There are several points to your reply I found of interest as politics and
theory.
>>CB: In my opinion , Communists do not rely or depend on the revolutions in
the instruments of production to make the change in property relations.
Communists seek to inspire the working class to seize state power and change
the
property laws (literally) and directly. If a rev in the instruments of prod.
causes an uproar that leads workers to overthrow the bourgeois state, fine.
We'll
take it. But our role is to propagandize the masses of workers so that they
respond to something like the computer and chip revolution in technology (and
its attendant changes in types of jobs, numbers of jobs) by taking state
power.<<<
WL: I think you invent straw men to fight.
The issue is not what communist "depend on" but rather the content and
context of ones activity. The seizure of power is dependent upon the social
struggle
passing through its various phases - junctures, that define the revolutionary
crisis in the "classical sense" as outlined by Lenin. That is what we are
dependent upon in respects to changing the property relations or more
accurately
overthrowing the bourgeois property relations.
That is why I gave a general overview of the African American Peoples
Movement for the past sixty years and the various junctures and boundaries the
political movement has passed through. The African American Peoples Movement
was a
reform movement. The definition of a reform movement is a social movement to
alter and change - re-form-ulate, the relations between classes without a
qualitative change in the property relations. The industrial union movement was
such
a movement during the transition from craft unions to industrial form of
unions. Without question the industrial union movement was given impetus by the
vast quantitative expansion of the industrial form of production. Communists
did
not wait or were dependent upon this quantitative expansion to engage the
guardians of bourgeois property. Heck, communists familiar with Marx fought in
the Civil War.
No one within Marxism - at least in America, disputes that the mechanization
of agriculture gave a different impetus to the African American Peoples
Movement with the destruction of the sharecropping system. No one waited for
changes
in the technological basis of agriculture. American communism was reoriented
in their approach to the Negro People with the October 26, 1928, document on
the Negro Question. Before that the African American people themselves fought
and have never waited for changes in the means of production as a precondition
for resistance and fights against bourgeois rule and Jim Crow.
I know of no communists that have waited for changes in the means of
production as a precondition for engagement with the workers on the basis of
their
self activity. It seems you have invented a straw man to fight. Nor was the
issue
a discussion of the role of communists in the social struggle.
You have confused the issue of insurrection with social revolution.
Further the role of communists is much more complex than simply propaganda -
whatever you mean by that. The two categories we inherited from Lenin and the
Third International defining our doctrine - not theory, of combat revolves
around how we apply the meaning of "propaganda" and "agitation."
Here we are dealing with doctrine - strategy and tactics, rather than the
theory grid concerning the science of society. Strategy and tactics and
communist
strategy and tactics is also an area of considerable controversy and dispute
over their meaning. For instance, Lenin's strategy was to build a party that
could seize power - carry out insurrection, in the context of a huge revolution
taking place in Russia. The social revolution taking place in Russia was from
agriculture to industry or the continuation of the industrial revolution. Or
what most call the "transition from feudalism to capitalism."
Now the victory of the ideas and vision of the Marxist detachment of the
communist movement are absolutely dependent on the state of development of the
productive forces, but this in no way determine our fight against the evils of
not just bourgeoisie society but the historical legacy of class society.
Marx and Engels political strategy - which cannot be confused with their
writing of how and why society moved in class antagonism, is akin to military
strategy or military doctrine of combat. Building the First International was
a
strategy. Forming the Communist League was a strategy involving a specific type
of propaganda. Forming the Second International and Engels generalship of it
was a specific strategy that cannot be reduced to "propagandiz(Ing) the masses
of workers so that they respond to something."
This formulation is to vague for me and does not take into account the
history of writings within Marxism concerning strategy and tactics and the
concrete
meaning of propaganda and agitation during distinct junctures in the labor
movement, the composition of the working class and one sector of the working
class the communists target as that whose social logic compels it to batter the
state. I strongly suggest that you read or reread Stalin's articles on the
Question of strategy and tactics of Russian Communists for the "classical
presentation" of this question within our pole of the communist movement.
I would fight within my polarity to target the most poverty stricken sector
of the working class as the strategic line of march, at this stage of the
social process, and the propaganda task would allow one to win the emerging
leaders
over to the cause of communism, without detaching them from their respective
areas of work. The issue you raise is not abstract.
"Propagandiz(Ing) the masses of workers so that they respond to something,"
is an ideological disposition or attitude or ideological posture that is all
right, until one carries out activity spaning decades and discovers that "the
masses of workers" concept runs against the grain of the "classical"
presentation of the task of communists.
To begin with it is not possible for communists to "propagandize the masses
of workers" or desirable. First of all we communists can only lead people where
they are already going. Victory to the workers in their current struggle
means exactly that.
Communist strategy has always been bound up with that section and sector of
the working class and labor movement in motion or at the cutting edge of the
social struggle. This is so because only a certain dynamic moving section of
the
working class has the strength to impact and move the class along
politically. There is not the kind of direct connection as dependence ("do not
rely or
depend on the revolutions in the instruments of production to make the change
in
property relations") you speak of, between economics and politics as the
actual fight in the political superstructure. That is why I say you invented a
straw man. I cannot be accused of such a formulation of such advocacy.
The relationship between what can be called the base and superstructure or
more accurately changes in the infrastructure and its technology, as a
precondition for whether communist can or cannot seize power, is a ridiculous
formulation - you injected into the discussion.
The entire 20th century witnessed the attempts of communists to seize power
as society completed its fundamental transition from agriculture to industry.
No one waited or was dependent as such. Nor has any communist group I have been
involved with advocated such a proposition or carried out their collective
activity on this basis.
Example: during the 1970s when their was no change whatsoever in seizing
power, not an abstract change the property relations, we communists carried out
"Vote Communist Campaigns" and did successful work in the trade union and
nationality movement, all the way up into the 21st Century. No one "waits" or
is
dependent as you have formulated the issue.
Now the question of communist strategy and tactics involves an assessment of
social forces and what stage in the revolutionary process our working class is
at. Further strategy presupposes having actual social forces at ones disposal
because one is speaking of being able to field troops. Without troops there
can be no real talk about strategy and propaganda because strategy presupposes
being able to maneuver in the class struggle and maneuver is dependent upon
troops.
Even here on issue you raise of propaganda and "dependence" our differences
emerge. The difference is not so much riveted to "who is the classical
presenter" but one of experience and political orientation within a pole that
evolved
from the Third International.
There is more to come.
Waistline
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