Javad Eskandarpour wrote:
Comrade Klo,
My remarks on your statements:
(1) When you state that "It was a peasant revolution led by the
proletarian vanguard and assisted by the proletariat which led to the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat", It seems that you want to make the
proletariat an ally and assistent of the peasantry, not the other way
around, in contradistinction to Lenin's ideas;
My reply,
It was a symbiotic relationship, as neither could have succeeded without the
other. Each aided the other. It was a peasant revolt but led to the goals of
the proletariat and its vanguard. I feel quite confident that Lenin would
concur with my summation.
You call it a Proletarian Revolution because you are focusing on the society
ultimately established with little concern for those who actually did the
fighting, while I call it a Peasant Revolution giving rise to the Dictatorship
of the Proletariat, due to the vanguard’s leadership, because I am focusing on
those who actually did the fighting and dying overwhelmingly.
also at he same time , you acknowledge that we have a proletarian revolution
contrary to your previous claim that "the first proletarian revolution is yet
to occur".
My reply,
Where did I say it was a proletarian revolution? You are the one who keeps
making that assertion. I said it was a revolution of the peasantry which was
led by the vanguard of the proletariat and assisted by the proletariat. It was
not a proletarian revolution, although some misleadingly refer to it as a
proletarian revolution because it was led by the proletarian vanguard. As I
mentioned earlier in a point I think you missed: Was WWII on the Eastern Front
a war between the “brains” of the operation, Hitler and Stalin and their
associates, or between the “muscle and masses,” the Wehrmacht and the Red
Army? How could it have been a proletarian revolution when the proletariat’s
role was dwarfed by that of the peasantry when it comes to numbers and the
actual fighting involved?
From your perspective one might just as well call it a Women’s Revolution
because a number of women did some of the fighting and dying and victory led to
the emancipation of women in Russia.
(2) The concept of "revolution" against capitalism in
Marxism-Leninism means the process of a qualitative restructuring of the
mode of production through overthrowing capitalism politically and
abolishing private property. So, this concept does not mean any generic act
of rebelion by x against y, for example, peasantry against capitalism
because peasantry does not and cannot qualitatively restructure the
capitalist mode of production and abolish private property due to its own
foundation.
My reply,
Now you are replowing the same ground. The peasantry can, and actually did,
participate in the abolishment of private ownership. They willingly fought
against feudal landlords on the premise that the lands of the latter would be
taken from the small minority and distributed to the vast majority.
You are again exhibiting this Trotskyist conception of the peasantry in which
the latter is totally incapable of supporting collectivization or the
abolishment of private property. Not so. As I mentioned in the prior post,
the overwhelming majority of the peasants were not kulaks or middle peasants
but poor landless peasants who could be persuaded that collectivization was
superior to private ownership by each individual member of that class. They
fought to take the land from the few wealthy landowners and once that was
successful the vanguard needed only convince them that it was in their best
interest to collectivize that which had been seized rather than distribute
parcels to each peasant individually.
In addition, the nature of any revolution is based on the
specific mode of production which is declared politically and being
established economically,
My reply,
How a mode of production is “declared” politically or otherwise has nothing to
do with what it is, as that is based on objective conditions. Calling
something a duck does not make it a duck.
but it is not based on the number of the participants who might come from
different classes. So, your questions, like "What class did more to overthrow
the Czar and the Provisional government than any other? What class fought the
capitalists during the Intervention and the Whites during the Civil War more
than any other by far?", are not relevant to the detemination of which class is
revolutionary against capitalism, and which class has its dictatorship.
My reply,
According to you, even though a particular class provided the overwhelming
majority of those doing the fighting and dying, it could still not be a revolt
by them but by another class. That’s quite a accomplishment don’t you think.
Can you give me some examples of revolutions in history executed almost
completely by members of class A but you consider to actually be a revolution
by class B?
I can think of revolutions by class A which I would call a revolution by class
A, but which were led and controlled by class B and created the society desired
by class B. The Russian Revolution of 1917 is a good example. But I can’t
think of one that was executed as well as led and controlled by class A that I
would call a revolution by class B.
Incidentally, I am still waiting for you to explain to me how the Chinese
revolution and the Vietnamese revolution and the Cuban revolution were
proletarian revolutions when the proletariat’s contribution to the actual
fighting and dying was dwarfed by the peasantry. Your only escape is to claim
these countries never established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat or
socialism to begin with.
The idea of establishing the nature of revolution through numerical strength of
a particular class is not a Marxist-Leninist idea.
My reply,
To completely ignore the crucial role of the class that contributed the
overwhelming majority of those doing the revolting simply because other classes
are involved is erroneous; it’s not Marxist-Leninist. One might just as well
say the war on the Eastern Front was between Hitler and his associates versus
Stalin and his supporters because the winning group of leaders was involved and
determined the nature of the post-War society in the Eastern Region, not the
Wehrmacht or the Red Army.
Secondly, in effect, you are saying it is impossible to have a revolution
leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat unless the proletariat is the
class actually doing the revolting. So, I will again ask you how much of a
role the proletariat played in the actual overthrow of the bourgeois
dictatorship of Russia. What was the size of the proletariat in Russia
throughout the Revolution, the Civil War and the Intervention from 1917 to 1920
and how much did they physically contribute to the overthrow and victory? I am
still waiting for a reply.
(3)In relation to your reference to Trotsky, I would like to
mention
that if you have a point to make, please argue for your point without
conjuring up the amorphous "ghost" of Trotsky's ideas relevantly or
irrelevantly because, contrary to common misconception, the name of Trotsky
(assuming he is wrong) cannot make your point sound, and I am certain that you
can argue for your point without recourse to famous or infamous names.
My reply,
Can’t agree. I think it is important for anyone reading this dialogue to be
aware of the similarity between your ideas and those of Trotsky. Mine is not a
case of trying to apply guilt by association but of making people aware of
those ideas which can, and did, lead to erroneous theories and tactics. One
learns from the past and we don’t want to corroborate Santayana’s dictum that
the only thing one learns from history is that people don’t learn from
history. People should know that when they accept your analysis they are
buying into Trotsky’s conception of history and how we should act henceforth.
For Trotsky the proletariat was the be-all and the end-all. I am just glad
Lenin and Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Fidel in
Cuba did not operate on that non-Marxist premise or we would be much farther
behind than we already are.
For the cause,
Klo
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