Program of a New Type: Dynamic Minimum-Reformist-Revolutionary

“So long as socialist production is not kept consciously in view as its object, so long as the efforts of the militant proletariat do not extend beyond the framework of the existing method of production, the class-struggle seems to move forever in a circle. For the oppressive tendencies of the capitalist method of production are not done away with; at most they are only checked.” (Karl Kautsky)

Since revolutionary, pseudo-revolutionary, and reformist (non-economistic) tendencies within the United Social Labour organization will coexist side by side, both the minimum-maximum program originally laid out by Marx in the Communist Manifesto and the less prominent transitional-maximum program laid out by Trotsky in the late 1930s need to be replaced by a program of a new and more dynamic type. The non-revolutionary tendencies will have a very different interpretation of “maximum demands” so as to exclude the possibility of extralegal “revolution” (specifically traditional armed “revolution,” and perhaps even a euphemistically “well-defended” version of Rosa Luxemburg's suggestion of mass strikes). Furthermore, they will have a more narrow interpretation of “minimum demands” so as to coincide with the “maximum demands” of modern “social-democrats” ([b]minimalists who, not being for full worker ownership and control
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[Comrades and other RevLefters, I spent the better part of this morning compiling the second and third portions of "Social Proletocracy: The Revolutionary Merger of Marxism and the Workers' Movement" - Chapter 5 of The Class Struggle Revisited. Before reading this, it is highly recommended that "Plain Proletocracy" be read first.]



Lenin: Proletocratic “State Socialist”

“Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism!” (Wilhelm Liebknecht)

What was this “state socialism” that Wilhelm Liebknecht, the father of the revolutionary martyr Karl Liebknecht, was talking about? Just mere days before the “October Revolution” (November 7, 1917), Lenin had this to say about German “state socialism”:

[i]And therefore what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call "war-time socialism" is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and clearly, war-time penal servitude for the workers and war-time protection for capitalist profits.

Now try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest de
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Test... 1, 2, 3...
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[Comrades and other RevLefters, given the recent flurry regarding my neologisms (new words), I spent the past two and a half hours compiling this very first and critical portion of "Social Proletocracy: The Revolutionary Merger of Marxism and the Workers' Movement" - Chapter 5 of The Class Struggle Revisited.]



“Social Democracy is not confined to simple service to the working-class movement: it represents ‘the combination of socialism and the working-class movement’ (to use Karl Kautsky’s definition which repeats the basic ideas of the Communist Manifesto); the task of Social Democracy is to bring definite socialist ideals to the spontaneous working-class movement, to connect this movement with socialist convictions that should attain the level of contemporary science, to connect it with the regular political struggle for democracy as a means of achieving socialism—in a word, to fuse this spontaneous movement into one indestructible whole with the activity of the revolutionary party.” (Vladimir Lenin)



The quote above reiterates Kautsky’s words from The Class Struggle as quoted at the end of Chapter 3, and explains why German Marxism took the form of classical “social democracy” – the extension of political democracy to socioeconomic affairs (as well as the less obvious but equally important extension of political democracy for its own sake). In spite of the problems mentioned in Chapter 4, the Ru
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[Another Chapter 4 section done for The Class Struggle Revisited ]



“Great Betrayals”: Dumping “Communist,” “Socialist,” and Various Other Labels

"I do not consider the term ‘communism’ suitable for general use today; rather it should be reserved for cases in which a more exact description is required and even then it would call for an explanatory note having virtually fallen out of use for the past thirty years." (Frederick Engels)

As noted earlier in this chapter, the original Marxist movement came in the form of “social democracy.” By 1914, however, Kautsky’s parliamentary reductionism gave way to cheap parliamentary opportunism, and the ambiguity of “democracy” in “social democracy” was replaced with unambiguous national chauvinism favouring the bourgeoisie:

[i]The conduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party, the strongest and the most influential in the Second International (1889-1914), a party which has voted for war credits and repeated the bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of the Prussian Junkers and the bourgeoisie, is sheer betrayal of socialism. Under no circumstances can the conduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party be condoned, even if we assume that the party was absolutely weak and had temporarily to bow to the will of the bourgeois majority of the nation. This party has in fact adopted a national-liberal policy.

[&#82
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[Preamble: This is a short break from my work-in-progress. This is an article posted by a Connollyist in the Cascadian region (northwest US plus Canada's BC), who also happens to be the Current Events moderator on Soviet-Empire.com. I don't have a hard stance on the Cascadian position (since there is no real nationality in the region to speak of), but I certainly sympathize with it on a "socio-national liberation"/"republican-socialist" basis.]

Connolly and Cascadia



By The Immortal Goon


One may ask why the Cascadian needs independence. The hard and fast self-interest answer is not to be sought here, but in various other works that are being published and ideas that are being currently contemplated more and more every day. The purpose of this work is not to appeal to those currently engaged in the first dabbling of the idea of Cascadian independence but instead as a compass to those who have already accepted the logic, indeed the necessity, of an autonomous Cascadian republic. Nor should this work be taken as a biblical narrative to be accepted in fear of excommunication. It is, as stated, a compass that shows a general direction but does not take in to account the obstacles in the way of the direction to which it points. It is, in short, a start.

There are several great events in the history of independence from current forms of tyranny. Of those there are three to be considered in connection
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And here I was thinking that this second section that I've completed in Chapter 4 ("One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, and Building the Mass Party of the Working Class") of The Class Struggle Revisited was going to be much shorter than the "Unity in Action" submission!

Again, since it too is over two pages long, I thought it deserving of a separate submission (and I submitted this to the Socialist Project, now knowing what kind of articles they accept).



“United Social Labour”: The Merger of Political Socialism and the Workers’ Labour Movement

"Social Democracy is the party of the militant proletariat; it seeks to enlighten it, to educate it, to organise it, to expand its political and economic power by every available means, to conquer every position that can possibly be conquered, and thus to provide it with the strength and maturity that will finally enable it to conquer political power and to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie." (Karl Kautsky)

Returning to the subject of Russian Marxism, Lenin proposed that the local circles consolidate into one Marxist organization for the entire country. This was eventually done, even while some reformist-minded circles here and there were kicking and screaming together during the consolidation process. Note here Lenin’s willingness during this time to work with reformists within an overall organization, not just within some “workers’ united front.” The then-success of
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This is the first section that I've completed in Chapter 4 ("One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, and Building the Mass Party of the Working Class") of The Class Struggle Revisited. Since it is over two pages long, and will probably be the longest section in the chapter, I thought it deserving of a separate submission.


“Unity in Action, Freedom of Discussion and Criticism”: Circumstantial Discussive Unity

In revisiting the question of what is known today as “democratic centralism,” it is best to begin with Lenin’s remarks in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (emphasis in bold):

[i]It is not surprising that Kautsky arrives at the following conclusion: “There is perhaps no other question on which revisionism in all countries, despite its multiplicity of form and hue, is so alike as on the question of organisation.” Kautsky, too, defines the basic tendencies of orthodoxy and revisionism in this sphere with the help of the “dreadful word”: bureaucracy versus democracy. We are to