I think Marx's critique of the German Workers Gotha Program provides a roadmap for the way Marx envisioned the transition from Capitalism to Communism. In his criticism of Lassalle's program Marx identifies several points of clarification. First while identifying the need for an international brotherhood of working classes he also identifies the fact that the International Working Men's Association was only the first attempt at organizing and that this attempt was rendered ineffective after the events that culminated in the Paris Commune. Secondly, Marx notes that the goal is to organize "total labor" to produce a common fund called "a means of consumption", these phrases presuppose the establishment of a broad based mass movement. Last but not least, the "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" is mentioned in passing as the remedy but it is framed in terms of an international struggle against ruling classes and governments. >From these premises it is understandable how Leninism evolved from a narrow nationalistic framework and revolutionary crisis in Czarist leadership, and how the military question required a certain level of discipline that emerged as an on the ground strategic concern. However it is doubtful that the Russian organizational model would be endorsed by Marx himself as the de facto blueprint for working class organization. This is evidenced by the international scope of the task at hand as well as the acknowledgement that the German-Prussian State was different from other more progressive states like Switzerland or the United States. Here I think it was up to comrades on the ground to analyse the conditions of the time and place so they can build organizations that are representative of the specific character of the local working classes. In more authoritarian states this will likely lead to different tactics but in no case would he endorse what he criticized Lassalle for:
"*Lassalle, in opposition to the Communist Manifesto and to all earlier socialism, conceived the workers' movement from the narrowest national standpoint. He is being followed in this – and that after the work of the International!* *It is altogether self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own country is the immediate arena of its struggle – insofar as its class struggle is national, not in substance, but, as the Communist Manifesto says, "in form". But the "framework of the present-day national state", for instance, the German Empire, is itself, in its turn, economically "within the framework" of the world market, politically "within the framework" of the system of states. Every businessman knows that German trade is at the same time foreign trade." (Marx Critique of the Gotha Programme Part 1) * Cheers, Ben -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39601): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39601 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116549413/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
