zaterdag 13 september 2008

About revisionism (4)

In the previous article (you can read here) I let explain by an ideologist of the CCP how the salary-policy-part of the « reform and opening »-policy is ”approved” by Marx in « Critique of the Gotha-program » and by Lenin in « State and Revolution ».
In fact it was a proof of a revisionist type of« Marxism »: cutting a suiting quote or to make a personal interpretation of what they pretend that Marx or Lenin said.
But when we take bigger quotes of Marx and Lenin, we see that Marx and Lenin said totally other things.
I showed this in the previous article with a bigger quote of Marx and with a first quote of Lenin out of his « State and Revolution ».

Lenin writes further:
« Until the "higher" phase of Communism arrives, the Socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state of the measure of labour and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers.
The mercenary defence of capitalism by the bourgeois ideologists (and their hangers-on, like Messrs. the Tseretelis, Chernovs and Co.) consists precisely in that they substitute controversies and discussions about the distant future for the vital and burning question of present-day politics, viz., the expropriation of the capitalists, the conversion of all citizens into workers and employees of one huge "syndicate" -- the whole state -- and the complete subordination of the entire work of this syndicate to a genuinely democratic state, to the state of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.”

My comment:
This misleading with the use of Marxist phraseology, is in fact what the actual revisionists in the CCP also have done.

Lenin further:
“Actually, when a learned professor, and following him the philistine, and following him Messrs. the Tseretelis and Chernovs, talk of unreasonable utopias, of the demagogic promises of the Bolsheviks, of the impossibility of "introducing" Socialism, it is the higher stage or phase of Communism they have in mind, which no one has ever promised or even thought to "introduce," because it generally cannot be "introduced."
And this brings us to the question of the scientific difference between Socialism and Communism, which Engels touched on in his above-quoted argument about the incorrectness of the name "Social-Democrat." Politically the difference between the first, or lower, and the higher phase of Communism will in time, probably, be tremendous; but it would be ridiculous to take cognizance of this difference now, under capitalism, and only individual anarchists, perhaps, could invest it with primary importance (if there still remain people among the anarchists who have learned nothing from the "Plekhanovite" conversion of the Kropotkins, the Graveses, the Cornelissens and other "stars" of anarchism into social-chauvinists or "anarcho-trenchists," as Ge, one of the few anarchists who have still preserved a sense of honour and a conscience, has put it).
But the scientific difference between Socialism and Communism is clear. What is usually called Socialism was termed by Marx the "first" or lower phase of communist society. In so far as the means of production become common property, the word "Communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete Communism. The great significance of Marx's explanations is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards Communism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, "concocted" definitions and fruitless disputes about words (what is Socialism? what is Communism?), Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic ripeness of Communism.
In its first phase, or first stage, Communism cannot as yet be fully ripe economically and entirely free from traditions or traces of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that Communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois right." Of course, bourgeois right in regard to the distribution of articles of consumption inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for right is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the standards of right.
It follows that under Communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois right, but even the bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie!
This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum, of which Marxism is often accused by people who do not take the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content.
But as a matter of fact, remnants of the old surviving in the new confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of "bourgeois" right into Communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism.
Democracy is of enormous importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation. But democracy is by no means a boundary not to be overstepped; it is only one of the stages on the road from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism.
Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labour and equality of wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing farther, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim -- we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realize how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of Socialism as something lifeless, petrified, fixed once for all, whereas in reality only under Socialism will a rapid, genuine, really mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, commence in all spheres of public and personal life.
Democracy is a form of the state, one of its varieties. Consequently, it, like every state, represents on the one hand the organized, systematic use of violence against persons; but on the other hand it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism -- the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy, and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of the armed masses of workers who develop into a militia in which the entire population takes part.
Here "quantity turns into quality": such a degree of democracy implies overstepping the boundaries of bourgeois society, the beginning of its socialist reconstruction. If really all take part in the administration of the state, capitalism cannot retain its hold. And the development of capitalism, in turn, itself creates the premises that enable really "all" to take part in the administration of the state. Some of these premises are: universal literacy, which has already been achieved in a number of the most advanced capitalist countries, then the "training and disciplining" of millions of workers by the huge, complex, socialized apparatus of the postal service, railways, big factories, large-scale commerce, banking, etc., etc.
Given these economic premises it is quite possible, after the overthrow of the capitalists and the bureaucrats, to proceed immediately, overnight, to supersede them in the control of production and distribution, in the work of keeping account of labour and products by the armed workers, by the whole of the armed population. (The question of control and accounting should not be confused with the question of the scientifically trained staff of engineers, agronomists and so on. These gentlemen are working today in obedience to the wishes of the capitalists; they will work even better to morrow in obedience to the wishes of the armed workers.) “

My comment:
This was judged as «egalitarism » by the revisionists of the CCP …..And Boudewijn Deckers and Peter Franssen of the WPB agreed.

Lenin further:
“Accounting and control -- that is the main thing required for "arranging" the smooth working, the correct functioning of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed here into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens become employees and workers of a single nationwide state "syndicate." All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equally paid. The accounting and control necessary for this have been s i m p l i f i e d by capitalism to the extreme and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations -- which any literate person can perform of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.
[1]
When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and maintain such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, popular; and there will be no way of getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go."
The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labour and equality of pay.”

My comment:
Politically and ideologically the building of the communes was for the workers and peasants the learning school to carry out the dictatorship of the workers in alliance with the peasants.
The dismantling of the communes and the cooperatives means a weakening of the dictatorship of the workers in alliance with the peasants. The rest of the policy « reform and opening » forms a preparation of a future dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Lenin further:
“But this "factory" discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is but a necessary step for the purpose of thoroughly purging society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress.
From the moment all members of society, or even only the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves, have taken this work into their own hands, have "set going" control over the insignificant minority of capitalists, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist habits and over the workers who have been profoundly corrupted by capitalism -- from this moment the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment approaches when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic the "state" which consists of the armed workers, and which is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word," the more rapidly does every form of state begin to wither away.
For when a l l have learned to administer and actually do independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the idlers, the gentle folk, the swindlers and suchlike "guardians of capitalist traditions," the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they will scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the
n e c e s s i t y of observing the simple, fundamental rules of human intercourse will very soon become a h a b i t.
And then the door will be wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and with it to the complete withering away of the state. »

My comment:
You see that for the revisionists, class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat DISAPPEAR, where by Marx and Lenin in all they say and argue, their is a presumption of Class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course you can selectively quote Marx and Lenin where they not always use those terms. Therefore you must study their texts as a whole.
Another problem for the revisionists is that in these large quotes of Lenin, Lenin SEEMS to say things which are in opposition with what the revisionists are claiming that Lenin says about his NEP, with their “proof” in the form of a selected and limited quote of Lenin.
In fact, when you read well, is Lenin saying (here above in the text out of “State and Revolution”) things that the revisionists are judging as « Left » deviations. (So where Mao Zedong with his Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution is also judged “left” by the actual revisionist, perhaps Mao is MORE Leninist than the revisionists selectively quoting Lenin)
So when the revisionists are using quotes of Lenin as their apology for their policy against the « left » policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, they have to ignore the quotes of Lenin here above. They mention the text, without quoting, while giving THEIR conclusions, interpretation or “summary”…. hoping that no-one will ever study the whole text.
I will go further now in a next article with the analysis of the revisionism of Boudewijn Deckers. In my email to him I named him empirist (empirism as a form of opportunism). I shall further explain the reason that for me, Boudewijn Deckers is NOW a conscientious revisionist an NOT a communist with political deviation of opportunism.



[1] When most of the functions of the state are reduced to such accounting and control by the workers themselves, it will cease to be a "political state" and the "public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into simple administrative functions" (cf. above. Chapter IV, § 2, Engels' "Controversy with the Anarchists").

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