this is an interesting discussion, I think that we should also include the concept of a vanguard party in the mix here. in Mike's post and in the other thread where it first appeared there was a lot of discussion centered on treating revolutionary theory as religion and most everyone agreeing revolutionary theory should not be treated as a religion with: orthodoxies, heresies, demonizations, shunnings etc.

But no one asked why does revolutionary theory so frequently take on teh trappings of religion? I think that it is the outcome of the concrete political form that the production of theory took in the 20th century which was the vanguard party. Althusser was one of the few intellectuals who was able to be both a party member and an original thinker and it was an ongoing problem for him. Lukacs had to relegate himself to writing about art and literature in order to be both a party member and a free thinker.

Keith writes:

<blockquote>"Althusser was one of the few intellectuals who was able to be both a party member and an original thinker and it was an ongoing problem for him. Lukacs had to relegate himself to writing about art and literature in order to be both a party member and a free thinker."</blockquote>

I'm sure Keith knows this, but still.....:

If our goals were mainly to be "original" or "free" thinkers, then party organization would be unnecessary (and perhaps some hindrance). But since our goals are actually to change the world (not just think about it) we need to judge party forms by other standards.

It is one thing to conceive of different settings for the "production of theory" -- but revolution also requires people to unite and act upon their theoretical conclusions. And that process of unification and common action inevitably impacts how we think about our ideas and our actions -- and not just for the worst.

<blockquote>"...no one asked why does revolutionary theory so frequently take on teh trappings of religion? I think that it is the outcome of the concrete political form that the production of theory took in the 20th century which was the vanguard party."</blockquote>

This society produces <em>lots</em> of religious thinking profusely <em>without</em> vanguard parties. I don't personally see any reason to assume that a particular Leninist organizational form is somehow the <em>cause</em> of religious thinking among communists.

I have seen quite creative thinking within the framework of a communist party, and also the transmission at times of quite religious and dogmatic thinking. It depends (imho) on what ideological and political line is in command -- and that is a matter of struggle and the outcome of struggle, nothing else.

I suspect that the real cause of religious thinking among communists is the influence of religious thinking in society. In other words, communists are part of society, and it is a struggle (even for communists) to think like communists.

Also, i think that there is some value to producing theory in the context of and in the wake of revolutionary political practice. It puts constrains on thinking -- but if we do it right such constraints can be the constraint of experience and reality.

<b>That said:</b> This is not an argument against critically examining the forms and assumptions of previous vanguard parties.

I also don't think that we should assume there is one single all-purpose communist organizational form that is universal for all times and places (for all stages of the revolutionary process, for preparing the revolution, then making the revolution and then leading the transformation under socialism).

Just as we free other spheres from the grip of any unquestioned orthodoxies -- so too we should think about organizational forms in terms of function and diverse necessities.

On the other hand: I believe we need strong, disciplined, principled, structured organizations of revolutionaries capable of both creative thought, debate AND decisive unified action. And we need organization that can survive repression -- which (if you think about it) is a complex challenge.

The oppressed have (ultimately) no strengths other than their organization and consciousness.

All Trotskyists are "Declining"? Did you see the Sri Lankan Trotskyists coming in third in the last Presidential elections, building a heroic cross-communal anti-war movement? Did you see that Joe Higgins was elected to European Parliament? The strikes in the auto industry in Britain? The strikes in telecom in Pakistan? The battle against fuel price hikes in Nigeria? Virtually every key struggle against Lula's neo-liberalism in Brazil had Trotskyists involved. Hardly euro-centric...

Is this site finally admitting to being Maoist? After tricking people into thinking you were serious about "reconceiving as we regroup"? How dishonest.

Your assumptions and lack of knowledge are shocking, but the pretentious tone is icing on the cake. A Maoist attacking Trotsky's view of fascism is truly wacky. Not a shot fired by the German CP to stop Hitler. Trotsky advocated a united front and armed struggle. Mao towed the Stalin line, which of course meant a lack of resistance to history's greatest tragedy.

Well, is this really about where political work is being done, or the political line leading that?

Are you saying that those who do political work in third world countries can't have euro-centric lines?

What comrade MPBW fails to mention about the Sri Lankan Trotskyists is that, although coming in 3rd place, they received about 1/3 of 1 percent of all votes for president. Impressive. And if you have evidence that Trotskyists have been in the lead of struggles in Nigeria and Pakistan, please share. I'm not trying to be condescending, but I've never heard that before. More important than this though, and this pulls us back to a discussion about permanent revolution, how do Trotskyists plan to advance the struggles in Nigeria and Pakistan? Perhaps there will somehow be a rapid upsurge in the revolutionary will of the people of Nigeria, and they will flock to the Trotskyist flag; what exactly are your comrades planning on doing if revolutionary movements don't kick off in conjunction with Nigeria's? Sit around and wait until French communists overthrow their state? Play cards until Italy goes red? THAT is the Eurocentricity of Trotskyism that I have a problem with: the idea that underdeveloped, superexploited countries cannot build socialism on their own and have to wait until the Western proletariat decides that they're ready to overthrow capitalism too.

On a secondary point, MPBW, you're falling into this false dichotomy that either Trotskyists are right or Maoists are, i.e. according to you, Maoists can't criticize Trotsky's analysis of fascism because Mao supported a strategy that, you claim, did not adequately resist fascism. I haven't really developed an opinion of Trotsky's analysis of fascism, but I have to ask, why couldn't they both have been wrong? Why is it NECESSARILY hypocritical for a Maoist to criticize "Fascism: What It Is..."? Why couldn't a Maoist perhaps disagree with Mao's position as well?

It's damn near impossible to argue with would-be telepaths. What can any of us say, MPBW, that would convince you of our honesty? Especially since you already made up your mind about this issue months ago (I assume you're "Bryan the Trot," that looks like your avatar) and have repeated this trope ad nauseam in your periodic interventions on this site despite repeated attempts to calmly persuade you otherwise?

Actually, this assumption of dishonesty lying behind any deep-seated disagreements among revolutionaries is a great example of how (as Mike already observed) the fundamental problems with "Stalinist"/Comintern Marxist-Leninism are as bad or worse within Trotskyism.

Of course this is all without even raising the seemingly banal point that Mike Ely is not the Kasama Project is not Mike Ely. Just because he "admits" to being a Maoist (which so far as I know he's never denied) doesn't say much of anything about the persuasions of other members and sympathizers.

Also, I fail to see the connection you're drawing between Mao and the Nazi takeover in Germany. Mao didn't even become the acknowledged leader of the Chinese party until around 1935, by which time the Third Reich was already very much secure from any revolutionary threat. It's not like Mao criticizing the KPD/Comintern strategy before then would have made such waves within the ICM as to lead to a fundamental shift for the better. In any case, he was by that point too preoccupied with advancing the revolutionary struggle in China, an important part of which was <i>defying</i> the defeatist line within the CCP that was being backed by Stalin (however much they may have "towed the line" in their routine diplomatic remarks on other world events). So close, but no cigar.

Please explain how Erich Honecker could be defined as any type of fascist. Sounds like you're getting socialism confused with National Socialism...

Speaking as a former Trotskyist, I think it's clear that Trotskyism, per se, is holding the world wide socialist movement back. This is not because Trotskyism is working for the CIA. It's not because Trotskyism is Euro-centric. It's not because Trotskyism was wrong in its analysis. It's because the historical necessity of Trotskyism, i.e, a revolutionary Marxist opposition to Stalinism is no longer necessary. Trotskyism is still stuck in the past, fighting a battle which no longer needs be won.

The other main pillar of Trotskyism is the theory of permanent revolution, which, simply put, means that in states where the bourgeoisie is too weak to carry out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, those tasks will be carried out by the worker class. One the revolution is made, rather than hand political power over to the bourgeoisie, the workers should maintain political control and move towards socialism. Except for a handful of historical oddities, like Nepal, Bhutan, etc., the bourgeois revolution has been carried out globally. Permanent Revolution no longer applies.

In its own way, many Maoists are stuck in the past as well. I've been discussing with Maoist comrades on RevLeft the notion that India is a feudal state. They refuse to consider that India is capitalist, for reasons I can't really follow (something about feudalism is the mode of production in colonial states and all capitalists are imperialists, etc.). The urban population is 27.8% of India, and accounts for nearly 83% of the economy. Compared to Imperial Russia, which was about 20% urbanized and capitalism only accounted for 25% of the economy. Clearly, India is more capitalist than feudal. While I support the Naxalite struggle, Indian communists should be concentrating efforts in India's cities, among its workers.

Nepal's Maoists, on the other hand, have broken with a predefined notion of how revolution is to proceed. They are experimenting with different forms of struggle, broadening their base and bringing the urban masses into the revolution. It's this kind of open minded thinking that both Trotskyists and Maoists need to embrace. Looking to the past for understanding and inspiration, but looking at their own concrete circumstances for answers.

This is one of the things that continues to excite me about the Kasama Project. A willingness to reexamine what we thought, what we learned, to try and come up with different strategies for transcending capitalism. Don't come to us expecting your pet theories to be automatically validated. Trotskyism needs to clean house, shake things loose, and go through a thorough reexamination of everything. What comes out of such a process might be much better suited to confront today's situations.

All that said, the question that comrade Selucha brought up about comrades in the Third World waiting until the European Trotskyists have made the revolution is not one I understand. Trotskyists have <i>never</i> said that Third world revolutions should not go forward without waiting for the workers in the imperialist stats to make their revolutions. That's a complete distortion of the argument. What they say is that Third World revolution should be based on the Third World worker class.

For example, see what I wrote above about the Indian struggle. I support the Naxalites, and all communists should, but there are three hundred million urban workers in India upon whom a communist revolution could be based. Trotskyists would argue that instead of fighting a civil war in the countryside, the revolution would be strengthened and served by organizing among the urban workers.

Greetings:

I'm left wing Christian and Chief Steward in my local union. I just wanted to make a quick comment. I love this site, have been visiting for months and printed off a lot of material from here to learn more. I just wanted to say to Mike Ely, you are so right that the label of heresy is often just a way to shutdown debate, close one's mind to new possibilities and take comfort in self-righteousness.

Cheers,

Mike

Chegitz, perhaps your right, but wlfrom what I've observed talking with my Trotskyist comrades is that countries like Nepal do not have a strong enough working class to push forward a socialist revolution and therefore have to wait for a regional revolution to take foot or wait for a strong, fully developed capitalist country to take the socialist road. I am willing to admit I am wrong on this if that is the case, do you know of any articles or studies from a Trotskyist group that states otherwise?

Mike in Toronto, thanks for posting and I'm glad you share our enthusiasm! Have you checked out some of Mike's stuff on his work in the 70's in the coal mines and such? I think you might enjoy them given your experience in unions amd as a Christian. Here's one in particular I like: http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/didnt-you-see-that-spirit-descend-shackles-in-the-bible-belt/

Hi Chegitz:

Many thanks! I am familiar with Mike E's stuff on <a href="/http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/ambush-at-keystone-1inside-the-coalminers-gas-protest/" rel="nofollow">his work in the coal mines in the 70's</a>. I have never been an Christian Protestant fundamentalist, though I dated one for 4 years in my late teenage years (I am Eastern Orthodox and in my early 40's). I do understand the mentality. I appreciate his relationship (and patience) with Don.

Leftists need to be patient after a couple of decades of alienating Christians. You have natural allies in the combat-boot Christians and can win over many (U.S.) Northern Catholics and Southern Evangelicals on issues of social justice. You simply need reach out.

Mike in Toronto.

Comrade Selucha,

No doubt there are ignorant Trotskyists, just as there are ignorant comrades of every type.

Hi Selucha, sorry I got you and Chegitz muddled up. Thank you too for your comments.

Well I can't say I wasn't offended MiT, but I forgive you

Chegitz, do you have any good articles in particular that I should check out to better familiarize myself with a more accurate Trotskyist position? I'd rather have been wrong than stay ignorant you know?

(I normally post on here as t1201971, but I kinda slipped up last time and put my secret identity up instead- bad move for a superhero. Peter Parker NEVER would've done that!)
Mike, last time you said "...the East German state of Erich Honecker was (rather obviously) a sordid police state- where a huge percentage of the population was forced to work as informants by the Stasi. Those who dissented were warned, watched and then imprisoned."
Sounds like a politically conscious working class that wants to contribute to the security of their state against counterrevolutionary threats from within and without. The REAL police state, complete with former Nazis (real ones!) in the highest positions of power, was the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), not the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). I'm sure that the imprisoned RAF combatants, had they not been murdered in their cells by the Bundesnachtrichtendienst (BND), would agree.
You sound really Cold Warrior-ish, talking about "dissidents", "police states" and "aggressive repression" in a socialist country. Sounds like something out of a BND report actually. What kind of "dissidents" were there in the DDR anyway? Well, after the east German worker's state was overthrown, we saw how the REAL fascists started to emerge, with Nazi skinhead gangs attacking LGBT people and leftists and burning down the homes of immigrant workers like in Rostock. The dictatorship of the proletariat, as it existed in the DDR did a great job of keeping a lid on these scum. Why would the opposition to "fascism" itself be fascist?
You bring up Rudolf Bahro. Screw that counterrevolutionary clown. He was deputy editor of the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) mag "Forum" and a bureaucrat in the Scientific Employees Union in Berlin before he swung waaay over to the right and defended the U.S.-supported counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia in 1968. He then wrote "Die Alternativ: Zur Kritik der Real Existierenden Sozialismus", an anti-communist screed for which I really hope his State Department check cleared. So yeah, he got nailed actually for "betrayal of state secrets", as he should've. He got a great lawyer though, Gregor Gysi, last Chairman of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED). Appeals by his imperialist buddies like Jimmy Carter (who, by the way, LOVED human rights! Unless you were talking about south Korea, Chile, Saudi Arabia, occupied Palestine, etc.) resulted in Bahro getting an amnesty on Oct. 17th, 1979 so he could jet over to his capitalist paradise in the BRD. What a horrible police state hunh? Do fascist countries hand out amnesties to convicted criminals when bourgeois liberals whine? News to me... Anyway, nowadays this this pro-imperialist sack of shit has reinvented himself as a greenie who's real into the Baghwan Shree Rajneesh and Benedictine monks- just like a real revolutionary!
You know, more than a few people, including Michelle Bachelet, fled actual real fascism in Chile for political refuge in the DDR. Who flees one fascist country for another? If the SED was a fascist party, wouldn't it follow that its sucessor party would also be fascist? Hmm. "Die Linke". What a strange name for a party of the extreme right...
Erich Honecker doesn't really fit the profile of a fascist either. He came from a working class backround and worked as a roofer. He joined the KPD in 1929 and was sent to the Lenin School in Moscow in 1930. Just a year later, he was sent back to the Saarland to be the head of the Kommunist Jugend Verband. For his revolutionary activism, he was arrested by the Nazis in 1935 and sentanced to a decade in prison by a Nazi "court". The Party helped him escape in March 1945. After the war, he helped create the FDJ, which he chaired until 1955. Here's what author Martin McCauley had to say about Cde. Honecker: "By nature a conciliator, he set out to win the trust of the DDR population." "...his forte is the ability to express the prevailing Party view without ostentation..." "Honecker...has coined the phrase 'real, existing socialism' to underline the down-to-earth attitude he employs when dealing with day-to-day problems." "Along with his simple, direct manner goes credibility. Part of this is due to the fact that he evidently believes what he is saying. His faith in the Soviet Union and in Marxism-Leninism is clear for all to see and contributes to his popularity among young workers. His uncomplicated manner and speech make others feel at ease in his presence." "They know where they are with him and he makes himself available for tete-a-tete on specific Party problems. To underline his approachability, Honecker went so far as to have a magazine withdrawn from circulation which contained an article about him, by Jurgen Kuczynski, which the First Secretary regarded as too laudatory." Does that really sound like a fascist to you? Seriously?
Also, you say that you "...don't believe there was anything socialist about the GDR" and you refer to the socialist countries as "...Eastern European state-capitalist societies." "State capitalism" isn't an analysis of where the process of socialist development in a particular workers state has led, it is a political epithet. Is the root of the problem for you that there was no revolution that brought the proletariat to state power in east Germany, that socialism was brought to the east German people at the end of a Red Army bayonet? So what? Wasn't Georgia forcibly Sovietized under Lenin? Here's what Sam Marcy, the founder of Workers World Party, had to say about the state capitalist "analysis" of the socialist countries: "But such a false assumption" (that, pre-'89, any of the socialist countries had degenerated into bourgeois states) "is either born out of blind and unrestrained fanatical self-delusion, fraud, or both, practiced upon themselves and the world movement of the workers and oppressed. ...It is our duty above everything else... to clearly, firmly, and without any equivocation reject and disqualify the false canard that either the USSR or China" (or the DDR) "is no longer a socialist state in the commonly accepted sense as defined by Lenin, that is, where there has been the overthrow of the bourgeois-landlord ruling class and the institution of planned economy, which in turn is based on common ownership of the basic means of production and buttressed by the monopoly of foreign trade. Whatever the setbacks, whatever the inroads, whatever the false policies, so long as these fundamental pillars remain it is the bounden duty of the world proletariat and the oppressed to defend them both against bourgeois political reaction from within and against the external pressures of imperialist aggression from without." "It should be noted that nowhere in the world is there a serious section of the bourgeoisie which regards either China or the USSR as anything but socialist."
The DDR certainly persued an internationalist foreign policy- they had close relations with revolutionary Angola and Mozambique, and they also sent arms and money to liberation movements like ZANU in what would become Zimbabwe and the ANC. The Nationale Volksarmee actually sent hundreds of advisors to train FRELIMO guerrillas for the struggle against racist Portuguese colonialism. The DDR had all the right enemies in Africa too: DDR diplomats were expelled from post-Nkrumah Ghana, feudal Morocco, and Mobutu's kleptocracy in Zaire. Hundreds of thousands of students from Africa and Asia attended the best schools in the DDR for free. Does this sound like the foreign policy of a fascist state?
I'm sorry if a little snarkiness crept into my tone here Mike, cos I really think the Kasama project is worthwhile and I respect the work you do. I just can't sit on my hands when you call Erich Honecker a fascist.

Oh, and peep this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mDW4xw8T8

For what it's worth, I agree with Mike. t1201971, I held a similar romanticized view of Eastern European "socialism" when I was younger; I don't know how old you are, but I hope that you rethink what socialism is supposed to look like. You seem to cling to this very Stalin-era idea that dissenters are necessarily Western agents, which is, at the very least, extremely misguided and at worst, incredibly dangerous. How do you expect to build a revolutionary society of people contributing in the push to communism if you lock up anybody that publicly criticizes the direction of the state?

That being said, I think there were socialist <i>elements</i> to the GDR. But they had to try to legitimize the name somehow.

I don't have too much to contribute here that hasn't been said already, but I urge you to rethink your analysis.

Selucha, my view of the class nature of the states that made up the Warsaw Pact is not "romanticized", it is an analysis based on scientific Marxism-Leninism. If some guy (or woman) writes a book that is then published in a NATO country that the authorities of a socialist state believe endangers that state in some way and then is defended by the President of the United States, and then settles in a NATO member state after being released from prison, then I'd say yeah, the likelihood is high that there was some contact with western intelligence agencies.
I've done all the rethinking I need to do since I quit the ISO, thanks.

Mike, it's busy as hell at the office so you're gonna have to give me a minute for the reply. You have given me plenty to consider though.

Mike, if you are truly interested in facts and materialism, then you should know you can't put an equal sign between a socialist country's use of repression and a capitalist country's. This is not to rubber-stamp or approve every action taken by the Stasi, but it is to recognize that the actions of their state are not guided by the demands of finance capital.

You say "No one will ever convince me that this depoliticized, alienating, imposed political order of hacks and cops was socialism."

No, it's not socialism. I for one would not try to convince you of it because it's not. But it is a defense of the gains of a socialist, workers' state, with socialist gains and a clear place in the world struggle between capitalist exploitation and the oppressed. We see how important this is now that those states are not there and finance capital is free to run rampant. You don't have to blindly support every action of the USSR or East Germany or China to know that a worker's state is better than a capitalist state. Yet now that prostitution and hunger and total lack of reproductive rights are the order of the day, from Russia to Poland, it's obvious how important it was to DEFEND the gains of workers states.

Some unions in the U.S. have incredibly reactionary leaders. Would the workers in these unions be better off without a union then? Of course not.

Some of what you experienced in Czechoslavakia may have been -- MAY have been; I wasn't there and I don't know what the class character of these students were -- excessive, wrongheaded and repressive. Some of it may have succeeded in alienating chunks of the masses from the USSR. Socialists can hash out these questions amongst themselves and be as critical as necessary.

But being critical isn't the same as calling Hoenecker a fascist. This is just backwards. And I don't know why it's necessary to say that defining fascism as a specific tactic of capitalism is Euro-centric. When capitalists do not feel the need to resort to fascism, capitalism is brutal enough. Whole sections of the population -- the nationally oppressed, immigrants, etc. -- are subjected to terror; napalm is dropped from planes, cluster bombs and white phosphorus used. Terror tactics are used all the time by the repressive state apparatus of capitalism and imperialism. But if you divorce any terror tactic from its class character, then you can't fight fascism and you can't defend workers' states.

As far as the DDR and the DPRK, these are not "fascist."

They are not capitalist states, contrarily, the means of production was in the hands of the working class and its state, and the economy was planned, (Raymond Lotta criticism beside...)

Secondly, they were not Anti-Communist. DPRK, DDR, USSR all openly supported Marxism-Leninism.

Third, they were not tools of the capitalists to suppress the left. Contrarily, they were enemies of the capitalists, and the majority of their suppression was directed at the right-wing and open capitalist restorationists.

Yes there was repression of both legitimate dissidents and counter-revolutionaries, but this is not what fascism is. Fascism is a specific "last resort" form of capitalism, based on thuggery and the employment of "anti-establishment" and "revolutionary" capitalists, who focus on smashing the left.

Maoists and the CPUSA seem to use the word "fascist" in the manner of the resident of Haight-Ashbury. The police man arresting somebody for smoking pot is not a "fascist." It's not "fascist" to champion right-wing patriotism. No one is a "Nazi" because they support repression of leftist freedom of speech.

We must scientifically analyze these words, movements, and historical periods. We cannot simply base a definition of fascism on "feelings" and "emotions." Fascism isn't "meaness" anymore than Communism is righteous anger.

Political systems and emotions are entirely different things.

As far Czechoslovakia, this is yet another example of the poverty of third period analysis.

Politics is not defined by black and white, "good people and bad people" etc. However this seems to be how Maoists analyze the world.

The USSR was not a 100% purveyor of good will, happiness, harmony, etc. The USSR in any ways intervined in order to prevent revolutionary movements around the world from becoming more revolutionary than they desired.

However, the government of Czechoslovakia, at the time it was opposed to the USSR, was doing so for RIGHT-WING reasons, not left-wing ones.

Just because the Soviet's are "bad guys" doesn't mean that the leaders of anyone who opposes them are by default, "good guys."

The Soviet Union had a dual nature. It was on the one hand, the enemy of U.S. Imperialism, and its biggest enemy. It was also the biggest supporter of National Liberation movements, freedom struggles, progressive economic reforms, etc.

However, the USSR was also dominated by a bureaucratic caste that acted in their own self-interest, and in many ways did not have the revolutionary politics needed to confront capitalism.

Criticism of the USSR should be judged by what direction it is coming from.

China criticized the USSR for "peaceful coexistance", chauvanist attitudes toward ICM allies, etc.

This were CORRECT criticism, because they pushed for MORE revolutionary politics.

However, the criticisms of the Czechoslovakian government were desires for movement away from Socialism economically, and desires for MORE alliance with the west. These criticisms were were from the RIGHT.

Politics is not a light switch, either "off" or "on."

Rather, politics is a spectrum. The duty of revolutionaries is to push the spectrum further to the left, toward higher social relations and communism.

Actually, Caleb, sugar isn't salt.

I'm stealing that phrase.

someone writes:

<blockquote>"As far Czechoslovakia, this is yet another example of the poverty of third period analysis. Politics is not defined by black and white, “good people and bad people” etc. However this seems to be how Maoists analyze the world.</blockquote>

Just in passing, someone frames this as a matter of "third period analysis" (referring to the Comintern's third period of 1929-34). It is the kind of thinking that assumes anything said today is merely an application of the lines within the comintern during the 1920s -- and is, if you think about it, bizarre in its mechanical thinking and inaccuracy.

In fact, Maoism has no significant relation with the Third Period thinking -- Mao arose as an opponent (precisely) of the Third Period line (represented in China by Li Lisan and Wang Ming) -- and the Maoist analysis of the Soviet Union has not roots or relationship with the Third Period (which was characterized by the notion that capitalist society was spiraling toward absolute collapse and that in that process reformers in the oppositional Social Democratic party were functionally fascist. Moving on...

* * * * * *

It is important, overall in life, to assert that things are not simply binary -- black or white, this or that.

However... the point about sugar and salt is relevant. Often in life, things have a nature. They <em>are</em> either a mammal or a reptile. They <em>are</em> either a human or a crocodile. They <em>are</em> either in North America or Asia.

It is not binary thinking (or Third Period thinking) to assert that we can discern the nature of a thing, and describe it.

In particular, I think that it is hard to believe that societies in this epoch are not (fundamentally) either socialist or some form of capitalist. In other words, either revolutionary and communist forces <em>are</em> leading the society, and major social transformation <em>is</em> happening in society.... i.e. it is socialist. <em>Or else</em>, one way or another, it has returned to capitalism.

someone is proposing one common Trotskyist view that it is possible for societies to hover (for decades) in a kind of limbo -- where their economic base is one thing (i.e. socialized and planned relations of production) but their political superstructure is counterrevolutionary.

And in that view, it is possible for a society to be neither the dictatorship of the proletariat nor the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- but be the "political rule" of a gray stratum of bureaucrats, that have narrow interests (as a stratum) but no characteristic mode of production (and whose only real interest in preserving the socialist base and their position as administrators of it.)

I think this theory is hard to believe or sustain.

Trotsky implied that it would not be possible to sustain this limbo long... but he was killed in the late thirties only a few years after putting forward this theory (called the theory of the degenerate workers state).

Trotsky's followers preserved this theory, in a kind of deep freeze, and some insisted, even up to 1989 and beyond (!), that the socialist <em>political </em>revolution had been reversed in the Soviet Union, but there had not been a <em>social</em> counterrevolution. It is a theory that assumes an extreme disconnect between the base and the superstructure -- i.e. that the superstructure can become utterly reactionary, but that the nature of the production relations in the base are not necessarily affected (even for generations!).

It is a theory that you ultimately don't need a revolutionary party, or a revolutionary leadership, or a revolutionary state, or a revolutionary ideology <em>for socialist production relations to maintain themselves</em> (once they have been established, like the "gains of October"). (note: Trotskyists don't formally call the Soviet production relations "socialist" -- but their own terms mean essentially the same thing.)

Trotskyism has tried to give their theory a "classic" Marxist sheen by excavating references to "Bonapartism" -- in which Marx discussed the possibility of moments, when mutually opposed classes have stalemated and exhausted themselves, and where in that temporary vacuum forces in the state could act with some relative autonomy from any of the contending forces. This is, i suppose, theoretically possible... but is it possible to have a "bonapartist" limbo that extends from 1924 until 1989? Six decades plus -- in which neither the working class or the capitalist class rules?

And if it is possible for a non-class stratum to govern the world's largest society (through wars and economic construction and more) for <em>six decades</em> -- doesn't this imply or require a profound rewiring of the current Marxist theory of the state (in which the state is an expression of class antagonism, not an outgrowth of its resolution)?

No, as several people pointed out, sometimes things are (in fact) either fish or fowl. Sometimes things are either alive or dead. There may be gray areas in transition. (all divides in society and nature are relative and conditional!)

But fundamentally, and ultimately, if a society isn't moving along a socialist road, then it (sooner or later) reverts to capitalism (and I don't believe that can mean 10 or 20 years of a state without class nature).

* * * * * * *

someone writes:

<blockquote>"As far as the DDR and the DPRK, these are not “fascist.” They are not capitalist states, contrarily, the means of production was in the hands of the working class and its state, and the economy was planned, (Raymond Lotta criticism beside…) Secondly, they were not Anti-Communist. DPRK, DDR, USSR all openly supported Marxism-Leninism. Third, they were not tools of the capitalists to suppress the left. Contrarily, they were enemies of the capitalists, and the majority of their suppression was directed at the right-wing and open capitalist restorationists."</blockquote>

There is a famous conversation where Mao Zedong is talking to his nephew. And he asks the nephew, "Are you studying Marxism-Leninism?" And the young man replies, "Of course." And Mao answers, "How do you know?"

No one denies that the DDR and DPRK upheld "Marxism Leninism" <em>in words</em>. All kinds of hangmen and capitalists have in the last century. And it is no mystery that wars have been fought where the opponents on both sides claimed to be "marxist leninist" -- or that there have been many prisons in the last century where both jailer and prisoner claimed to be "marxist leninist."

The question is what were they really upholding <strong>and representing politically</strong>.

And it needs to be said that what the DDR and DPRK meant and explained as ML were rather different <em>from each other</em> -- and the DPRK in particular dropped the terms Marxist-Leninist and (in a fit of grandiosity more than honesty) has more and more openly said that its ideology is Juche (a kind of mystical Korean hyper-nationalism).

someone wrote that: "Third, they were not tools of the capitalists to suppress the left."

First, who is the real left? Do you have any idea <em>who</em> is in DPRK prisons, and what their beliefs are? Surely you know that all kinds of left forces were criminalized in the DDR (which is why the example of <a href="/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Bahro" rel="nofollow">Rudolf Bahro</a> came up)?

Second, the role of the capitalist state is not simply to suppress some kind of generic "left." Its role is as an instrument of class struggle and the facilitation of exploitation. I.e. it is an instrument against other classes -- by an expropriating class of capitalists.

It is hard to make empirical arguments about the DPRK (one way or another) -- since it is an opaque closed-off society, where all we know is the incredible degree of militarization, the inability of the people to interact with the rest of the world, and the bizarre choice of creating a feudo-monarchy wrapped in heavily religious mythology.

("The sun and the moon stood still in the sky when Kim il Sung was born.")

You can argue that the DDR was not fascist. Ok. But in fact the East German state criminalized all political behavior that was not supportative of their rule, and quite large numbers of people were deeply troubled by their rule, so the political life of many-even-most people was criminalized. Call it what you want. But people kept their mouth shut, even in their own living rooms, because informants were literally everywhere. And because even the most mild anti-government remarks were noted.

* * * * * *
someone writes:

<blockquote>"No one is a “Nazi” because they support repression of leftist freedom of speech."</blockquote>

Well, a Nazi is a particular flavor of fascist. But in fact supporting an end to the legal freedom of speech <em>is</em> (in fact) one major sign of fascist politics.

someone is arguing from definitions here in a mechanical way:

Trotskyists and Maoists have (historically) different definitions of fascist.

In such cases, the logical discussion to have is to explain those differences, and advocate for one definition over another (or perhaps for a third, newer definition) -- and explain the reasons for your views.

someone postures oddly and simply suggest that other people don't know what they are talking about because they aren't using HIS definition. I.e. he starts with the assumption that he is right, and his main argument against the rest of us is that we disagree with him and (in particular) with <em>his</em> definition.

Arguing from apriori definitions is not a very illuminating or convincing method.

Classic trotskyism defines fascism as a very particular kind of mass movement that arises after the defeat of a revolutionary attempt -- a mass movement in which crazed rightwing forces (largely from the ruined middle classes) congeal around a highly authoritarian politics and become a mass battering ram of the ruling class against remaining revolutionary forces.

In other words, they take the <em>particular</em> forms and history of European Nazism and assert <em>that</em> as a universal and defining model of fascism.

For Maoists (generally) fascism is the abandonment of bourgeois democracy and the adoption of the "open terroristic dictatorship" of dominant sections of the ruling class. And in the Maoist view, fascism has different forms: the European Nazi, antisemitic, populist mass party is one of them. But there are others: Military juntas (pinochet in chile, suharto in indonesia, etc.) is an example of another major form. (The post-revolutionary police states of some of the nominally "socialist" countries -- East Germany, Romania, North Korea -- seem like a third kind with their own particular and common features.)

There is a difference worth noting -- between fascist <em>acts</em> (i.e. rounding up Muslims in the U.S. without trial) and actually established fascist <em>state systems</em> (with new laws, constitutions and political norms). The U.S. carried out many fascist <em>acts</em> after 9/11, without becoming fully, clearly and decisively a fascist <em>state</em>.

In the U.S., bourgeois democracy has always included a particularly sharp and vicious edge toward some forces (including at times radicals, or Black people demanding rights, or Japanese during WW2).

And part of the theoretical challenge is understanding the relationship between fascist currents and acts <em>within the framework of bourgeois democracy</em>, and a process of fascization <em>in which the assumed legal and political norms change within bourgeois democracy in new and extreme ways</em>, and full-blown fascism itself (as the diverse examples of Pinochet or Hitler exemplify.)

someone's theory of fascism doesn't really give us much to work with -- in this task of examine (and opposing) the ways in which the ruling class modified and undermines its own bourgeois democracy. The political prescriptions associated with trotskyism's theory of fascism are often lifted (crudely) from the experience of Germany (from 1930-33) and calls for a "workers united front" (that has little relevance or application in, say, the post-9/11 developments.)

mike:

"on what possible basis can you say that Kasama rejects the idea of a transitional program, when the issue has never been engaged at any depth, and most people reading this have little idea what a “transitional program” is?"

you included transitional program in your list of flawed aspects of trotskyism. so we do know what you think about it. you call it "classic economism."

i cant help but notice how shallow your critiques of trotskyism are. specifically regarding the Transitional Program, you forget that trotksy blatantly counterposes the TP to economism, saying that it bridges the minimum demands (bread and butter stuff most workers "spontaneously" support) with the maximum (socialism) which economists left a broad gulf between as they solely focussed on elections and wage gains. trotsky's goal is to get the working class to demand things that seem perfectly reasonable to them yet cannot be met within the capitalist framework, thus showing the way to socialist revolution rather than telling. most of his specific demands dont strike me as accomplishing that task (eg nationalizing the banks), but i think the spirit of it is correct insofar as one accepts communist work within the labor movement at all.

the aforementioned bank nationalization demand makes me think about statism in general, and lenin's characterization of the transitional state in The State and Revolution. he says it shouldnt even really be considered a state because as a tool of the proletariat its qualitatively different from the bourgeois state. in a way, any political project that accepts a) the commodity form of labor and b) the state in its proper sense, is economistic, no? the term "economist" was used against the likes of Kautsky, whom lenin and luxemburg most ardently criticized for believing that workers bargaining the price of their labor power progressively higher AND working their way into the state apparatus can ease socialism into existence without revolution. the strategy is predicated on labor power as a commodity and the state in its proper bourgeois form as an inevitability. i challenge marxists of every stripe to consider whether their favorite leader made these fundamental errors and if so, to reconsider their holy ranking in your political ideology. the state and the commodity are the enemies of the communist, particularly in 2009 when most of the world has been "democratized" political and "freed" economically (now the "bourgeois democratic "charade is exposed).

certainly the state apparatus which mao headed up blatantly accepted the commodity form of labor, capitalist enterprise, and repression against not just "free thinkers" but even simple workers (eg restricted geographical mobility).

Mike, it seems to me that on the Eastern European "socialism" AND the Trotskyism points, your (not entirely wrong) critique runs into a sharp contradiction with your (overly enthusiastic) support for Mao's (statist/economistic (kautskyian?) and pseudo fascistic) China.

I have often found the below speech from Marcy's funeral to be very enlightening about his views.

-Caleb

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 26, 1998
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

He always took the workers’ side in the global struggle
By Deirdre Griswold

Sam Marcy understood better than others how much the world situation affects the struggle of the workers and oppressed here.

The Russian Revolution fired up a whole generation of communists, especially after the capitalist world fell off the cliff into the depression of the 1930s. Those communists played a very big role in building the CIO, in fighting racism, in organizing the poor.

After World War II, it was largely the colonial world’s struggle for liberation that spurred on the nationally oppres sed Black, Latino and Native move ments here.

When he was in Buffalo, N.Y., giving tactical advice to labor leaders fighting the bosses in steel, auto and other manufacturing industries, Sam avidly followed the news on the revolutions in China and Korea, and on their magnificent resistance to U.S. aggression during the Korean War.

In 1950 Sam developed a thesis on the world situation called The Global Class War. A bloc of socialist countries had emerged with an affinity to one another—not necessarily because of geography, or history, or a common language or culture, but because they had all gone through a struggle to break up the state of the old ruling class, had confiscated capitalist property, and had begun a planned economy. These socialist countries became allies of the oppressed nations fighting to break free of colonialism and imperialism.

Sam explained that it was in the interests of the working class everywhere to defend this bloc of socialist countries and oppressed nations. They represented our side in the developing class war.

On the other side were the imperialist states and the oppressing classes—led by U.S. finance capital. In other words, the same class of super-rich parasites that fought workers here over every nickel and dime, the same class that kept Black, Latino, Native and Asian people shackled by racism.

Sam wrote that imperialism and the socialist countries were in an irreconcilable struggle. It had already led to war in Korea and could spread at any time to a worldwide class war.

This global class war has come to be known as the Cold War, but that really doesn’t tell the story. It included a hundred hot wars within it.

Sam taught the Party not to be bystanders, or mere sympathizers in this global struggle. This was our struggle, it affected our camp, the camp of the workers and oppressed. A victory like that in Cuba at Playa Giron, or in Vietnam when the last U.S. helicopter took off—that was a victory for the working class, for the oppressed peoples inside the United States.

But there is more to the worldwide struggle for socialism than our victories. We can’t close our eyes to the problems, the reverses.

In the depths of the anti-communist period of the 1950s, there were several revolts—in East Germany, in Poland and in Hungary. But they weren’t all the same. In the GDR and Poland, these were basically worker uprisings against severe economic conditions, made worse by bureaucratic mistakes.

But in Hungary, what seemed to start out in the same way turned quickly into a counter-revolutionary assault on the workers’ state, cheered on by imperialism. All the most reactionary, even fascist elements came to the fore. Finally, the Soviet Union intervened militarily to crush the counter-revolution—a move Sam supported.

After we formed Workers World Party, Sam wrote hundreds of articles for our newspaper about the problems facing the socialist countries. It was a subject that couldn’t be avoided. A great rift had opened up in what had been for a time a strong, anti-imperialist camp.

U.S. imperialism did all it could to widen that rift, to poison the relations between the socialist countries by first seeming to favor one, then another, trying to draw them into treaties and arrangements that would undercut their solidarity with one another.

We live and fight inside the United States, the center of world reaction. So whatever we say and do of a critical nature, we must first make crystal clear that any socialist country, no matter how far the leadership may have degenerated, is better for the workers than counter-revolution.

Hasn’t history proven this point in the most terrible way? Look at the former Soviet Union today. It is overrun with the scum of the capitalist earth—corporate executives flying over to get the oil, the gold, the diamonds—while the workers are literally dying from lack of food, heat, medicine.

China might have gone the same way. But it refused to "open up" to bourgeois counter-revolution—the real issue behind the Tiananmen Square struggle. There is a growing class divide inside China because of the growth of private property in various forms. But the Chinese socialist state, the product of a great and prolonged revolutionary struggle, has not been overthrown. Imperialism cannot just walk in and tell China what to do.

We commend our comrades in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and in Cuba for holding on to socialism even in this most difficult period. Sometimes it can be very hard, especially when the capitalist world seems to be rising to dizzying heights. But even a painfully slow pace of development, when it’s for the well-being of the masses, is a thousand times better than a mad rush after profits that ends in ruination for the workers and much of the middle class. That’s what is happening in capitalist Asia right now.

Sam prepared our Party for the great setbacks that took others by surprise. But he also drummed into us that we must be prepared for a different kind of surprise: the upsurge of the masses against their intolerable conditions.

That will come as day follows night, and it, too, can come when it is least expected.

- END -

Also, this linked article seems to cover the issues as well.

http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samclass/class/pcnvrt01.htm

I am by no means an expert on this subject, but these are the articles with which I have found the most clear articulation of his views. I am sure there exist many more, and some one much better informed could comment on this.