What Does Victory Look Like?

Want to see the end of bourgeois rule? So do we. Join us in discussion at the Mediaweapon Community (mediaweapon.com).

We stand against sectarianism, reformism, and the other disease that keep the left_paralyzed_and ineffective.

Discuss these topics and others at the POF-200 ELIST: groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-200

POF-300 is the sister list to POF-200: groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-300

Ben Seattle can be found here: struggle.net/ben

I can be found here: theredbeacon.blogspot.com

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Here are the links to the various stages of this argument between Ben Seattle, Frank, and myself. The latest installment can be found below.

Ben's Annual Report: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Frank Replies: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

"Cargo-Cult Leninism" vs Political Transparency, by Ben: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Transparency and its Opposite by Me: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Frank's Reply to Me (which also serves as a reply to Ben): struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

What Principles are Most Deserving?  by Ben: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

A Correction by Me: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Who Will Rule? An Organization--or the Working Class? by Ben: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

My Reply to Frank: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Frank's 2nd Reply to Me: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

Frank's 3rd Reply to Me: struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007…

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What Does Victory Look Like?

by Ben Seattle

Frank opposes the existence of multiple parties under worker's
rule:

Frank, Sept 2:
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> You write, however, of multiple workers'
> parties eventually springing up and demanding
> a role in government. But upon what program
> would these parties spring up if there was a
> real Marxist party leading the class struggle?

Frank is mistaken from several different directions.

1) If there was a real marxist party leading the class struggle
it would include within it room for a wide range of views on
important questions. This follows from the nature of
reality--which is complex. Different schools of thought will
have different opinions on all sorts of questions. An organized,
public struggle between different schools of thought (ie:
political trends) will be the best engine to drive the search for
facts and to determine the truth that must guide policy. So even
if there is a single party (ie: the best scenario) it would
contain multiple parties within it that would openly struggle
against one another. This is more-or-less equivalent to a system
of parties that are united under an umbrella organization.

2) It is a simple fact that the leading party may (a) become
captured by corrupt people or (b) fall victim to sectarianism or
other diseases--and undergo a process of degeneration. In such
circumstances there will be a need for those who see the need for
a genuine revolutionary organization to have the right to create
it should the "real marxist party" become a phony revisionist
party. No one can guarantee that this cannot happen (since it
has happened in every case without exception).

3) If the democratic rights of speech and organization are
extended to everyone--then parties will spring up that are not
marxist and which will be hostile to the interests of the working
class. It is to the benefit of the working class to allow these
parties to exist and function--because it is neither practical
nor necessary to attempt to suppress them (ie: they cannot be
suppressed as long as the entire working class has the democratic
rights of speech and organization).

But let's continue with Frank:

> To even gain power and therefore have democratic rights
> like freedom of speech the proletariat is going to have
> to deny such freedoms to others.

Actually, that is not true. The proletariat, today, in countries
such as the US, Western Europe and Japan has democratic rights of
speech and organization even though it is not in power (hint:
that is the reason we are able to talk about these topics today).
These democratic rights will disappear in an acute revolutionary
crisis--but they exist for now and the main limitation in our
exercise of these rights is our own ignorance and inability to
effectively coordinate our actions.

But let's hear more from Frank about democratic rights:

> And once in power its going to have to deny them to
> bourgeois inciters of rebellion, and even inciters
> of splits in its own ranks when facing rebellion.

> In such conditions multiple workers' parties (splits
> and confusion in the workers ranks) would only weaken
> the struggle for freedom of speech by the masses.

Frank's comments reveal a great deal.

Frank is describing the situation that existed in Soviet Russia
in 1921. At that time, the Bolshevik party, in order to prevent
a return to bourgeois rule, was compelled to undertake a series
of emergency measures which greatly limited democratic rights
both in society at large and within the Bolshevik party itself.
All competing parties were essentially outlawed. And all
organizations within the Bolshevik party which were organized on
the basis of a common platform of opposition to the policies of
the majority faction of the party center--were dissolved. Lenin
recognized that these measures carried grave risks (and indeed,
it was the lack of democratic rights which meant that no force
was available to oppose the corruption of the Bolshevik party
which took place after Lenin's death) but at the time there was
no other means to avoid a total collapse of Bolshevik rule and a
complete restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the hated
whiteguard landlords.

The Bolsheviks were forced to suspend democratic rights because
by 1921 a majority of the population was quite unhappy with the
Bolsheviks and would have supported any political trend that
claimed that it was possible to get rid of the Bolsheviks without
restoring bourgeois-landlord rule. There were many political
trends which (if they had not been outlawed) would have made such
a claim--but all of these trends would have ended up surrendering
power to the bourgeoisie. It was for this reason that Lenin and
the Bolsheviks found it necessary to suspend the democratic
rights of speech and organization for the entire country until
such time as the economy could be restored and the desperate
circumstances could be corrected (ie: something that would have
taken 10 or 20 years).

So the emergency measures which the Bolsheviks took were indeed
necessary--but at the same time the fact that they were necessary
shows that, by 1921, it was not the Soviet working class which
ruled Russia--but a single organization.

This single organization hoped to bring about a state of affairs
in which the working class as a whole would rule by means of the
democratic rights that would allow the class to have access to
all relevant information and to select or reject leaders and
policies.

And maybe this might have happened if Lenin had lived another ten
years.

But that is not what happened.

Instead the whole thing went to shit. I think most readers know
the rest of the story. The party degenerated before democratic
rights could be restored--and before long a new class of rulers
exploited the workers.

And I believe that this shows that, in Russia, by 1921, it was
not the working class that ruled as a class. If the working
class had ruled--the workers would have had countless ways to
prevent this kind of degeneration. What existed in 1921 was not
the dictatorship of the proletariat (DP) but the dictatorship of
the proletariat in embryo (DP-embryo). Under more favorable
circumstances the DP-embryo might have matured into the real
thing. But it did not.

And this has been a double tragedy. It was a tragedy firstly
because the revolution failed. The glorious October revolution
became a vehicle for a new ruling class. It was also a tragedy
for a second reason: it created (and still creates) confusion
today concerning what the dictatorship of the proletariat is.
Confusion still exists, today, in distinguishing between the
dictatorship of the proletariat (DP) and the dictatorship of the
proletariat in embryo (DP-embryo).

Frank (and the CVO and X9) remain confused about this. Frank's
comments (above) prove that he is confused.

And Frank is fighting tooth and nail to keep matters confused.
It has required years of work and confrontation in numerous
instances for Frank to actually make public his views (as he has
above) which argue that the working class would be _endangered_
by democratic rights (ie: that would inevitably lead to multiple
parties).

Activists who want to see an end to bourgeois rule and who
believe that an alternative is possible that would be more than a
police state--will sweep away the kind of theoretical bullshit
and mumbo-jumbo which Frank preaches.

We can do our share of this today.

I have prepared (see below) a chart comparing the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat (dp) to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in
Embryo (dp-embryo) across 8 major dimensions:

[See struggle.net/struggle/ben/2007… for chart]

The principles in the chart above must eventually be known (in
one or another form) to hundreds of thousands of activists in
order to rescue the concept of workers' rule from the ocean of
shit in which it has been buried for more than 80 years.

Cargo Cult Leninists (such as X9) with whom I have discussed
these principles often resort to a verbal argument that is rarely
made public. "We cannot guarantee", this argument goes, "that we
will not need to pass through a period of DP-embryo". "And we
must tell people the truth or they will, when the going gets
tough, conclude that we deceived them."

But this is a bankrupt argument. It is true that no one can
predict the circumstances by which the working class can come to
power. And it is possible that a short period of DP-embryo may
be necessary in any country in which a civil war effectively
destroys the economy. But, I have argued that, first, if
conditions of DP-embryo (ie: suspension of democratic rights)
were required for a lengthy period--then the revolution would
probably be doomed: it would not be able to defend itself against
both external threat and internal threat at the same time for
more than a short period.

And I have made a second argument that is far more important. We
must be able to talk to people about our goal. Our goal is not
DP-embryo. Our goal is the full DP. Our goal is workers' rule.
If a period of hardship and emergency may become necessary to get
there--that does not make this period of hardship and emergency
our goal.

The cargo-cultists oppose making our goal clear because they are
not clear themselves on the distinction between the DP and the
DP-embryo.

For example, if your son is being bullied at school and you tell
him that he should stand up for himself and defend himself
against bullies and offer to teach him how to fight: you don't
tell your son that his goal is to get a bloody nose (even if that
is a possibility). Instead you motivate your son with the goal
that bullies will learn that he is too much trouble to mess with.

Or consider another example: In 1917 Lenin and the Bolsheviks
promoted the slogan: "Peace, Bread and Land" to sum up the
program of the Bolshevik party to the workers and peasants. Do
our champions of "telling people the truth" believe that Lenin
should have instead promoted the slogan: "Civil war, famine and
typhoid"?

No. We must be honest with everyone about the difficulties we
may face. But it is also our responsibility to make clear to
everyone that victory is possible and necessary--and to show what
victory looks like. We do not need to know all the details of
victory to know that it involves a situation where the working
class rules as a _class_ and uses the full range of _democratic
rights_ to do so and to prevent the emergence of a new class of
exploiters.

This is something that Frank and the cargo-cultists cannot see.
They can see only the past--not the future. Humanity has never
gone beyond the stage of DP-embryo and this is why our
cargo-cultists denounce discussion of the genuine rule of the
working class as "utopian" and are fundamentally conservative on
this topic.

Our cargo cultists do not want to talk about workers' rule
because they consider the entire topic to be a "bummer". It will
"turn people off", they think. And it is true that the goal of a
police state is a pretty dismal goal and hardly one to inspire a
lifetime of sacrifice from potential revolutionaries. So our
cargo-cultists shut their mouths about the most important
question of our time--the need to create a society that is not
run by the bourgeoisie--because they see this issue as a
liability rather than an asset--because they understand so little
about this topic that they cannot see that this goal is the most
powerful unifying concept of the 21st century--capable, once it
is understood by hundreds of thousands of activists, of giving
life to a revolutionary movement deserving of the respect,
admiration and loyalty of the working class.