Since reading Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution and discussing with my wife about it, we both got to the conclusion that a party should have its goal in their laws and executive actions to get rid of capitalism instead of making it “livable” under it, like the Northern countries.
Now, that is mostly clear to me, and I kinda also understand what Lenin spoke of in Left-wing communism (haven’t finished reading it). But how would one go about doing so?
I also recognize that having a mix of both reformist and revolutionary laws before the revolution might be advantageous and a worthy tactic to raise the class consciousness in the short term and starting to lay the foundation for the revolution on the long term. But this is very abstract and I can’t quite fully understand how this would be measured and which law would have to be reformist or revolutionary.
My interpretation of revolutionary is anything that is inherently anti-capitalist. This can either impede exploitation of a sector of the current economy (like abolishing the ability of landowners to own more than 2 homes or outright banning corporations of buying homes and subsequently appropriating their homes) or make it impossible to extract profits (collectivization of national industries and running them on non-profit basis).
Am I missing something here tho? Are there any other useful tactics or strategies to apply in the European imperial core?
Right, I understand that. Germany, if we ever try to be socialist, will absolutely be invaded by foreign powers. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do so. Rheinmetall in Europe together with the French relative are forces of oppression of third world countries, plus they sell weapons to both Russia and Ukraine as a tiny example of how blood-profit thirsty they are. This tho, hasn’t stoped previous AES states.
What would be your proposed alternative?
What does it mean for Germany to “try to be socialist”? Do you expect a bourgeois party to advance the country toward socialism? Or do you expect a socialist party to win elections and be allowed to govern as a socialist party? Because neither is at all realistic. The parties that can win elections in a liberal bourgeois system will never work toward socialism and the parties that would work toward socialism will never be allowed to come to power, let alone to govern as such.
But if you were to ask what a genuinely socialist party should do in the hypothetical scenario that it somehow magically finds itself in power: the first step is to seize control of the banks and the commanding heights of industry. Because as long as private capital holds all the economic power, it will always sabotage everything you do and no genuine systemic reforms will ever succeed.
And of course in the case of Germany, kick out the Americans, exit NATO and the EU, and take back control over the currency by abandoning the Euro and re-introducing a national currency. Without sovereign control over your own currency you cannot make sovereign decisions over your economic policy. Your country will be forever hostage to who controls your currency. After that, nationalize the infrastructure, make a five year plan, and start a massive energy, industry and infrastructure program which will provide huge numbers of jobs.
But as i said, this is largely fantasy. The real task of a socialist and revolutionary party under liberal bourgeois electoralism is, as comrade @Commiejones pointed out, to agitate and expose the contradictions of the system by showing the working class what their interests are and what their demands should be and how the ruling class is not and will never willingly fulfill those demands.
Thank you for the in depth description of post revolution on what to do then, but my question is still here in my limited understanding and not so good extrapolation. What constitutes as the “bringing awareness”, because I feel like the party I am in is already doing that and quite well. If it would be the only thing to do, the MLPD would likely be the most voted one for being the most grounded in reality and exposing of contradictions, but that’s not what’s happening. So my question now is what exactly would those questions to be raised be? How were some examples portrayed in history?
I think I understand that ultimately power won’t be given to us by voting, but by appropriately taking advantage of capitalism’s failings, but how can we balance avoiding the financial hardship of our Proletariat under capitalism and having a struggle for power? It’s fine to recommend a book as well, that would be welcome