within a socialist society who argue for a return to capitalism — it is hard to imagine they won’t emerge and reemerge. But no one here is arguing for the inclusion of the reactionary bourgeois, feudal and comprador parties.
In addition, Joseph seems to be ignoring the idea that this multiparty vision for socialism proposed by the Nepali Maoists is rooted in the idea of a new political mainstream consisting of revolutionary parties operating in a new framework that is a quantum leap away from the old political mainstream and framework.
Further:
I have never heard anyone argue that “capitalist roaders will inevitably emerge so let’s just let them have their own party.” Perhaps there are people who believe this.
I think the lesson of the last century is more complex: And that is that even if you forbid bourgeois parties, the arguments for returning to capitalism will be advanced in often disguised form from people claiming to be communists. And it will emerge in the leading levels of your own communist party — because of the very objective contradictions of socialist transition. I.e. not because of paid foreign spy networks, or capitalists “worming their way” into the central committee — but because the very process of socialism will tranform former revolutionaries into capitalist-roaders (and even sections of the people) who will say “this is my stop, this is where I get off.” And they will argue against further socialist transformation and revolutionary change.
No one has argued that there should not be class struggle under socialism. Or that restorationist forces should be given free rein. Or that capitalist roaders deserve their own party — as some kind of bourgeois right.
However it is worth saying that a major problem (both in China and the USSR) is that people (broadly) were ultimately not able to distinguish between the socialist road and the capitalist road — that people were not able to see that the line of capitalist modernization would lead to the restoration of oppression. And it is worth considering if part of the solution doesn’t lie in much more open and detailed debate over policy and road — including within the framework of elections.
Finally, I think a core issue is that Joseph doesn’t believe you can have two revolutionary parties. He seems to assume that if you have one revolutionary and communist party that all other parties must be by default objectively bourgeois and reactionary.
This is part of the legacy of the Stalin years, where it was often assumed that ultimately everything fell out in a binary way — and since “we” were the proletarian revolutionaries, then (by logical deduction) everyone else, including especially those who criticized us, had to be the bourgeois counterrevolutionaries. This kind of narrow and mechanical thinking has led to all kinds of mistakes large and small (including the famous 1940s errors of Lysenko in the soviet Union, or a very sectarian approach among some communists toward other leftists, on down to the bizarre-but-forgettable announcement by some forces that we in Kasama are “counterrevolutionaries.”)
Josephs assumption that all other parties must be bourgeois is (i believe) a rather unjustifiable view. History is full of contrary experiences. Virtually all genuine revolutionary moments had complex alliances and coalitions. I cited earlier the emergence of Left Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia, who (for a period) joined the Bolsheviks in the civil war, the revolution and the government.
In the U.S., it is hard to imagine a revolutionary movement without “many flags in the field” — including broad multinational communist formations, but also national formations of African American and other minority peoples. Here (as in Nepal) a revolution would include groupings tearing themselves away from previous political moorings and moving toward a revolutionary pole — creating new political organizations and ideas as they did so, in a hot mix.
Why would we assume that we couldn’t have different parties contending within a socialist North America? In fact, it is hard to imagine one party emerging that had (alone) the support and legitimacy throughout a country as complex and diverse as the former U.S. — both revolution and a future government would almost certainly involve a variety of political forces more-or-less united on a framework of socialist transformation — and then struggling (over time) over disagreements. And (in regard to their disagreements) I don’t at all assume taht the revolutionary communists would always be right, and the other parties would always be wrong.
(Lenin was famous for jettisoning his own party’s agrarian program, and adopting whole-cloth the agrarian program of the Left Socialist Revolutioanries — isn’t there a lot to learn from that experience?)
Alastair Reith said
It’s also worth noting that there were multiple parties operating within the fold of the Chinese Revolution, both in 1949 and for a long time afterwards. Mike has already pretty much made all the point I would have, so I’ll leave it at that.
PT Cruz said
We need to avoid an idealist error here: a party is not simply a list of candidates, nor is it merely a like-minded group of people.
A party is a material-ideological apparatus that mobilizes labor to capture state resources and convert them into ideological hegemony. In plain language, jobs for votes. Party structure is part of the means of production, with all that entails for any program of socialist revolution.
Also, a party-state is not the same as a state where only one party is allowed. A party-state is one where the party structure is so deeply embedded within the state apparatus that it is essentially co-equal to the actual government.
Iran had only one legal party towards the end of the Shah’s reign, but it was never a party-state. Whereas Malaysia has many legal competitive parties, but it’s nevertheless a party-state under the dominant Barisan Nasional. And the current regime in Iran has no official party and many candidate lists, none of them enduringly dominant. But it’s essentially a party-state – the official government dwarfed by para-state cadre apparatus.
Perhaps noteworthy: of the Middle Eastern regimes that are not American clients, 100% are party-states. Iran, Yemen, Syria, formerly Iraq, and the Hezbollah statelet in South Lebanon. By aligning the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy with the state, a party-regime buys itself a certain amount of inoculation against international capital. (Cf. the 1997 Asian crisis, where Malaysia told the IMF to piss up a rope while the various dictatorships and “multiparty democracies” around it fell into the waiting vampiric clutch of the Washington consensus).
Joseph Ball said
Mike says: ‘However it is worth saying that a major problem (both in China and the USSR) is that people (broadly) were ultimately not able to distinguish between the socialist road and the capitalist road — that people were not able to see that the line of capitalist modernization would lead to the restoration of oppression. And it is worth considering if part of the solution doesn’t lie in much more open and detailed debate over policy and road — including within the framework of elections.’
Well, here is the line that given a capitalist line emerges in the party anyway, you might as let these people have their own party! Mike is arguing that the struggle between the capitalist road and socialist road can be argued through ‘a detailed debate’ and ‘within the framework of elections’. This view is the height of revisionism. The question of which class will control society-capitalists or proletarians cannot be resolved by any such means.
Am I living on the same planet as everyone else? Do the supporters of Kasama live on my planet where even social democrats like Aristide, Zelaya and Thaksin Shinawatra are overthrown in coups? Do they live in a world where the proletariat are denied the same educational opportunities as the bourgeoisie and in a world where the administration of the state and the formation of cultural and political ideas have been done by the bourgeoisie? In such a world the question of which line succeeds can only be resolved by means of class struggle. The bourgeoisie aren’t going to roll over and let it be resolved by any debate-a debate which, in any case, they have the advantage in due to their control over the ruling ideas of society.
I have never seen much evidence the Nepal Maoists are planning to ban Congress. The one’s I’ve spoken to have denied this. I understand Gaurav recently may have hinted at this but I don’t think this is the mainstream party view.
Mike keeps raising the ‘Left Social-Revolutionaries’ in the context of discussions of alternative revolutionary parties. But the Social-Revolutionaries mainly defected to the Whites. The ones that didn’t joined the Communist Party. Their history proves my point that you really only ever get one proletarian party in any given revolution, with the others all being fakes. The 8 democratic parties in China were never meant to represent the proletariat. Rather they were meant to represent the other ‘revolutionary classes’ such as the national bourgeoisie. Their existence doesn’t contradict any of my points.
Vivid Visionary said
Joseph Ball:
I can see where you are coming from, and I think the questions you raise are very real and legitimate.
This came to my mind as I was studying this debate: how would the Cultural Revolution have played out (considering its complexity of lines and confusion this caused amongst the people) if there were different political parties competing at the same time?
There’s no clear answer to this, but multiple political parties would allow more space for capitalist roaders to organize around their respective lines. This isn’t an argument against multi-party competition under socialism, but there are very real dangers to it.
Of course, the one-party state can’t be the answer to this, seeing how it was such political forms which fell into the hands of restorationists in the Soviet Union and China. Because it WAS class struggle which led to capitalist restoration. What if there were differing political alternatives for the people to choose from, as a part of this class struggle under socialism where the people come to grasp and act on the major questions (life and death questions) facing them?
Mike E said
I think that there were in fact many openly different political trends competing in the Cultural Revolution. In the Shanghai January storm there were literally hundreds of different revolutionary organizations. In the Red Guard movement there were a number of sharply opposed networks, often operating nationally, with radically different politics — operating essentially as multiple political parties.
Vivid says:
That is, in fact, what we seem to be discussing here — the fact that it has been argued the one party state IS the answer — more specifically that it is the necessary and universal form of socialist politics. I think that is a failure of imagination and a failure to appreciate the experience of the last century.
Mike E said
Joseph writes:
Actually I am not arguing this.
First, i have not arguing that “the framework of election” will prove effective for socialism. I merely said i am eager to see an experiment, and do not rule it out apriori. (And the arguments that assume it can’t work are often rooted in rather mystical arguments — i.e. that “the proletariat only has one interest,” so therefore can only have one party, presumably without factions… and that all other parties and trends are assumed to be “bourgeois” by definition. Elections may not prove workable under socialism in all cases, but that method of faux-logical assertion will always and forever be sterile.)
Second, I don’t believe (for a second) that the problems of socialist transformation (or capitalist restoration) will be solved simply by adopting an electoral framework. No one has argued that.
I think there is a lot to say about Mao’s experiment with mass storms of struggle — in waves — and in the initiation of new revolutions (literally new seizures of power) under the conditions of existing socialism.
Why not consider a new socialist mainstream, a framework that includes elections and also assume that restorationist plans will be confronted by waves of new revolution?
But to get the heart of the larger point:
The problem of capitalist restoration is not solved by forms. Forms affect the way the struggle erupts and is conducted. It may influence how prepared the people are, and what resources they can bring to bear. Forms may influence the degree of self-organization and political involvement among the people.
But I don’t think that formal innovations will prevent restoration, or leave the people (automatically) in a position to prevent the ebbing of revolution.
On the contrary, revolutionary power and progress require winning conflict in the particular moment of struggle — over and over. Revolution is a process. And its reversal is not simply the result of “mistakes,” or forms, or some inevitable winding down…
I think that ongoing political debate, organized contestation, and a process of repeatedly “going through the gate” would be beneficial to socialist power.
The communist party I just emerged from (the RCP in the U.S.) had zero internal accountability. The membership had zero ability to criticize leadership in any serious or effective ways. Failures went unexamined, and often incompetent people had key responsibilities and made a mess of things for years.
I think that there are some formal ways in which mass debate and accountability should be upheld. It doesn’t solve the problems of class struggle. It doesn’t guarantee victory. It doesn’t replace the need for new revolutionary upsurges and waves. But clearly we need to find forms of socialist politics that have wide debate, open public criticism, and popular supervision of the communists (not just of capitalism) assumed, built in and respected.
future's ours said
Dear comrades.
Actually this is a central question of how to build a socialist society.
In Peru, Abimael Guzman – Chairman Gonzalo – has summed up Marxist theory in the following way.
The proletariat is represented by a party, that is, by one party. The Proletarian party is the nucleus around which all the communist policies are made and emitted.
Surrounding the Party, there is the people’s army. To protect it, to struggle for the materialization of the communist policies. And of course, no posts, no generals or marshals.
The army is subjected to the Party.
Surrounding the people’s army, is the United Front. Of all the social classes: the peasantry, the middle classes, etc.
The state is the embodiment of the united front.
As you see, the nucleus is the Party, and not the State.
If you are talking about several parties within a State, what do you give privilege to? The State, as above the Communist Party?
What we are talking here, is a Party which is not divorsed from the people. There should be a dynamics such that, all the suggestions from the people should be heard, and immediately.
If there is problem within the Party, in a socialist society, a Cultural Revolution is launched. That is, when Mao Tsetung took the streets. He aired the problems to the people.
I think this is one important way of looking at things. I really don’t understand what the multiparty system in a socialist system would aim at.
future's ours said
But, at the end of everything, is Mao’s theme of “Rebelion is justified”
Rebelion is justified means you don’t have to obey anything you don’t believe in. If you consider that such a command is mistaken, harmful for your people. Well then you have to rebel.
Even against the Party, the army, the State what so ever.
This is the guiding principle of a socialist or a communist behavior. That is because, simply, a communist Party can turn revisionist, a State can turn burgeois, and the army can also become reactionary.
But a multiparty organization is not going to solve those problems. It is the will of the people.
And therefore a core problem would be: is there democracy enough? Do the people participate in the problems and not be repressed?
Is the power of the State working for the people? Or is it against the people, as it is happening in China?
Tell No Lies said
I think Mike’s point here is key. Particular formal structures are no guarantee against capitalist restoration, nor are they a substitute for class struggle, but they can facilitate conditions of greater debate and accountability, or not. The experience of one-party states in the construction of socialism suggests profound limitations of a form that, it must be acknowledged, was developed within and reflected societies with little or no experience of even bourgeois democracy. One-party socialist states were not simply a product of thoughtful reflection on what the most appropriate forms, they were also reflections of the underdevelopment of the democratic political life of the masses. There is an odd presumption in these discussions that the masses of people in countries that have experienced genuinely competitive elections are actually potentially receptive to the virtues of one-party rule. I do not believe this to be the case.
Joseph Ball said
Mike’s line is now veering towards the eclectic brand of revisionism. This is the line that states that we should adopt capitalist methods, such as multi-party electons but not rule out revolutionary proletarian means either. The fact is that you have to decide between the socialist line and the capitalist line. You cannot uphold both at once, though very many pretend to-remember Hua Guofeng? You either want to suppress the bourgeoisie or you want to allow them to organise. You cannot simultaneously suppress an exploiting class while institutionalising its rights to organise and providing it with political rights.
I wish Mike had been with us in the UK in the 1980s. At that time virtually all the British ‘revolutionary’ Left had this line of either joining the Labour Party or at least encouraging workers to join it. Their argument was always the same-they were doing it ‘in addition’ to preparing for revolution. Once the Labour party made it clear they would root out all the Trotskyists, the British revolutionary Left melted like snow in the Spring sunshine. It’s current existence is a small fraction of what it was in the 1980s. Why? Because it never was revolutionary at all. Once it’s parasitic relationship with the Labour Party was finished it lost all purpose and its members, lacking any meaningful activity to pursue, dispersed. It never had been doing revolutionary work ‘in addition’ to its reformist work so with reformist routes blocked it simply dissolved.
The same is true of the UCPN(M) now its revolutionary governments are dissolved. It lives or dies on the basis of whether it can maintain itself within the framework of the comprador state in Nepal. Either it establishes itself as a big player in bourgeois politics there, or it is crushed by the bourgeoisie. For example, consider Ian Martin’s call to ‘end impunity’ (http://www.newschool.edu/uploadedFiles/ici/News_and_Events/IM_NewSchool_6Nov09_final.pdf).(Ian Martin is ex-head of UNMIN in Nepal.) This sounds like a call for the UCPN(M)’s members to be charged with offences related to the 1996-2006 war. Impossible? Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary thought they’d been amnestied too but then the western human rights lobby decided to end the culture of impunity (for non-westerners). As the western lobbyists admitted themselves they deliberately kept their mouths shut about human rights charges while the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea was laying down its arms for fear of derailing the ‘peace process’. Sounds familiar anyone?
future's ours said
Dear comrades
About the debate we are having here, it is a very important question concerning socialism.
Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, has summed up Marxist theory concerning this matter.
He says that the Communist Party is the nucleus of all revolutionaries. It is the place where the most important political matter are discussed and solved. And it should be one party only, because the proletarian interests are represented there.
Surrounding the Communist Party, is the people’s army. It exists in order to protect the Party, and therefore is subjected to it. There should be no bourgeois hierarchy in its ranks, there shouldn’t be elits like generals or marshals.
Surrounding the people’s army is the people, organized in united front, and the State is a united front. Of course the State has its constitutional power, etc, but of course the most selected people, the leaders, are formed in the Party.
The Party is the nucleus, and not the State.
But a multiparty within a state would imply the contrary. There the different parties struggle and compaign to have a post, a position within a State. It is head down and bottom up.
Which should hold a higher position, the party or the State? Therefore this multiparty stuff is beyond my understanding.
Because this party in socialism, is totally opposed to a party in a capitalist system. This communist party is supposed to be open to all suggestions and opinions by the people. And immediately.
And of course Mao’s principle that “It is justified to rebel”, is totally applicable. It is the people’s right to rebel against anything they do not agree on. If there is some command that I consider harmful to socialism or to the people, my duty is to oppose it and to fight against it.
The power of the Party, of the State, is suppose to represent me, not to repress me when I rebel. And there are mechanisms within the socialist system to treat this problem.
We are supposed to debate, to discuss the problems within this party. When the problem becomes too big, the bourgeoisie position too strong, as in the case with Deng Xiaoping, Mao Xedong took the issue to the streets, aired it to the people. And we had the Cultural Revolution.
This is what I have learned.
Mike E said
Joseph writes:
there is an underlying logic here: Multiparty elections are declared to be capitalist methods. The one party state is declared to be a universal form for socialism.
Once you declare those things, you can assert that those who consider multi-party elections want to “adopt capitalist methods.”
In fact, I am proposing a multiplicity of revolutionary means and arenas. I think that there will inevitably be “storms of struggle” in the socialist period — and also think that between those storms we need to work extremely hard to have a climate of real debate and political engagement (including by developing socialist democratic forms of many kinds).
But let me drill down:
How do you know that multi-party elections are inherently capitalist? Where was that proven or even discussed? How is that documented?
And if it is not proven, how can you assert it in so facile a fashion?
Why not consider the position (discussed here) that future revolutions may have many forms… and that there is no inherent or universal state form that socialist revolution must adopt?
To answer a thoughtful proposal (like the Nepali Maoist approach to government forms under socialism) with a simple declaration of personal ideological belief is (well…) just not very helpful or convincing.
I do think there are objective pressures in many revolutions that make multi-party elections extremely difficult to establish on a socialist basis. You would need constructive partners who are able to function within the socialist framework… i.e. there have to be other political currents supporting socialism and the revolution etc. Otherwise, the plan would be rather stillborn.
But in a country (like Nepal) where that is conceivable, the proposal may work. And if it doesn’t work, having made the proposal may help it be clearer whose fault it is if one revolutionary party ends up standing relatively alone.
Mike E said
Future’s Ours writes:
Let me ask a few questions about this presentation:
What happens if (in real life, in some country and its revolution) it is not the case that “the Communist Party is the nucleus of all revolutionaries.” What happens if the Communist Party is the nuclear for some revolutionaries, while other revlutionaries are grouped in other parties?
What happens if (in real life) it sometimes turns out that it is not true that the Communist party is always the only “place where the most important political matter are discussed and solved.”
What happens if there are other places where important political matters are discussed? What if the Communist Party-in-Power is sometimes lagging, if it is not quite on the cutting edge of “the most important political matters”? Is that inconceivable?
FO writes:
What happens if proletarian interests are sometimes represented outside the party, and that (conversely) some elements of the party are not representing proletarian interests? Is it ok for the party to be criticized and supervised from without?
In other words, you can metaphysically assert that the party is the only place where important things are discussed and where the proletariat is represented — but what magic makes that universally true?
I don’t know if FO is correctly characterizing Abimael Guzman’s views on the party. But I suspect that if Future’s Ours remarks were true and correct, then we would have to conclude that Mao’s attempt at a Cultural Revolution was outrageous and wrong. We would have a view much closer to Enver Hoxha’s locked-down orthodoxy, not Mao’s innovative understandings of actual class struggle under socialism. We would have to turn our backs on Maoism, and re-embrace the discredited, old-school Comintern theories of socialism that Mao subjected to criticism and development.
In fact, our real-world experience of the last hundred years reveals that (both in and out of power) the Communist party often lags behind events, often represents interests other than the people, often has almost no debate within it, and is often in dire need of (as Mao put it) “having our dark side exposed, and from below.”
We have (unfortunately) a number of current experiences of communist organizations (who declare themselves vanguard parties) but who are quite incapable of hearing any voices but their own. what would happen if such forces came to power? Wouldn’t it be a disaster for the people?
Isn’t it wrong to assume that our own internal processes are some magical truth machinery, or that our ideas and policies automatically represent the people’s interest.
Isn’t our real world experience that a far more open process is needed, and that a great deal of popular involvement, consultation and supervision is needed?
Gary said
One point that’s being left out of this discussion is that throughout the socialist period in China’s history there was more than one party contributing to the revolutionary process.
The Revolutionary Committee of the Guomindang was allotted a share of seats in the People’s Political Consultative Conference second to that of the Communist Party. The Jiusan Society, Chinese Democratic Party, China Association for Promoting Democracy and other parties were also represented. They were not competing for votes in electoral campaigns for a national legislature (the model Bhattarai is proposing, I think, for Nepal) but they were organizations with different principles of unity than the Communist Party that had a role in political discussion.
Joseph Ball said
Mike said
I have attempted to demonstrate this many times. I devoted a whole article to it ‘My Concerns About The Line Of The Unified Communist Party Of Nepal (Maoist)’. To put the issue simply-Marxists believe that parties (as opposed to campaign groups, discussion groups or single-issue groups) represent a class or a faction of a class that is seeking political power. Multi-party elections take place in capitalism because the capitalist class is divided into competing interest groups-or factions. The working class isn’t-or should not be. Once it lets itself be so divided this is a sign that it has taken on the bourgeois line. It’s essence is solidarity, it is the universal class that holds no property and hence, in principle, has no material stake in the system to corrupt it into ways of thinking that go against socialism. In practice of course, all sorts of things can corrupt the working class but given these have no material basis (due to the lack of property) these are manifestations of false consciousness that can be fought ideologically. (In the West many workers do hold quite a lot of property in the form of houses, pension funds, unit trusts and so on, so this analysis needs to be greatly modified here.)
Given all this, it must be wrong for Marxists to encourage the working class to divide themselves up into multiple different ‘revolutionary’ parties. In fact each of these parties would represent a class or a faction of a class, seeking to defeat other classes or factions of classes. This competition must have a material basis (if you accept Marxist analysis), therefore this system cannot lead to socialism. By definition socialism is socialised production, not a system of competing private or group interests. In the system of competing ‘revolutionary’ parties each party would represent the private or group material interests of one faction or class against the others.
Ka Frank said
I think Mike’s basic approach to this question is correct and that Ball’s approach is an example of both dogmatism (repeating an erroneous position of Stalin and the Comintern) and subjective idealism (refusing to understand the proletariat in all countries is already split–by capitalism–into a variety of material interests, especially due to national oppression of some parts of the proletariat. The working class is also divided into politically advanced, intermediate and backward sections, and this has an important bearing on how proletarian democracy is practiced under socialism.
Mike’s view shares many similarities with Section 7 of the MLM Revolutionary Study Group’s paper “Evaluating the Cultural Revolution in China and its Lessons for the Future,” which was serialized on Kasama in 2009. (available in Word and PDF at http://www.mlmrsg.com).
I particularly agree with the paragraph in his Comment #4 to Joseph Ball where he argues that,
This is one of the most important features of a political line of encouraging political debate in mass organizations and in competing non-capitalist parties. This keeps political struggle from being bottled up inside the party, which benefits the capitalist roaders inside the party ultimately, and it helps the masses learn to distinguish a revolutionary line from a revisionist line at every stage of the process of advancing along the socialist road to communism.
Here is the relevant section of the RSG paper:
* * * * * * *
HOWEVER, I part company with Mike when he turns to Nepal. I disagree with both the UCPNM’s theoretical understanding of multi-party democracy under new democracy and socialism, and with how they are practicing it in their negotiations for a new “national unity” government with the UML and Nepali Congress today.
The RSG’s paper was written in 2007 shortly after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, putting an end to the people’s war, so it does not address the period of the Maoist-led government for several months in early 2009, and the current efforts to form a new Prachanda-led government with the bourgeois-feudal leaders of the UML and Nepali Congress.
The views of the UCPNM on multi-party democracy under bourgeois-feudal rule, new democracy and socialism have a common thread of upholding bourgeois democracy. This line will not allow the party and the masses in Nepal to make the revolution against the UML, the Nepali Congress and their army that is needed to get to the stage of new democracy–which Basanta indicates is the main task ahead in his recent interview posted on SAR.
The MLM RSG also discusses the only public statement by the CPI (Maoist) on this issue that I am aware of.
It strongly upholds the Cultural Revolution and criticizes the CPNM’s view on this question. However, it also retains some of the Comintern’s and Stalin’s idealist view that the proletariat can only have one class interest and one political party.
Behrooz Navaii said
There is more than one way to look at the matter and as said above, it depends on the history of radicals in the country that may be discussed.
I personally am in favor of a multi tendency communist party as a whole, plus when necessitated, other progressive variances of socialist, green, etc. parties that when necessary, could make coalitions. Why? If we look at things as good and bad, socialist and capitalist and so forth, don’t you ever think that fallacious leadership can annihilate the reputation of the proletarian party? But if you already have had say, more pro peasant layer in the communist party, you would pretty much for example in time of severe recession take the Lenin’s NEP or, something not much different (and put more time listening to say workers of Petrograd and sailors of Kronstadt rather than – in some people’s opinion – practically get out of the workers council’s way.
In fact in many folks’ opinions, after 1921 the matter was not Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky. In any case of the three above, still it would be a single leader that takes people’s state forward or, apparently forward but in practice, opposite direction.
What do we have of China today? Cheap labor for the world and billions, trillions of bonds instead of real dollars they are receiving. Isn’t china the state that lets people online to read all the Marxist archive authors except Mao Tse tung himself fearing that peasants will rise up? Now would you like to simply call it a coup after Mao passed away?
This is what turns me more toward say Communist Workers of Iran who state:
And, they are talking about a system where for example the local factory or neighborhood councils are practically acting as local army, police, justice system, production management and what have you. And, they do have representatives who go to the capital city to present local council’s position. But, the reps DO NOT have the right to make decisions on behalf of the local council. They only can bring over capital committee’s suggestion and, accept or deny it. This is pretty much like some groups, seldom though, do (like Zapatistas in Chiapas) to discuss every thing with elders and tribal committees before doing them. And good or bad, at least everybody has made that decision and, false action won’t be blamed on a single leader or party’s leadership.
Then, the CW or Iran still argue that under any condition anyhow, even the enemy class leftovers and … can have their assemblies and form their own parties.
These ideas as ideas are great. But are they doable? Such things, I believe, in such ideal ways can be attainable when other socialist countries exist and, the country is not getting suffocated by imperialist and international capitalists.
And, there are various socialist parties and communist parties who one way or another have been serving the interest of the proletariat. Would they remain legal after revolution in the US?
However odd they might seem, still their action matters and, their rights.
For example, in San Francisco, there was a party (is,) called Freedom Socialist Party.
Their bookstore had pictures of Peruvian CP at more than one corner. That is besides the point that they consider themselves Trotskist and I think they must be one of the tens of offspring groups from SWP USA.
One poster of theirs, signed by an Asian American radical woman who was a professor in San Francisco State University (and was often bothered by administration) had written something like, whom do you think in …the US will be leading the revolution…. And she had concluded a lesbian woman. Although they do have a group called radical women too, but I would bet that more than 90 percent, if not all of their cadre and staff are lesbians and, few gays. And a supporter of them from Peru, Ms Bermudez told me that in shining path there are lesbian women too. When I asked her if she’d like to be interviewed to state this matter, she refused to be interviewed with CSRP or, anything affiliated with RCP. Fine, that was then.
This group is not exactly like other socialist or communist parties or is it? And there are other socialist parties with their own features. But if tomorrow there is a revolution in the North America, would you like to ban these parties? Or would you rather let them be active elements of politics and, or, in coalitions, to loudly present the interest of certain sector of society; and so be it the people of color’s supporting party, and even the one who wants to be more separatist or, demands the mules and acres of earth plus ex amount of dollars to make up for the slavery past, or …. We cannot let the vanguard party to pretend it stands for everybody’s interest justly so, let the oppressed say their thing from their own microphones and papers
True, when crisis come about, or war with another state is getting near and so forth, not everything can be put into direct democratic channel but, not every moment can be counted as crisis and, the more different oppressed sectors have their saying, weather I or you like them or not, or agree with their line or not, the more they will know it as their socialist state, rather than a one man big brother story. People’s power must mean people’s power, workers power, not party, or party’s megalomaniac leader’s ambitions.
Rhys said
Joseph writes:
Why not? Who sez?
I am reminded that Marx regarded the emergence and development of the individual as one of the great achievements of bourgeois society and was highly critical of it for also distorting and holding up this development. So the working class shouldn’t have competing interest groups? They’ll be so relieved to find this out and get back to work (forgive my flippancy).
During the height of the opposition to the Vietnam war, the then Australian Prime Minister John Gorton commented that protest would be tolerated just so long as it wasn’t effective (I am paraphrasing him). What disturbs me about Joseph’s insistence that unity is principal (I’ll leave its non dialectical nature aside) is its Gortonesque flavour and its implicit tendency to elevate the Party to a position of secular priesthood – who has voting rights, who decides, how… It was this separation (structural, political and psychological) from the masses and the degeneration that accompanied it that led Mao to unleash the GPCR. Had Mao believed that unity was the principal and fixed aspect the GPCR would not have happened.
That the ruling class is divided into factions is certainly true; that this is what lies behind representative democracy under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is an incomplete truth. Its incompleteness lies in its failure to acknowledge that the people, particularly the working classes, forced concessions from the bourgeoisie in a long and bitter struggle waged over centuries. For some strange reason the people seem to value these things and consider them worth fighting for in spite of revolutionaries telling them that it is all fraudulent. But what lies at the basis of the fraud isn’t the voting or democracy bits (we need more of these, including differnt forms) but the foundational place given to property rights – the freedom of capital.
BTW the existence of factions – or contending points of view – amongst the ruling class doesn’t seem to have done them much harm and they constitute a small fraction of the population. Why should this be any different when the working class is the ruling class?
As for the references made above to Guzman, the Peruvian communist leader, if this outline is accurate I find something slightly creepy about it. The hierarchical structure described smacks of feudal and religious power structures. If that is classical Marxism then there is something wrong with classical Marxism.
Kirvo said
Kinda late, but I just wanted to say that in most places I’ve been to in the US, elections are rather single-party and tend to take place through caucuses. A change in party incumbency usually signifies an important shift in political dynamics in the area. That’s why when we had the Republican governor Bob Erlich here in Maryland, he vetoed a lot of progressive-ish stuff passed by our legislature (a lot of which is very left-liberal and Democrat-affiliated), but he was still much farther to the left than say the Democrat governor of Oklahoma. As bad a model as it is currently as a two-party system as Mike said, I think it would work in a socialist North America if there was the party with its more or less general line and coalitions of independent candidates for different directions in politics that after dominating a legislature would dissolve the ruling party of that jurisdiction and level of government (instead of letting it reorganize under a different direction, with its resources intact as the case is here). Of course the landscape would probably be very different and there is no safeguard against reactionary infiltration other than that if we win once, we should in theory continue winning.
Jan Makandal said
It is quite dangerous to equate democracy to elections. Democracy is a formal abstract constantly defining class collaboration and class domination under the leadership of a class or fraction of a class. For me, each mode of productions is defined by a democratic structure guaranteeing the constant reproduction of that social formation. Democracy is a structure historically determines by the dominant form taken by the economy.
Democracy existed in slavery, guaranteeing the reproduction of slavery, as well as in feudalism. Democracy in a slave mode of productions is the dictatorship of the slaves owners. Bourgeois democracy is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It simply means in the final analysis the bourgeoisie control every process in its interest, even when making concession resulting from popular struggles. The popular conquest resulting from popular struggle becomes in essence bourgeois laws. The right for women to vote is a popular struggle that became bourgeois law. The civil rights are now also a bourgeois law. During the periods of this struggle, correctly so, we never failed to identify American capitalism as bourgeois democracy, even when these right were denied.
Democracy is the structure and election is one of the many practices emanating and determines by bourgeois democracy. In this case, not all-bourgeois democracy will need to engage in electoral practices and even if it doesn’t engage in electoral practices, it doesn’t change the nature of bourgeois democracy. Even in conjuncture of exceptional political periods such as fascism, autocratic governments we are still under bourgeois democracy. The class finally benefiting in these exceptional periods is the bourgeoisie and other dominant classes. Dictatorship, in all conditions, is always to benefit the dominant classes. Dictatorship is never individual it is always connected to classes.
Proletarian democracy is the proletariat in alliance with other dominating classes realizing proletarian democracy. The most advance form of democracy incomparable to any previous type and form of democracy. Proletarian democracy is the proletariat constructing unity with other dominating class to achieved two opposite goals dealing with two contradictory objectives realities to defeat the dominant classes and consolidating unity with the others classes for the abolition of wages and classes. The level of unity, with the rest of the dominated classes, will determine the political line implemented by the proletariat. The principle of elections will not/should not be generalized as we see in bourgeois democracy, but rather making people’s delegate the servitors of the masses, put under strict control of mass organization and revocable by the collective at any times. The distinction of all state institutions needs [executive, legislative and judicial branch] to be radically abolished. Bourgeois ideology tends to pass them as guarantors of individual freedom. The individual freedom is to own slaves, to exploit. All rights and justice do have class content….
A revolution is a process. It is in that process that the proletariat, in unity with the dominated classes, will collectively defines the forms of their reproductions determines by the final objective of the proletariat.
Harsh Thakor said
Com.Mike Ely’s writings slander the achievements of Com.Stalin to a considerable extent ,and even deride Com.Lenin and Com.Mao on many an occasion. The Kasama trend almost reduces Com Stalin to a non-Leninist and all Mao’s contributions achievements as an anti-thesis of Stalinism..True, Kasama project is one of the greatest ever Marxist-Leninist efforts to create a forum for debate, which has been lacking in the history of the Communist Movement .and made a historic contribution by launching outstanding debates on Maoist polemics .
However such forces are forgetting the important contribution of Lenin on the dictatorship of the Proletariat and the revisionist character of parliamentary democracy.Infact it was Trotsky who promoted the multi-party system and the institutions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. By promoting multi-party system the proletarian revolutionary centre of power is denied and infact a Socialist State can be toppled. Let us remember the experiences of the Communist Movement in Nazi Germany or worldwide. It was the Leninist Party that promoted the building and consolidation of Socialist Societies in Soviet Union and China.Whether the Bolshevik Revolution,the civil War, the collectivization era, the Soviet World War Victory:all these achievements were the result of the foundation of the Leninist Party.Similarly in China although Mao called for continuous Revolution under the dictatorship of the Proletariat he called for a revolt within a proletarian party Structure. The sweeping victories of the Socialist Revolution,The Great Leap Forward, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were unprecedented in history and can be attribute to Comrade Mao’s persistence with upholding the Leninist Principles of the Dicatatorship of the Proletariat. True there were opposing factions of revisionist nature like Lin Biao ,Liu Shao –Chi Etc ,but the struggle against them through mass campaigns was led by the proletarian party. It was the revolutionary trend within the proletarian party that fought the Lin Biaost forces politically and the rise of Lin Biao or Liu Shao Chi cannot be attributed to the lack of a multiparty System. True ,it was defeated by Deng Xiaoping’s rightist forces, but a multi-party Sustem may have promoted such forces much earlier. In Soviet Union Comrade Stalin violated democratic Centralism to a considerable extent and any dissent was put down .Comrade Mao, tried to correct this by initiating a broad mass Movement of the Chinese masses against the reactionary Forces, and got several members of the party to go through self-criticism and reform. It was historic that a mass Movement was led within the very Communist Party ,unlike in the Soviet Union. Mao had learnt from the Stalin era that a revolutionary Movement was required even within a socialist System.
I salute Com.Joseph Ball for so staunchly defending the vanguard role of the Leninist Proletarian Party ,the dicatatorship of the Proletariat and for refuting the reactionary multi-party system.Such a debate is important for the International Communist Movement,where we have to defend Coms Marx,Lenin,Stalin and Mao,carrying swords.Debate is a very important factor in the Communist Movement ,but it is needed to develop Marxism,Leninism as a Science and not to distort it. True forces like Kasama have created a platform for debate and healthy mutual exchange but have also been rather loose in their criticisms of Leninist Polemics. 2 crusaders in for the correct International Proletarian Revolutionary line were the late Shansmughtan of the Communist Party of Ceylon and the late Com.Harbhajan Singh Sohi who refuted all those who found mistakes with Comrades,Lenin,Stalin and Mao and upheld proletarian polemics like carrying a red torchlight.