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?
A revolutionary party should not seek to pass legislation. They should present legislation that helps the working class but will be rejected by the bourgeois government. The simpler the better. The goal is not to be “successful” or pass bills, it is to highlight the hostile nature the bourgeois political system has to the working class.
They should vote in favor of things that objectively help the working class. They should take every opportunity to slow bills that make things worse and be very vocal about how they are trying to stop the further immiseration of the working class. They should do what they can to cause more elections as it undermines the legitimacy of the system.
The Revolutionary Party should only participate in electoral politics to raise awareness and gauge popular support. It is a theater for agitation not a tool of class war.
This.
As an example: making a law that can be defined as anti-capitalist not to make it go through but to draw attention to the matter, how it would genuinely benefit the people and how hypocritical the other parties would be to reject it and ever call themselves for the people?
I don’t quite understand the last paragraph tho…
I disagree.
Trying to play the “revolutionary” under a liberal democracy (Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie) will most likely lead you to death, both literal and political death. The opposition will do everything possible to destroy you one way or another. What is the most effective way to change the mindset of the masses and develop their class consciousness? By directly changing the material conditions, whether they like it or not. Just change them. To change them, whether they want it or not, you need to be authoritarian, and the very conditions of a liberal democracy won’t allow it. Second, without sovereignty, there is no socialism, basically; and you will not be a sovereign country as long as you have U.S. bases on your soil, and the moment you try to remove them, you’ll also be dead.
My interpretation of revolutionary is anything that is inherently anti-capitalist
I completely disagree with the term “anti-capitalist”. We as Marxists, who seek the construction of scientific socialism, are not anti, we are post-capitalists. The best way to “get rid of” the capitalist mode of production is to overcome it, not to go against the tide. And where do you overcome it? At its highest point, if we want a highly developed socialism, of course.
I am still at a point in my life where it’s either revolution or nothing. Being authoritarian and totalitarian or nothing.
I am still at a point in my life where it’s either revolution or nothing. Being authoritarian and totalitarian or nothing.
I’m pretty sure I get the spirit of what you’re saying, but I think there is better terminology than this. Every state is authoritarian and communists are nothing resembling “total” control of a population at any point in history (and in fact tend to develop democratic systems with real community representation). However, AES states are clear on not letting the capitalist/imperialists/colonizers hold political power, by means of force if necessary (and some force is always necessary because the exploiting classes don’t go quietly and don’t stop waging class war just because you take power from them on one region). There is also the reaction to contend with from a people who are still mostly of the mindset of the previous system and haven’t had the value of the new system proven to them yet, including people who directly benefited from the previous way more. And inter-party struggle which doesn’t always go smoothly.
In short, dictatorship of the proletariat. We don’t need to use the wishy washy terminology of the bourgeoisie like “authoritarian” and “totalitarian”.
I completely disagree with the term “anti-capitalist”. We as Marxists, who seek the construction of scientific socialism, are not anti, we are post-capitalists. The best way to “get rid of” the capitalist mode of production is to overcome it, not to go against the tide. And where do you overcome it? At its highest point, if we want a highly developed socialism, of course.
I’m not sure I follow you on this part. Perhaps you are referring to how China is doing things where they have capitalist characteristics but are nevertheless run by communists. If so, I’d agree regions that are behind need to develop their productive forces and that can mean taking on some capitalist characteristics under careful control of communists. On the other hand, for those of us who live in already developed capitalist regions, it isn’t quite the same thing. The capitalism is already there and it’s highly exploitative for a while now; it’s not a matter of “catching up” in that context, but of ending the exploitative model and putting the already existing productive forces toward social good.
In either case, I would insist that I am anti-capitalist. It does not mean I want to go back to feudalism. To me, it means I recognize capitalism as fundamentally exploitative and oppose it systemically as a form of power. It does not mean I oppose markets or trade, which existed before capitalism and will exist plenty after.
In short, dictatorship of the proletariat. We don’t need to use the wishy washy terminology of the bourgeoisie like “authoritarian” and “totalitarian”.
I acknowledge that these are terms commonly used by the bourgeoisie to naturalize the State as a neutral, non-ideological, and inevitably oppressive entity. Given the context of this conversation, and specifically here on this social network, it is clear I am referring to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; however, even under that framework, admitting that it is effectively authoritarian and totalitarian is not wrong, because there will be no room for opposition (by any means necessary). I see no error in using such terms, as long as we understand they depend entirely on their social function (against whom and for what purpose).
I’m not sure I follow you on this part. Perhaps you are referring to how China is doing things where they have capitalist characteristics but are nevertheless run by communists. If so, I’d agree regions that are behind need to develop their productive forces and that can mean taking on some capitalist characteristics under careful control of communists.
I am not pointing at China specifically, although they are an excellent example to learn from, particularly regarding Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Similarly, just like the Soviet Union under the NEP (though, unfortunately, they faced external pressure that forced mass socialization and collectivization to build heavy industry and prepare for potential invasion). My main point is that I reject the ‘anti-capitalist’ stance that views the system as good or bad in a moral sense and bases its decisions on ethics rather than on a scientific and materialist analysis. We need to dialectically overcome these contradictions and harness the advancements of this system (which still sucks the blood and soul out of us) as tools for building a post-capitalist society.
It does not mean I oppose markets or trade, which existed before capitalism and will exist plenty after.
I agree with you on that as well. The market is not a category inherent to capital; it existed long before it, for instance, the slave market within feudalism, and it will continue to exist after capital. The same applies to trade, distribution networks, and so forth.
Edit: I hope this has cleared things up a bit.
Maybe this article will better explain why I don’t think we should be using a term like “totalitarian” to describe what communists do / intend to do: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
As far as I’m aware, it has no meaningful use among practicing communists and, in fact, has often been used as an anti-communist label applied to AES states. DotP is more clear and concrete: the working class is in charge and will, to the best of their ability, not allow those who normally exploit the working class to be the ones holding political power. Totalitarian is vague and conjures up images of mass surveillance and unfair suppression, which is not the point of working class power.
“By any means necessary” is also not what DotP is about. There are ethical lines to draw and it’s important to keep in view that there’s a difference between being understanding of harsh decisions made by AES states that were under siege (and in literal wars, such as USSR defending against Nazi Germany) vs. saying that as a general practice communists should not be discerning about the ethics of methodology and just do anything if it achieves political aims. The first one is about understanding and defending practicing communists under assault. The second one implies throwing moral scruples out the window, which has more relationship with right deviationism than it does practicing communism. Not saying that’s your intention, but that is how it reads to me, to put it in such binary terms, and I would caution against framing it in such a way.
My main point is that I reject the ‘anti-capitalist’ stance that views the system as good or bad in a moral sense and bases its decisions on ethics rather than on a scientific and materialist analysis. We need to dialectically overcome these contradictions and harness the advancements of this system (which still sucks the blood and soul out of us) as tools for building a post-capitalist society.
Again, I think I understand the spirit of what you’re saying. That rejecting a tool because of a single form it takes having associations with exploitation can be a wrong path. For example, rejecting AI as a whole because of the form it takes under capitalism loses sight of the value it can provide when directed by a communist vanguard (such as what China is doing with it). Though I would still emphasize that morality and ethics do matter and scientific socialism is not without it in application. It won’t help us to try to smash all machines and return to huts or something, but we do need to be discerning on what tools are more dangerous and unethical in general, and what kind of use and form of tools is overall more safe, healthy, and empowering. This is in its way part of the harnessing of the tools. Not for abstract efficiency alone, but for empirically demonstrable social good.
The second one implies throwing moral scruples out the window, which has more relationship with right deviationism than it does practicing communism. Not saying that’s your intention, but that is how it reads to me, to put it in such binary terms, and I would caution against framing it in such a way.
Preaching about “moral scruples” is anti-revolutionary. The same way youre comparing socialist extremists to “right deviationism” is the same way Stalin has been demonized by being compared to Hitler.
Every year capitalism causes tens of millions of deaths and immeasurable suffering. The bourgeoisie has already thrown all scruples out of the window,
Preaching about “moral scruples” is anti-revolutionary. The same way youre comparing socialist extremists to “right deviationism” is the same way Stalin has been demonized by being compared to Hitler.
I’m sorry, what? What do you think the purpose of a communist revolution is for? Simply to hold power for the sake of it?
Demonizing Stalin isn’t bad because “moral scruples.” It’s bad because it’s a dishonest narrative pushed by anti-communists who are looking at mistakes or questionable decisions made by a generally honest and well-intentioned system under siege (the USSR), or straight up making up things about what it did. And then trying to make that comparable to the murderous intent and follow-through of an intentionally genocidal regime (Nazi Germany). And they do so via superficial and politically illiterate buzzwords that mean nothing about governance.
As I alluded to in my other post, I am not here to go back in time and rake AES efforts over the coals for every questionable decision they made when they were struggling to survive against assault. However, that does not mean that as as general principle, we should be promoting a view like “by any means necessary” and “make a totalitarian government.” Which is not what the (often laudable) AES efforts have done in history and is not how they accomplished such dramatic improvements in quality of life.
It would seem that some people look at the violence part of revolution and hyperfocus on that, while leaving out the part where communists tend to be principled and disciplined as an effort when they were/are successful. Hell, even Iran is principled in the middle of war and it’s not even communist; the US/israel bombed its hospitals but it did not do the same to israel. This does not mean being tolerant in the liberal sense of things or being a pushover in war (and again, using Iran as example, they are far from acting like a pushover).
Every year capitalism causes tens of millions of deaths and immeasurable suffering. The bourgeoisie has already thrown all scruples out of the window,
So your solution to fix this is for the working class to also throw out all moral scruples??? I know revolution is no dinner party and I’m familiar with the poignant Mark Twain quote and point about terror, but come on. The context in which this is valid is that revolution is not exactly a friendly exchange of power and you won’t win it via a game of rock-paper-scissors with the bourgeoisie. That still doesn’t mean you throw out any and all sense of morality, and you would be hard-pressed to find such behavior as representative of communist revolutions in history. Are you thinking concretely about how dark no moral compass can look? Torture? Child killing? Targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure like hospitals? This is the kind of evil shit colonialism and imperialism gets up to regularly. Communists do not need to imitate that in order to have power.
Big K on the mic:
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice”
First of all. English is not my native lenguage so i apoligize for my broken english.
I meant that Stalin was demonized with the pretext of moral scruples, not that it was bad to demonize Stalin with the pretext of moral scruples.(tbh this lowkey dosnt make any sense)
What i was trying to get at its that the show the other cheek mentality is what leads moderates and liberals to demonizes Stalin and Mao. Wich i dont think their being dishonest about, the NKVD did do a whole lot of morbid work. Wich of they did too litte, just look at the destalinization campaing. Krushev should have been executed way before he got anywhere close to Chairman.
I dont think we should be using iran as an example of anything. They are just a convinient ally against The Fourth Reich.(the enemy of the enemy is my friend type shi)
That still doesn’t mean you throw out any and all sense of morality, and you would be hard-pressed to find such behavior as representative of communist revolutions in history. Are you thinking concretely about how dark no moral compass can look? Torture? Child killing? Targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure like hospitals? This is the kind of evil shit colonialism and imperialism gets up to regularly. Communists do not need to imitate that in order to have power.
Torture its just not worth the trouble.
Morality is based on intent: If a surgeon dismembers a patient because the patient got gangrene, hes not an evil sadistic monster. Hes a savior.(i hate that this reads like chatgpt)
I 100% believe that the end justify the means. And i think trying to keep a moral highground is damaging to the revolution.
What i was trying to get at its that the show the other cheek mentality is what leads moderates and liberals to demonizes Stalin and Mao.
I 100% believe that the end justify the means. And i think trying to keep a moral highground is damaging to the revolution.
Well this is why I use Iran as an example. Iran has conducted warfare, there is no doubt about it. They are not acting like pacifists, refusing to do violence and getting themselves massacred in the process. But they still have lines they don’t cross.
The liberal conception of moral high ground is more akin to pacifism, in my understanding of it. Though it is also kind of nonsensical and contradictory because it’s the liberals who don’t have power who most seem to preach it and the liberals who do have power definitely don’t wield it like pacifists when it comes time to enact imperialist policies and the like. Liberalism in general has a lot of self-deceit and deceit of others going on.
When I speak of morality, I am thinking more like Iran than I am thinking like Michelle Obama’s vapid “when they go low, we go high” (while her husband was ordering drone strikes).
I see no reason why revolutionaries should not exercise restraint and, in fact, among revolutionaries who do not exercise restraint, what I would expend to see is a lot of adventurist random violence that does not coherently contribute to revolutionary goals and wastes energy and resources in the process. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go preachy about every person who is being exploited and takes matters into their own hands. It does mean that I’m not going to promote conducting revolutionary goals in that way and I’m going to push back against language that suggests boundaries don’t matter.
In short, I would agree that the liberal conception of moral highground is damaging (and is more often just nonsense). I would insist, however, that there is such a thing as real moral highground and that disciplined revolutionaries are perfectly capable of practicing it and have done so at times in the past. This does not exclude conducting warfare when under attack; even liberals would usually agree that war as self-defense is morally justified. War is always going to be somewhat ugly, but it doesn’t have to be no holds barred conducted as brutally as possible to maximize civilian death and suffering as the imperialists do.
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
Quoting from state and revolution, we have the following:
From this, we can see the end-goal is not to capture the bourgeois state, but to 1. create a proletarian state and 2. for the proletarian state to supersede the bourgeois state.
So, the laws passed in a government should aim to 1. remove barriers / promote in organizing proletarian institutions into a parallel government, 2. remove barriers impeding / promote the legitimacy of said proletarian government, 3. impede capitalist accumulation, because an accumulation of capital is also the accumulation of political power.
Regarding the part about violent revolution, I have a theory that it might not necessarily be violent, but I need more research to prove or disprove that.
The basic strategy is to always avoid the privatization of public assets. The bigger the asset, the more important it is to remain under public control, especially infrastructure e.g.: Roads, trains, ports, schools, hospitals, power etc.
If you have the ability to pass laws then you’ve already won state power. You don’t need a revolution
You’re missing the point. Even if you get elected, the class nature of the state is still bourgeois.
That’s why you’re able to be removed through legal or illegal means even if you win through election. You haven’t won state power. Instead, you are elected to execute bourgeois class interests, and you’ll be fired if you don’t do your job.
Things aren’t always that simple, if Allende was alive today he would strongly disagree. The closest example we have of a socialist government coming to and staying in power through non-revolutionary means is maybe Venezuela and that still had a militaristic component to it, Hugo Chavez had the advantage of being a former military officer and had to deal with some close call coups.
winning and keeping state power are different processes
The recent reversal of the Voting Rights Act in the US shows that merely passing legislation is not enough to cement class power. Legislative gains can be taken away, so revolutionary follow up is required.
