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Luko Willms distinguishes between "concrete democratic rights" and universal suffrage, and insists that Engels makes the same distinction. This is an important issue, and I will show below that he is turning Engels on his head. Luko Willms wrote: > No, that is wrong. Engels even took great pains to explain to the German >movement that the concrete democratic rights are indispensable, first and >foremost the freedom of the presse, the freedom of assembly and the freedom >of association, while parliamentary elections, even common and secret and >equal elections are mostly a trap. I think that I mentioned not long ago >this article, a veiled polemic against the Lassaleans in the article "The >Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party", in english in the >MIA at > > <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/02/12.htm > For example: > > >{Engels] If the government decreed universal direct suffrage, it would from > > the outset hedge it about with so many ifs and buts that it would in > > fact not be universal direct suffrage at all any more. But Willms takes the argument out of context. Engels is talking about a particular situation: 1860s Germany. Let's look into this. Engels distinguishes what might type of elections might be conceded by the bureaucratic-absolutist government of Bismarck representing "the feudal aristocracy and the bureaucracy" and elections under different conditions. In Germany in the 1860s, there was still the question of whether there would be a democratic revolution. Engels analyzes the concrete situation of that time, and distinguishes the type transformation Bismark aimed at in order to stave off revolution, and the type transformation that would be of most use for the masses. When one reads the entire article, one sees that Engels is fervently in favor of universal suffrage; it is absurd to say that Engels distinguished between concrete democratic rights, which were important, and universal suffrage, which was supposedly mainly a trap. If one wanted to condense and simplify Engels' argument, it would be that universal suffrage can be a trap and an empty facade *if* there aren't other democratic rights, but is extremely important when there are these other rights. This is exactly opposite to how Luko Willms understands him. Also, one will see that Engels was not afraid to champion the overthrow of bureaucratic-absolutist rule in favor of a democratic government, even in the situation that this government was bound to be a bourgeois government. That is relevant to various of the democratic movements today. In the 1860s, the Bismarckian system of government could only have been overthrown if the bourgeois strata had supported this. The working class was faced with what its attitude to this should be. Engels calls the general democratic movement "the bourgeois movement", to indicate the distinction from the socialist movement and because democracy in Germany at that time would put the bourgeoisie into power, but he knew full well that not only capitalists were in that movement. The concrete circumstances facing the masses has changed since the 1860s. The class situation is more complicated. But the general principles put forward by Engels - of the distinction between the democratic and socialist movement, of the need for the proletariat to participate in the democratic struggle, and the need of the proletariat to have its own independent standpoint during this struggle - remain valid. Now for the quotes: Engels writes, as if to repudiate Luko Willms in advance, "...the bourgeoisie and workers can only exercise real, organised, political power through parliamentary representation; and such parliamentary representation is valueless unless it has a voice and a share in making decisions, in other words, unless it holds the 'purse-strings'. That however is precisely what Bismarck on his own admission is trying to prevent. We ask: is it in the interests of the workers that this parliament should be robbed of all power, this parliament which they themselves hope to enter by winning universal direct suffrage and in which they hope one day to form the majority? Is it in their interests to set all the wheels of agitation in motion in order to enter an assembly whose words ultimately carry no weight? Surely not." So much for Engels' supposed denigration of the value of universal suffrage and parliamentary representation. Luko Willms cites the following passage, but doesn't consider that Engels isn't referring to a French republic, but to the repressive Second Empire of Louis Bonaparte which existed at that time. Engels is not talking about what universal suffrage is in general, but about the Bonapartist parody of it. > > > > And regarding universal direct suffrage itself, one has only to go > > to France to realise what tame elections it can give rise to, if one > > has only a large and ignorant rural population, a well-organised > > bureaucracy, a well-regimented press, associations sufficiently kept > > down by the police and no political meetings at all. How many > > workers' representatives does universal direct suffrage send to the > > French chamber, then? And yet the French proletariat has the > > advantage over the German of far greater concentration and longer > > experience of struggle and organisation. Here Engels refers to what universal direct suffrage might mean, "if one has only a large and ignorant rural population, a well-oganised bureaucracy, a well-regimented press, associations sufficiently kept down by the police and no political meetings at all." In other words, if Bismarck grants a universal suffrage while keeping the other conditions -- and that's all Bismarck will do -- then it will be suffrage just like under the Second Empire and Louis Bonaparte in France. Engels considered what would happen if the bourgeoisie did take political power from the Bismarckian regime. He wrote, in this same article, "The bourgeoisie cannot win political power for itself nor give this political power constitutional and legal forms without at the same time putting weapons into the hands of the proletariat. ....To be consistent, it must therefore demand universal, direct suffrage, freedom of the press, association and assembly and the suspension of all special laws directed against individual classes of the population. And there is nothing else that the proletariat needs to demand form it. ... With freedom of the press and the right of assembly and association it will universal suffrage, and with universal, direct suffrage, in conjunction with the above tools of agitation, it will win everything else." But what if the bourgeoisie wasn't consistent (and in fact preferred to preserve the bureaucratic-absolutist government). In that case, Engels said, "there are two paths left to the workers": "Either to drive the bourgeoisie against its will and compel it as far as possible to extend the suffrage, to grant freedom of the press, association and assembly and thereby to create the arena for the proletariat in which it can move freely and organise. That is what the English workers have done since the Reform Bill of 1832 and the French workers since the July Revolution of 1830... The alternative, said Engels, would be to "withdraw entirely from the bourgeois movement and leave the bourgeoisie to its fate. This was what happened in England, France and Germany after the failure of the European workers' movement form 1848 to 1850. It can only happen after violent and temporarily fruitless exertions, after which the class needs to rest. It cannot happen when the working class is in a healthy condition, for it would be the equivalent of total political abdication, and a class which is courageous by nature, a class which has nothing to lose and everything to gain, is incapable of that in the long term." But what if the bourgeoisie betrayed utterly (as in fact did happen). Well, Engels said, "Even if the worst came to the worst and the bourgeoisie was to scurry under the skirts of reaction for fear of the workers, and appeal to the power of those elements hostile to itself for protection against them -- even then the workers' party would have no choice but, notwithstanding the bourgeoisie, to continue its campaign for bourgeois freedom, freedom of the press and rights of assembly and association which the bourgeoisie had betrayed. Without these freedoms it will be unable to move freely itself; in this struggle it is fighting to establish the environment necessary for its existence, for the air it needs to breathe." Does this mean that Engels was a reformist who recommend the workers should trail behind the bourgeoisie. Not at all. He wrote: "We are taking it for granted that in all these eventualities the workers' party will not play the role of a mere appendage to the bourgeoisie but of an independent party quite distinct from it. It will remind the bourgeoisie at every opportunity [and no doubt he doesn't mean simply by words--JG] that the class interests of the workers are directly opposed to those of the capitalists and that the workers are aware of this. It will retain control of and further develop its own organisation as distinct, from the party organisation of the bourgeoisie, and will only negotiate with the latter as one power with another. In this way, it will secure for itself a position commanding respect, educate the individual workers about their class interests and when the next revolutionary storm comes -- and these storms now recur as regularly as trade crises and equinoctial storms - it will be ready to act." Since there was a possibility of democratic revolution, Engels would denigrate the miserable facade that Bismarck was aiming to implement. But when the revolutionary situation of the 1806s had past, Engels held that even the type suffrage granted by Bismarck could be used by an organized workers' movement. In the his introduction of March 6, 1895 to an edition of Marx's "The Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850", Engels wrote: "There had long been universal suffrage in France, but it had fallen into disrepute through the misuse to which the Bonapartist government had put it. After the Commune there was no workers' party to make use of it. Also in Spain it had existed since the republic, but in Spain boycott of the elections was ever the rule of all serious opposition parties. ... It was otherwise in Germany. The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had again taken up this point. When Bismarck found himself compelled to introduce the franchise as the only means of interesting the mass of the people in his plans, our workers immediately took it in earnest and sent August Bebel to the first, constituent Reichstag. And from that day on, they have used the franchise in a way which has paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all countries." www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm Luko Willms apparently regards these tactics as betrayal. He thinks that there is a contradiction between organizing to break the power of the bourgeoisie, and yet supporting the democratic movement. So he writes: > No, no, our comrades were very clear: we fight for material democratic >rights, for the workers to take power out of the hands of the bourgeoisie. But Engels had none of the sectarianism of LW, and saw the value of democratic struggle even in situations where socialist revolution was still distant. Indeed, if workers don't organize in those situations, they will never be able to carry out socialist revolution.. Luko Willms goes on to quote Lenin, and similarly stands Lenin on his head. He cites Lenin's "The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (October, 1915). Here Lenin defends the struggle for the right to self-determination even though it won't by itself bring socialism. LW again takes the exact opposite meaning from the article. He cites many passages from Lenin, but the essence is that Lenin says that > > It is absurd to contrapose the socialist > > revolution and the revolutionary struggle against capitalism to a > > single problem of democracy, in this case, the national question. LW interprets this to mean that the democratic struggle is always simply a part of the socialist revolution. But Lenin's meaning was just the opposite. It's that participation in the democratic struggle is *not* an obstacle to the eventual socialist revolution, but is in the interests of the preparation of the socialist revolution. Thus Lenin says that "The Russian proletariat cannot march at the head of the people towards a victorious democratic revolution (which is the immediate task)...without immediately demanding...for all nations oppressed by tsarism, the freedom to secede from Russia." (The parenthetical words, "which is the immediate task", are Lenin's) Geez, Lenin repeatedly and extensively discussed the different class nature of the democratic and socialist movements, of the need for the socialist workers to take part in the democratic movement, of the value of democracy for them, and of what their independent role in that movement should be. To torture quotations to mean their opposite is hardly a serious occupation. Theoretical work has to be taken seriously. One shouldn't simply tear things out of context, but examine the real meanings of articles. One may agree or disagree with an article, but one should understand it properly. If one wants to see what is still vitally important, what is outdated and should be revised, and what simply refers to conditions that no longer exist, one has to understand articles properly. I discuss the relevance of Lenin's view of the different class character of the democratic and socialist movements in my article "Leninism and the Arab Spring", www.communistvoice.org/46cLeninism.html. The struggles of the Arab Spring were important even though they were not going to bring about socialism. <> I > > > > We must combine the revolutionary struggle against capitalism with a > > revolutionary programme and tactics on all democratic demands: a > > republic, a militia, the popular election of officials, equal rights > > for women, the self-determination of nations, etc. > > > > While capitalism exists, these demands - all of them - can only > > be accomplished as an exception, and even then > > in an incomplete and distorted form. Basing ourselves > > on the democracy already achieved, and exposing its > > incompleteness under capitalism, we demand the overthrow of > > capitalism, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, as a necessary > > basis both for the abolition of the poverty of the masses and for > > the complete and all-round institution of all democratic reforms. > > > > Some of these reforms will be started before the overthrow of the > > bourgeoisie, others in the course of that overthrow, and still > > others after it. The social revolution is not a single battle, but a > > period covering a series of battles over all sorts of problems of > > economic and democratic reform, which are consummated only by the > > expropriation of the bourgeoisie. > > > > It is for the sake of this final aim that we must formulate > > every one of our democratic demands in a consistently revolutionary way. > > It is quite conceivable that the workers of some particular country > > will overthrow the bourgeoisie before even a single fundamental > > democratic reform has been fully achieved. > > > > It is, however, quite inconceivable that the proletariat, > > as a historical class, will be able to defeat the bourgeoisie, > > unless it is prepared for that by being educated in the > > spirit of the most consistent and resolutely revolutionary democracy. > > > despite capitalist property relations remaining. > > Capitalist property relations can't be done away with the stroke of a pen. > Forming a workers and farmers government, i.e. one which results from a mass > movement of working people, and which rests upon the mobilised masses of > working people, is only the first step which is needed to transform the mode > of production and to do away with capitalist property relations. And a > government which doesn't progress along that path, will lose the support of > the masses and will lose its power, as it happened in Nicaragua. > > There are certainly revolutionary people in Syria, and especially are there > workers in Syria, but they do not call the shots. Occasionally there is a > street demonstration. > > But in order to advance on the path towards a socialist revolution, they > will have to chase away and disarm all those power-hungry armed factions, and > chart a course which goes over into an all-Arab mobilisation against > imperialism and imperialist intervention, including all the national > minorities within the Arab nation, from the Kurds and Hebrews in the Mashraq > (East) to the Imazigh in Maghreb (West), and also the workers from the Indian > subcontinent, the Philipines and other Asian countries which constitued the > majority of the proletariat in the oil dictatorships on the Arab peninsula. > And of course break with all those false friends who in their safe US, > Australian or European homes join in with the talking heads of the Corporate > News Networks and other Faux News regurgitating the propaganda of the enemy, > i.e. imperialism. > > > > Cheers, > Lüko Willms > Frankfurt/Main, Germany > http://www.mlwerke.de > > > PS: Sorry for the second send of my previous message, the one which Louis P. > replied to. I was confused with my new setup, and did the resend 10 seconds > too early, when the message to the list arrived at my computers doorstep. > > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/jgreen%40communistvoice.org ----------------------------------- Joseph Green m...@communistvoice.org ------------------------------------ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
