Text coloring decodes as
follows:
Black: | Ken Ellis |
Red: | Marx, Engels, and Lenin. |
Green: | Press report, etc. |
Blue: | Correspondent, adversary, SLP-related |
Purple: | Unreliable Info |
Brown: | Inaccurate quote, but true to intent |
p. 39: |
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"The shallow-minded, the special pleader of unsound principles, take great pains - and not a little pleasure - in insisting that the Marxian concept of proletarian rule, referred to as the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," and De Leon's theory of Industrial Unionism and working class government based on industrial constituencies, are necessarily, and under any and all circumstances, antithetical. Nothing could be further from the truth. {1} I have already shown that the essence of Proletarian Dictatorship, as understood by Marx and the great expounders of Marxism, is supreme power by the working class, to the exclusion of all capitalist and bourgeois elements, and with parliaments and constituent assemblies utterly destroyed.*
"* "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, stripped of its Latin, scientific and historico-philosophical dress, and clothed in simple language, means that only a certain class, and that the industrial workers, especially the workers in large factories, is able to lead the general body of the exploited masses in their fight to end capitalist exploitation." - Lenin, "Communist Saturdays." {2}
"All of this is not only
implied in the concept of De Leon's Industrial Union and industrial
government, but is, indeed, an indispensable condition for the
realization of the Socialist or Industrial Republic. {3} Marx, as De Leon often emphasized, is not a quotation
nor yet a string of quotations.
{4} Every
word he uttered is pregnant with meaning, and his utterances were
always directed by a central principle, and definitely based upon
definite conditions. {5}
The central
principle was, of course, the emancipation of the working class,
i.e., the victory of the proletariat, and the conditions were
naturally such as were at hand.
{6} There
is, in itself, no potent charm in the phrase "Proletarian
Dictatorship." Marx used it as the one best suited at the
time to express his idea of working class supreme power, stripped
of the fetters of the capitalist Political State, and all the
better suited because it brought into contrast the actual fact
(though denied in theory) of capitalist economic dictatorship. {7} De Leon himself used the phrase on at least one
occasion, a fact which proves that it was primarily used by Socialist
writers merely to express the complete negation of capitalist
political and economic power.
{8} In an
editorial written in 1910 (i.e., long after he had worked out
his Industrial Union and government theory) De Leon employs the
phrase. Discussing the arrogant action of the then New York Governor,
Chas. E. Hughes, in practically ordering the legislature to do
his bidding, and emphasizing the attempted usurpation of power
by the Executive, De Leon concludes:
""Besides the economic conditions to warrant
the phenomenon, it requires two things for the dictatorship -
the dictator and the dumb dictatorees. The latter seem to be there;
the former is taking shape.
{9} And yet
bourgeois pundits are learnedly explaining the necessity of the
dual legislative chamber system. They had better try and save
their own precious legislatures. Close behind the bourgeois dictator
comes the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. . . ." {10}
"What does De Leon here imply by the phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"? Clearly nothing more than that the "precious legislatures" will be superseded by the organized power of the proletariat, i.e., the integral Industrial Union. And it was in the identical sense (modified by the conditions of the time) that Marx used it, and, indeed, it was in the same sense that Lenin used it, modified by the conditions in Russia. When Marx referred to the "Proletarian Dictatorship," capitalism as a whole was still in process of development, that is, it was as yet far from having exhausted the possibilities for normal growth. We know that the working class (the proletariat) in continental Europe constituted a minority. In "The Gotha Program" Marx says: "......'the working population' in Germany consists, in its majority, of peasants and not of proletarians." And Lenin, in his" ... {11}
There is a lot we can analyze in this chapter in which A.P. used the word 'condition' or its plural six times, perhaps to make sure that those of us with 'dull intellects' didn't miss the point.
A.P. began his treatise on dictatorship with:
1 'The shallow-minded, the special pleader of unsound principles, take great pains - and not a little pleasure - in insisting that the Marxian concept of proletarian rule, referred to as the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," and De Leon's theory of Industrial Unionism ... are necessarily, and under any and all circumstances, antithetical. Nothing could be further from the truth.'
The grain of
truth in this argument is that the dictatorship of the proletariat and Socialist Industrial Unionism are not exactly antithetical to each other. A
more exact antithesis appears when comparing the SIU theory with the state ownership theory. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the Marxist theory,
but, in a breach of good
ethics, the state ownership theory was substituted by A.P. and De
Leon in place of the Marxist
theory, and then they criticized
the state
ownership theory, calling
it the Marxist
theory all along.
The state
ownership theory holds that
socialism will commence with the victory of the workers'
party at the ballot box.
Workers would use their newly won electoral victory to concentrate
means of production into the hands of the state. But, as with so many ideas, there is a theoretical
snag here, for, right after the electoral victory of the workers' party, the elements of force in the state
remain outside of the control of socialists,
preventing anything more communistic
than nationalization
of industries with
compensation, similar to
what A.P. described in his Preface to
Engels' "Socialism:
From Utopia to Science",
where A.P. wrote: "It was the genius of De Leon which perceived that
to transform private capitalist property into "State property"
amounted to consolidating all economic power into the hands of
a few capitalists" ...
A.P. and De Leon were correct to imply that state capitalism, or state
socialism, or state ownership, yield nothing of value to the working
class, but not for the reasons they gave.
The state
socialist theory has a connection
to Marxism in the following way: In Marx's day,
few countries outside of England and America could be considered
democracies, and monarchies were the predominant form of European
political rule. Marx's revolutionary scenario
called for European
monarchies to be replaced with a universal proletarian dictatorship more or less simultaneously,
enabling workers to use their political supremacy to expropriate
land, factories and means of production, some with compensation, and some without. Following a battle in which workers emerged with
the full power of the state, expropriation without compensation would be irresistible. Mere electoral victories in
democracies, however, do
not confer upon workers' parties the requisite force for expropriation without
compensation.
Lenin indicated that expropriation
of capitalist
property might be possible
after mere elections, but only for countries without special
state apparatuses that stood above the people, such as what the
American republic was supposed to have been like in the 19th century.
Without a bureaucratic-military machine that stood above the people,
Lenin and Marx theorized that electorally victorious workers' parties could concentrate means of production into the hands
of workers' democracies without government resistance. Lenin thought that by World War One,
however, the era of republics with as allegedly poorly developed
state apparatuses as the North American model had disappeared,
never to be repeated again in history, ensuring the necessity
of smashing
every bourgeois state from then on, democratic or not. But, people in republics never bought
the idea of concentrating
means of production into the hands of their governments, nor did they ever buy the idea of smashing democracies
in order to accomplish that revolution.
Concentrating
means of production into the hands of workers' states as mainsprings of social progress eventually
lost all credibility, as 75 years of experience with state ownership in the old Soviet Union and most of
the rest of the old Soviet Bloc demonstrated the worthlessness
of that program. Rejection of state ownership
will probably continue as a trend, and will someday spread to
what few communist experiments remain to be replaced with capitalist
democracies. Communism was based upon a miscalculation of Marx
and Engels, who remained wedded to 'violent replacements of monarchies with
democracies conferring the requisite power for expropriation without compensation', in spite of increasing willingness
of monarchies divest themselves of political absolutism and to
peacefully adopt democratic features. Because of theoretical snags
in Marxism, socialist doctrine in democracies remained
confused, unpopular and sectarian. Some socialist and/or communist
sects maintain the
necessity of smashing bourgeois rule, democratic or not, which is as absurd and alienating as
any blunder imaginable.
Mainsprings of human progress will not be found
in a state
ownership model, nor in an
anarchist 'replacement
of the state with an administration
of things', nor in any other
scenario that includes the forceful abolition of private property. It may very well be time for a post-Marxist synthesis which recognizes that, in a republic,
democracy can be welcomed as an opportunity for lower classes
to wield influence, if only they had a party that represented
their interests, and if the party wasn't encumbered with the kind
of confusion that results from program elements like 'expropriation of the
rich', or the 'abolition of the state'.
A.P. did a bad job of quoting Lenin in a footnote:
2 "* "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, stripped of its Latin, scientific and historico-philosophical dress, and clothed in simple language, means that only a certain class, and that the industrial workers, especially the workers in large factories, is able to lead the general body of the exploited masses in their fight to end capitalist exploitation." - Lenin, "Communist Saturdays."
At first glance, this quote looks fairly decent, if just a little weak. Let's see if the fault lay in A.P.'s incapacity to capture the intent of Lenin's words from "A Great Beginning" (LCW 29, pp. 420-1):
"If we translate the Latin,
scientific, historico-philosophical term "dictatorship of
the proletariat" into simpler language, it means just the
following:
"Only a definite class, namely, the urban workers
and the factory, industrial workers in general, is able to lead
the whole mass of the working and exploited people in the struggle
to throw off the yoke of capital, in actually carrying it out,
in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the
work of creating the new, socialist social system and in the entire
struggle for the complete abolition of classes. (Let us observe
in parenthesis that the only scientific distinction between socialism
and communism is that the first term implies the first stage of
the new society arising out of capitalism, while the second implies
the next and higher stage.)
"The mistake the "Berne" yellow International
makes is that its leaders accept the class struggle and the leading
role of the proletariat only in word and are afraid to think it
out to its logical conclusion. They are afraid of that inevitable
conclusion which particularly terrifies the bourgeoisie, and which
is absolutely unacceptable to them. They are afraid to admit that
the dictatorship of the proletariat is also a period of
class struggle, which is inevitable as long as classes have not
been abolished, and which changes in form, being particularly
fierce and particularly peculiar in the period immediately following
the overthrow of capital. The proletariat does not cease the class
struggle after it has captured political power, but continues
it until classes are abolished - of course, under different circumstances,
in different form and by different means.
"And what does the "abolition of classes"
mean? All those who call themselves socialists recognise this
as the ultimate goal of socialism, but by no means all give thought
to its significance. Classes are large groups of people differing
from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined
system of social production, by their relation (in most cases
fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their
role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently,
by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they
dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people
one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the
different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.
"Clearly, in order to abolish classes completely,
it is not enough to overthrow the exploiters, the landowners and
capitalists, not enough to abolish their rights of ownership;
it is necessary also to abolish all private ownership of
the means of production, it is necessary to abolish the distinction
between town and country, as well as the distinction between manual
workers and brain workers. This requires a very long period of
time. In order to achieve this an enormous step forward must be
taken in developing the productive forces; it is necessary to
overcome the resistance (frequently passive, which is particularly
stubborn and particularly difficult to overcome) of the numerous
survivals of small-scale production; it is necessary to overcome
the enormous force of habit and conservatism which are connected
with these survivals."
Lenin never
strayed from the theory that the abolition of classes was to be carried out
by means of force, expropriation, and similar violent means during
the proletarian
dictatorship. In other writings,
Lenin mentioned the reduction
in the length of the working day
as such a desirable reform that its implementation was to be integrated
into the domestic policies of Soviet Union, but it was never regarded
as a working class tactic for abolishing class distinctions. Be that as it may, let us review how well A.P.
represented Lenin's views.
Where Lenin wrote: "the urban workers and
the factory, industrial workers in general"
A.P. 'translated': 'the industrial workers, especially the workers in large factories'
Notice the difference in emphasis? What happened to the urban workers in A.P.'s version? Lost in translation? 'Perhaps.' And what about the difference between 'especially' and 'in general'. More translation problems? 'Why not?' Secondly, where Lenin wrote, all in the same sentence:
... 'is able to lead the whole mass of the working and exploited people in the struggle to throw off the yoke of capital, in actually carrying it out, in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the work of creating the new, socialist social system and in the entire struggle for the complete abolition of classes.'
A.P., or the translator he was a poor victim of, substituted:
'is able to lead the general body of the exploited masses in their fight to end capitalist exploitation.'
A.P. or his
translator left out more than three lines of class struggle-related text, and only included phrases
about economic exploitation. Maybe this is one more example of
the 'fully
authenticated quotations'
so proudly advertised on the inside of the SLP pamphlet's jacket cover. Authenticated
by whom? Bakunin?
Throughout "PD vs. D+D",
A.P. included not a word of his own about the abolition of class distinctions, which Lenin and Marx described as the
'ultimate
goal of socialism': "the ultimate goal is
the destruction of the wage system"
... "The
German workers' party strives to abolish wage labour and hence
class distinctions by introducing co-operative production into
industry and agriculture, and on a national scale" ... And yet, the goal of the anarchists - the abolition of the state
- has been repeated in one form or another over and over in this
pamphlet, and in other SLP literature. Did the Party neglect
the abolition
of class distinctions because,
as in Lenin's version, it had too much to do with the hated policy of the
proletariat toward the capitalists during its dictatorship? Or, was the abolition of class distinctions ignored because the 'abolition of the state' sounds like it can be accomplished in a much
shorter period of time than the abolition of class distinctions, and gives such quick relief?
3 'I have already shown that the essence of Proletarian Dictatorship, as understood by Marx and the great expounders of Marxism, is supreme power by the working class, to the exclusion of all capitalist and bourgeois elements, and with parliaments and constituent assemblies utterly destroyed.* All of this is not only implied in the concept of De Leon's Industrial Union and industrial government, but is, indeed, an indispensable condition for the realization of the Socialist or Industrial Republic.'
Repeated throughout "PD vs. D+D" was a lavish number of empty phrases like 'supreme power', which help the lower classes understand nothing. 'Supreme power' is vague and devoid of any strategic or tactical content; 'the exclusion of all capitalist and bourgeois elements' phrase is vague in that it doesn't mention what the capitalists would be excluded from; and 'parliaments and constituent assemblies utterly destroyed' means the abolition of the state, as the peaceful anarchists perceive that task. If this was the meaning of A.P.'s 'Proletarian Dictatorship', and 'implied in the concept of De Leon's Industrial Union', then they were all equally useless to the lower classes. In contrast, Lenin gave a much different perspective on proletarian dictatorship in "'Left-Wing' Communism - an Infantile Disorder" (LCW 31, pp. 23-4):
"* The dictatorship of the proletariat means a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased ten-fold by their overthrow (even if only in a single country), and whose power lies, not only in the strength of international capital, the strength and durability of their international connections, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small-scale production. Unfortunately, small-scale production is still widespread in the world, and small-scale production engenders capitalism, continuously, hourly, daily, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. All these reasons make the dictatorship of the proletariat necessary, and victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and desperate life-and-death struggle which calls for tenacity, discipline, and a single and inflexible will."
The dictatorship of the proletariat for the newly emerged Soviet Union in 1917 became nothing less than a civil war against the upper classes at home, and a war of defense against invading counter-revolutionaries, but the pacifist revolutionary A.P. was reluctant to bring up the topic of class aggression and warfare.
4 'Marx, as De Leon often emphasized, is not a quotation nor yet a string of quotations.'
For the SLP, Marx was never anything more than a string of butchered quotations, or quotes out of context. If A.P. hadn't so badly misused the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the work of writing this book would have been a lot more difficult; but, lucky for me, A.P. 'documented' his work well enough for me to track the quotes down, and a comparison with the originals should be enough to convince any honest skeptic that A.P.'s misuse of the quotes revealed nothing less than an intent to deceive his readers.
5 'Every word he uttered is pregnant with meaning, and his utterances were always directed by a central principle, and definitely based upon definite conditions.'
Here A.P. praised Marx clumsily, which is the only way he could have hypocritically praised someone he loathed. But, in a vain attempt to enlist the aid of Marx to lend credibility to his anarchist version of socialism, A.P. excerpted Marx out of context in order to deceive the reader into believing that 'the SLP is Marxist and socialist'. It was necessary for A.P. to laboriously research and extract those few quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin that were capable of being twisted into something that vaguely supported anarchist ideology, and to occasionally praise Marx, Engels and Lenin along the way. As to their 'utterances' having been 'definitely based upon definite conditions', a great deal of A.P.'s work from this chapter onwards in "PD vs. D+D" had precisely to do with 'conditions', as in: 'Marx, Engels and Lenin had only incomplete or half-baked ideas about politics due to living in eras or countries laboring under backward conditions, a proposition that contained more than a grain of truth, so our analysis must be done with great care.
6 'The central principle was, of course, the emancipation of the working class, i.e., the victory of the proletariat, and the conditions were naturally such as were at hand.'
Except for the irrelevant 'conditions' addendum, this is true. The "complete emancipation" of the workers was used 36 times in the Collected Works, demonstrating the importance of that concept, especially during the heyday of the First International. But, varying 'conditions' were not intended to result in equally variable programs (me44.183): "Since the sections of the working class in different countries find themselves in different conditions of development, it necessarily follows that their theoretical notions, which reflect the real movement, should also diverge. The community of action, however, called into life by the International Working Men's Association, the exchange of ideas facilitated by the public organs of the different national sections, and the direct debates at the General Congresses, are sure by and by to engender a common theoretical programme. Consequently, it belongs not to the functions of the General Council to subject the programme of the Alliance to a critical examination. It is not our task to find out whether it is or is not an adequate expression of the proletarian movement. All we have to know is whether its general tendency does not run against the general tendency of our Association, viz., the complete emancipation of the working class."
7 'There is, in itself, no potent charm in the phrase "Proletarian Dictatorship." Marx used it as the one best suited at the time to express his idea of working class supreme power, stripped of the capitalist Political State, and all the better suited because it brought into contrast the actual fact (though denied in theory) of capitalist economic dictatorship.'
Where did Marx
write anything approximating that? How
was the alleged economic
dictatorship manifested,
and who was denying
that theory? If only A.P.
had given us examples, it might have helped us to understand such
a confusing term, for, what is an economy but the civil
and non-coerced process of exchanging money for commodities and
services, commodities and services for money, commodities for
commodities, etc.? So, where does the dictatorship
come in? Except for the special cases of drugs and hazardous materials,
no one tells bosses or workers what they can buy or sell. The
phrase "economic
dictatorship" could
not be found in the CD of Collected Works.
Capitalist economic freedom
(rather than dictatorship) makes sense as a free market
in which consumers and producers freely
produce, buy and sell anything they want. The idea of the free marketplace is an indispensable part of capitalist
ideology: The fewer the impediments to the flow of money and commodities,
then the better the economy is considered to be working. So, how
can anyone make sense out of an 'economic dictatorship'? It sounds almost like a system in which workers
have to wait in long lines for hours on end to buy a loaf of bread,
as in the old Soviet Bloc.
An economic
dictatorship also conjures
a scenario where consumers are forced to apply for permits to
buy or sell anything, or are forced to buy commodities only from
sources approved by the state, but those policies considerably
defeat the 'freedom
to buy and sell' that is
so much a part of the ideology of free market
systems. In general, the notion of a 'capitalist economic dictatorship' contradicts itself, as in an oxymoron.
It applies the dictatorship idea of 'unswerving obedience to the
rules, or else' to a marketplace concept that carries along with
it a tremendous amount of 'freedom baggage'.
A.P. called the political state a 'capitalist
Political State', no doubt
hoping to impress upon the politically less-aware the bogus idea that 'all states are capitalist states', even the dictatorship of the proletariat! To have assembled the words 'working class supreme power, stripped
of the fetters of the capitalist Political State', A.P. must have had precisely that false notion
in mind. In his article entitled "On Authority",
Engels clarified the historical context of the 'political state' (MESW
II, pp. 378-9):
"All socialists are agreed
that the political state, and with it political authority, will
disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is,
that public functions will lose their political character and
be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching
over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians
demand that the authoritarian political state be abolished at
one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth
to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the
social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these
gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the
most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part
of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means
of rifles, bayonets and cannon - authoritarian means, if such
there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to
have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the
terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the
Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use
of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should
we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely
enough?
"Therefore, either one of two things: either the
anti-authoritarians don't know what they are talking about, in
which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do
know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the
proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction."
From what Engels wrote, one can easily see that his idea of the 'political state' includes the transitional state known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. So, it's no wonder that A.P. was so interested in diverting the lower classes away from it, just like any other kind of state. As Lozovsky observed (M+TU, p. 155):
... "the anarchists see no difference between a dictatorship that shoots landlords and capitalists and a dictatorship that shoots workers."
And now for a shocking revelation:
8 'De Leon himself used the phrase on at least one occasion, a fact which proves that it was primarily used by Socialist writers merely to express the complete negation of capitalist political and economic power.'
If I were an
anarchist in the SLP tradition,
I would have found it quite shocking to learn that De Leon used the phrase
'dictatorship
of the proletariat', but would have been relieved at seeing
A.P.'s explanation that: 'All it meant for De Leon was the abolition of capitalism
and the state.'
For the first time in a long time, A.P. admitted
that the
capitalist class has political as well as economic power. A check of every context in which political power was written about in his pamphlet revealed that A.P. invalidated political power as worthless or dangerous to workers, or else he described it as a tool for only the capitalist class
to use. But 'nowhere did capitalists
exert their political power in the form of a political dictatorship', for then someone might think 'a capitalist political
dictatorship is best counteracted by a proletarian political
dictatorship'; but, it was
fine for
capitalists to exert their economic power in the form of a capitalist
economic dictatorship because
'then it
would be fine for workers to counteract that by means of a proletarian
economic dictatorship, i.e., the SIU.'
Clever reversals of theories like this one were pretty well thought
out by anarchist
falsifiers.
9 ... '"it requires two things for the dictatorship - the dictator and the dumb dictatorees. The latter seem to be there; the former is taking shape."'
An interesting part of De Leon's refutation of Governor Hughes was his reference to the 'dumb dictatorees who seem to be there'. Perhaps De Leon was betraying the attitude of Party intellectuals towards rank and file workers, an attitude that survived over a century. If people have to be dumb to accept SLP theories and repeat them for the rest of their lives, then such dumbness also makes them fit for SLP bureaucrats to dictate to.
10 ""They had better try and save their own precious legislatures. Close behind the bourgeois dictator comes the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. . . .""
'What does De Leon here imply by the phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"? Clearly nothing more than that the "precious legislatures" will be superseded by the organized power of the proletariat, i.e., the integral Industrial Union. And it was in the identical sense (modified by the conditions of the time) that Marx used it, and, indeed, it was in the same sense that Lenin used it, modified by the conditions in Russia.'
Modified by 'the conditions of the time' or not, Marx, Engels and Lenin wanted the political rule of the bourgeoisie to be replaced by the political rule of the proletariat, peacefully or not, and A.P. knew it. His 'conditions' theory also seemed to imply that: 'The conditions experienced by Marx and Lenin in their respective countries were lowly enough for the dictatorship of the proletariat idea to be relevant back then, but not to the USA in this century.' In a very important sense, A.P.'s theory is a half-truth. Because Marx lived in England during the last half of his life, he had the opportunity to observe it as closely as Lenin observed Russia. Marx's analysis of agriculture in England enabled him to predict the increasing supremacy of capital and wage-labor for the future of European agriculture, and for many more world economies over the course of time. In a November 1877 letter "To the Editorial Board of the Otechestvenniye Zapiski", Marx quoted one of his own passages from "Capital" (MESC, p. 293):
"The chapter on primitive
accumulation does not claim to do more than trace the path by
which, in Western Europe, the capitalist economic system emerged
from the womb of the feudal economic system. It therefore describes
the historical process which by divorcing the producers from their
means of production converts them into wage workers (proletarians
in the modern sense of the word) while it converts the owners
of the means of production into capitalists. In that history "all
revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capitalist
class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments, when
great masses of men are forcibly torn from their traditional means
of production and of subsistence, suddenly hurled on the labour
market. But the basis of this whole development is the expropriation
of the peasants. England is so far the only country where this
has been carried through completely
... but all
the countries of Western Europe are going through the same development" ...
"If Russia wants to become a capitalist nation after
the example of the West-European countries - and during the last
few years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction
- she will not succeed without having first transformed a good
part of her peasants into proletarians; and then, once drawn into
the whirlpool of the capitalist economy, she will have to endure
its inexorable laws like other profane nations."
A.P.'s swindle consisted of this: Portray the politics of both Russia and the USA as similarly democratic, and portray the two countries as economically opposite, instead of the other way around, i.e., the way it really was - politically opposite, but economically similar. A.P. used the alleged polar opposition of the two countries in the economic sphere to 'prove' that 'America is ripe for economic revolution, while Russia is not', instead of using the real facts of the old political situations to conclude the obvious, viz., that America already had its democratic revolution, while Russia badly needed to replace its monarchy with democracy, peacefully or not.
A.P. began to flesh out his reasons why a proletarian dictatorship would not be appropriate to American conditions:
11 'When Marx referred to the "Proletarian Dictatorship," capitalism as a whole was still in process of development, that is, it was as yet far from having exhausted the possibilities for normal growth. We know that the working class (the proletariat) in continental Europe constituted a minority. In "The Gotha Program" Marx says: "......'the working population' in Germany consists, in its majority, of peasants and not of proletarians." And Lenin, in his' ...
The last few
words of A.P.'s passage mark the place where, in 1976, due to
the plethora of quotes I suspected A.P. had taken entirely out
of context, and which quotes I could look up, I began my analysis
of his "Proletarian
Democracy vs. Dictatorship and Despotism" pamphlet. The results of that portion of my analysis
can be found in Part B of this book. To briefly recap my analysis:
A.P. quoted Marx to the effect that 'the wage-earning class in Germany was
smaller than the peasant class'.
That's fine. No argument. The argument began with what A.P. went
on to do with the fact of a numerically weak working class in those times and
places; for, the next few
pages of his pamphlet went on to formulate a theory of proletarian dictatorship over the peasantry and the middle classes, whereas Marx, Engels and Lenin had
plainly enough written about alliances between workers, peasants and middle classes against
the uppermost classes. A.P.'s
contradictory
theory, it turns out, happens
to mimic Bakuninist
theory, but the proletariat
of Russia allegedly wanting
to take on all of those peasants and small business people who
outnumbered the proletariat
is no better than a fantasy. Workers and peasants would obviously
have found it much more feasible to take on a relatively small class of rich
capitalists.
A.P. then observed that 'the peasantry - farmers owning little
more than their own small plots - barely exists in present-day
America', which is relatively
true, but he also asserted that the rest of the American middle class was small
and weak, which was and is
false. A recent factoid on CNN declared
that 98%
of American businesses employ 100 employees or fewer, and another statistic shows that small businesseses employ nearly half the workforce, but A.P. thought he could get away with mixing together the relatively
small class of peasants with the rest of the middle classes for the purpose of his 'class analysis'. As a result of his redefinition of
the proletarian
dictatorship as a dictatorship over the
middle classes, and his downplaying of the roles
of the American middle classes to virtually nothing,
he thought he could trick the reader into agreeing that a 'proletarian dictatorship over the barely existing
peasantry and middle classes in America is not necessary.' In spite of the fraud behind A.P.'s class analysis, it's not hard to agree that a 'proletarian dictatorship is definitely not necessary
in the many republics like the USA.'
A.P.'s final
conclusion was correct, but
for all of the wrong reasons, a pattern that was repeated more
than once.
In his sentence about the development of capitalism,
A.P. seems to have concluded that the end of its possibilities for 'normal growth' in the
USA had arrived by the time he wrote "PD vs. D+D" in
1931. If the growth that
had occurred before 1931 had met A.P.'s specifications for what
constituted 'normal
growth', that would also
imply that all
of the growth we've experienced since 1931 has been abnormal. Did A.P. claim that the USA was sufficiently developed technologically to proceed
to classless, stateless society
because, by
1931, the entire work-force had been replaced with robots, and
a working class for bosses to exploit no longer existed? And that all we have ever had to do since 1931
is to talk to a robot in our native tongue, and whatever needs
to be done gets done, period, even the design and construction
of better robots? And that,
because all
the disgusting work is done by robots, no one is forced by economic
necessity to go to work, and all commodities are free? Silly questions. But, the particular
levels of unemployment and suffering we will endure before we
become conscious enough to do something real about the total replacement
of human labor has yet to be determined.
In order for A.P. to make a good case for denying
the need for a proletarian
dictatorial transition period
in the USA, he drew the line at 1931 as the point in history when capitalism
had fully developed. But,
I don't think I would trust the same theoretician
who gave us the 'dictatorship
of the proletariat over the peasantry' with the additional theory that: 'By 1931, the USA had
reached the level of technology necessary for a direct passage
from capitalism to the classless, stateless administration of things.' If another 70 or so years of astounding
technological developments without a revolution
are not enough to prove to A.P.'s followers that he was wrong
on this point, then they must have a lot more patience with A.P.
than I did.
On pages 43-44 of "PD vs. D+D", A.P. tackled the issue of labor productivity:
p. 43: |
|
"Throughout the works of Marx, Engels, and also of Lenin, the point is stressed that upon seizure of power, and after suppressing the state and all that thereby hangs, the important task of the proletariat is to develop the productive powers. {1} The lack of industrial development is one of the cornerstones, in fact, the chief one, upon which rests the particular application of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" by Marx, Engels and Lenin. {2} In the "Communist Manifesto" it is repeatedly emphasized that one of the primary tasks of the victorious proletariat is to "increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible." {3} In Lenin's "The Soviets at Work" it is pointed out that "government can be seized in a few days; insurrections put down in a few weeks; but to increase the power of labor to produce wealth requires years." {4} In his "The Great Initiative" or "Communist Saturdays" Lenin says: "The productivity of labor is the most important factor in the victory of the new social order." {5} We may then logically deduce that where the conditions are the direct opposite of those which confronted Marx in 1871, and Lenin in Russia in 1917, the transition period mentioned by Marx and Engels is not only unnecessary, but it is even impossible, in reason, to conceive of it. {6} Hence, the question of insuring a successful transfer of power from capitalism to Socialism reduces itself, first of all, to one of form. {7} The lower the industrial development, the more that form (in the event of proletarian victory) must partake of the nature of the old society; the higher the industrial development, the more the form must partake of the nature of the new society; in the perfect flowering of capitalist industrial development the form, i.e., the instrument or means of revolution, merges logically into the very governmental structure of the new society itself, or, in other words, the Industrial Union becomes the very framework of the Socialist Industrial Republic of Labor. {8} And to have worked out this revolutionary theory, in strictest conformity with the basic principles of Marxism, constitutes the great De Leon's vital contribution to Marxian science." {9}
From the first
sentences of this chapter, A.P. tried to establish a causative connection
between the underdevelopment of an economy and the need for a
proletarian
dictatorship. He proposed
that: 'Less
developed countries need a transition period of proletarian dictatorship, but highly developed
countries like the USA do not.'
In an examination of the points made by A.P., we shall see if
the quotes that he used to 'prove' his
thesis actually did.
A.P.'s first sentence
called for closer inspection (p. 43):
1 'Throughout the works of Marx, Engels, and also of Lenin, the point is stressed that upon seizure of power, and after suppressing the state and all that thereby hangs, the important task of the proletariat is to develop the productive powers.'
'Suppressing the state' is an anarchist aspect of SLP philosophy. According to Lenin, what the best of the anarchists and the Marxists shared in relation to theories of the state was 'the smashing of the old bourgeois state machinery'. In "The State and Revolution", Lenin defined some differences between Marxists and anarchists (LCW 25, p. 489):
"The distinction between the Marxists and the anarchists is this: (1) The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, recognise that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as a result of the establishment of socialism, which leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish the state completely overnight, not understanding the conditions under which the state can be abolished. (2) The former recognise that after the proletariat has won political power it must completely destroy the old state machine and replace it by a new one consisting of an organisation of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune. The latter, while insisting on the destruction of the state machine, have a very vague idea of what the proletariat will put in its place and how it will use its revolutionary power. The anarchists even deny that the revolutionary proletariat should use the state power, they reject its revolutionary dictatorship. (3) The former demand that the proletariat be trained for revolution by utilising the present state. The anarchists reject this."
While Marx observed the old state machine get replaced with new, working class state machinery during the Paris Commune, the anarchists ignored that experience, or falsified its history to support their philosophy of directly replacing states with an administration of things, bypassing transition periods and proletarian dictatorships. In his 1873 article entitled "The Bakuninists at work", Engels scrutinized the 'victory' of the Bakuninist "International Alliance of Socialist Democracy": After the anarchists abolished the state apparatus of Alcoy, Spain in September of 1872, they later allowed bourgeois rule to re-emerge. Engels read in the Anarchist paper "Solidarity": "Our friends in Alcoy, numbering 5,000, are masters of the situation." Engels commented (NW 153, p.136):
"And what did these "masters"
do with their situation?
"Here the report of the Alliance and its newspaper leave us in the lurch and we have to
rely on the ordinary newspaper reports. From these we learn that
a "Committee
of Public Safety",
that is, a revolutionary government, was then set up in Alcoy.
To be sure, at their Congress at Saint-Imier (Switzerland),
on September 15, 1872, the members of the Alliance decided that "any organisation of political, so-called
provisional or revolutionary authority, can be nothing but a new
fraud and would be just as dangerous for the proletariat as any
of the now existing governments". The members of the Spanish Federal Commission, meeting at Alcoy, had
moreover done everything they could to get this resolution adopted also by the Congress of the
Spanish Section of the International. And yet we find that Severino
Albarracin, a member of this Commission, and, according to some reports, also Francisco
Tomas, its secretary, became members of the Committee of Public Safety, that provisional and
revolutionary government of Alcoy.
"And what did this Committee of Public Safety do? What measures did
it adopt to bring about "the immediate and complete emancipation of the
workers"?
It forbade any man to leave the city, although women were allowed
to do so, provided they ... had a pass! The enemies of all authority
re-introducing a pass! Everything else was utter confusion, inactivity
and helplessness."
For ten more pages, Engels recounted the anarchists' blunders and vacillations around holding state power. In their confusion, they alternately served on committees that condemned authoritarian behavior, or served as revolutionary state officials. Not long after the anarchist victory in Alcoy, troops arrived to restore authority, and the anarchists negotiated a general amnesty for themselves.
2 ... 'upon seizure of power ... the important task of the proletariat is to develop the productive powers. The lack of industrial development is one of the cornerstones, in fact, the chief one, upon which rests the particular application of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" by Marx, Engels and Lenin.'
A.P.'s first sentence incorrectly stressed the alleged hyper-importance of developing productive powers, and his second sentence was a big lie. The chief cornerstone of the dictatorship of the proletariat was the need for the proletariat, after capturing political power, to counteract the resistance of the upper classes. A.P.'s attempt to link proletarian dictatorship to the level of productive forces falls flat, as little relation between the two ideas can be found in the works of Marx and Engels. If any theme was repeated by M+E, it was that the productive forces had already sufficiently developed so that the first stage of communism (the proletarian dictatorship) could be attained, even in the relatively underdeveloped economic conditions of over a century ago. In his 1873 "The Housing Question", Engels wrote (MESW II, p. 312):
"And it is precisely this industrial revolution which has raised the productive power of human labour to such a high level that - for the first time in the history of mankind - the possibility exists, given a rational division of labour among all, of producing not only enough for the plentiful consumption of all members of society and for an abundant reserve fund, but also of leaving each individual sufficient leisure so that what is really worth preserving in historically inherited culture - science, art, forms of intercourse - may not only be preserved but converted from a monopoly of the ruling class into the common property of the whole of society, and may be further developed. And here is the decisive point: as soon as the productive power of human labour has risen to this height, every excuse disappears for the existence of a ruling class."
Engels believed that the productive forces had developed sufficiently in his own time for society to put an end to the political rule of capital, and that replacing capitalist political supremacy with proletarian supremacy would assure sufficient leisure time for everyone to develop their higher powers.
3 "In the "Communist Manifesto" it is repeatedly emphasized that one of the primary tasks of the victorious proletariat is to "increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible."
Wouldn't it have been a little contradictory for Marx and Engels to have 'repeatedly emphasized increasing the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible' after having written many times about crises of over-production? In their 1848 "Communist Manifesto", it appears that Marx and Engels wrote about 'increasing the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible' exactly once, as opposed to A.P.'s notion of 'repeatedly' (MESW I, pp. 113-4):
"The bourgeoisie, during
its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive
and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations
together. ...
"It is enough to mention the commercial crises that
by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly,
the existence of the entire bourgeois society. In these crises
a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the
previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed.
In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier
epochs, would have seemed an absurdity - the epidemic of overproduction. ...
"The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism
to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
"But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons
that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence
the men who are to wield those weapons - the modern working class
- the proletarians.
"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e.,
capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat,
the modern working class, developed - a class of labourers, who
live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so
long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must
sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article
of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes
of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
"Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to
the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost
all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the
workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only
the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack,
that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman
is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that
he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his
race."
If this doesn't mean that we live in an era of overproduction, then I must not have learned to read at all. Years after the Manifesto was written, Marx went on to thoroughly define the value of a commodity, including the value of labor power. The Manifesto continued (Ibid., p. 119):
"The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty-bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him."
Just as the modern welfare state feeds the surplus population. The nice thing about reading Marx and Engels is that so much of what they wrote back then remains just as true today. Due to overproduction, the cheapening of the value of labor power, and the tyrannical rule of the monarchies of Europe, Marx and Engels proposed revolution and proletarian dictatorship to solve workers' problems.
4 "In Lenin's "The Soviets at Work" it is pointed out that "government can be seized in a few days; insurrections put down in a few weeks; but to increase the power of labor to produce wealth requires years.""
A.P. quoted from what he called "The Soviets at Work", but that particular passage could only be found in "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government", written in 1918. According to the Index to the Collected Works, Lenin didn't write anything by the name A.P. gave. Maybe it was a 'problem with translations', or maybe shortening and changing the name was a way for A.P. to save word space, but the passage was tracked down anyway, and here is its context (LCW 27, p. 257):
"In every socialist revolution, after the proletariat has solved the problem of capturing power, and to the extent that the task of expropriating the expropriators and suppressing their resistance has been carried out in the main, there necessarily comes to the forefront the fundamental task of creating a social system superior to capitalism, namely, raising the productivity of labour, and in this connection (and for this purpose) securing better organisation of labour. Our Soviet state is precisely in the position where, thanks to the victories over the exploiters - from Kerensky to Kornilov - it is better able to approach this task directly, to tackle it in earnest. And here it becomes immediately clear that while it is possible to take over the central government in a few days, while it is possible to suppress the military resistance (and sabotage) of the exploiters even in different parts of a great country in a few weeks, the capital solution of the problem of raising the productivity of labour requires, at all events (particularly after a most terrible and devastating war), several years. The protracted nature of the work is certainly dictated by objective circumstances."
Lenin went
on to discuss the objective circumstances, natural resources,
material bases, educational levels, attitudes of workers, and
how to adapt the hated Taylor system
to Soviet workplaces, etc.
While comparing Lenin's actual words to how
A.P. quoted him, one could easily wonder whether the words A.P.
left out could have been due to 'differences in translations', but greater experience with SLP translations reveals that A.P. systematically deleted
any information similar to 'the military resistance (and sabotage) of the exploiters', and 'a most terrible and devastating war' from the works of Marx, Engels and
Lenin. In a country like the USA, where the SLP leadership ordained a 'peaceful revolution',
any notion of fighting, struggle, and the violence of one class
against another, even if it was the concrete historical experience
of a country far away on another continent, was systematically
prevented from educating SLP members.
Next, attempting to describe the importance
of the productivity of labor, A.P. quoted Lenin again (p. 44):
5 "In his "The Great Initiative" or "Communist Saturdays" Lenin says: "The productivity of labor is the most important factor in the victory of the new social order.""
A.P. quoted fairly accurately in this instance. In "A Great Beginning", aka "Communist Subbotniks", Lenin wrote (LCW 29, p. 427):
"In the last analysis, productivity of labour is the most important, the principal thing for the victory of the new social system. Capitalism created a productivity of labour unknown under serfdom. Capitalism can be utterly vanquished, and will be utterly vanquished by socialism creating a new and much higher productivity of labour. This is a very difficult matter and must take a long time; but it has been started, and that is the main thing."
Even when A.P. quoted correctly, he used the words to fabricate unrelated stories, as his next sentence demonstrated:
6 'We may then logically deduce that where the conditions are the direct opposite of those which confronted Marx in 1871, and Lenin in Russia in 1917, the transition period mentioned by Marx and Engels is not only unnecessary, but it is even impossible, in reason, to conceive of it.'
Question: 'Just
exactly what was the
direct opposite of the conditions that confronted Marx and Lenin?' Was it the advanced economic conditions
of the United States? Well, people still have to work in
the USA, don't they? The economic systems that both Marx and Lenin
confronted were capitalist, weren't they? And the length of the working
day here was probably similar
to the length
of the working day there
at the time, so why would anyone want to claim that economic conditions here
and there were directly opposite?
The conditions that were directly opposite, on the other
hand, were the political conditions, with democracy here,
and monarchy there, one being the negation of the other, according
to Marx, which made political conditions as opposite as one could
get.
With his premises in
hand, however, A.P. 'logically
deduced' that: 'Since the purpose of
the transition
period was
solely to build up the productive
forces that were insufficiently developed in Marx's time and in
Lenin's Soviet Union, and because the productive forces in the
USA are presently super-developed, then the USA could pass directly to classless,
stateless society without a transition.'
A major problem with A.P.'s 'logical deduction' was that it directly contradicted Marx's observation
that the
productive forces were already sufficiently developed to support
a world-wide proletarian
dictatorship, but not the
classless, stateless society that A.P. 'interpreted' as socialism. The 'transition period mentioned by Marx and Engels' was nothing less than the proletarian dictatorship that was to be inaugurated during simultaneous revolutions
in technologically developed countries,
and this dictatorship was to be a political
transition
period from capitalism to
classless, stateless society, and not exclusively an economic transition period
with the sole purpose of further developing
productive forces.
Not to be ignored are the differences between
Lenin's and Marx's transition
periods. Lenin's transition-period-to-be began in 1917, and was to run to some
date in the future when the rest of the industrial world was supposed
to catch up to the Soviet Union politically, have their own proletarian
revolutions, and unite
into a world-wide proletarian
dictatorship. In the Soviet
Union, the path to classless, stateless society was to include
the following milestones:
1) The feudal-monarchist period
up to 1861,
2) The capitalist-monarchist period up to early 1917,
3) The brief bourgeois republic lasting a few months in 1917,
4) The Soviet republic beginning late in 1917,
5) Marx's projected dictatorship
of the proletariat for the whole world,
6) And, finally, the projected classless, stateless administration of things for the more distant future.
In the passage A.P. quoted, Lenin admitted that the Soviet Union had not yet made it to what he considered to be a true socialist government, or step #5. After considerable experience, Lenin re-assessed the limited achievements of the new Soviet government in his October 14, 1921 article marking the "Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution" (LCW 33, pp. 51-8):
"We have consummated
the bourgeois-democratic revolution as nobody had done before.
We are advancing towards the socialist revolution consciously,
firmly and unswervingly, knowing that it is not separated from
the bourgeois-democratic revolution by a Chinese Wall, and knowing
too that (in the last analysis) struggle alone will determine
how far we shall advance, what part of this immense and lofty
task we shall accomplish, and to what extent we shall succeed
in consolidating our victories.
...
"The bourgeois-democratic content of the revolution
means that the social relations (system, institutions) of the
country are purged of medievalism, serfdom, feudalism.
"What were the chief manifestations, survivals,
remnants of serfdom in Russia up to 1917? The monarchy, the system
of social estates, landed proprietorship and land tenure, the
status of women, religion, and national oppression. ...
"But in order to consolidate the achievements of
the bourgeois-democratic revolution for the peoples of Russia,
we were obliged to go farther; and we did go farther. We solved
the problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in passing,
as a "by-product" of our main and genuinely proletarian-revolutionary,
socialist activities. We have always said that reforms are a by-product
of the revolutionary class struggle. We said - and proved it by
deeds - that bourgeois-democratic reforms are a by-product of
the proletarian, i.e., of the socialist revolution. ...
"Our last, but most important and most difficult
task, the one we have done least about, is economic development,
the laying of economic foundations for the new, socialist edifice
on the site of the demolished feudal edifice and the semi-demolished
capitalist edifice. ...
"We expected - or perhaps it would be truer to say
that we presumed without having given it adequate consideration
- to be able to organise the state production and the state distribution
of products on communist lines in a small-peasant country directly
as ordered by the proletarian state. Experience has proved that
we were wrong. It appears that a number of transitional stages
were necessary - state capitalism and socialism - in order to
prepare - to prepare by many years of effort - for the
transition to communism."
In the November 1921 "Seventh Moscow Gubernia Conference of the Russian Communist Party", Lenin reported (LCW 33, pp. 96-9):
"Now we find ourselves
in the position of having to retreat even a little further, not
only to state capitalism, but to the state regulation of trade
and the money system. Only in this way, a longer way than we expected,
can we restore economic life.
...
"And what is the dictatorship of the proletariat?
It is war, much more cruel, much more prolonged and much more
stubborn than any other war has ever been. Here danger threatens
us at every step.
"The position which our New Economic Policy has
created - the development of small commercial enterprises, the
leasing of state enterprises, etc. - entails the development of
capitalist relations; and anybody who fails to see this shows
that he has lost his head entirely. It goes without saying that
the consolidation of capitalist relations in itself increases
the danger. But can you point to a single path in revolution,
to any stage and method that would not have its dangers? The disappearance
of danger would mean that the war had come to an end, and that
the dictatorship of the proletariat had ceased."
Lenin admitted
here that Soviet
policies retreated back to capitalist relations of production
in order to get the struggling economy rolling. Some passages indicate that Lenin thought that
the wage-slavery
of state capitalism could co-exist with the class supremacy of
the proletariat during its dictatorship, which is similar to what Marx and Engels wrote
in the Communist
Manifesto. But, while Marx
and Engels wrote about the relationship between capitalist economics
and proletarian
dictatorship as a not-so-unusual
relationship, Lenin seems to have been remorseful about the retreat
into capitalism, as if it might disappoint a lot of people.
A.P. certainly must have had an appreciation
for the night and day difference between the transition period of a struggling socialist revolution in a single
backward country on the one hand, and, on the other, the transition to classless, stateless society after
a worldwide
socialist revolution in the most developed countries; but A.P. equated the two types of transition periods so that he could quote Lenin out of
context to the effect that: 'A country like Russia needs to develop its productive
forces, and needs a transition
period to
ascend to classless stateless society, but, such a transition period is not necessary in technologically advanced countries.'
A.P. added (p. 44):
7 "Hence, the question of insuring a successful transfer of power from capitalism to Socialism reduces itself, first of all, to one of form."
Before our
very eyes, the revolution was reduced to 'a question of form', in spite our not having been given any of the
rules by which revolution,
or any other issue, may
be reduced to a question of form,
if there are any rules. I suppose that A.P.'s thesis may be plausible enough for some people to accept,
but when I remember how difficult it was for me to understand
'conditions' as the reason for the SLP rejecting proletarian dictatorship, then something more substantial just might be
required to convince some of us that 'revolution can be reduced to a question
of form'. But, if I had been
a 'true believer' and had been successfully indoctrinated
into the religion of Socialist
Industrial Unionism, I suppose
that I could also have been led into believing all of the absurdities that support it.
Notice also that the revolution
was no longer a process of transferring power from one class to another, but rather it became 'a transfer of power from
capitalism to Socialism',
i.e., from
one 'ism to another 'ism,
which doesn't sound any more dramatic than peaceful evolution in a democracy.
A.P. went on to expand upon the concept of 'form' in greater detail (p. 44):
8 'The lower the industrial development, the more that form (in the event of proletarian victory) must partake of the nature of the old society; the higher the industrial development, the more the form must partake of the nature of the new society; in the perfect flowering of capitalist industrial development the form, i.e., the instrument or means of revolution, merges logically into the very governmental structure of the new society itself, or, in other words, the Industrial Union becomes the very framework of the Socialist Industrial Republic of Labor.'
A.P.'s language may have been flowery, but industrial unions will not become the form of administration of production in the USA any too soon. In "The State and Revolution", Lenin wrote about the search for forms by anarchists and utopians (LCW 25, pp. 436-7):
"The utopians busied themselves with "discovering" political forms under which the socialist transformation of society was to take place. The anarchists dismissed the question of political forms altogether. The opportunists of present-day Social-Democracy accepted the bourgeois political forms of the parliamentary democratic state as the limit which should not be overstepped; they battered their foreheads praying before this "model", and denounced as anarchism every desire to break these forms."
As predicted
by Lenin, A.P.'s anarchist
statement included nothing
about political forms, but I will digress: In the era of emerging
capitalism centuries ago, the feudal monarchy was a typical political
form. When capitalists organized to overthrow intransigent absolute
monarchical rule, the new form of bourgeois rule was the democratic
republic, adopted early by Holland, England and the United States,
in that order. When the tide of revolutionary fervor reversed
direction and went east to France, the proletariat came out more
and more in each successive struggle as a class for itself, and,
as republicanism swept east to Russia, China, and Vietnam, the
ideology broke away from bourgeois content and became increasingly
communist. Increasing productivity of labor caused politics to
change dramatically. Even more amazing changes are in store relatively
soon, including the abolition of politics itself.
One description that I would never apply to
our present infrastructure is 'the perfect flowering of capitalist industrial
development'. In order to
survive economically, I've had to be involved with the nuts and
bolts of this alleged 'perfect flowering'
far too closely for comfort, and have rarely felt happy to be
involved with it. I think that A.P.'s description of the state
of American technical prowess would appeal more to those who make
lots of money off of other people's labor, or to anyone other
than those who actually make the machinery work.
A.P's 'perfect flowering'
talk is also part of the portrayal of American economic conditions as 'diametrically
opposed' to those of 1871 or 1917,
in order to try to show that 'the transition
period is
necessary only to develop the productive forces', and that 'the transition
period is
not necessary in the USA, hence no need here for a proletarian dictatorship.' But, this 'perfect flowering' will not bloom for me until I have been replaced
with a robot, and I never again have to do anything disgusting.
A.P. concluded this section
with (p. 44):
9 "And to have worked out this revolutionary theory, in strictest conformity with the basic principles of Marxism, constitutes the great De Leon's vital contribution to Marxian science."
If we have
De Leon to thank for all of the above 'revolutionary theory', then De Leon is in just as much trouble with
me as Arnold Petersen. 'De Leon worked out his revolutionary theory in
strictest conformity with the basic principles of Bakuninism' would have been more accurate, though
'Bakuninist
principles' may just be another
oxymoron, if the Party's attempts to put them together coherently
is any example.
In his next chapter, A.P. tackled the important
theoretical question of proletarian democracy ("PD vs. D+D", pp. 44-46):
p. 44: |
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"That the so-called "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is essentially a question of form is made clear by Lenin on numerous occasions. Thus in his exposure of Kautsky he says:
""Proletarian Democracy, of which the Soviet regime constitutes one of the forms, has given to the world a hitherto unknown expansion and development of democracy for the gigantic majority of the population, for the exploited and laboring masses." ("The Proletarian Revolution.") {1}
"Note that "Proletarian Democracy" is used here as a synonym for "Proletarian Dictatorship" as constituted in Russia. The form of "Proletarian Democracy" in this country is the Industrial Union in control of social production. {2} In the same pamphlet Lenin carefully and distinctly says: "The Soviets are the Russian form of proletarian democracy." It is the "Russian form," mark that - not the British, the United States, or any other form, but the Russian. And he adds that any one who desired to study the subject of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would first give a general definition of dictatorship, "and then examine its peculiar national form, the Soviets, and give a criticism of them as one of the forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat." ("The Proletarian Revolution.") {3} Here he speaks so plainly that it would seem impossible even for an Anarcho-Communist to misunderstand him. {4} In this country the "peculiar form" of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (using the term here, not in its strict dictionary sense, but in the sense of working class supremacy) is the Industrial Union which, coupled with the fact of super-developed capitalist production, renders meaningless all talk of a transition period."
In this chapter, A.P. used a quote from Lenin to try to prove that 'proletarian democracy is a question of form'. Did A.P. succeed? Let's see what Lenin really had to say in "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (LCW 28, p. 246):
"Proletarian democracy, of which Soviet government is one of the forms, has brought a development and expansion of democracy unprecedented in the world, for the vast majority of the population, for the exploited and working people."
First, considering the quality of 'translations', notice the differences between:
A.P.'s: Lenin's: "Soviet regime" "Soviet government" "hitherto unknown" "unprecedented" "gigantic majority" "vast majority" "laboring masses" "working people"
In A.P.'s 'translation', readers could easily be left with
an impression that Lenin
and/or Soviet people were intellectually backward and/or a bit
brutal. A historical note:
It appears that many of the works of Lenin were re-translated
into English after the revolution
stabilized. In the production of this book, I did not have access
to the 'translations' that A.P. might have used, but it is
doubtful that the differences could have been as enormous as what
appear between some of A.P.'s quotes and the modern Progress Publishers editions. I doubt if there was any good excuse
for A.P.'s choice of words, even considering the fact that Lenin
wanted to get his refutation of Kautsky's pamphlet "The Dictatorship of the
Proletariat" published
as soon as possible. Though translations into English, French,
and German were available as early as 1919, it is conceivable
that the first ones may not have been of the highest quality.
I might yield to the documentation of other researchers on this
point, if anyone wants to tackle it.
Back to the main subject: Note that Lenin made
a simple claim that 'the
Soviet government was one of the forms of proletarian democracy'. There's a difference between being a form and being a question of form. The former suggests that if Lenin claims that
'the Soviets
are a form of proletarian democracy',
then the Soviet form could be compared to other recognized forms
of proletarian democracy, such as the Commune;
whereas, if A.P. suggests that 'proletarian dictatorship is
a question of form', then
he is suggesting that its
form alone can determine whether or not it is a proletarian dictatorship. One can easily determine, even from
A.P.'s version, that Lenin by no means intended the proletarian dictatorship to be considered 'a question of form'.
There never really should have been any argument
as to the form of proletarian
dictatorship, for its form
was defined by Engels as a democratic republic
in his "Critique
of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891" (MESW III,
p. 435):
"If one thing is certain it is that our Party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown."
Well, imagine
that. The democratic republic being theoretically just as good for proletarian dictatorship (or democracy) as it is for bourgeois democracy. Now, why didn't A.P. have something
to say something about that? Maybe A.P. thought that, along with
so many other thorny issues, "Speech is silver, silence is gold." Though A.P. might have conceded
that 'The
soviets were an appropriate form of proletarian democracy for
the Soviet Union', under
no circumstances would A.P. validate the soviet democratic republican
form as appropriate for the USA, though he probably would have
been more than happy if Lenin, or anyone else in the world, had
bought his SIU
form.
After quoting Lenin, A.P. wrote (p. 45):
2 'Note that "Proletarian Democracy" is used here as a synonym for "Proletarian Dictatorship" as constituted in Russia. The form of "Proletarian Democracy" in this country is the Industrial Union in control of social production. In the same pamphlet Lenin carefully and distinctly says: "The Soviets are the Russian form of proletarian democracy." It is the "Russian form," mark that - not the British, the United States, or any other form, but the Russian.'
Actually, on
page 257 of Volume
28 of LCW, in "The Proletarian Revolution
and the Renegade Kautsky"
(reproduced below), "Lenin carefully and distinctly" wrote that "The Soviets are the Russian form of the
proletarian dictatorship",
rather than A.P.'s 'proletarian
democracy'. More translation problems?
A.P. repeated his assertion that the SIU was to be the
form of proletarian 'dictatorship' in the USA, as though it had been carved in stone somewhere,
and as though A.P. had received his inspiration in the same way
Moses received the Ten
Commandments (in the Charleton
Heston version of that movie).
3 "And he adds that any one who desired to study the subject of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would first give a general definition of dictatorship, "and then examine its peculiar national form, the Soviets, and give a criticism of them as one of the forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat." ("The Proletarian Revolution.")"
So, why couldn't
A.P. have taken up the challenge and given his own definition of dictatorship? The late Marxist
scholar Hal Draper noted that, in the 19th century, as Marx used the term, dictatorship
implied a temporary reign of extraordinary rule. The dictatorship
of the proletariat for Marx
implied a temporary, or transitory,
regime that was to last only as long as society was still divided
into classes, and an upper class still had to be kept in subjection.
In our age, however, dictatorship seems to have lost the 'temporary'
connotation, and popularly connotes permanence as much as harsh
rule.
And what did Lenin really say? We find ourselves
once again obliged to make up for A.P.'s tendency to quote mere
snippets (LCW 28, p.
257):
"The Soviets are the Russian form of the proletarian dictatorship. If a Marxist theoretician, writing a work on the dictatorship of the proletariat, had really studied the subject (and not merely repeated the petty-bourgeois lamentations against dictatorship, as Kautsky did, singing to Menshevik tunes), he would first have given a general definition of dictatorship, and would then have examined its peculiar, national, form, the Soviets; he would have given his critique of them as one of the forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat."
It's not too hard to figure out why A.P. might not have wanted to quote Lenin more thoroughly in this case, what with his warning of petty-bourgeois lamentations against political dictatorship. In that same work, Lenin gave his own definition of dictatorship (Ibid., p. 236):
"Dictatorship is rule
based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws.
"The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat
is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat
against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws."
Lenin's definition
embraced elements of force, violence, unrestricted rule, etc.,
against the bourgeoisie - everything that was abhorrent to the
civilized liar A.P. If lies had been as abhorrent to A.P. as violence,
we would have been spared our present labors.
A.P. concluded his chapter on proletarian democracy with (p. 45):
4 "Here he speaks so plainly that it would seem impossible even for an Anarcho-Communist to misunderstand him. In this country the "peculiar form" of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (using the term here, not in its strict dictionary sense, but in the sense of working class supremacy) is the Industrial Union which, coupled with the fact of super-developed capitalist production, renders meaningless all talk of a transition period."
In his conclusion, a lesson A.P.
hoped for us to have gotten out of his excerpt from Lenin was
that 'the
question of revolution in any country is mostly a question of
form', and that 'the soviets are a non-American
form of proletarian democracy, not to be mistakenly adopted by
Americans.' Even if A.P.
could not have quoted Lenin as having written anything even remotely
resembling such, he probably hoped that it would be what the already converted would want to see in print, and, if
they can peacefully co-exist with the 'dictatorship of the proletariat over the peasantry'
scam, then they can also probably accept the 'proletarian democracy is a question of
form' scam.
A.P. really couldn't take his 'question of form' scam very
far, and it couldn't invalidate the soviets. He certainly didn't
prove that 'the
SIU is the form of 'proletarian
dictatorship'
in the USA.'
And what were those forms of proletarian dictatorship with the funny-sounding foreign name?
Interestingly enough, soviets were nothing more exotic than elected councils, such as what anyone could find in any
democratic country. In spite of all of the quotes to the effect
that 'soviets
are the Russian form of proletarian democracy or dictatorship', and probably much to the disappointment
of A.P., I have never seen a quote from Lenin to the effect that
'the soviet
form would only work in Russia.'
A.P.'s mention of the strict dictionary sense of the dictatorship
of the proletariat piqued
my curiosity, so I turned to my Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, 1968. Here's what it said on page 627:
"dictatorship of the proletariat: the assumption of political
power by the proletariat with concomitant repression of previously
controlling or governing classes that in Marxist philosophy is
considered an essential preliminary to establishment of the classless
state"
Even considering its 'classless state' oxymoron, this definition is a lot closer to Marx's definition than A.P.'s 'dictatorship of the proletariat over the peasantry and middle classes', or A.P's 'economic transition period'. What does it say about the ability of the SLP to "educate, agitate, and organize", when a common dictionary has a much more accurate definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat than a so-called party of socialism? In "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government", a pamphlet that A.P. had already quoted from, Lenin gave a more thorough definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat (LCW 27, pp. 264-5):
"On the other hand, it
is not difficult to see that during every transition from capitalism
to socialism, dictatorship is necessary for two main reasons,
or along two main channels. Firstly, capitalism cannot be defeated
and eradicated without the ruthless suppression of the resistance
of the exploiters, who cannot at once be deprived of their wealth,
of their advantages of organisation and knowledge, and consequently
for a fairly long period will inevitably try to overthrow the
hated rule of the poor; secondly, every great revolution, and
a socialist revolution in particular, even if there is no external
war, is inconceivable without internal war, i.e., civil war, which
is even more devastating than external war, and involves thousands
and millions of cases of wavering and desertion from one side
to another, implies a state of extreme indefiniteness, lack of
equilibrium and chaos. And of course, all the elements of disintegration
of the old society, which are inevitably very numerous and connected
mainly with the petty bourgeoisie (because it is the petty bourgeoisie
that every war and every crisis ruins and destroys first), are
bound to "reveal themselves" during such a profound
revolution. And these elements of disintegration cannot
"reveal themselves" otherwise than in an increase of
crime, hooliganism, corruption, profiteering and outrages of every
kind. To put these down requires time and requires an iron
hand.
"There has not been a single great revolution in
history in which the people did not instinctively realise this
and did not show salutary firmness by shooting thieves on the
spot. The misfortune of previous revolutions was that the revolutionary
enthusiasm of the people, which sustained them in their state
of tension and gave them the strength to suppress ruthlessly the
elements of disintegration, did not last long. The social, i.e.,
the class, reason for this instability of the revolutionary enthusiasm
of the people was the weakness of the proletariat, which alone
is able (if it is sufficiently numerous, class-conscious and disciplined)
to win over to its side the majority of the working and
exploited people (the majority of the poor, to speak more simply
and popularly) and retain power sufficiently long to suppress
completely all the exploiters as well as all the elements of disintegration.
"It was this historical experience of all revolutions,
it was this world-historic - economic and political - lesson that
Marx summed up when he gave his short, sharp, concise and expressive
formula: dictatorship of the proletariat."
In "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Lenin wrote about the transition to communism (LCW 28, p. 254):
"The transition from capitalism
to communism takes an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch
is over, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration,
and this hope turns into attempts at restoration.
After their first serious defeat, the overthrown exploiters -
who had not expected their overthrow, never believed it possible,
never conceded the thought of it - throw themselves with energy
grown tenfold, with furious passion and hatred grown a hundredfold,
into the battle for the recovery of the "paradise",
of which they were deprived, on behalf of their families, who
had been leading such a sweet and easy life and whom now the "common
herd" is condemning to ruin and destitution (or to "common"
labor...). In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the
wide sections of the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades
of historical experience of all countries testify that they vacillate
and hesitate, one day marching behind the proletariat and the
next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution;
that they become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semi-defeat
of the workers, grow nervous, run about aimlessly, snivel, and
rush from one camp into the other - just like our Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries.
"In these circumstances, in an epoch of desperately
acute war, when history presents the question of whether age-old
and thousand-year-old privileges are to be or not to be - at such
a time to talk about majority and minority, about pure democracy,
about dictatorship being unnecessary and about equality between
the exploiter and the exploited! What infinite stupidity and abysmal
philistinism are needed for this!
"However, during the decades of comparatively "peaceful"
capitalism between 1871 and 1914, the Augean stables of philistinism,
imbecility, and apostasy accumulated in the socialist parties
which were adapting themselves to opportunism" ...
Maybe someday
we will see if a party that unswervingly represents the interest
of 'complete
lower class participation in the economy' can avoid the pitfalls that befell previous parties.
In modern democracies, planks as divisive as 'redistributing wealth and property' will be overlooked as workers struggle
to find new ways to share the vanishing work, and adopt various
measures to redistribute the remaining work.
In his next two chapters, A.P. tackled the theory
of transition to classless and stateless communism
(pp. 45-7):
"As to transition period: Here again the clear-cut statements of Lenin bear out the contention of De Leon that in this country we can pass from capitalism to Socialism without an intermediary stage, and that it would be an act of usurpation to continue the purely political control for one moment beyond working class seizure and control of industry:
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""There is no doubt [said Lenin] that the Socialist revolution in a country where the immense majority of the population belongs to the petty land-holder producers, is possible only by reason of a number of special transition measures, {1} which would be entirely unnecessary in countries having a developed capitalism, where the wage-earners in industry and agriculture constitute an immense majority. {2} In countries with a highly developed capitalism, there has been for decades a developed class of wage workers engaged in agriculture. Only such a class can serve as a support to an immediate transition to Socialism, socially, economically, and politically. Only in countries in which this class is sufficiently developed will the transition from capitalism to Socialism be possible. {3} [Emphases in the foregoing mine. - A.P.] In a great number of utterances, in all our addresses, in the entire press, we have pointed out that the condition in Russia is different, that in Russia we have a minority of industrial workers, an immense majority of petty land-holders. The social revolution in such a country may meet with ultimate success only under two conditions; in the first place, under the condition that a simultaneous social revolution in one of the several advanced countries will come to its support." (Speech on "Our relation to the Peasants," delivered at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, March 15, 1921.)
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"Lenin here virtually draws a picture of capitalism in the United States and he says, in effect, that all the transition measures which make the "Proletarian Dictatorship" necessary in Russia are unnecessary here, and that an immediate transition to Socialism is possible for the workers here - provided, of course, the workers here organize their "peculiar" form of power, the Industrial Union. I ask: Will the lunatics who are shouting for "Soviets" and "Proletarian Dictatorship" in this country heed the "master's voice"? Echo answers: They won't heed the "master's voice." No, they won't, because that would rob them of even the semblance of an excuse for existence, and after all, you know, business is business, even when it isn't as flourishing as it was!"
A.P. leaned heavily upon Lenin's writings to help persuade his readers that 'a transition period of proletarian dictatorship would not be necessary in the USA'. Let us examine how A.P. used the quote, in which Lenin was interpreted as having made the following points:
1 'In a country in which petty land-holder agriculture predominates, the socialist revolution is possible only by reason of special transition measures.'
2 'In a country in which agricultural wage-labor predominates, the socialist revolution does not require special transition measures.'
3 'Only in countries in which the class of agricultural wage-labor is sufficiently developed will the transition from capitalism to Socialism be possible.'
There seems to be a contradiction between statement 3 and the first two. Double-negating statement 3 yields (3xx):
3xx 'The transition from capitalism to socialism is not possible in a country in which small-holding peasant agriculture predominates.'
Statements 3 and 3xx contradict statement 1, for 3 and 3xx discount the possibility of a transition to socialism under any condition, while statement 1 allows for socialist revolution if special transition measures are applied. To determine the source of the contradiction, let us go to the original in Lenin's Collected Works, and see what the "Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)" really contained (LCW 32, pp. 214-5):
"A word or two on the
theoretical significance of, or the theoretical approach to, this
issue. There is no doubt that in a country where the overwhelming
majority of the population consists of small agricultural producers,
a socialist revolution can be carried out only through the implementation
of a whole series of special transitional measures {4} which would be superfluous in highly developed
capitalist countries where wage-workers in industry and agriculture
make up the vast majority.
{5} Highly
developed capitalist countries have a class of agricultural wage-workers
that has taken shape over many decades. Only such a class can
socially, economically, and politically support a direct transition
to socialism. Only in countries where this class is sufficiently
developed is it possible to pass directly from capitalism to socialism,
without any special country-wide transitional measures. {6} We have stressed in a good many written works,
in all our public utterances, and all our statements in the press,
that this is not the case in Russia, for here industrial workers
are a minority and petty farmers are the vast majority. In such
a country, the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions.
First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution
in one or several advanced countries. As you know, we have done
very much indeed in comparison with the past to bring about this
condition, but far from enough to make it a reality.
"The second condition is agreement between the proletariat,
which is exercising its dictatorship, that is, holds state power,
and the majority of the peasant population. Agreement is a very
broad concept which includes a whole series of measures and transitions.
I must say at this point that our propaganda must be open and
above-board. We must condemn most resolutely those who regard
politics as a series of cheap little tricks, frequently bordering
on deception. Their mistakes have to be corrected. You can't fool
a class."
From this quote, we can distill the following points:
4 'The socialist revolution requires special transition measures in countries in which small peasant agriculture predominates.' (This sufficiently approximates A.P.'s interpretation in point 1)
5 'The socialist revolution does not require special transition measures in countries in which agricultural wage-labor predominates.' (This sufficiently approximates A.P.'s interpretation in point 2)
6 'Only in a country in which agricultural wage-labor predominates is the transition from capitalism to socialism possible without special country-wide transitional measures.'
Double-negating point 6, we get:
6xx 'The transition from capitalism to socialism is possible in countries in which peasant agriculture predominates, but requires special country-wide transitional measures.'
In Lenin's
text, there was no contradiction between points 4, 5, and 6, but the difference between Lenin's point 6 and A.P.'s point 3 is
considerable, for Lenin's version at
least allows for a transition
to socialism in a country in which small peasant agriculture predominates, whereas A.P. didn't allow for a transition to socialism in such a country under any circumstances.
More 'differences
in translations'?
In his text, Lenin also spelled out two conditions under
which the socialist revolution could triumph in a country in which
peasant agricultural labor predominates. The first
condition, which A.P. only
somewhat correctly quoted, was 'if the revolution was given timely support by a
socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries.' A.P. felt free to include that first condition (under which the Soviet revolution would succeed) because it also supported his twisted
perspective: 'Since
no other country had a socialist revolution at the same time as
the Soviets, then the absence of supportive revolutions could
only mean that socialism in Russia could not possibly triumph,
so whatever materialized there was not worth supporting.' Since A.P.'s translation
was incorrect, or else Lenin was willfully misinterpreted in order
to propagate an anarchist
perspective, A.P.'s conclusion in #3 was null and void.
The second
condition, quoted above,
but which A.P. could not possibly have included in his pamphlet without contradicting his 'dictatorship of the proletariat over the peasantry',
contained the ideas of 1) the worker-peasant alliance,
and 2) working
class state power. Those
very ideas were right there, ready to correct A.P., had he been
honest enough to accept a little guidance onto the right track.
Since A.P. didn't take the cue, he certainly also deserved Lenin's
criticism directed against 'those who regard politics as a series of cheap
little tricks, frequently bordering on deception.'
In his text, Lenin went on to enumerate some
of the problems with the worker-peasant alliance;
namely, the
agreement between workers and peasants was not very satisfactory
to some peasants, farm production lagged
due to a lack of means of exchange,
collective
farms were being mismanaged,
there was
a major crop failure, etc.
Lenin's overview was that the Bolsheviks were finding the building of socialism
to be a very difficult task.
The main
obstacles included the relative small size of
the industrial proletariat,
the economic
devastation left over from World War One, the ongoing
civil war against the old feudal and capitalist ruling class elements, the support of those elements by the Europeans and
Americans, and the failure of the technologically
advanced countries to have their own proletarian revolutions in
sympathy with the new Soviet Union.
These factors and more were making it difficult to get socialism off the ground, and Lenin was discussing 'special transition measures', such as state capitalism, to try to advance the social revolution. If anything was certain during those trying times,
it was that classless and stateless society - or A.P.'s version
of 'socialism' - was completely out of sight, and
out of most people's minds.
In what other contexts did Lenin discuss the
transition
period? In "The State and Revolution", a pamphlet that A.P. had to have
read in its entirety, Lenin wrote (LCW 25,
p. 468):
"In other words, under
capitalism we have the state in the proper sense of the word,
that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by
another, and, what is more, of the majority by the minority. Naturally,
to be successful, such an undertaking as the systematic suppression
of the exploited majority by the exploiting minority calls for
the utmost ferocity and savagery in the matter of suppressing,
it calls for seas of blood, through which mankind is actually
wading its way in slavery, serfdom and wage-labour.
"Furthermore, during the transition from
capitalism to communism suppression is still necessary,
but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the
exploited majority. A special apparatus, a special machine for
suppression, the "state", is still necessary,
but this is now a transitional state. It is no longer a state
in the proper sense of the word; for the suppression of the minority
of exploiters by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday
is comparatively so easy, simple and natural a task that it will
entail far less bloodshed than the suppression of the risings
of slaves, serfs or wage-labourers, and it will cost mankind far
less. And it is compatible with the extension of democracy to
such an overwhelming majority of the population that the need
for a special machine of suppression will begin to disappear."
That second paragraph was all very fine in theory, but certainly didn't describe the state machine that evolved in the old Soviet Union. But, for an alleged socialist like A.P. to twist Lenin's words around to make the Bolshevik revolution appear to be impossible, meant that he had to have abandoned the principle of international solidarity between socialist parties, which, along with his lies, again raises the question of 'for whom A.P. might really have been working'.
A.P. continued with a treatise on the role of trade unions (pp. 47-8):
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"The question may be asked: Did Marx attach any importance to the economic organization in the accomplishment of the proletarian revolution? The answer is emphatically in the affirmative. De Leon, in passing, observes "that here in America the union, the economic organization of labor, leaps to the transcendent importance that Marx's genius dimly descried in the distance ....." We have then, first, Marx's statement in "Value, Price and Profit," reading:
""[The unions] fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla
war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously
trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as
a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that
is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system."*"
___________
"* "By consciously opposing the incessant encroachments
of capitalism the economic organization becomes, quite unconsciously,
the center of gravity
[Schwerpunkt] for organizing the working class, even
as the medieval communes served as centers of gravity for the
rising bourgeoisie. Through the daily guerrilla fights between
labor and capital the economic organizations of labor become still
more important as levers for the abolition of the wages system." Quoted by Franz
Mehring, in his work "Karl Marx," from resolution drafted
by Marx for the Geneva Conference of the International Workingmen's
Association, September 1866."
This quote from the SLP pamphlet "Value, Price and Profit" is exactly true to the Progress Publishers edition of "Wages, Price and Profit", but A.P.'s excerpt left out ideas from the first two sentences of the original that would have provided a more balanced view of the trades unions question. Here they are (MESW II, pp. 75-6):
"Thirdly. Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects ... {etc., exactly as A.P. quoted just above}"
Marx knew quite a bit about trade unions, good and bad. If he had thought that socialist society could have been organized solely around unions, he probably would have said so somewhere. Marx's June 1865 "Notes for the Report on Wages, Price and Profit" to the First International included a few more ideas on how trade unions work well (DFI 1, p. 272):
"3) Trades' Unions work well as far as they counteract, if even temporarily, the tendency to a fall in the general rate of wages, and as far as they tend to shorten and regulate the time of labour, in other words, the extent of the working day. They work well as far as they are a means of organising the working class as a class. They fail accidentally, by an injudicious use of their power, and they fail generally by accepting the present relations of capital and labour as permanent instead of working for their abolition."
With regard to A.P.'s use of the footnote, the text of the 1951 Allen and Unwin edition of Mehring's "Karl Marx" is similar enough to A.P.'s version to allow it to pass without comment. However, the very next sentence of the text reads (p. 355):
"In the past the trade unions had concentrated their activities too exclusively on the immediate struggle against capital, but in the future they ought not to hold themselves aloof from the general political and social movement of their class."
Could A.P. have missed this reference to political action on the part of the trade unions? Not too easily, unless he had his blinders on. The footnote also seems to be similar in substance to a passage in an official version of "The Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council" written by Marx at the end of August, 1866 (DFI 1, pp. 347-8):
"(a) Their past.
"Capital is concentrated social force, while the
workman has only to dispose of his working force. The contract
between capital and labour can therefore never be struck on equitable
terms, equitable even in the sense of a society which places the
ownership of the material means of life and labour on one side
and the vital productive energies on the opposite side. The only
social power of the workmen is their number. The force of numbers,
however, is broken by disunion. The disunion of the workmen is
created and perpetuated by their unavoidable competition amongst
themselves.
"Trades' Unions originally sprang up from the spontaneous
attempts of workmen at removing or at least checking that competition,
in order to conquer such terms of contract as might raise them
at least above the condition of mere slaves. The immediate object
of Trades' Unions was therefore confined to everyday necessities,
to expediencies for the obstruction of the incessant encroachments
of capital, in one word, to questions of wages and time of labour.
This activity of the Trades' Unions is not only legitimate, it
is necessary. It cannot be dispensed with so long as the present
system of production lasts. On the contrary, it must be generalised
by the formation and the combination of Trades' Unions throughout
all countries. On the other hand, unconsciously to themselves,
the Trades' Unions were forming centres of organisation
of the working class, as the mediaeval municipalities and communes
did for the middle class. If the Trades' Unions are required for
the guerrilla fights between capital and labour, they are still
more important as organised agencies for superseding the very
system of wages labour and capital rule.
"(b) Their present.
"Too exclusively bent upon the local and immediate
struggles with capital, the Trades' Unions have not yet fully
understood their power of acting against the system of wages slavery
itself. They therefore kept too much aloof from general social
and political movements. Of late, however, they seem to awaken
to some sense of their great historical mission, as appears, for
instance, from their participation, in England, in the recent
political movement, from the enlarged views taken of their function
in the United States, and from the following resolution passed
at the recent great conference of Trades' delegates at Sheffield:
""That this conference, fully appreciating
the efforts made by the International Association to unite in
one common bond of brotherhood the working men of all countries,
most earnestly recommend to the various societies here represented,
the advisability of becoming affiliated to that body, believing
that it is essential to the progress and prosperity of the entire
working community."
"(c) Their future.
"Apart from their original purposes, they must now
learn to act deliberately as organising centres of the working
class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation.
They must aid every social and political movement tending in that
direction. Considering themselves and acting as the champions
and representatives of the whole working class, they cannot fail
to enlist the non-society men into their ranks. They must look
carefully after the interests of the worst paid trades, such as
the agricultural labourers, rendered powerless by exceptional
circumstances. They must convince the world at large that their
efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation
of the downtrodden millions."
Marx's recommendations regarding the attitude of trade unions to politics were found in parts (b) and (c). From the context of those excerpts, 'trade unions should be politically minded and not just concentrate on wages and other economic issues.' In an even more militant passage, Marx wrote (Ibid., p. 346):
"(b) Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wage slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the co-operative system will never transform capitalistic society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves."
In this section,
Marx was more explicit about political action
and expressed the possibility that the producing classes would forever remain
enslaved to the upper classes if they didn't take state power.
What Engels saw as a big problem for the working
class in general, but which the trade unions were helping to alleviate, was described in "The Condition of the
Working Class in England in 1844"
(Progress
Publishers, Moscow, 1973,
p. 255):
"The active resistance of the English working-men has its effect in holding the money-greed of the bourgeoisie within certain limits, and keeping alive the opposition of the workers to the social and political omnipotence of the bourgeoisie, while it compels the admission that something more is needed than Trades Unions and strikes to break the power of the ruling class. But what gives these Unions and the strikes arising from them their real importance is this, that they are the first attempt of the workers to abolish competition. They imply the recognition of the fact that the supremacy of the bourgeoisie is based wholly upon the competition of the workers among themselves; i.e., upon their want of cohesion."
Anyone who has wage-slaved with others is probably conscious of this 'competition of the workers among themselves'. Engels' observation is as valid today as when it was written. In his "Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International", Lenin revealed the monetary interests of the labor aristocracy that also helps keep the working class divided. (LCW 31, pp. 193-4):
"11. One of the chief causes hampering the revolutionary working-class movement in the developed capitalist countries is the fact that because of their colonial possessions and the super-profits gained by finance capital, etc., the capitalists of these countries have been able to create a relatively larger and more stable labour aristocracy, a section which comprises a small minority of the working class. This minority enjoys better terms of employment and is most imbued with a narrow-minded craft spirit and with petty-bourgeois and imperialist prejudices. It forms the real social pillar of the Second International, of the reformists and the "Centrists"; at present it might even be called the social mainstay of the bourgeoisie. No preparation of the proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie is possible, even in the preliminary sense, unless an immediate, systematic, extensive and open struggle is waged against this stratum, which, as experience has already fully shown, will no doubt provide the bourgeois White guards with many a recruit after the victory of the proletariat."
Lenin maintained a certain amount of optimism that workers could do something about capitalism in the more advanced countries of the Western hemisphere. But Engels knew that workers in England were far, far away from being revolutionary, as he explained in a June 1879 letter to Bernstein (MESC, pp. 300-1):
"For a number of years past the English working-class movement has been hopelessly describing a narrow circle of strikes for higher wage and shorter hours, not, however, as an expedient or means of propaganda and organisation but as the ultimate goal. The Trades Unions even bar all political action on principle and in their charters, thus excluding all participation in any general activity of the working class as a class. The workers are divided politically into Conservatives and Liberal Radicals, into supporters of the Disraeli (Beaconsfield) Cabinet and supporters of the Gladstone Cabinet. One can therefore speak of a labour movement only in so far as strikes take place here, which, whether they are won or not, do not get the movement one step further. To inflate such strikes - which moreover have often enough been brought about intentionally by the capitalists during the last few years of bad business to have a pretext for closing down their factories and mills, strikes in which the working-class movement does not make the slightest headway - into struggles of world importance, as is done, for instance, in the Freiheit published here, can, in my opinion, only do harm. No attempt should be made to conceal the fact that at present no real labour movement in the Continental sense exists here, and I therefore believe you will not lose much if for the time being you do not receive any reports on the doings of the Trades Unions here."
Notice how
contemptuous Engels seemed to be of 'higher wages and shorter hours'. To Marx Engels, and Lenin, capturing political and
state power in order to expropriate the rich was seen as the only way to the new society.
Back in my Leninist days,
I imagined a scenario in which the revolution
in the USA would not take place until all of the colonies had
won their independence, a scenario that supposedly would eliminate the source
of money for our domestic labor aristocracy. Later on I wondered if, as many more people are
put out of work by technology, and the working poor of all countries
(including those of the first world) are all ground down to one
common level of misery, that Marx's world-wide revolution would be inevitable. Now I know that, instead
of a violent
solution, workers will instead
figure out ways to peacefully share what little work that has
yet to be taken over by machines, if an ecological disaster doesn't
first occur while consuming resources at unnecessarily high rates
because of our unnecessarily long hours.
In "Marx and the Trade Unions", Lozovsky explained how the alleged opportunists distorted
Marxism around the turn of the century
(M+TU, pp. 141-2):
"What went on in the heads
of many trade unionists was formulated by Eduard Bernstein, the
real spiritual father of social-fascism. Bernstein, as early as
1899, came out with his Prerequisites of Socialism, which
should be duly dubbed the holy book of modern Social-Democracy.
In this book of Bernstein's we find both industrial democracy,
the growing into socialism by means of social reforms, and the
democratisation of industry through the medium of the trade unions,
etc. Bernstein, in writing his book, leaned for support on the
trade unions, while the trade unionists, turning more and more
away from Marx, became encouraged and openly recognised Bernstein
as their theoretician and leader.
"Before Bernstein published his book the trade union
pseudo-Marxists concealed their disagreement with Marx; but after
the publication of the book, it became the fashion among the leaders
of the German trade unions to "criticise" Marx. The
trade unions in most cases did not theorise: they simply revised
Marx in their day-to-day work, they distorted his teachings in
practice and turned the elementals of Marxism on the role
of the trade unions under the capitalist State upside down. If
we examine historically the development of the anti-Marxian views
of the trade unionists, we see that on the following questions
they pursued the following lines:
"(1) The theory of the class struggle "is,
itself," correct; however, it loses its significance with
the development of the trade unions and the establishment of democracy;
(2) Revolution is an obsolete conception, it corresponds to a
lower level of social development; the democratic State precludes
revolutions and the revolutionary struggle; (3) Democracy assures
the working class the peaceful passing over from capitalism to
socialism, and therefore the dictatorship of the proletariat is
not and cannot be on the order of the day; (4) The theory of impoverishment
held good at one time, but now it has become obsolete; (5) During
the epoch of Marx it was perhaps true that the leading role
in the trade unions belonged to the party. But to-day, only party-political
neutrality can ensure the effective development of the trade union
movement; (6) During the epoch of Marx strikes had to be considered
perhaps as one of the most important weapons of struggle, but
now the trade unions have outgrown this, etc.
"Thus, everything led to the point that Marxism
had become out of date, that it must be re-examined, corrected
and supplemented. The work of "correcting" Marxism was
divided between the Social-Democrats and the trade unions. Before
the war this was done under the slogan of the necessity of "enriching
and developing Marxism on the basis of the theories of Marx.""
It's amazing how, when the masses lead the way, they are often so much more correct than communist party ideologues. Next, A.P. quoted from the infamous Hamann article, which many researchers believe is a distortion of Marx's viewpoints (p. 48):
"We also have Marx's statement to J. Hamann, general treasurer of the German metallurgical workers. It was made on the occasion of Marx's visit to his friend, Dr. Kugelman (sic), in Hanover, Germany, on September 30, 1869. It was reported by Hamann in The Volksstaat of November 17, the same year, as follows:
""The trades union should never be connected with, nor made dependent upon a political party, if the former is to fulfill its task. The moment that is done, the death-blow is dealt to it. The trades union is the school for Socialism. In the trades union the workingmen are trained into Socialists, because there the struggle with capital is daily carried on under their very eyes. All political parties, whatever their complexion may be, and without exception, warm up the working class only for a season, transitorily. The trades union [i.e., the economic organization], on the contrary, captures the mass of the workingmen permanently. ONLY THE TRADES UNION [i.e., the economic organization] IS CAPABLE OF SETTING ON FOOT A TRUE POLITICAL PARTY OF LABOR, AND THUS RAISE A BULWARK AGAINST THE POWER OF CAPITAL."
"Commenting on this statement De Leon said, in part:
""The formation of the Socialist party gave impetus to the development of the Socialist Labor Party principle. SLP principle soon took shape in the principle that the union was an essential factor in the emancipation of the working class. The Marxian motto, 'only the union can give birth to the true party of labor' became the guiding light of the SLP. The Party lay main stress upon the organization of the working class into revolutionary unions, and considered the ballot, however important, useful and necessary, a secondary consideration.""
Some scholars claim that the Hamann article attributed statements of theory to Marx that he had never made before, and that it also contradicted statements Marx had made elsewhere. A.P. considered one of its sentences important enough to capitalize:
"ONLY THE TRADES UNION [i.e., the economic organization] IS CAPABLE OF SETTING ON FOOT A TRUE POLITICAL PARTY OF LABOR, AND THUS RAISE A BULWARK AGAINST THE POWER OF CAPITAL."
Does that look like a statement Marx would have made? In a November, 1871, letter to F. Bolte, Marx wrote in essence that 'working class political movements are spawned by separate economic (union) movements, and political movements can further develop unions', as in a mutual relationship. That is a long way from 'only the trades union can set on foot a true political party of labor.' Let us take a look at the ramifications of that SLP 'principle', and try to reconcile it with Marx's 1872 Speech at the Hague Congress (MESW II, p. 292):
"The worker will some day have to win political supremacy in order to organize labour along new lines;" ...
The SLP statement of principle that 'Only the trade union is capable of setting on foot a true political party of labor' would quite effectively preclude people of intellectual and/or bourgeois backgrounds, like Marx and Engels, from initiating or participating in a true political party of labor. Engels' letter to Bebel of March, 1875, critiqued the position (or lack thereof) of the United Social-Democratic Workers' Party of Germany on relations with unions (MESW III, p. 34):
"Fifthly, there is not a word about the organisation of the working class as a class by means of the trade unions. And that is a very essential point, in which it carries on its daily struggles with capital, in which it trains itself, and which nowadays even amid the worst reaction (as in Paris at present) can simply no longer be smashed. Considering the importance which this organisation has attained also in Germany, it would be absolutely necessary in our opinion to mention it in the programme and if possible to leave open a place for it in the Party organisation."
If 'Only the trade union
is capable of setting on foot a true political party of labor' was such a strong SLP principle,
why would the Party have poured so much nourishment into
its Socialist
Trade and Labor Alliance
(1895-1905)? That whole episode was more akin to 'the Party trying to set
on foot a true union of labor',
as were Party
efforts later on to get the
working class to organize
into Socialist Industrial Unions.
Even if the SIU represents Marx's reorganization of labor along new lines, then, according to Marx's Speech at the Hague Congress: such reorganization could not occur without the working
class having first won political power. The corresponding political victory in SLP
ideology is 'the abolition of the
state at the ballot box',
but 'that
victory would be empty if the workers had not already organized
themselves into Industrial Unions ready to assume control over
industries at the moment of political victory.' According to Marx, capturing political power comes before
reorganizing labor, while
the SLP would reorganize labor along new lines before taking
political power (away from the rich).
That's one more way in which the allegedly Marxist
SLP contradicts Marx.
Let us compare some of the elements of the Hamann
article with more official works of Marx. The article's first
two sentences read (p. 48):
""The trades union should never be connected with, nor made dependent upon a political party, if the former is to fulfill its task. The moment that is done, the death-blow is dealt to it.""
That imputed lack of connection between the two aspects of the workers' movement could be contrasted to a Resolution adopted at the 1871 London Conference of the First International on the subject of political action (DFI 4, pp. 444-5):
"In presence of an unbridled
reaction which violently crushes every effort at emancipation
on the part of the working men, and pretends to maintain by brute
force the distinction of classes and the political domination
of the propertied classes resulting from it;
"Considering, that against this collective power
of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class,
except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct
from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied
classes;
"That this constitution of the working class into
a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph
of the Social Revolution and its ultimate end - the abolition
of classes;
"That the combination of forces which the working
class has already effected by its economical struggles ought at
the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the
political power of landlords and capitalists -
"The Conference recalls to the members of the International:
"That in the militant state of the working class,
its economical movement and its political action are indissolubly
united."
This 1871 Resolution on political action, showing the indissoluble unity between economic and
political action, was written
to counter the influence of Bakunin, who was preaching abstention from politics for the working class. Why, according
to Hamann, 'workers
cannot be members of both working class parties and unions at
the very same time', is beyond
Marxist imagination, and appears to be an anarchist rule. If the Hamann statement had warned workers against
being connected with bourgeois political parties, that would have been a more plausible
statement for Marx to have made, and indeed he did, in the part
about the working class (MESW II, p.
291) 'constituting
itself a distinct political party, opposed to all the old parties
formed by the possessing classes'.
In many of their writings, Marx and Engels stated that the workers' party could
ally itself with movements that expressed interests parallel to
their own, and oppose parties or movements with opposite or hostile
interests.
In his 1902 work "What is to be Done", Lenin showed that, in the Russian monarchy
of the time, in which both the economic and political movements
of the working classes were illegal, it was possible for both aspects of the
workers' movements to practically coincide. But, in the freer
European democracies, where both parties and unions had won varying
degrees of legality, they could operate more independently. Legal or illegal, Lenin thought it desirable for them to work together as closely
as possible (LCW 5, p. 453). In "'Left-Wing' Communism - an Infantile
Disorder", written two
and a half years after the Bolshevik conquest of power, Lenin wrote that preaching "independence" of
trade unions was counter-revolutionary, with the intent of rendering
the proletariat "independent" of proletarian state power (see LCW 31, p.
48).
The next part of the Hamann article that sounds
unlikely for Marx to have stated was (p. 48):
"All political parties, whatever their complexion may be, and without exception, warm up the working class only for a season, transitorily."
If the Hamann
article were to have stated: 'All bourgeois political parties ... warm
up the working class only for a season',
that would have been closer to what Marx and Engels intended.
In the next chapter of "PD vs. D+D",
A.P. quoted Lenin again, and continued to theorize about unions (pp. 49-50):
p. 49: |
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"Turning to Lenin we find this pregnant observation:
""Without the closest connection with the trade unions, without their hearty support and self-sacrificing work . . . . it would have been, of course, impossible to govern the country and to maintain the dictatorship for two and a half years, or even for two and a half months." ("'Left Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder.") {1}
"If this were true in Russia, if in such a low economic
organism the union played so important a role, {2} how
much more essential would it not be in an economic organism of
such high order as the United States where the very conditions
cry out for revolutionary economic organizations?
"To De Leon there never was any question as to the
possibility of organizing the workers industrially. {3} To question that was to question the possibility
of accomplishing the social revolution. He said:
""The social revolution is not accomplishable unless the proletariat becomes conscious of its class interests, conscious of its historic mission, and is organized accordingly. To deny the fact, and yet expect Socialism, is vain Utopia, in conflict, moreover, with historic evolution. To ignore the fact, and yet practise political Socialism, is a dastardly deception practised upon the proletariat {4} .... efforts will be vain .... unless the proletariat is organized economically in the battalions that will enable it to assume the reins of industrial government on the day of its political victory.""
De Leon's statements
certainly reflected the age-old battle between anarchists
and state
socialists.
Now we shall see what A.P. - De Leon's intellectual
successor - did with the topic of organizing unions. A.P. started off with a quote from Lenin:
1 ""Without the closest connection with the trade unions, without their hearty support and self-sacrificing work . . . . it would have been, of course, impossible to govern the country and to maintain the dictatorship for two and a half years, or even for two and a half months." ("'Left Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder.")"
Let us see what Lenin really said, including the part he even emphasized, but which A.P. felt necessary to replace with dots . . . . (LCW 31, p. 48):
"In its work, the Party relies directly on the trade unions, which, according to the data of the last congress (April 1920), now have a membership of over four million and are formally non-Party. Actually, all the directing bodies of the vast majority of the unions, and primarily, of course, of the all-Russia general trade union centre or bureau (the all-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions), are made up of Communists and carry out all the directives of the Party. Thus, on the whole, we have a formally non-communist, flexible and relatively wide and very powerful proletarian apparatus, by means of which the Party is closely linked up with the class and the masses, and by means of which, under the leadership of the Party, the class dictatorship is exercised. Without close contacts with the trade unions, and without their energetic support and devoted efforts, not only in economic, but also in military affairs, it would of course have been impossible for us to govern the country and to maintain the dictatorship for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years. In practice, these very close contacts naturally call for highly complex and diversified work in the form of propaganda, agitation, timely and frequent conferences, not only with the leading trade union workers, but with influential trade union workers generally; they call for a determined struggle against the Mensheviks, who still have a certain though very small following to whom they teach all kinds of counter-revolutionary machinations, ranging from an ideological defense of (bourgeois) democracy and the preaching that the trade unions should be "independent" (independent of proletarian state power!) to sabotage of proletarian discipline, etc., etc."
One can only wonder why a revolutionary like A.P. would have been so willing to drop the phrase "not only in economic, but also in military affairs" from this very important work of Lenin's, a good portion of which contained material about trade unions, and even a little about industrial unions. In that passage, Lenin described the close relation between the Bolshevik Party and the unions, but, in spite of A.P.'s inclusion of the portion about 'the closest connection with the trade unions', the reader would still have to guess as to whom or what the trade unions were supposed to be close. In a theoretical work such as A.P.'s, one would have expected at least a small comment on the obvious conflict between the Bolshevik policy of close cooperation between party and union, and the SLP principle of independence between the two, but we unfortunately got nothing of substance.
2 "If this were true in Russia, if in such a low economic organism the union played so important a role, how much more essential would it not be in an economic organism of such high order as the United States where the very conditions cry out for revolutionary economic organizations?
From his little excerpt from Lenin, A.P. projected a sense of amazement, as though some unnamed principle had been violated by trade unions playing an important role in a technologically backward country like Russia. The amazement probably had a lot to do with the numbers game that we have been treated to, namely, downplaying the percentage of workers among the Russian population vs. the allegedly greater percentage of American workers among the American population, while no percentages were ever offered as evidence. A.P.'s assertions fueled a sense of awe at the thought: 'If trade unions were so important in Russia with its tiny proletariat, then the unions would be SUPER-important in the USA, where the percentage of workers is so much greater.' What a fantastic opportunity, then, for socialists to run after those hordes of unorganized workers and gather them into SIUs. But, merely a page away from where A.P. 'quoted' Lenin so briefly and incompletely, Lenin tackled precisely the theoretical arguments in favor of building new kinds of unions (LCW 31, pp. 49-50):
"We cannot but regard
as equally ridiculous and childish nonsense the pompous, very
learned, and frightfully revolutionary disquisitions of the German
Lefts to the effect that Communists cannot and should not work
in reactionary trade unions, that it is permissible to turn down
such work, that it is necessary to withdraw from the trade unions
and create a brand new and immaculate "Workers' Union"
invented by very pleasant (and, probably, for the most part very
youthful) Communists, etc., etc.
"Capitalism inevitably leaves socialism the legacy,
on the one hand, of the old trade and craft distinctions among
the workers, distinctions evolved in the course of centuries;
on the other hand, trade unions, which only very slowly, in the
course of years and years, can and will develop into broader industrial
unions with less of the craft union about them (embracing entire
industries, and not only crafts, trades and occupations), and
later proceed, through these industrial unions, to eliminate the
division of labour among people, to educate and school people,
give them all-round development and an all-round training,
so that they are able to do everything. Communism is advancing
and must advance towards that goal, and will reach it,
but only after very many years. To attempt in practice, today,
to anticipate this future result of a fully developed, fully stabilised
and constituted, fully comprehensive and mature communism would
be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four.
"We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not
with abstract human material, or with human material specially
prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by
capitalism. True, that is no easy matter, but no other approach
to this task is serious enough to warrant discussion."
It is quite clear from the above that Lenin was well aware of socialist thinking from all over the world. He clearly opposed ultra-left efforts to organize alternative types of unions in order to avoid the difficulties of working within the old trade unions. But, A.P. was as loath to comment on this contradiction with Leninism as he was to comment on how SLP views on independence of unions from parties contradicted Marxism.
3 'To De Leon there never was any question as to the possibility of organizing the workers industrially. To question that was to question the possibility of accomplishing the social revolution.'
Once again, A.P. got his terms confused, as to him the 'social revolution' meant the immediate passage from capitalism to classless and stateless society; but, what Marx meant by a modern social revolution was the abolition of capital and class distinctions, a relatively protracted process coeval with the era of proletarian political supremacy. That's not all. Surprisingly enough, and due to the dramatic changes in lifestyles brought about by the relatively new capitalist mode of production, Marx and Engels regarded capitalism itself to be nothing short of a true social revolution.
4 '"To ... practise political Socialism, is a dastardly deception practised upon the proletariat"' ...
After Europe failed to support the Russian Revolution with long-lasting revolutions of its own, the practice of any kind of property-grabbing socialism on the working class became a business of dastardly deception, but it may take a few more years for that bit of truth to be accepted.
* | ||
* | * |
The rest of Part II of "PD vs. D+D" (pp. 49-52) contained more quotes from De Leon, John Stuart Mill and Lewis Henry Morgan, and ended with an appeal to workers to organize industrially to control the economy, and not to worry about politics. It also repeated many theories already analyzed or yet to be analyzed, so, relatively speaking, it didn't seem particularly productive to analyze the rest of Part II at this time.
In Part III, we arrive at an important aspect of Marxism that no SLP theoreticians were willing to portray accurately: the matter of violent revolution, or peaceful evolution ("PD vs. D+D", p. 53):
p. 53: |
|
|
|
|
"In discussing the change from capitalism the question is invariably posed: Can it be done peacefully? There are two superstitions prevalent in this connection; one is that the revolution must necessarily be peaceful; the other, that it must necessarily be bloody. Neither is inevitable, but as De Leon so eloquently pointed out, with the working class organized politically and industrially, the chances are in favor of a peaceful revolution. But every Marxist agrees that no successful revolution is possible without force. The question presents itself: What do we mean by force? "Force," said Marx, "is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power." ("Capital.") {1} Mark that carefully: "Force is itself an economic power." Engels in his "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism" {2} observes that the revolver triumphs over the sword, and that "superior force is no mere act of the will but requires very real preliminary conditions for the carrying out of its purposes, especially mechanical instruments, the more highly developed of which have the superiority over the less highly developed. Furthermore [he continues] these tools must be produced, whence it appears that the producer of the more highly developed tool of force, commonly called weapon, triumphs over the producer of the less highly developed tool. In a word, the triumph of force depends upon the production of weapons, therefore upon economic power, on economic conditions, on the ability to organize actual material instruments..... Economic force is the control of the great industry ." Here again we have force reduced, in the final analysis, to economic power, to the ability to organize material instruments, as, for example, economic or Industrial Unions, and Engels, as you will observe, comes mighty close to saying just that. {3}
"De Leon put it this way:
""....the 'physical force' called for by the
revolutionary act lies inherent in the economic organization;
.... the element of 'force' consists, not in military or other
organization implying violence, but on the STRUCTURE of the economic
organization, a structure of such nature that it parries violence
against itself, shatters it, and thereby renders the exercise
of violence in return unnecessary, at least secondary, or only
incidental....." {4}
"Frequently unthinking followers of Lenin {5} argue as if the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"
is synonymous with physical force and violence. Lenin very effectively
dispelled this erroneous notion in his "Communist Saturdays"
when he said:
""The Dictatorship of the Proletariat - as I have insisted several times, as, for instance, in my speech at the session of the Petrograd Soviet on May 13th - is not merely force used against the exploiter, and not even essentially force. The economic foundation of the revolutionary exercise of power, the guarantee of its permanence and success, consists in this: that the proletariat has created a higher form of social organization of labor than capitalism. That is the great thing." {6}
"In "'Left Wing'
Communism, an Infantile Disorder," Lenin observes that "The
Dictatorship of the Proletariat is sanguinary and bloodless, violent
and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative"
- which reduces the question to one of tactics adapted to particular
countries and circumstances.
{7} On the
question of legal and illegal means Lenin said: "Inexperienced
revolutionaries often think that legal means of struggle are opportunist,
for the bourgeoisie often (especially in 'peaceful' non-revolutionary
times) use such legal means to deceive and fool the workers. On
the other hand, they think that illegal means in the struggle
are revolutionary. This is not true."* {8}
_________
"* "The Bolshevik 'boycott' of 'parliament'
in 1905 enriched the [Russian] revolutionary proletariat with
highly valuable political experience, having shown that, by combining
legal with illegal, parliamentary with non-parliamentary, forms
of struggle, it may become necessary, and even essential, sometimes
to be able to reject parliamentary forms. But to transfer this
experience blindly, imitatively, uncritically, into different
surroundings and different conditions is the greatest possible
mistake." - Lenin, "'Left Wing' Communism, An Infantile
Disorder."" {9}
A.P. introduced
this portion with some ideas about the possibility of a 'peaceful revolution', but common knowledge has it that 'revolutions are violent', while evolution
is generally considered to be relatively peaceful.
With the help of a few quotes out of context,
A.P. then redefined force as mainly economic power,
thus making it easy for some enthusiasts to agree with De Leon
that: 'The
proper structure of economic power in the USA would facilitate
a peaceful revolution.' To
help support De Leon's theory, Lenin was quoted
to the effect that: 'The
foundation of the dictatorship
of the proletariat
in Russia
was' 'a higher form of social organization
of labor than capitalism'.
All of this was intended to lend credibility to A.P.'s theory that 'revolution
is a matter of form, and, in the USA, it's no more of a bother
than simply uniting into the SIU form.'
First, A.P. quoted Marx
as having written in "Capital":
1 '"Force ... is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power."'
From Part VIII, Chapter XXXI of Capital, entitled "Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist", let's take a closer look at the paragraph from which A.P. quoted (MESW II, pp. 133-4):
"The different momenta
of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less
in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland,
France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century,
they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies,
the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist
system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g.,
the colonial system. But they all employ the power of the State,
the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hothouse
fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production
into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force
is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It
is itself an economic power.
"Of the Christian colonial system, W. Howitt, a
man who makes a specialty of Christianity, says:
""The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth."
"The history of the colonial administration of Holland - and Holland was the head capitalistic nation of the 17th century - "is one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre, and meanness." {T. S. Raffles, "The History of Java," London, 1817} Nothing is more characteristic than their system of stealing men, to get slaves for Java. The men stealers were trained for this purpose. The thief, the interpreter, and the seller, were the chief agents in this trade, native princes the chief sellers." ...
Marx went on for a few pages to chronicle the use of state power, brute force and atrocities by the capitalists as adjuncts to their pursuit of profits. In the paragraph A.P. quoted from, Marx made it quite clear that 'force is the power of the state', and that it took force to replace old feudal institutions with capitalist institutions. Out of all of the text showing how military force and changes in the form of state can have profound effects upon the development of economies, A.P. siphoned off just that single thought, "Force ... is itself an economic power", and the way that A.P. used it was to simply equate force with economic power, as if it could be expressed mathematically as 'Force = Economic Power.' To help 'prove' that 'Force = Economic Power', A.P. supplemented his equation by abusing an excerpt from "Anti-Dühring", in which Engels refuted the theories of the academic Eugen Dühring (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 199-200):
"But let us look a little more closely at this omnipotent "force" of Herr Dühring's. Crusoe enslaved Friday "sword in hand." Where did he get the sword? Even on the imaginary islands of the Robinson Crusoe epic, swords have not, up to now, been known to grow on trees, and Herr Dühring provides no answer to this question. If Crusoe could procure a sword for himself, we are equally entitled to assume that one fine morning Friday might appear with a loaded revolver in his hand, and then the whole "force" relationship is inverted. Friday commands, and it is Crusoe who has to drudge. We must apologize to the readers for returning with such insistence to the Robinson Crusoe and Friday story, which properly belongs to the nursery and not to the field of science - but how can we help it? We are obliged to apply Herr Dühring's axiomatic method conscientiously, and it is not our fault if in doing so we have to keep all the time within the field of pure childishness. So, then, the revolver triumphs over the sword; and this will probably make even the most childish axiomatician comprehend that force is no mere act of the will, but requires the existence of very real preliminary conditions before it can come into operation, namely, instruments, the more perfect of which gets the better of the less perfect; moreover, that these instruments have to be produced, which implies that the producer of more perfect instruments of force, commonly called arms, gets the better of the producer of the less perfect instruments, and that, in a word, the triumph of force is based on the production of arms, and this in turn on production in general - therefore, on "economic power," on the "economic situation," on the material means which force has at its disposal."
A word of explanation:
The thesis from which Herr Dühring had operated was that
(and Engels quoted Dühring directly on this point, Ibid.,
p. 190): ... ""the primary must
be sought in direct political force and not in any indirect
economic power."" Dühring had criticized socialists
for claiming the opposite, viz., that 'the primary must be sought in economic
power', but Engels observed
that, 'in
all 3 volumes of his writings, Dühring had not made a single
attempt to prove his own thesis, never mind prove the socialists
incorrect.' At the urging
of his colleagues, Engels took on the refutation of Herr Dühring.
While revisiting the Crusoe
and Friday story, Engels
turned Herr Dühring's lessons back
on their feet.
The parts that A.P. chose to extract, such as
'the revolver
triumphing over the sword',
etc., the reader may notice were from the parts of Engels' rebuttal
to Dühring that Engels thought were childishly simple, and yet, A.P. handed off those excerpts
as though they
represented the acme of Engels's intellect.
A.P. was oblivious as well to Engels' statement
within the same paragraph: 'the triumph of force is based on the production
of arms'. Had A.P. not had
his blinders on to such statements, he would have seen in the
very next paragraph of Engels' text that 'force and economic power are two entirely
different things', and we
would have been spared the chore of having to refute him on this
point. Engels' next paragraph continued in a less childish manner
(Ibid., p. 200):
"Force, nowadays, is the
army and navy, and both, as we all know to our cost, are "devilishly
expensive." Force, however, cannot make any money; at most
it can take away money that has already been made - and this does
not help much either - as we have seen, also to our cost, in the
case of the French milliards.*
__________
* "This is a reference to
the 5,000 million francs that France paid to Germany as an indemnity
in 1871-73 under the terms of the peace treaty, after her defeat
in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71."
{Note by Progress
Publishers.}
"In the last analysis, therefore, money must be provided through the medium of economic production; and so once more force is conditioned by the economic situation, which furnishes the means for the equipment and maintenance of the instruments of force. But even that is not all. Nothing is more dependent on economic prerequisites than precisely army and navy. Armament, composition, organisation, tactics and strategy depend above all on the stage reached at the time in production and on communications. It is not the "free creations of the mind" of generals of genius that have had a revolutionizing effect here, but the invention of better weapons and the change in the human material, the soldiers; at the very most, the part played by generals of genius is limited to adapting methods of fighting to the new weapons and combatants."
This paragraph, in which the dependence of force on economic conditions - and not their equality - could not have been avoided by A.P., for other elements of his argument came from several pages further along in the text, so he had to have at least read them. In his next several pages, Engels went on to recount the history of force, from the 14th century to the late 1800's. How dependent force was upon prevailing economic conditions was made clear by Engels throughout, and his timeless descriptions require the inclusion of a few relevant passages (Ibid., pp. 204-8):
"The army has become the
main purpose of the state, and an end in itself; the peoples are
there only to provide soldiers and feed them. Militarism dominates
and is swallowing Europe. But this militarism also bears within
itself the seed of its own destruction. Competition among the
individual states forces them, on the one hand, to spend more
money each year on the army and navy, artillery, etc., thus more
and more hastening their financial collapse; and, on the other
hand, to resort to universal compulsory military service more
and more extensively, thus in the long run making the whole people
familiar with the use of arms, and therefore enabling them at
a given moment to make their will prevail against the war-lords
in command. And this moment will arrive as soon as the mass of
the people - town and country workers and peasants - will have
a will. At this point the armies of the princes become transformed
into armies of the people; the machine refuses to work, and militarism
collapses by the dialectics of its own evolution. What the bourgeois
democracy of 1848 could not accomplish, just because it was bourgeois
and not proletarian, namely, to give the labouring masses a will
whose content would be in accord with their class position - socialism
will infallibly secure. And this will mean the bursting asunder
from within of militarism and with it of all standing armies.
"That is the first moral of our history of modern
infantry. The second moral, which brings us back again to Herr
Dühring, is that the whole organization and method of warfare,
and along with these victory or defeat, prove to be dependent
on material, that is, economic conditions: on the human material
and the armaments material, and therefore on the quality and quantity
of the population and on technical development.
"In short, always and
everywhere it is the economic conditions and the instruments of
economic power which help "force" to victory, without
which force ceases to be force.
"In this sphere {naval armaments} it is most palpably evident that the
"direct
political force"
which, according to Herr Dühring, is the "decisive cause of the
economic situation,"
is on the contrary completely subordinate to the economic situation,
that not only the construction but also the operation of the marine
instruments of force, the warship, has itself become a branch
of modern large-scale industry. And that this is so distresses
no one more than force itself, that is, the state, which has now
to pay for one ship as much as a whole small fleet used to cost;
which has to resign itself to seeing these expensive vessels become
obsolete, and therefore worthless, even before they slide into
the water; and which must certainly be just as disgusted as Herr
Dühring that the man of the "economic situation," the engineer, is now of far greater
importance on board than the man of "direct force," the captain. We, on the contrary,
have absolutely no cause to be vexed when we see that, in this
competitive struggle between armour-plating and guns, the warship
is being developed to a pitch of perfection which is making it
both outrageously costly and unusable in war {due
to the invention of the torpedo;
according to a note by Engels}, and that this struggle makes manifest also in
the sphere of naval warfare those inherent dialectical laws of
motion on the basis of which militarism, like every other historical
phenomenon, is being brought to its doom in consequence of its
own development.
"Here, too, therefore we see absolutely clearly
that it is not by any means true that "the primary must be sought in direct
political force and not in any indirect economic power." On the contrary.
For what in fact does "the primary" in force itself prove to be? Economic power,
the disposal of the means of power of large-scale industry. Naval
political force, which reposes on modern warships, proves to be
not at all "direct" but on the contrary
mediated by economic power, highly developed metallurgy,
command of skilled technicians and highly productive coal-mines."
Notice that A.P.'s 'translation' had Engels saying: "Economic force is the control of the great industry." In the middle of the last paragraph, however, the Progress Publishers' version reads (Ibid., p. 208):
"For what in fact does "the primary" in force itself prove to be? Economic power, the disposal of the means of power of large-scale industry."
Engels' very
unambiguous statement can only be read as: 'Economic power is the primary in force', but A.P. 'quoted':
"Economic
force is the control of the great industry."
Once again, A.P. either twisted words around until he got what
he wanted, or else he was simply a victim of a totally incompetent
translator. But, is there a snowball's chance in
hell that any translation could have been that bad, or that A.P.
could have missed all of the information in the text
that contradicted the very points that
he wanted to make?
Aside from A.P.'s 'mistakes',
notice how little that things have changed in over 100 years of
technological evolution. Ships obsolete before launch, the devilishly
expensive technology,
the increasing
dependence upon engineers and technicians to run the expensive
technology, the permanent place of
militarism in the economy,
the bankruptcies
of the states because of it,
and the unusability
of certain new weapons (Notice
how often the world powers are using their nuclear arms!). And
Engels showed how he believed militarism itself would come to an end (Ibid., p. 205 and again at p. 208):
... "socialism ... will mean the bursting asunder from within of militarism and with it of all standing armies."
... "militarism, like every other historical phenomenon, is being brought to its doom in consequence of its own development."
In a November 3, 1892 letter to Paul Lafargue, Engels further related the effects of new technology on socialist tactics (ELC III, p. 208):
... "You will have seen the reports in the papers of the ghastly effects, in Dahomey, of the new [melinite] projectiles. A young Viennese doctor who has just arrived here (ex-assistant to Nothnagel) saw the wounds made by the Austrian projectiles in the Nürmitz strike, and he tells us the same thing. There's no doubt that people in danger of being shot to bits in this manner will want to know why. It's a capital thing for maintaining peace, but also for curbing the inclinations of so-called revolutionaries, on whose outbursts our governments count. The era of barricades and street fighting has gone for good; if the military fight, resistance becomes madness. Hence the necessity to find new revolutionary tactics. I have pondered over this for some time and am not yet settled in my mind." ...
Even as late as 1892, it looks as though the important thing for Engels was the capture of political supremacy by any means necessary, though the matter of revolutionary tactics seemed to be somewhat troublesome.
2 "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism" ...
This was a
rather obscure name (associated with the Charles Kerr
editions) of the major work commonly recognized by the name: Anti-Duhring.
In spite of what Engels actually wrote about
force and economic power, A.P. continued to
claim his right to 'interpret' Engels very loosely (p. 54):
3 ... '"Economic force is the control of the great industry." Here again we have force reduced, in the final analysis, to economic power, to the ability to organize material instruments, as, for example, economic or Industrial Unions, and Engels, as you will observe, comes mighty close to saying just that.'
A more appreciative audience might be nodding in agreement with A.P., but did Engels really reduce 'force' to 'economic power'? And from one passage demonstrated to have been butchered by a cleaver? Both the context and words of Engels clearly showed that force is the power of the state and is dependent upon economic power. Force can also direct the economy along certain lines of development, such as by building up militarism; or by replacing old feudal institutions with modern capitalist institutions, or even by replacing the state with a state of the workers, as Engels wrote to Schmidt in October of 1890 (MESW III, p. 494):
... "And why do we fight for the political dictatorship of the proletariat if political power is economically impotent? Force (that is, state power) is also an economic power!" ...
Engels would
have used the political
supremacy of the workers
to re-organize
labor along new lines, plan the economy, and eliminate anarchy
in production. In that way,
the proletarian
dictatorship was to have become a potent economic power acting
for the good of the lower classes.
Such a sweet dream.
After all of his falsifying,
and, in a remarkable stretch of perhaps even his own expansive
imagination, A.P. interpreted his own fabrications to include the possibility that Engels had come 'mighty
close' 'to reducing force to the ability to organize Socialist
Industrial Unions', with
no more indication of Engels' intent to say that
than he indicated
his conversion to anarchism. But, A.P. didn't stop there (p. 54):
4 "De Leon put it this way:
"". . . . the 'physical force' called for by
the revolutionary act lies
inherent in the economic organization; . . . . the element of 'force' consists,
not in military or other
organization implying violence, but on the STRUCTURE of the economic organization, a structure of such
nature that it parries violence against itself, shatters it, and
thereby renders the exercise of violence in return unnecessary,
at least secondary, or only incidental. . . . ."
De Leon's contrived response reflects the extent to which the promise
of peaceful
democratic change had so
permeated popular consciousness that even the state-smashing program of anarchy had to adapt to the promise of peaceful change in order to vie for any place at all
in the marketplace
of ideas.
And what theoretical exposition on force would be complete without a quote from Lenin?
A.P. obliged us with (p. 54):
5 "Frequently unthinking followers of Lenin argue as if the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is synonymous with physical force and violence. Lenin very effectively dispelled this erroneous notion in his "Communist Saturdays" when he said:
First, look at how 'Frequently unthinking followers of Lenin argue' ... Was this supposed to mean that 'followers of Lenin frequently don't think'? Without a comma after 'Frequently', the meaning of that particular combination of words remains quite ambiguous. If 'Lenin's followers frequently don't think', then how often do A.P.'s followers think? A.P. then quoted Lenin fairly accurately:
6 ""The Dictatorship of the Proletariat - as I have insisted several times, as, for instance, in my speech at the session of the Petrograd Soviet on May 13th - is not merely force used against the exploiter, and not even essentially force. The economic foundation of the revolutionary exercise of power, the guarantee of its permanence and success, consists in this: that the proletariat has created a higher form of social organization of labor than capitalism. That is the great thing."
Waht A.P. gave us needs to be compared to the actual passage from "A Great Beginning" (LCW 29, pp. 419-20):
"It was natural and inevitable
in the first period after the proletarian revolution that we should
be engaged primarily on the main and fundamental task of overcoming
the resistance of the bourgeoisie, of vanquishing the exploiters,
of crushing their conspiracy (like the "slave-owners' conspiracy"
to surrender Petrograd, in which all from the Black Hundreds and
Cadets to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were involved).
But simultaneously with this task, another task comes to the forefront
just as inevitably and ever more imperatively as time goes on,
namely, the more important task of positive communist construction,
the creation of new economic relations, of a new society.
"As I have had occasion to point out more than once,
among other occasions in the speech I delivered at a session of
the Petrograd Soviet on March 12, the dictatorship of the proletariat
is not only the use of force against the exploiters, and not even
mainly the use of force. The economic foundation of this use of
revolutionary force, the guarantee of its effectiveness and success
is the fact that the proletariat represents and creates a higher
type of social organisation of labour compared with capitalism.
This is what is important, this is the source of the strength
and the guarantee that the final triumph of communism is inevitable.
"The feudal organisation of social labour rested
on the discipline of the bludgeon, while the working people, robbed
and tyrannised by a handful of landowners, were utterly ignorant
and downtrodden. The capitalist organisation of social labour
rested on the discipline of hunger, and, notwithstanding all the
progress of bourgeois culture and bourgeois democracy, the vast
mass of the working people in the most advanced, civilised and
democratic republics remained an ignorant and downtrodden mass
of wage-slaves or oppressed peasants, robbed and tyrannised by
a handful of capitalists. The communist organisation of social
labour, the first step towards which is socialism, rests, and
will do so more and more as time goes on, on the free and conscious
discipline of the working people themselves who have thrown off
the yoke both of the landowners and capitalists.
"This new discipline does not drop from the skies,
nor is it born from pious wishes; it grows out of the material
conditions of large-scale capitalist production, and out or them
alone. Without them it is impossible. And the repository, or the
vehicle, of these material conditions is a definite historical
class, created, organised, united, trained, educated and hardened
by large-scale capitalism. This class is the proletariat."
A.P. thought Lenin could be enlisted as an ally in 'dispelling the erroneous notion' that the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is synonymous with physical force and violence', but, in actual fact, Lenin stated in the paragraph just above the one A.P. quoted (and in many more places) that: 'until things settle down after the revolution, the revolutionary dictatorship IS synonymous with just that very physical force and violence against the exploiters as they struggle 'ten times stronger' to resume their exploitation over the lower classes.' Could A.P. have missed the paragraph right above the one he chose to start his quote? Only if he had his blinders on. In that paragraph, Lenin used the following words, all of which imply force and violence "in the first period after the proletarian revolution" (LCW 29, p. 419):
... 'overcoming the resistance of the bourgeoisie, of vanquishing the exploiters, of crushing their conspiracy' ...
In his quest
to sway the meaning of the dictatorship of the proletariat away from that of 'waging a civil war against exploiters', A.P. reproduced
passages from Lenin that reflected the goals
of economic
reconstruction after the problems of consolidating the political
revolution had been resolved.
A.P. incorrectly portrayed 'constructive economic activities' as the
revolutionary tasks of the proletariat
for the period of time when violence and civil war are at the forefront of
activity, both for the exploited and the exploiters.
Look also at the historical context of Lenin's
quote: By the time "A Great Beginning"
appeared in the middle of 1919, the Bolsheviks
had been in power for over a year, and Lenin was looking forward
to economic
advances to ensure the permanence of the revolution. The subtitle of "A Great Beginning" just happens to be "Heroism of the Workers
in the Rear. Communist Subbotniks."
In other words, workers
and peasants who were not already risking their lives at the war
front were encouraged to sacrifice their spare time and do Subbotnik
(overtime) labor, producing food and materials for use at the
war front, or wherever else their labor was needed. But once again, A.P. was expecting his
readers to lay their intelligence aside, and hopefully never read
another thing about the Russian revolution, and thus allow themselves
to be led to believe that 'the dictatorship of the proletariat primarily means a peaceful economic reconstruction
of society.'
A.P. continued (p. 55):
7 "In "'Left Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder," Lenin observes that "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is sanguinary and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative" - which reduces the question to one of tactics adapted to particular countries and circumstances."
Let's compare what A.P. gave us with a more official translation (LCW 31, p. 44):
"The dictatorship of the proletariat means a persistent struggle - bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative - against the forces and traditions of the old society."
A.P. would not allow it to be known that "The dictatorship of the proletariat means a persistent struggle" ... Also, where Lenin wrote "bloody", A.P. used the more obscure "sanguinary", which, according to my dictionary, means 'bloodthirsty' and 'murderous'. Maybe A.P. was hoping that the words he chose would reinforce the notion that 'any but a SIU peaceful revolution could only be a murderous or bloodthirsty affair'. Let's also look on a more macroscopic level at what A.P. did with that quote (p. 55):
'"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is sanguinary and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative" - which reduces the question to one of tactics adapted to particular countries and circumstances.'
Instead of
the dictatorship
of the proletariat being all of the above
things, and all at the same time,
as Lenin doubtlessly intended, A.P. instead implied that Lenin provided us with a menu of 'tactics' from which we can 'pretty
much as we see fit' take our pick and select the ones we might
think are appropriate to our countries or circumstances. The 'tactics' that
A.P. liked best and would probably pick for 'American conditions' would be 'bloodless, peaceful, economic', and probably both 'educational and administrative'; but he most certainly would have left
'bloody', 'violent',
and 'military' for Russia.
There was no literary crime
which A.P. would not commit. He had such contempt for the intelligence
of his readers that his lies got downright
humorous sometimes. Perhaps there's a lesson here that A.P. did
not want to teach. By consistently teaching something other than
what Marx, Engels and Lenin intended, and many times even the
opposite, but by our taking notice of it, we
may have managed to learn. And by closely examining what A.P.
was very careful to distort and falsify, it could very well be
that, by our negating A.P.'s negations, we have taught ourselves
the most critical lessons that the upper classes did not want
us to learn at that time. It was my good fortune for having discovered
this, and for having had such a good teacher as A.P., who may
have ended up being the best teacher of the lessons of the age
that most needed to be learned - by falsifying them, and then
leaving us to our own devices.
On the question of legality,
A.P. quoted Lenin again (p. 55):
8 "On the question of legal and illegal means Lenin said: "Inexperienced revolutionaries often think that legal means of struggle are opportunist, for the bourgeoisie often (especially in 'peaceful' non-revolutionary times) use such legal means to deceive and fool the workers. On the other hand, they think that illegal means in the struggle are revolutionary. This is not true.""
From the above, it would be very easy to conclude that Lenin was a champion of legal and only legal means of struggle for the revolution. But, let's examine the wider context of Lenin's words (LCW 31, pp. 96-7):
"Unless we learn to apply all the methods of struggle, we may suffer grave and sometimes even decisive defeat, if changes beyond our control in the position of the other classes bring to the forefront a form of activity in which we are especially weak. If, however, we learn to use all the methods of struggle, victory will be certain, because we represent the interests of the really foremost and really revolutionary class, even if circumstances do not permit us to make use of weapons that are most dangerous to the enemy, weapons that deal the swiftest mortal blows. Inexperienced revolutionaries often think that legal methods of struggle are opportunist because, in this field, the bourgeoisie has most frequently deceived and duped the workers (particularly in "peaceful" and non-revolutionary times), while illegal methods are revolutionary. That, however, is wrong. The truth is that those parties and leaders are opportunist and traitors to the working class that are unable or unwilling (do not say "I can't"; say, "I shan't") to use illegal methods of struggle in conditions such as those which prevailed, for example, during the imperialist war of 1914-18, when the bourgeoisie of the freest democratic countries most brazenly and brutally deceived the workers, and smothered the truth about the predatory character of the war. But revolutionaries who are incapable of combining illegal forms of struggle with every form of legal struggle are poor revolutionaries indeed."
Lenin's text went on with more advice for revolutionaries in
the most advanced capitalist countries. To have missed the lessons
of those words, A.P. once again must have had his blinders on.
The clever part about taking a quote out of context is that the
perpetrator can point to the quote and claim that the author had
indeed written those very words, and, indeed, though the words
sometimes are not exactly synonymous, or don't appear exactly
in the same order as in the Progress Publishers Editions, A.P. did quote many words of approximately the
same meaning as Lenin's. A few who read this may claim that: 'Only a nit-picker would
claim that A.P. did not impart the intent of Lenin's words.' The intent, perhaps, in a few cases.
But, did A.P.'s excerpts include the whole idea?
And there's the rub. For, while paying lip-service to Lenin's
writings, A.P. often used Lenin's words to convey ideas that bore
little to no resemblance to Lenin's original intentions.
While A.P. quoted Lenin only in part, and to
the effect that 'illegal
means are not revolutionary',
Lenin's text, to the contrary, clearly stated that
'the proletariat
must use both legal and illegal means.' And of what 'nefarious'
mechanisms did these illegal
means consist? Nothing more
outrageous than ordinary revolutionary propaganda, for, if propaganda opportunities and other forms
of expression were denied by law,
they thus became 'illegal'; and where in the world has revolutionary
ideology ever been welcomed by the upper classes?
Before the Bolshevik Revolution,
Russian capitalists sometimes locked workers out of their workplaces.
What 'illegal' means did Lenin suggest for raising the morale of
the workers without provoking bloodshed? Nothing more 'rrrrevolutionary' than the secret printing of leaflets
announcing demonstrations,
since freedom
of the press was denied to
them. In my readings of Lenin, nothing more 'rrrrevolutionary'
than exercises of freedom
of speech and press (freedoms that are so often taken for granted
in America) were advocated, though such expressions
were often deemed illegal by the czarist standards of the time.
In his 1919 article "The Tasks of the Third International", Lenin defined illegal work
(LCW 29, pp. 504-5):
"Secondly, legal work must be combined with illegal work. The Bolsheviks have always taught this, and did so with particular insistence during the war of 1914-18. The heroes of despicable opportunism ridiculed this and smugly extolled the "legality", "democracy", "liberty" of the West-European countries, republics, etc. Now, however, only out-and-out swindlers, who deceive the workers with phrases, can deny that the Bolsheviks proved to be right. In every single country in the world, even the most advanced and "freest" of the bourgeois republics, bourgeois terror reigns, and there is no such thing as freedom to carry on agitation for the socialist revolution, to carry on propaganda and organisational work precisely in this sense. The party which to this day has not admitted this under the rule of the bourgeoisie and does not carry on systematic, all-sided illegal work in spite of the laws of the bourgeoisie and of the bourgeois parliaments is a party of traitors and scoundrels who deceive the people by their verbal recognition of revolution. The place for such parties is in the yellow, Berne International. There is no room for them in the Communist International."
To me, for a long time, the term "illegal work" had connotations of nefarious, criminal activity, and A.P.'s treatment of the subject did nothing at all to help correct that misconception, nor did he define 'illegal work' in terms of what it really is - the natural and democratic tendencies of the lower classes to express themselves and communicate their concerns, in spite of censorship. The question of legality also come up with Marx and Engels. In an April 1895 letter to Kautsky, Engels complained of the maltreatment his latest Introduction to "The Class Struggles in France" had received at the hands of worried editors (MESC, p. 461):
... "To my astonishment I see in the Vorwärts today an extract from my "Introduction", printed without my prior knowledge and trimmed in such a fashion that I appear as a peaceful worshipper of legality at any price. So much the better that the whole thing is to appear now in the Neue Zeit so that this disgraceful impression will be wiped out. I shall give Liebknecht a good piece of my mind on that score and also, no matter who they are, to those who gave him the opportunity to misrepresent my opinion without even telling me a word about it" ...
A.P. quoted Lenin on the subject of legal methods in a footnote (p. 55):
9 "The Bolshevik 'boycott' of 'parliament' in 1905 enriched the [Russian] revolutionary proletariat with highly valuable political experience, having shown that, by combining legal with illegal, parliamentary with non-parliamentary, forms of struggle, it may become necessary, and even essential, sometimes to be able to reject parliamentary forms. But to transfer this experience blindly, imitatively, uncritically, into different surroundings and different conditions is the greatest possible mistake." - Lenin, "'Left Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder.""
At first, I found it difficult to figure out what point A.P. was trying to make by using this particular quote from Lenin. I first speculated that it might have been a sop to those who suspected that Lenin had always been a strong advocate of illegal methods and were wondering when A.P. was finally going to at least hint of that possibility. Later, I realized that the italics in A.P.'s version of the quote were supposed to drive home the message that 'illegal means were more appropriate to Soviet conditions than to American conditions, so Americans shouldn't use them.' Here is the Progress Publisher's version of that passage (LCW 31, pp. 35-6):
"The Bolsheviks' boycott of "parliament" in 1905 enriched the revolutionary proletariat with highly valuable political experience and showed that, when legal and illegal, parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle are combined, it is sometimes useful and even essential to reject parliamentary forms. It would, however, be highly erroneous to apply this experience blindly, imitatively and uncritically to other conditions and other situations. The Bolsheviks' boycott of the Duma in 1906 was a mistake, although a minor and easily remediable one. (What applies to individuals also applies - with necessary modifications - to politics and parties. It is not he who makes no mistakes that is intelligent. There are no such men, nor can there be. It is he whose errors are not very grave and who is able to rectify them easily and quickly that is intelligent.) The boycott of the Duma in 1907, 1908 and subsequent years was a most serious error and difficult to remedy, because, on the one hand, a very rapid rise of the revolutionary tide and its conversion into an uprising was not to be expected, and, on the other hand, the entire historical situation attendant upon the renovation of the bourgeois monarchy called for legal and illegal activities being combined. Today, when we look back at this fully completed historical period, whose connection with subsequent periods has now become quite clear, it becomes most obvious that in 1908-14 the Bolsheviks could not have preserved (let alone strengthened and developed) the core of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, had they not upheld, in a most strenuous struggle, the viewpoint that it was obligatory to combine legal and illegal forms of struggle, and that it was obligatory to participate even in a most reactionary parliament and in a number of other institutions hemmed in by reactionary laws (sick benefit societies, etc.)."
According to Lenin, it is rather foolish to boycott reactionary institutions. In the old days, at least, the SLP ruled that 'no member can seriously run for government office with the expectation of serving in the same manner as any other politician', probably because it was felt that 'members who exercise duties of office would betray the interests of the working class, because the government expresses only the interests of the ruling class.' While it is true that anarchists have been some of the sharpest critics of parliamentarism, Marx, Engels and Lenin felt that the working class should learn to make use of reactionary institutions, even while maintaining a healthy criticism of what goes on therein. In his August 28, 1919 "Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst" of London, Lenin wrote about the importance of working in parliaments (LCW 29, p. 564):
"But the critics of parliamentarism in Europe and America, when they are anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists, are very often wrong insofar as they reject all participation in elections and parliamentary activity. Here they simply show their lack of revolutionary experience. We Russians, who have lived through two great revolutions in the twentieth century, are well aware what importance parliamentarism can have, and actually does have during a revolutionary period in general and in the very midst of a revolution in particular. Bourgeois parliaments must be abolished and replaced by Soviet bodies. There is no doubt about that. There is no doubt now, after the experience of Russia, Hungary, Germany and other countries, that this absolutely must take place during a proletarian revolution. Therefore, systematically to prepare the working masses for this, to explain to them in advance the importance of Soviet power, to conduct propaganda and agitation for it - all this is the absolute duty of the worker who wants to be a revolutionary in deeds. But we Russians fulfilled that task, operating in the parliamentary arena, too. In the tsarist, fake, landowners' Duma our representatives knew how to carry on revolutionary and republican propaganda. In just the same way Soviet propaganda can and must be carried on in and from within bourgeois parliaments."
The lesson here is that lower classes have to use all of the avenues of struggle available, and, in a democracy, must participate in politics of all sorts without getting carried away with prospects of miracles simply if one of them gets elected. In a portion of "The State and Revolution", published in the period between Russia's bourgeois-democratic and proletarian revolutions, Lenin contrasted parliamentarism with the Commune (LCW 25, pp. 428-9):
"The way out of parliamentarism
is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions
and the elective principle, but the conversion of the representative
institutions from talking shops into "working" bodies.
"The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body,
executive and legislative at the same time."
""A working, not a parliamentary, body"
- this is a blow straight from the shoulder at the present-day
parliamentarians and parliamentary "lap-dogs" of Social-Democracy!
Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from
France to Britain, Norway and so forth - in these countries the
real business of "state" is performed behind the scenes
and is carried on by the departments, chancelleries and General
Staffs. Parliament is given up to talk for the special purpose
of fooling the "common people". This is so true that
even in the Russian republic, a bourgeois-democratic republic,
all these sins of parliamentarism came out at once, even before
it managed to set up a real parliament. ...
"The Commune substitutes for the venal and rotten
parliamentarism of bourgeois society institutions in which freedom
of opinion and discussion does not degenerate into deception,
for the parliamentarians themselves have to work, have to execute
their own laws, have themselves to test the results achieved in
reality, and to account directly to their constituents. Representative
institutions remain, but there is no parliamentarism here
as a special system, as the division of labour between the legislative
and the executive, as a privileged position for the deputies.
We cannot imagine democracy, even proletarian democracy, without
representative institutions, but we can and must imagine
democracy without parliamentarism, if criticism of bourgeois society
is not mere words for us, if the desire to overthrow the rule
of the bourgeoisie is our earnest and sincere desire, and not
a mere "election" cry for catching workers' votes, as
it is with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and also
the Scheidemanns and Legiens, the Sembats and Vanderveldes."
A.P. moved on to the subject of 'armies' (p. 55):
p. 55: |
|
"Disputing the contention
that military force or power is superior to economic power, and
that the workers should be organized in military units rather
than in Industrial Unions, De Leon stated:
""A military organization implies not one,
or two, it implies a number of things. Bombs, explosives, generally,
may be left out of the reckoning. They may be of incidental, but
not of exclusive use by an organized force.
""First of all powder is needed. The best of
powder needs bullets and balls to do the business. The best of
powder, bullets and balls are useless without guns. Nor are inferior
guns of much avail when pitted against the up-to-date guns at
the command of the capitalist class. The military organization
of the revolutionary proletariat will need the most effective
weapons. The question has often been asked from capitalist sources,
Where will you get the money from to buy the railroads and the
other capitalist plants? The question is silly. No one proposes,
nor will there be any occasion, to 'buy' those things. Not silly,
however, but extremely pertinent, is the question, Where will
the proletariat get the billions needed to purchase such a military
equipment?
""Suppose the billions be forthcoming. Weapons,
in the hands of men unskilled in their use are dangerous, primarily,
to those who hold them. Numbers, undrilled in military evolutions,
only stand in one another's way. Where and how could these numbers
practise in the use of their arms, and in the military drill?
Where and how could they do the two things in secret? In public,
of course, it would be out of question.
""Suppose, finally, that the problem of the
billions were solved, and the still more insuperable problem of
exercise and drill be overcome. Suppose the military organization
of the proletariat took the field and triumphed. And then - it
would immediately have to dissolve. Not only will it not have
been able to afford the incidental protection that the revolutionary
union could afford to the proletariat while getting ready, but
all its implements, all the money that it did cost, all the tricks
it will have learned, and the time consumed in learning them,
will be absolutely lost. Its swords will have to be turned into
pruning hooks, its guns into ploughshares; its knowledge to be
unlearned.
""How would things stand with the integrally
organized Industrial Union?
""First, its cost is trifling, positively within
reach;
""Secondly, every scrap of information it gathers
while organizing is of permanent value;
""Thirdly, it will be able to offer resistance
to capitalist encroachments, and thereby to act as a breastwork
for its members, while getting ready;
""Fourthly, and most significant and determining
of all, the day of its triumph will be the beginning of the full
exercise of its functions - the administration of the productive
forces of the nation.
""The fourth consideration is significant and
determining. It is the consideration that Social Evolution points
the finger to, dictating the course that the proletariat must
take; - dictating its goal; - dictating its methods; - dictating
its means. The proletariat, whose economic badge is poverty;
the proletariat, whose badge, the first of all revolutionary classes,
is economic impotence; - for the benefit of that class, apparently
treated so stepmotherly by Social Evolution, Social Evolution
has wrought as it has wrought for none other. It has builded the
smithy of capitalist industrial concentration; and, in keeping
with the lofty mission of the working class to abolish class rule
on earth, Social Evolution has gathered ready for the fashioning,
not the implements of destruction, but the implements of future
peace, withal the most potent weapon to clear the field of the
capitalist despot - the industrially ranked toilers. The
industrially organized Industrial Union is the weapon that Social
Evolution places within the grasp of the proletariat as the means
for their emancipation."
"There should be no doubt in the minds of reasonable men that here, once and for all, De Leon disposed of that particular question."
De Leon disposed
of the question of force vs. peaceful solutions
oh, so well, and A.P. learned the 'brilliant'
method behind it, viz., setting up straw-man arguments, and describing the destruction of those arguments as strokes of genius,
especially if De Leon exercised his gray matter to do it.
It would have been more appropriate if this
chapter had been entitled: 'Revolution for Idiots.' To imagine, in the freest
democratic republic in the world at the time (and still very free), that the working class might want to contemplate coming
to power by organizing itself into an army, buying all
the weapons it needs from the capitalists (thus putting some of
the workers back to work), but not being able to drill for want
of a secret training field, but, once having won their great battle
against the capitalist army some fine day, they would then have
to dissolve their army immediately
- Well, if this is the scenario that
the workers
would have to act out in the absence of Socialist Industrial Unionism, then I, for one, would most certainly
prefer the SIU! But, isn't there any other scenario
that is less absurd? Engels' lessons from
"Anti-Dühring", on the other hand, about the
disintegration
of the army from within is
something that really happens in revolutionary situations.
Not being one to reject violence
under all circumstances, Marx advocated general military training, as reflected in Part 10
of his August, 1866, "Instructions for Delegates of the Provisional General
Council" of the First International (MESW II, pp.
84-5):
"(a) The deleterious influence
of large standing armies upon production, has been sufficiently
exposed at middle-class congresses of all denominations, at peace
congresses, economical congresses, statistical congresses, philanthropical
congresses, sociological congresses. We think it, therefore, quite
superfluous to expatiate upon this point.
"(b) We propose the general armament of the people
and their general instruction in the use of arms.
"(c) We accept as a transitory necessity small standing
armies to form schools for the officers of the militia; every
male citizen to serve for a very limited time in those armies."
Notice that
Marx considered the deleterious
effects of armies upon production
to have been an issue well covered by the middle classes.
In a letter to Terzaghi of Jan. 14, 1872, while
the battle against the anti-authoritarian anarchists was raging in the International,
Engels mourned the lack
of authority with which the
Communards had pursued their goal (NW 153, p. 68):
... "I believe the terms "Authority" and centralisation are being greatly abused. I know nothing more authoritarian than a revolution, and when one's will is imposed on others with bombs and bullets, as in every revolution, it seems to me an act of authority is being committed. It was the lack of centralisation and authority that cost the Paris Commune its life. Do what you like with authority, etc., after the victory, but for the struggle we must unite all our forces in one fascio {fist} and concentrate them at one point of attack. And when I am told that authority and centralisation are two things that should be condemned under all possible circumstances it seems to me that those who say so either do not know what a revolution is or are revolutionaries in name only" ...
Lenin had a similar dispute with Karl Kautsky on the question of disarming after victory. In his October 1918 short version of "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Lenin waxed emotional about Kautsky's conclusions (LCW 28, p. 109):
"I must mention, in passing,
a few gems of his renegacy.
"Kautsky has to admit that the Soviet form of organisation
is of world-wide, and not only of Russian significance, that it
is one of the "most important phenomena of our times",
and that it promises to acquire decisive significance" in
the future great "battles between capital and labour".
But, imitating the wisdom of the Mensheviks, who have happily
sided with the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, Kautsky "deduces"
that the Soviets are all right as "battle organisations",
but not as "state organisations".
"Marvelous! Form up in Soviets, you proletarians
and poor peasants! But, for God's sake, don't you dare win! Don't
even think of winning! The moment you win and vanquish the bourgeoisie,
that will be the end of you; for you must not be "state"
organisations in a proletarian state. In fact, as soon as you
have won you must break up!
"What a marvelous Marxist this man Kautsky is! What
an inimitable "theoretician" of renegacy!"
As little as
Kautsky wanted the soviets to wield state power,
neither did the SLP want American workers to win any victory
except at
the ballot box, and then
sabotage its own victory by disbanding both the state and the party.
A.P. continued to describe the Party's 'peaceful solution' (p. 58):
p. 58: |
|
"In "Socialist Reconstruction of Society" De Leon develops the question of a peaceful solution fully. Speaking of "the consummation of that ideal so dearly pursued by the Socialist {1} - THE PEACEFUL SOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION," he points out that while in Europe a peaceful solution is out of the question, here it is otherwise. {2} Here the capitalist is essentially a swindler, and "the swindler," says De Leon, "is a coward." {3} He adds: "Like a coward, he will play the bully, as we see the capitalist class doing, toward the weak, the weak because disorganized, working class. Before the strong, the bully crawls. Let the political temperature rise to the point of danger, then, all monkeying with the thermometer notwithstanding, your capitalist will quake in his stolen boots; he will not dare to fight; he will flee {4} .....The complete industrial organization of the working class will then have insured the peaceful issue of the struggle. {5} But perhaps the capitalist may not flee. Perhaps, in a delirium of rage, he may resist. So much the worse - for him. The might, implied in the industrial organization of the working class of the land, will be in position to mop the earth with the rebellious usurper in short order and safeguard the right that the ballot proclaimed."" {6}
In this excerpt, A.P. and De Leon made the following points:
1 'The peaceful solution to the social question is an ideal dearly pursued by the socialist.'
As for 'socialist ideals', Engels said it best in an August 1884 letter to Paul Lafargue (ELC II, p. 235):
... "Marx would protest against the economic "political and social ideal" which you attribute to him. When one is a "man of science," one does not have an ideal; one works out scientific results, and when one is a party man to boot, one fights to put them into practice. But when one has an ideal, one cannot be a man of science, for one starts out with preconceptions." ...
Because socialist revolutionism is obsolete, what the class abolitionist 'dearly pursues' is full participation in the economy for the lower classes, which, in our democracies, can be accomplished entirely peacefully, and without playing power and property games. Socialism, by definition, means socializing ownership of the means of production, which can be peacefully accomplished only if compensation accompanies socialization of ownership. But, such socialization results in no more than state capitalism, which satisfies communists and anarchists not a whit.
2 'The peaceful solution is obtainable in the USA, but not in Europe.'
That notion was already becoming obsolete by the time of Marx's 1872 Speech at the Hague, and was totally obsolete by the time A.P. wrote his pamphlet. Western Europe by 1931 was FAR more democratic than ever before; few absolute monarchies remained to be overthrown, so peaceful change was as fit for Western Europe in 1931 as it was for the USA.
3 'The capitalists are swindlers, cowards and bullies.'
Here De Leon engaged in pure classism, as if a world that is full of racism, sexism, ageism, and perhaps other kinds of 'isms needs to be infected with yet another 'ism. Calling the capitalists names, as though they were any better, worse, inferior, or superior to any other economic class of people, is no way in which the struggle between rich and poor can be peacefully won. Psychologically, name-calling can give activists a false sense of superiority, which can then paralyze them with pity for their 'inferior' upper class opponents.
4 'The capitalists will flee at signs of danger presented by the lower classes.'
Where exactly would the capitalists go? Workers have no intentions of physically endangering the rich, but the anarchists have a long history of voicing such intentions.
5 'The complete industrial organization of the working class will then have insured the peaceful issue of the struggle.'
Now it looks as though 'the SIU will insure peace', as though it will do it as part of the insurance industry. But, just in case peace is not our fate, we find the following:
6 'The industrial organization of the working class will mop the earth with the resisters, if necessary, and protect the mandate won at the ballot box.'
After all of his incantations over peaceful methods, here was his admission that the revolutionary expropriation may not go as idyllically as desired, even if the Party program were to be followed to the letter. It must have been suspected that the ruling class might not react very amiably to the radical loss of their property and their political and economic supremacy. But why threaten the upper classes with a scenario of 'losing everything they've ever worked, lived, breathed and fought for', when a reduction in the length of the work week to match the replacement of labor by machines would leave upper class values intact, and would only reduce the rate of exploitation of the workers? There surely must be a significant number of bosses willing to do something real about the rips and tears in the social fabric, and who would be willing to sacrifice a little wealth in order to gain a lot of security and peace of mind, just as they did in the Depression of the 1930's, when half of the businesses voluntarily instituted work-sharing by means of shorter work hours. Kellogg's didn't entirely phase out its 6-hour day until the late 1980's. If it worked before, it will work again.
Next, A.P. assured us that 'victory is ours' (pp. 59-60):
p. 59: |
|
"De Leon here spoke prophetically. For on a small scale we have had a concrete demonstration of the correctness of his contention that the capitalist is a coward who, in the hour of danger, will flee or surrender. {1} In 1918, shortly following the Bolshevik revolution, Charles M. Schwab, the steel magnate, in obvious panicky fear, declared:
""The time is coming when the men of the
working classes, the men without property, will control the destinies
of this world of ours. It means that the Bolshevik sentiment must
be taken into consideration and in the very near future. We must
look to the worker for a solution of the economic conditions now
being considered.
""I
am not one to carelessly turn over my belongings to the uplift
of the nation, but I am one who has come to a belief that the
worker will rule, and the sooner we come to a realization of this
the better it will be for our country and the world at large.
""This
great change is going to be a social adjustment. I repeat that
it will be a great hardship to those who control property, but
perhaps in the end it will work estimably to the good of us all.
Therefore, it is our duty not to oppose, but to instruct, to meet,
and to mingle with the views of others."
{2}
"Mr. Schwab is by no means alone in his fear of the proletarian revolution, {3} though all of the capitalists maynot be quite as chicken-hearted as "Weeping Charlie." That he is not alone in this dread of the impending doom of capitalism is indicated by a writer in a recent issue of the plutocratic newspaper, the New York Herald Tribune. In today's issue (December 13, 1931), this paper contains an article by Bruce Barton, a typical go-getter and apologist for capitalism. Mr. Barton says, in part, as follows: "A young man who is vice-president of a New York bank told me that he dined recently at a fashionable resort. 'All the other guests were very rich,' he said. 'They were older people, many of them retired. They were shaking in their boots. They are afraid there will be a social upheaval and that their money will be taken away.'" (Emphasis mine.) And Mr. Barton adds, quite properly, "I told him I thought these people had a right to worry." Yes, well may these capitalists, exploiters and useless parasites shake in their stolen boots. {4} Even if they do not all clearly perceive the handwriting on the wall, they possess like other beasts of prey, and wild creatures in general, a quality or a sense which warns them of impending storms and cataclysms. {5} If they all take the view expressed by Mr. Schwab, and act accordingly, they need not, however, fear anything worse than the prospect of life-long, useful labor - a prospect, which to them, indeed, may and undoubtedly does appear to be a dreadful one. {6} If on the other hand, they do not react to the coming change in the manner of the canny Charles M. Schwab, it will be just too bad for them. For the working class, properly organized, will possess supreme economic power, leaving little or no opportunity for rebellious capitalists to work any mischief." {7}
Would capitalists get mad enough to fight if workers threatened total expropriation? I can't think of a better way to start a civil war and ensure violence than to threaten expropriation, but A.P. quoted a news reporter who assured us that the capitalist class is scared of the workers, and would flee during a revolution, though 'where to' wasn't mentioned.
1 ... 'the capitalist is a coward who, in the hour of danger, will flee or surrender.'
The brave A.P., who was never afraid to tell the truth, called the capitalist a "coward", as if cowardice were part and parcel of the condition of being rich. This is pure classism, i.e., ascribing an unpleasant characteristic to people solely on the basis of their membership in a different economic class. A.P. would have us believe that: 'Capitalists are cowardly exploiters, and workers are brave revolutionaries.' Who was A.P. trying to kid?
2 ... '"I am one who has come to a belief that the worker will rule, and the sooner we come to a realization of this the better it will be for our country and the world at large. ... it is our duty not to oppose, but to instruct, to meet, and to mingle with the views of others."'
A far-sighted capitalist like Mr. Schwab, who was quite capable of looking beyond the balance sheet, deserved much better treatment than the insults A.P. afforded him. Mr. Schwab was capable of dealing with a predicted dismal fate for his class with dignity, diplomacy, and with a sense of a need for classes to peacefully and calmly negotiate policies.
3 "Mr. Schwab is by no means alone in his fear of the proletarian revolution, though all of the capitalists may not be quite as chicken-hearted as "Weeping Charlie.""
In spite of the way Mr. Schwab distinguished himself with his willingness to negotiate with the lower classes, look at the fighting words that A.P. used! Is this the kind of language we should get from advocates of peaceful change in the USA? Such a knee-jerk rejection of negotiation with thoughtful individuals from other classes indicates an appalling lack of judgment, and was yet another affirmation of destructive anarchistic ideology. If A.P. was looking for violence, he couldn't have picked better words.
4 "Yes, well may these capitalists, exploiters and useless parasites shake in their stolen boots."
As to the question of 'stolen boots', the instructor of my old study class had a more civilized attitude to the question of 'theft' of the product of labor. He explained that the exploitation of labor takes place at the point of production, where all of the values that are produced are willingly given up in exchange for wages. It is not at all akin to robbery, where values are expropriated in exchange for nothing, while injury or worse may occur in conjunction with the theft.
5 "Even if they do not all clearly perceive the handwriting on the wall, they possess like other beasts of prey, and wild creatures in general, a quality or a sense which warns them of impending storms and cataclysms."
Once again, A.P. ranted, raved, and engaged in pure classism. The terms used to disparage the capitalist class include:
1 | 'useless parasites' |
2 | 'beasts of prey' |
3 | 'wild creatures' |
After applying
sub-human terms to the capitalists, how could any humane person
fail to be moved to pity them as victims of the circumstance of
simply being wealthy, often due to no fault of their own? Not
very many of the rich complain about the natural tendency of the
system to concentrate an increasing amount of wealth in their
hands. Certainly there are some with hereditary wealth who play
no active role in increasing the amount of wealth that flows to
them, while the increasing productivity of labor continues to
make the upper classes ever increasingly richer in comparison
to the poor.
Threatened
by removal of their wealth by revolution, as A.P. put it, capitalists were portrayed as
animals scurrying
before a storm. And look
at how the capitalists were seemingly endowed with an extra-human sense which
warns them of impending storms and cataclysms. By verbally abusing the alleged scared and scurrying
capitalists, and by causing
the reader to feel pity for them, A.P. effectively paralyzed ardor
for change in some activists, and probably caused others to feel
as though nothing
could be lost by going for a revolution. A great way to build mob sentiment and divide
workers. Is that the kind of nonsense it takes to create an anarchist revolution in the USA? To fill the minds of the
naive with classist nonsense, similar to the nonsense that racist
organizations instill in their memberships? Or the nonsense that
sexists try to attribute to their gender of choice?
6 "If they all take the view expressed by Mr. Schwab, and act accordingly, they need not, however, fear anything worse than the prospect of life-long, useful labor - a prospect, which to them, indeed, may and undoubtedly does appear to be a dreadful one."
As if expecting to be appointed Minister of Justice after the revolution, A.P. prematurely sentenced capitalists to a lifetime of labor. Such 1931ish boilerplate propaganda is a complete joke to 21st century activists with a weather eye on technological changes, and who suspect that the era of work will be over for everyone before 2030. Capitalists will no more be sent off to work than Bakunin will come back from the grave.
7 'If on the other hand, they do not react to the coming change in the manner of the canny Charles M. Schwab, it will be just too bad for them. For the working class, properly organized, will possess supreme economic power, leaving little or no opportunity for rebellious capitalists to work any mischief.'
There's nothing like embarking on the road to peaceful revolution by openly threatening the capitalist class with the 'supreme economic power' of the working class. What is this 'supreme economic power' but the ability to go out and buy anything a worker could desire? Does being 'properly organized' have anything to do with joining a buyer's club?
On pages 60-61 of "PD vs. D+D", A.P. continued with:
p. 60: |
|
"We know, from their own
words, that both Marx and Engels thought it possible to accomplish
the revolution in a peaceful manner in such countries as England
and America. In 1872 Marx, addressing a congress of the International
at the Hague, said:
""The
worker must one day capture
political power
in order
to found the new organization
of labor.
He must reverse the old policy, which the old institutions maintain, if he will
not, like the Christians of old who despised and neglected such
things, renounce
the things of this world.
""But
we do not assert that the way to reach this goal is the same everywhere.
""We
know that the institutions, the manners and the customs of the various countries must be considered, and we do not deny that there are countries like England and America, and, if I understood
your arrangements
better, I might even add Holland, where the worker
may obtain his object by peaceful means. But not in all countries is this the
case.""
If we did not know A.P. as well as we do by now, we could ask why he did not include the portion about force at the end of the last sentence, such as what the version below includes. To show how different 'translations' can be from one book to the next, the entire excerpt is reproduced according to the text of the Progress Publisher's edition (MESW II, pp. 291-3):
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"The Hague Congress did
three principal things:
"It proclaimed the necessity for the working classes
to fight, in the political as well as the social sphere, against
the old society, a society which is collapsing; and we are happy
to see that the resolution of the London Conference is from now
on included in our Rules.*
A group had formed in our midst advocating the workers' abstention
from politics.
"We have thought it important to point out how very
dangerous and baneful to our cause we considered these principles
to be.
"The worker will some day have to win political
supremacy in order to organise labour along new lines; he will
have to defeat the old policy supporting old institutions, under
penalty - as in the case of the ancient Christians, who neglected
and scorned it - of never seeing their kingdom on earth.
"But we have by no means affirmed that this goal
would be achieved by identical means.
"We know of the allowances we must make for the
institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries;
and we do not deny that there are countries such as America, England,
and I would add Holland if I knew your institutions better, where
the working people may achieve their goal by peaceful means. If
that is true, we must also recognise that in most of the continental
countries it is force that will have to be the lever of our revolutions;
it is force that we shall some day have to resort to in order
to establish a reign of labour."
___________
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Once again,
A.P. would not let us know anything substantive about the battle
between Marx and the anarchist Bakunin, the escalation of which battle
prompted Marx to write the Political Action Resolution for the First International.
But A.P. would never help put across the idea of workers having to exercise
political initiative.
What caused A.P. to substitute the word 'arrangements' for 'institutions'?
Was it was the existence of the political
institution of the democratic republic in Holland
that made it theoretically possible for evolution
to proceed peacefully there? Was it A.P.'s fear that a member
might get the idea that democratic political institutions are valuable
to workers that prompted
him to change that word? Or was this just another 'difference in translations'?
What was it in the "institutions, customs and traditions
of the various countries"
that made it possible for peaceful evolution
to be envisaged in those countries? Marx understood England and
America, at least, to be democratic enough for workers' parties to gain
majorities in elections and embark on the road to socialism. The report on Marx's Speech at the Hague Congress continued with some quite interesting
material (Ibid., p. 293):
"The Hague Congress has
vested the General Council with new and greater powers. Indeed,
at a time when kings are gathered together in Berlin, where new
and harsher measures of repression are to be adopted against us
as a result of that meeting of powerful representatives of the
feudal system and past times, and when persecution is being set
on foot, the Hague Congress has deemed it wise and necessary to
increase the powers of its General Council and to centralise,
for the struggle that is about to begin, an action which isolation
would render powerless. Besides, whom but our enemies could the
authority of the General Council make suspicious? Has it, then,
a bureaucracy and an armed police force to impose its will? Is
not its authority purely moral, and does it not submit all its
decisions to the federations which are entrusted with carrying
them out? Under these conditions, kings without army, police and
magistracy would be but feeble obstacles to the march of the revolution,
were they ever reduced to maintaining their power through moral
influence and authority.
"Lastly, the Hague Congress has transferred the
seat of the General Council to New York. Many people, even among
our friends, seem to be surprised by that decision. Are they forgetting,
then, that America is becoming a world chiefly of working people,
that half a million persons - working people - emigrate to that
continent every year, and that the International must take strong
root in soil dominated by the working man? And then, the decision
of the Congress authorises the General Council to co-opt such
members as it may find necessary and useful for the good of the
common cause. Let us hope that it will be wise enough to choose
people who will be equal to their task and will be able to bear
firmly the banner of our Association in Europe.
"Citizens, let us think of the fundamental principle
of the International, solidarity! It is by establishing this vivifying
principle on a strong basis, among all the working people of all
countries, that we shall achieve the great goal we have set ourselves.
The revolution needs solidarity, and we have a great example of
it in the Paris Commune, which fell because a great revolutionary
movement corresponding to that supreme rising of the Paris proletariat
did not arise in all centres, in Berlin, Madrid, and elsewhere.
"As far as I am concerned, I shall continue my effort,
and shall work steadily to establish for the future this fruitful
solidarity among all working people. I am not withdrawing from
the International at all, and the rest of my life will be devoted,
as have been my past efforts, to the triumph of the social ideas
which some day - you may rest assured of it - will lead to the
world-wide victory of the proletariat."
As a historical note, a volume entitled "The First International, Minutes of the Hague Congress of 1872 with Related Documents", continued the report on Marx's Speech, and included more on peaceful evolution (originally published in the "Algemeen Handelsblad", edited and translated by Hans Gerth, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1958, pp. 236-7):
"The general juxtaposition
of peaceful means in some cases and violent revolution in the
others, hence of "reform" and "revolution,"
is confirmed by the Algemeen Handelsblad.
""The speaker [i.e., Marx] defends the use
of violence, where other means do not help. In
North America the barricades are unnecessary, because there, if
they but want it, the proletariat can win victory through the
polls. The same applies to England and some other countries where
the working classes have the right to free speech. But in the
great majority of states revolution has to be substituted for
legality, because otherwise - by a mistaken sense of generosity,
by a wrong-headed sense of justice - one will not attain one's
ends. Strong, vigorous propaganda will have to prepare and support
the revolution. For these reasons too a great centralization of
power in the hands of the General Council is urgently needed.""
In his "Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891", Engels wrote about the possibility of peaceful evolution in republics (MESW III, pp. 434-5):
"One can conceive that
the old society may develop peacefully into the new one in countries
where the representatives of the people concentrate all power
in their hands, where, if one has the support of the majority
of the people, one can do as one sees fit in a constitutional
way: in democratic republics such as France and the USA, in monarchies
such as Britain, where the imminent abdication of the dynasty
in return for financial compensation is discussed in the press
daily and where this dynasty is powerless against the people.
But in Germany where the government is almost omnipotent and the
Reichstag and all other representative bodies have no real power,
to advocate such a thing in Germany, when, moreover, there is
no need to do so, means removing the fig-leaf from absolutism
and becoming oneself a screen for its nakedness. ...
"But the fact that in Germany it is not permitted
to advance even a republican party programme openly, proves how
totally mistaken is the belief that a republic, and not only a
republic, but also communist society, can be established in a
cosy, peaceful way."
Engels knew
that taking
away the property of the rich
would not be a day at the beach, and left no doubt that democratic republics
were to facilitate peaceful
change. Engels' statement also tried to correct
those in his German party who suggested that 'peaceful evolution was possible in Germany', even under their existing undemocratic
regime.
Of interest as well was the observation of:
..."monarchies such as Britain, where the imminent abdication of the dynasty in return for financial compensation is discussed in the press daily"...
This statement parallels Marx's civil solution of 'workers
getting off easiest by buying out the capitalist class'. But, nowadays, the whole question
of seeking
social justice by mucking about with property in any way, shape, or form, has been
settled as a non-productive waste of time.
Lenin addressed the argument about 'peaceful vs. violent change
in America' in "The
Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", in which he may have done his own revision
of Marx and Engels (LCW
28, pp. 238, 241-2):
"Further, was there in the seventies anything which made England and America exceptional in regard to what we are now discussing? It will be obvious to anyone at all familiar with the requirements of science in regard to the problems of history that this question must be put. To fail to put it is tantamount to falsifying science, to engaging in sophistry. And, the question having been put, there can be no doubt as to the reply: the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is violence against the bourgeoisie; and the necessity of such violence is particularly called for, as Marx and Engels have repeatedly explained in detail (especially in The Civil War in France and in the preface to it), by the existence of militarism and a bureaucracy. But it is precisely these institutions that were non-existent in Britain and America in the seventies, when Marx made his observations (they do exist in Britain and America now)!"
It is hard
for me to believe that the differences in the military bureaucracies
of the USA and Britain between the 1870's and World War One
could have been as great as the night and day
picture that Lenin painted, which I found somewhat reminiscent
of A.P.'s 'night
and day difference between the economic conditions of the USA
and Russia'. It was almost
as though Lenin was willing to sacrifice a little too much of
the truth in order to convince people of the necessity of violent revolutions in democracies. But, Lenin desperately needed the support
of revolutions in the rest of the world in order for the Russian
Revolution to succeed in a truly Marxist
fashion, and 'attaining
political supremacy in order to expropriate the property of the
rich' was an essential ingredient
of both Marxism and Leninism.
Forcible
expropriation was part of Marx and Engels' humanitarian
plan to implement full
participation in the economy,
but expropriation became obsolete as soon as Europe refused
to assist the Russian Revolution by having long-lasting revolutions
of its own. Today, the abolition of class distinctions could begin simply by gradually reducing labor time as made feasible by technological improvements.
We have shared work by reducing hours of labor
in our democracies before, and we will do the same again. That
very same process will be the only feasible means of proceeding
to a classless and stateless administration of things.
None of the SLP literature
that I read seemed to adequately deal with the question of bureaucratic-military
apparatuses. What the police, National Guard, Army, Navy, Air
Force, Marines, CIA, DIA, DEA, FBI, DISC, and other bureaucracies
of state would do if a workers' party won a ballot box victory was just not dealt with by the SLP, unless the Party's nearly
total disregard of the subject were to be regarded as the leadership's way of dealing with it.
A.P. continued his chapter
on 'peaceful
revolution' (p. 61):
"And in the preface to the first English translation of "Capital," Engels said:
""The sighed-for period of prosperity will not come; as often as we seem to perceive its heralding symptoms, so often do they again vanish into air. Meanwhile, each succeeding winter brings up afresh the great question, 'what to do with the unemployed'; but while the number of the unemployed keeps swelling from year to year, there is nobody to answer that question; and we can almost calculate the moment when the unemployed, losing patience, will take their own fate into their own hands. Surely, at such a moment, the voice ought to be heard of a man [Karl Marx] whose whole theory is the result of a lifelong study of the economic history and condition of England, and whom that study led to the conclusion, that, at least in Europe, England [and, by parity of reasoning, the United States] is the only country where the inevitable social revolution might be effected entirely by peaceful and legal means. He certainly never forgot to add that he hardly expected the English ruling classes to submit, without a 'pro-slavery rebellion,' to this peaceful and legal revolution."
"That "pro-slavery rebellion" will, if attempted, in this country be met with the superior force of the proletariat, organized into invincible, integral Industrial Unions."
Amazingly enough, the Preface in my edition of "Capital" agrees word for word with the above, with the exception of A.P.'s bracketed additions, and a couple of extra commas that made no substantive difference. In an SLP pamphlet, no quotation from Marx or Engels would be complete without being 'updated' to correspond to 'American conditions'. Even though Engels didn't mention the United States in his 1886 Preface to Capital, for reasons that become obvious by a perusal of his correspondence in Appendix 1, A.P. felt compelled to scream back into history, "Don't forget us! The USA is as eligible for revolution as England!" But, were American workers in 1886 anywhere near to the point of making revolution? Engels instead portrayed the USA as a country with a vast number of independent peasants, the most bourgeois country on earth, and in 1886, so many people could still come from across the sea and set themselves up in business, or on their own farms. Workers in general rejected the SLP, which Engels described as 'a party in name only, a mere branch of the German party, where the last of the louts had been consigned', but workers were attracted en masse to Henry George's United Labor Party, perhaps because of its 'single tax' panacea.
Arnold Petersen wound up his "Proletarian Democracy vs. Dictatorships and Despotism" pamphlet with (pp. 62-3):
p. 62: |
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"In passing I should like to add that on this question Lenin parts company with Marx, Engels and De Leon. {1} He does so for reasons which to me seem irrational, or which certainly do not seem based on facts or logic. {2} To go into that, however, would require more time than we have this afternoon. {3} I mention the point chiefly because I desire to avoid laying myself open to the charge of evasion, or, by implication, of misrepresenting Lenin on this question. {4} It would require a separate lecture to deal fully with the questions of physical force and violence in relation to the labor movement and the revolutionary act. The revolutionist, however, should never feel impelled to apologize for insisting on the possibility of a peaceful solution, provided he does not neglect the organizing of the needed force, the Industrial Union. {5} Brute physical force is the law of the jungle. But civilized man differs from the denizens of the jungle because of his superior intelligence, his power to reason, and, above all, his capacity to organize for a common purpose. {6} The veneer that separates man from the beast may, in a sense, be thin enough, but such as it is, it is the one saving grace, the one thing that inspires hope of our ever rising superior even to the present capitalist jungle. Dear to the heart of civilized man is the hope of settling social disputes peacefully, and, as De Leon said, it is the one consummation dearly pursued by the Socialist. {7} We of the working class want peace. We are tired and weary of the struggle of the ages. We want to put an end to capitalism with as little trouble as possible, though with all the power necessary. {8} And we are a thousand times fortunate in that destiny, or whatever we may call it, furnished us, not only with this magnificent country with its enormous resources and its high degree of political and economic development, {9} but also with the great social scientist whose genius enables us to chart our course and inspires us with the determination expressed in the poem recited by our young comrade this afternoon - "Sail on, Sail on, and on, and on" - for the successful entry into the port of humanity, the haven of the Socialist Commonwealth of free, enlightened and affluent labor."
It certainly was good to have finally reached 'The end' of A.P.'s anarchist tract, but his concluding paragraphs raised a few more issues:
1 ... 'on this question Lenin parts company with Marx, Engels and De Leon.'
For A.P., 'this question' seems to have been that of 'overcoming the 'pro-slavery rebellion' of the capitalist class in a peaceful way', and, for A.P., 'The only peaceful way will be to organize labor into Industrial Unions, thus ensuring the economic force necessary to back up the mandate at the ballot box.' In opposition to a 'peaceful revolution', Engels wrote about violent revolution in a draft of a letter to Gerson Trier in December of 1889 (MESC, p. 386):
... "We are agreed on this: that the proletariat cannot conquer political power, the only door to the new society, without violent revolution. For the proletariat to be strong enough to win on the decisive day it must - and Marx and I have advocated this ever since 1847 - form a separate party distinct from all others and opposed to them, a conscious class party." ...
In a democracy, a workers' party could theoretically come to power by merely winning an election, but its electoral success also depends on its program. The bad old days of workers' parties including expropriation of the upper classes are over with, for such programs lost all popularity when the vast majority came to respect and want property for themselves, so can't imagine arbitrarily taking it away from anyone else. If expropriation were to become a popular demand (simply as an exercise in speculation), then lower class political supremacy would be achievable only through violence, but few in this country would ever vote for a party with such a program. If the lower classes in democracies can become sensible and powerful enough to demand and get reduced labor-time, violence is completely avoidable, and the abolition of class distinctions achieved after a complete abolition of wage-labor and the wages system.
2 'Lenin parts company with Marx, Engels and De Leon ... for reasons which to me seem irrational, or which certainly do not seem based on facts or logic.'
Now A.P. seems
to have questioned Lenin's sanity! But, he thereby wielded a double-edged
sword: The advisability of trotting out a maniac to sing De Leon's
praises is questionable. Perhaps A.P. was hoping no one would
notice.
If A.P. could not bring truth and sound logic into play against his ideological enemies, then
he must have hoped that slander would destroy them. Marx, Engels
and Lenin were of like minds in consistently rejecting anarcho-syndicalist and utopian restructurings of society along economic
lines, and they were of like
minds in recognizing that the lower classes will never be able to accomplish
what they want without a party that represents their class interests, one of which interests, in this day
and age, is 'full
participation in the economy',
as the robots march in to replace all human labor. A.P. and De
Leon were out of line with the other three.
3 "To go into that, however, would require more time than we have this afternoon."
What a cop-out! A.P. avoided backing up his slanderous allegations, and this wasn't his only instance of attacking and running away.
4 "I mention the point chiefly because I desire to avoid laying myself open to the charge of evasion, or, by implication, of misrepresenting Lenin on this question."
We would never charge A.P. with misrepresenting Lenin, would we? Oh no, not us, and not much. First, A.P. alleged that Lenin might have been irrational, illogical, or lying, and then he claimed not to have the time to prove those charges. Then he 'mentioned the point chiefly to avoid laying himself open to the charge of evasion or of having misrepresented Lenin on the question of a peaceful revolution', as if the mere mentioning that he didn't have time to back up his charges might somehow relieve him from charges of slander. I would also like to know why it was that, at the beginning of A.P.'s pamphlet, Lenin was trotted out to sing the praises of Socialist Industrial Unionism, but now we find that 'Lenin opposed Marx, Engels and De Leon on the question of a peaceful solution.' Favoring the SIU, on the one hand, and then supposedly opposing Marx, Engels, and De Leon on the question of peaceful revolution, on the other hand, is quite contradictory, so it lends less credibility than ever to the SLP's many claims of Lenin's alleged attraction to De Leon and his SIU.
5 "The revolutionist, however, should never feel impelled to apologize for insisting on the possibility of a peaceful solution, provided he does not neglect the organizing of the needed force, the Industrial Union."
Is the converse
true as well? What if the revolutionist does neglect the organizing
of the Industrial Union?
Should 'the
revolutionist' then 'feel impelled to apologize
for insisting on the possibility of a peaceful solution'? Either way, both the original hypothesis
and its converse imply that 'the revolutionist'
will probably insist 'on
the possibility of a peaceful solution',
whether or not the
Industrial Union is organized,
which lack of organization only determines whether the revolutionist should apologize for insisting on a peaceful solution. How fortunate for revolutionists to be permitted by A.P. to insist on a peaceful solution, in spite of not having organized the
Industrial
Union. Maybe that was a subtle
and inadvertent admission that the Industrial Union is not as important as the democratic republic
in determining the possibility of peaceful change. But, why should a revolutionist apologize for insisting
on the possibility of a peaceful solution
anyway, especially when revolutionists
who know what the term 'revolution'
means would not be caught dead insisting on peaceful solutions? It would be more compassionate for revolutionists to apologize for advocating violence, especially in a democracy.
Engels believed that the change in America would
be less violent than in a country like Russia, and, in his October
1893 letter to Danielson, he got very close to explaining why
(MESC, pp. 437-8):
... "[T]he
present capitalistic phase of development in Russia appears an
unavoidable consequence of the historical conditions as created
by the Crimean war {1853-6}, the way in which the
change of 1861 in agrarian conditions was accomplished, and the
political stagnation in Europe generally. Where he {Struve} is decidedly wrong, is in comparing
the present state of Russia with that of the United States, in
order to refute what he calls your pessimistic views of the future.
He says, the evil consequences of modern capitalism in Russia
will be as easily overcome as they are in the United States. There
he quite forgets that the U.S. are modern, bourgeois, from the
very origin; that they were founded by petits bourgeois and peasants
who ran away from European feudalism in order to establish a purely
bourgeois society. Whereas in Russia, we have a groundwork of
a primitive communistic character, a pre-civilisation Gentilgesellschaft
[Gentile
society],
crumbling ruins, it is true, but still serving as the groundwork,
the material upon which the capitalistic revolution (for it is
a real social revolution) acts and operates. In America, Geldwirtschaft
[Money economy] has been fully established
for more than a century, in Russia, Naturalwirtschaft
[Natural
economy]
was all but exclusively the rule. Therefore it stands to reason
that the change, in Russia, must be far more violent, far more
incisive, and accompanied by immensely greater sufferings than
it can be in America.
"But for all that it still seems to me that you
take a gloomier view of the case than the facts justify. No doubt,
the passage from primitive agrarian communism to capitalistic
industrialism cannot take place without terrible dislocation of
society, without the disappearance of whole classes and their
transformation into other classes; and what enormous suffering,
and waste of human lives and productive forces that necessarily
implies, we have seen - on a smaller scale - in Western Europe.
But from that to the complete ruin of a great and highly gifted
nation there is still a long way. The rapid increase of population
to which you have been accustomed, may be checked; the reckless
deforestation combined with the expropriation of the old [Landlords] as well as the peasants
may cause a colossal waste of productive forces; but after all,
a population of more than a hundred million will finally furnish
a very considerable home market for a very respectable grande
industrie, and with you as elsewhere, things will end by finding
their own level - if capitalism lasts long enough in Western Europe."
Which, of course, it has. It seems as though the SLP's belief in a smoother transition to socialism in America than in Russia was not unfounded in socialist sentiment.
6 "Brute physical force is the law of the jungle. But civilized man differs from the denizens of the jungle because of his superior intelligence, his power to reason, and, above all, his capacity to organize for a common purpose."
By ignoring the daily violence of our allegedly civilized society, A.P. gave civilization far too much credit. We have lots of problems to solve, and the alleged 'superior intelligence' of 'civilized man' has yet to be turned toward a commitment to peacefully abolishing class distinctions.
7 ... 'settling social disputes peacefully ... is the one consummation dearly pursued by the Socialist.'
A.P.'s formulation looks approximately like the 'peaceful worship of legality at any price' that Engels criticized in his April 1895 letter to Kautsky. If peace were truly dear to A.P., he wouldn't have used so many fighting words in his pamphlet.
8 'We of the working class want peace. We are tired and weary of the struggle of the ages. We want to put an end to capitalism with as little trouble as possible, though with all the power necessary.'
'With all the economic power necessary, that is, and certainly not with the power of the state', A.P. should have added, to be consistent with the rest of his pamphlet. The same way that the anarchists would abolish the state out of hand, so do they also wish to 'put an end to capitalism' with nothing to take its place, except for that magic 'administration of things'.
9 ... 'this magnificent country with its enormous resources, and its high degree of political and economic development' ...
A great way for A.P. to end his pamphlet, by paralyzing his readers with pride for their country. If its political development is so great, then why should workers abolish the state? Such a mixed message. Overall, A.P.'s pamphlet was very garbled and confused, fit only for a small sect of true believers with few hopes, and with far fewer chances of influencing anyone.