Communism and Violence

Gerry, in his comment to Reply to Gerry, asks me a direct question:

As a pacifist I would never align myself with a movement which condones violence as a means of achieving political aims, so, I now ask you outright, what is your party's view about this? Is it a declared pacifist party or would it justify violence under some circumstances?

The Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines pacifism as:

1 : opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes; specifically : refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds

2 : an attitude or policy of nonresistance

My understanding of pacifism is that violence cannot be used even in self-defense or in the defense of innocent people.

The short answer to your question is that my party believes that self-defense is justified. This is not a pacifist position.

The Program of the DSP makes the following points:

Self-organisation of the masses and the struggle for power

As the conflict between the major classes sharpens, the capitalist rulers will almost certainly resort to legal and extra-legal forms of violence against the workers and their allies. For this reason, the working people must be prepared to defend their activities, organisations, headquarters and press against such violence through the formation of broadly-based self-defence squads. [Emphasis Mine]

Workers’ democracy and the defence of workers’ power

All historical experience demonstrates that no exploiting class ever gives up its power and privileges peacefully. The capitalist class has repeatedly shown that it will cast aside its ``democratic'' institutions and unleash civil war against the workers to defend or re-establish its rule. As long as imperialism survives in major countries — and certainly in the United States — it will attempt to intervene through economic pressure and military force whenever and wherever it can to prevent or destroy any attempts by working people to establish their democratic rule. This has been the experience of every anti-capitalist revolution this century — from Russia, to China, to Cuba, to Vietnam, to Nicaragua. Any workers' state or group of workers' states will find itself in a permanent condition of armed truce with imperialism, that could, under certain conditions, lead to open war. The workers' state must prepare against that danger, as it has to be ready to help the insurgent masses of other countries facing armed intervention by imperialism. [Emphasis Mine]

In Terrorism: A Marxist Perspective, there is a good summary of our position:

How this struggle unfolds — whether it is peaceful or violent — does not fundamentally depend on us but on the ruling class. Will the imperialist bourgeoisie defend its rotten social order to the bitter end? Will it resort to violence and terror to resist the advance of the masses? We are not pacifists: we believe in the right of the people to defend themselves against the violence of their oppressors. All those struggling for a better world are necessarily forced to confront the question of violence — and terrorism — in its various forms. [Emphasis Mine]

The violence of the state is directed the poor every hour of every day. This is manifest in the attitudes and actions of the security guards, transit officers, police officers, work supervisors, and every minor functionary who deals with the public. Their violence is mainly psychological in reminding the poor of their place in society. Woe betide anyone who loses their temper under such provocation. Then the physical violence descends without mercy. To be poor is to have infinite patience and forgiveness.

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Reply to Gerry

Gerry has made some very interesting and challenging comments to An Australian Revolution. Because there are so many questions, I decided to create a post with the questions followed by my answers.

What exactly do you mean by revolution? Violent or non-violent stuggle? Democratic? What.

A revolution is simply a turning about. Instead of orientating our lives towards Capitalism with its emphasis on wealth accumulation, we orientate ourselves in a different direction with a different set of values.

A revolution does not have to involve physical violence, but, unfortunately, most do. We have to find creative ways of getting the ruling class to relinquish power peacefully.

From your other questions, I would understand that you mean a democratic revolution to be wining a parliamentary election. I mean democratic as in the great majority of people acting in unison to change society.

One of the great blinders to understanding what is going on, is the belief that the government controls the Australian economy. Every day, we are being told the opposite to this official myth. It is the Reserve Bank who sets interest rates. It is the head offices of companies that decide what investment to make and who to hire and fire. It is the bureaucracy who administers the laws and decides how the law is applied. It is the police who decides who gets arrested and whose crimes are overlooked. It is the courts who decides how the law is to interpreted. It is the banks who decide who gets a loan and who does not.

With the various Free Trade Agreements in place, foreign companies can set aside Australian law if they can prove that it discriminates against them by being harsher here than elsewhere.

And of course, the government must not upset the market.

If it's going to be democratic, how will the party get the numbers to get into power (wouldn't that require the mother of all grass-roots education campaigns?)

As usual, you are right on the mark. This will involve the most intensive and wide-reaching grass-roots education campaigns ever seen in Australia. We are going to have to convince 20 million Australians to convert Australia into a Communist country. (And this is going to be done by a political ideology that got 0.12% of the vote at the last federal election. So the odds are about 1000 to 1.)

This will have to done with a budget that is less than what Kerry Packer spends on lunch. And against a mass media that can employ the best minds in academia and in public life to counter whatever we can come up with.

At least, we have got it easier than the Worker's Communist Party of Iraq: they have to deal with the various terrorist organisations (Al-Qaeda, Baathists, US Army, etc.) and with a population worried about staying alive for at least another day. Yet, the WCPI are trying to do the same sort of education campaign in Iraq. They have strongly condemned the Iraqi insurgency for its violence and this has cost them political support among the Iraqis.

"there must a political party that has nearly all of the advanced conscious workers acting together" Who decides who is 'advanced'? Wouldn't this be a form of elitism?

'Advanced' is a relative term. It means that one's political knowledge and understanding is ahead of the general population.

The party members decide who is advanced or not. For one to join a Communist party, the branch membership has to be convinced of the applicant's knowledge and understanding is sufficiently advanced.

In some parties, there is a probationary period during which the probationary is sent to education classes and tested in various actions. Only by testing the applicant's knowledge and understanding, and seeing how the applicant behaves in certain situations can the branch members be certain that their vote on the application for membership is the correct one.

You have also highlighted a very great and real danger with the Leninist party model: that of elitism or vanguardism. This is when the party convinces itself that it knows best. It leads and the people must follow. The people usually respond by suggesting various orifices into which the collected works of Marx and Engels can be stowed.

Because of this danger, some Communist parties reject the Leninist model altogether saying that this collapse into elitism cannot be overcome at all.

To overcome this elitism, parties must stay connected with and be in the midst of the working class. This means educating, debating, and recruiting people. The party must be outward focused not a mob of self-obsessed yobbos.

"That is, the central leadership is elected by and responsible to the whole membership" But why would the great unwashed membership vote for 'advanced conscious workers'? Why wouldn't they vote for those who told them them most what they wanted to hear? (And being 'unadvanced', what they would want to hear would make the 'advanced' recoil in horror, no?)

The leadership of a party is not necessarily more advanced than the membership. The leadership should be the people best able to implement the policies and strategies decided on by the party membership. This is why, at party meetings, the policies and strategies for the party are voted on first, then the election for the leadership is held. Until one knows where one is going, one cannot choose the best guide to lead one there.

Also implict in your question is how does one deal with the party going in one direction when one believes the party should be going in another? Lenin showed the way by loyally implementing the party programme while arguing against it. (This was when he was a "minority of one" in the Communist Party). If a direction is wrong, it should be obvious when the expected results are not achieved. Then the party needs to learn the exact reasons for failure and use that knowledge and understanding to go into another direction.

How would dissent be dealt with?

In a democracy, one has the right to attempt to convince other people to change their minds. But also in a democracy, the majority rules. That is, once a decision is voted on, that decision should be loyally implemented to the best of one's ability even though one may disagree with it. But one can still campaign to get that decision changed in a new vote. No decision is irrevocable.

How would religions be dealt with?

Religious belief and practice are of personal concern only. The State has no right to decide what is or is not a religion. Organisations that claim to be religious should be treated no differently to those that have secular objectives.

In a democracy, people have the right to freely associate. If they want to join together to form a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or a temple, that is their business as long as they do not break the law.

The trouble with capitalism and communism is that they are mutually exclusive. IOW, you have to destroy one to create the other. So the country can't really yo-yo between the two till it makes up its mind. It's this or that. "Karate do" or "karate don't". No middle ground. So once they vote for communism and it's implemented, a lot of pain would ensue over a long time and if they ever wanted to go back to capitalism, a lot more pain would ensue over a long time. Who would take that risk and opt for so much pain?

Before 2000, I would have said that you were absolutely correct. However, the experience of the Argentinian and Venzuelan revolutions suggests that there can be long periods of dual power: a Communist state and a Capitalist state existing together within the same country. This is something we do not fully understand as yet.

The Argentinian experience suggests that the Capitalist State is slowly but surely regaining control. Whereas the Venezuelan experience suggests that the revolution is deepening through the education of the masses while the Capitalist class remains on the sidelines.

This is why the education process has to be thorough and wide-ranging. People have to be clear about what they are getting into.

As in Venezuela, the revolutionary process could be a drawn-out affair with small changes being made and people evaulating that change before deciding on the next change.

How will enough people in middle and upper management and the professions abandon their craving for wealth and glitzy pretentious lifestyles in order to make the communist dream work? Because without the talent at these levels the crap sets in as it did in China, USSR, etc, etc.

This is where the Russian Revolution went wrong. These people became the ruling caste within a socialist country. They were extremely jealous of their privileges.

The solution would be, IMHO, to convince enough of these people that they belong in the working class along with the labourers, drivers, machinists, etc. To replace those who do not join the working class, technical education will have to provided to train workers to take their places. This means the economy will suffer until they are replaced.

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An Australian Revolution

Gerry lays down a challenge to me in the comment he made to Workers Power and the Russian Revolution. He wants to know Australians can make the transition from Capitalism to Communism.

The simple answer is through the mass movement of workers taking control of the businesses, factories, farms, bureaucracy, military, police, banks, and the courts. That is, all the instruments of State power become subject to popular power.

The descriptive answer is that an Australian Revolution will be:

• Distinctly Australian - although we can learn from other revolutions as they are happening now in Venezeula and Argentina, Australian culture and history will influence how the revolution will unfold;
• Democratic - it will be up to the Australian workers to decide if, when, and how they want to make the transition;
• Episodic - there will be alternating periods of advance and retreats for the achievements of the workers;
• Iterative - there will be cycles of learning and acting;
• Long in the transition - there will be many cycles of advance and retreat, and of learning and acting.

The more complex answer is that the raising of the consciousness of the working class and the willingness to act in unison forms the basis of a revolution. Consciousness of what the current situation is and what other possibilities there are, is the result of education, debating, and reflection.

That consciousness is achieved when the working class understands and intreprets, for itself,

Australian and World history,

the origins and workings of Australian and World Capitalism,

the Australian State and its associated instruments of power.

Examples of consciousness among workers, that I have found, include Gerry, Ron, Weezil, and Pat. All of these people are honestly educating themselves on the political and economic situation, and they are making their honest opinions known to the rest of the world. They are the conscious workers. You will note that their (and mine) consciousness is uneven. In some areas, they have deeper understanding than in others. This is to be expected - no human being developes in exactly the same manner and at the same rate.

As the political consciousness of the working class increases, the ability to act decisively becomes possible. With successful actions, comes confidence.

With the possiblity of decisive action by the workers comes the question of how to achieve unity in action. The anarchist answer tends to be that everything will be alright on the night.

The Leninist answer is that there must a political party that has nearly all of the advanced conscious workers acting together. This unity in action is built up over many years through mutual trust and respect in the democratic centralist nature of the party. That is, the central leadership is elected by and responsible to the whole membership, and the party members will carry out the instructions of the central leadership to the best of their ability. It is this democratic centralism of a Leninist party, I believe, will be decisive in the moments of crises during the most intense periods of transition from Capitalism to Communism.

In conclusion, I probably have not given what Gerry was looking for: "...a workable, clearly articulated plan". Because, at this stage of the Australian Revolution, there are so few people involved in it. As more people join, more detailed plans can be worked out as a clearer vision of what a Communist Australia would be like.

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Workers Power and the Russian Revolution

One good thing about the Internet is that you can across articles that really shake you up. One of these is Workers Power and the Russian Revolution: A review of Maurice Brinton’s For Workers Power. For a Leninist like me, I have the view of the Bolsheviks as being the leaders in the second Russian Revolution of 1917.

Brinton believes that the working class cannot have power in society, cannot liberate itself from its condition as a subjugated and exploited class, unless it gains direct management power over production. He believes that the working class must also gain control over the whole structure of the society to ensure its liberation. But he rejects the idea that the working class could have power in society if it is subjugated in production. This is the heart of Brinton’s argument.

This is very long article. The gist of it seems to be that the workers must bypass any party that claims to represent them. He contends that the Bolsheviks conned the factory committees out of political power by letting them run the factories.

However, recent experience in Argentina suggests that worker's control of the factories is not enough. Without a clear political direction, the Capitalists can start reclaiming each factory back one by one, after they recover from the shock of the revolution. This is still happening in Argentina as each shining light of worker's liberation is snuffed out.

This article turned out to be a Bolshevik-bashing exercise by anarchists. I did not finish reading it to see if it mentions the Kronstadt Mutiny.

The worker's party is not an elite organisation but attempts to gather in all of the workers who currently have a deeper understanding of the economic and poltical situation - the advanced workers (in advance of the general understanding by the proletariat). These share their experiences and deepen their understanding through debate, reading, and action.

When a revolutionary situation developes, it does so with extraordinary rapidity as we have witnessed in Argentina and Venezuela. It leaves no time to start reading Das Kapital and reflecting on it. The situation becomes becomes very fluid while the ruling class panics. During this time, decisive leadership is needed if the proletariat is win its demands and advance it cause for a fairer society.

This is where the Bolshevik party model comes into play. There is a tested and educated cadre ready to take action in educating the workers and intervening decisively in moments of crisis. The cadre know and trust each other through previous actions. The cadre should be known to the workers in general and be trusted by them. And trust can only be gained by principled action.

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No woman (or man) is an island in the economy

Ross Gittins realises that No woman (or man) is an island in the economy. The intrusion of other fields into the dismal science of economics has some far-reaching effects. Mr. Gittins reviews the effects of sociology on economices. For starters, the

...economists' focus is on the individual, whereas economic sociologists' focus is on groups, institutions and society. Believe it or not, economists' analysis generally proceeds on the assumption that individual "actors" aren't connected to one another.

In the Capitalist economic model, we are all free to make choices that maximises the benefit to us. This is a rational choice that is made without reference to the rest of the world. You may suffer as a consequence of my actions, but the primary concern is the benefit to me. How much of this self-interest becomes selfishness depends on the power relationship (see below). Thus, economists see rational behaviour as a constant, whereas

Sociologists, however, regard rational behaviour as a variable. Sometimes we make decisions on a rational basis; other times - most of the time - we're influenced by tradition (habits, rules of thumb, communal loyalties, or sacred values).

On the other hand, evolutionary economists when they study How Animals Do Business, they see reciprocal behaviour as the main movitator for interactions between individuals. We are not maximising benefits to ourselves but ensuring fair play for everyone.

Sociologists tend to give a lot of attention to the role of power in economic relations. By contrast, economists tend to regard economic action as an exchange among equals. Which means that when power relationships are highly unequal, such as between a boss and an individual worker, standard economic analysis will give the wrong answer (without most economists realising it).

So much for the AWAs. Capitalist propaganda via traditional economics puts forward the notion that we are all equal when it comes to contract negotiations.

What's more, a person's position in the social structure conditions his economic choices and activity. Structural constraints influence decisions people make about their careers in ways that conflict with simple considerations of economic gain.

In other words, your class determines your economic choices. A bourgeoise has more choices than a petite bourgeiose than a labour aristocrat than a labourer than a lumpenproletariat than an unemployed person. Furthermore, your class largely determines what your self-interests are.

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Threat of Draft Will Tame Warlike U.S. Populace

I picked this article up via Z Magazine.

The Black Commentator argues that Threat of Draft Will Tame Warlike U.S. Populace

... a universal military and national service draft such as proposed by Harlem’s Charles Rangel and a small group of other congressmen would utterly wreck the social compact that makes endless war politically possible, by forcing Americans to ponder the consequences of U.S. foreign policy to their own families and friends for the first time in 32 years.

This is backed up by the poll results quoted in the article. The racist and class nature of the Iraq war is further revealed by the fact that non-whites are being killed, and it is the poor who are doing the killing.

Recent polls indicate that a majority of the 70 percent of America that is white still support the war – that is, the social base for Bush’s war policy remains intact. Moreover, the 58 percent general opposition to the war recorded in the mid-January ABC-Washington Post poll was not intense enough to deny Bush an overall approval rate of 52 percent.

Two years of polling indicate that, 1) at least half of white America condones (or cheers) war crimes against Iraqis, 2) much of the opposition to the war is weak in intensity, and 3) the public feels, in general, only distantly connected to the war, or to the soldiers who are fighting it.

All three outcomes are directly related to the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military. After a generation and a half without a draft, the citizens of the world’s hyper-aggressive, sole superpower, packing more armaments than the rest of the planet combined, have only the most tenuous links to their armed forces. A fraction of American families contribute members to the military, drawn from Black America (22 percent), Latino America (less than 10 percent) and mainly small town and southern whites from the mid to lower income groups. The remainder of U.S. families do not feel directly “at risk” and may therefore cheer, bemoan or ignore U.S. military adventures from the psychological distance of their choosing.

By making draft equally applicable to everyone, everyone will want to ensure that the cause for war is correct.

We have no illusions that national service will come anytime soon. However, the Pirates’ strategy is one of constant escalation, as they attempt to shatter world order and then replace it with their own edifice. Hyper-aggression tends to accelerate the political process. Talking in war-code to a Parisian audience, Condoleezza Rice made it clear that she sees warfare throughout the entirety of our lives: "If we make the pursuit of global freedom the organizing principle of the 21st century, we will achieve historic global advances – for justice and prosperity, for liberty and for peace."

The US ruling class is using war to save itself from oblivion as all ruling classes throughout history have done before it. Capitalism is a pitiless devourers of those who fail to keep up. There are others who are starting to catch up with the USA. They realise that an alliance between them can topple the USA from its perch. Unfortunately, any slippage by the USA only encourages the others to continue their covert warfare against the USA.

The article assumes that people will stop supporting the war if they could become involved in it. I think that a significant portion of the petite bourgeois and teh labour aristocracy realise that the USA is in decline. A successful war could halt or even reverse that downward trend. For them, the gamble in Iraq would be worthwhile even if they had to pay the price of serving under a draft.

The problem with articles of this type is that they think the self-interest of the various classes extends only as far as their comfort. Whereas people can see things better than what is published in the mass media and realise that the Capitalist system in their country is under threat.

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The Rise of China

Kos is worried about The Rise of China.

The United States military is wastefully tied down in an unwinnable nightmare in Iraq - a quagmire which has hollowed the strength and reach of our forces. At the same time, the United States government (as embodied by the Bush administration) has manifested an appalling level of disinterest in most world affairs that aren't centered around Baghdad.

North Korea is the most glaring example, but the rise of China's power and influence also seems to be taking place without much notice. (The first two stories are sourced to nameless "Pentagon officials.") Will we be prepared in the coming new world in which China can readily flex its military and economic muscles? Right now, the answer does not seem heartening.

The Bush Administration is very much interested in world affairs. What the USA is doing in Iraq is affecting China. North Korea is where the USA wants it. The Sino-Japanese tension suits the USA right down to the ground.

The USA is in Iraq to control the Middle East oil supply. China, Japan, Europe, and South Korea are dependant on imported oil. USA control keeps these US competitors in line.

North Korea is kept isolated from South Korea by US pressure. With US interference, the South Korean Capitalist class would buy out the North Korean Communists as the West Germans did with the East Germans. The DMZ would disappear and the South Korean Capitalists would have a new market to exploit. The risk to the USA is that the reunified Korea would become more independent of the USA in economic and political terms. The DMZ keeps the South Koreans in their place.

The current tensions between Japan and China reflect the growth of nationalism in China. Nationalism grows along with the Capitalist economy. This tension derails any immediate hope of a Sino-Japanese alliance against the USA.

I would think GWB is very happy at how things currently are.

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amateur hour in politics 101

Gerry opens amateur hour in politics 101... by banning "Leftie Fundamentalists" (among others) from commenting. It's his blog - he can set the rules. So I am commenting in my own blog.

For a political discussion to progress, we need some definitions. Here are mine:

Communism

The production is controlled by the people. There is no separation between owners and workers. The workers own the factories, businesses, and farms, and the owners work in the factories and businesses or on the farms.

Capitalism

The capitalist owns the factories, businesses, and farms. They employ people to work for them to produce things and services. There is a class between the owners and the workers: the petite bourgeois (small businesses). They own the business and they work for themselves.

Socialism

The state controls the production. The state owns the factories, businesses, and farms. The question is who then controls the state. In Marxist terms, Socialism is a transitional stage between Capitalism and Communism.

Strictly speaking, a Communist society has not yet existed. There have only been Socialist ones of various constructions. That is, the USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, etc. were all Socialist countries.

In Australia, there are socialist enterprises such as Telstra, Australia Post, Sydney Water, CityRail, Integral Energy, Energex, ABC, etc. Since these enterprises do not comprise the majority of the economic activity (choose a measure here) within the Australian economy, then Australia is not a Socialist economy. Even if the majority of economic activity was controlled by the State, then the problem of who controls the State comes into play. That is, if a minority of the people manage to control the State, they will control the economy. A description of a Socialist state needs to include who controls the State.

Back to Gerry's post. The main thrust of which appears to be that the atheism of the Socialist State forces religious groups to cling to Capitalism. If he were writing at the time of the French Revolution, he would decry that the new Capitalism was forcing religious groups to cling to Capitalism.

Religion is not a monolith. There are various groupings within an organised religion. Like any organisation, those in power cling to power in any way they can. Under Feudalism, the Catholic Church justified the economic system by tying people to their lord's land. Under Constantine and later emperors, the Church justified the imperial system of slavery. Now under Capitalism, the Protestant Churches are justifing the economic system.

Organised religion is part of the subjective superstructure that keeps people inside the system. (Other parts are the universities, mass media, and now, the blogosphere.) The idea is keep people thinking that the choice is between A and B whereas options, C, D, and E, exist but are not to be seriously considered. By controlling the choices that are put to the people, the ruling class controls the people. This is why anything that threatens the system (like Pauline Hanson, S11, anti-war, anti-globalisation, Greenies, etc.) is stamped on or co-opted into the system.

The range of choices must be constrained and, yet at the same time, the differences between those choices must be magnified into a war of the worlds. Into this, the organised religions are drawn by financial incentives (reduced rates and taxes, donations to charities, funds for restoration of buildings, support for schools), political incentives (State Funerals, attendance by the political and business elite at important functions), intellectual incentives (educational institutions, their own mass media, access to the secular mass media), etc. These are a lot of incentives to play the game. Since the organised religions have assets to protect, they act to protect those assets against the claims by others.

The most radical preachers I have encountered are those who are just starting out in their ministry. They are all fired up after reading James, Amos, Jeremiah, Hosea, the Gospels, etc. They have no assets so their freedom of speech is very great. Then along comes some rich dude and gives them some money to help the poor. They do so and lives are made better. The preacher notices that the rich dude gets uncomfortable when the sermon is from those radical sections of the Bible, so the preacher modifies the teaching to take account of the less radical parts. More rich dudes appear and the teaching is further softened so that money can come in to help the poor.

The preacher was put into an invidious position of having to choose between preaching the full Gospel or helping the poor. As more and more compromises are made, they may find themselves as an organised church with outreach services but a far softer message than they started with.

There is not a conspiracy to subvert organised religion. There is a sequence of decisions that ordinary human beings go through to arrive at that position in a Capitalist society.

In summary, organised religions are drawn into a reactionary ideological position because of the assets that they have accumulated. The last thing any Capitalist wants is for the Catholic Church and others to divest themselves of their assets. The message of Christainity is too radical for Capitalism.

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