The First Step

By Garnet

So the revolution is a success: now what?

So far there is no single answer. This is a problem. One can understand uncertainty regarding how the final collapse of class socities would unfold, for that is still an untried exercise and a long way off. But on the issue of the first step, this is a debate that needs to rage towards a real answer.

One concept that has been raised frequently is centrally planned economics, (usually) as a temporary transtitional period. Personally, I feel this is a step backwards.

How do you transition to a future classless society by centralizing power and planning in the hands of an even smaller group of people than capitalism does, nomatter how good their intentions?

You can’t.

The true measure of a revolution is not how it uses power to help the people, but how well it gives that power back to the workers who create it.

I would advocate that an immediate collectivisation should take place. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything would happen overnight, but over the course of a year or two all businesses would be democratically controlled by their workers as cooperatives. In the meantime, the market itself continues, but the power is spread out to the workers themselves.

I don’t believe there is such thing as an industry that cannot collectivize this way. Yes, capitalists will resist, and yes the government can and should facilitate worker take-over businesses, but it should not take control of them itself.

Of course, this is not a final destination, and the market forces that still hold some sway will have to be replaced. “The invisible hand” can still pickpocket, bringing about disparity in this case.

But once workers have control over their firms, then workers can organize the new structure of the economy by organizing together in each sector democratically. They will construct the new infrastructure of the economy that links each sector together, and sees them cooperate towards common goals. In this way, the organization is conducted in a grassroots way by the workers for the workers. Over time, this new infrastructure replaces the market in how goods are distributed.

This is not an arguement against solidarity, either. I would be the first to espouse a common push to achieve socialism and recognize that in order to bring power to the working class, we must all work together despite our differences. But we must work together as equals.

On the other hand, a centralized economy is awfully similar to capitalism in several ways. It creates a class of people who direct an economy, and it is self-perpetuating in that those people with power are reluctant to give it up.

Centralized Economies are an appealing tool, for they offer the allure of complete control and certainty in the transition process. Unfortunately, it is that very trait that makes them nearly certain to fail. It is that very trait that moves workers in the opposite direction.

Voting Democrat Weakens the Anti-War Movement

 By Alex 

With a new year setting in, public support for the Iraq war has plummeted and it has become the general consensus in the American working class that it is time to get out. However, George W. Bush recently stated that the U.S. occupation of Iraq could ‘easily’ last another 10 years.[1]

So what are we to do?

Many would say that the quickest way to end the war is to vote for an anti-war candidate for president in 2008. It has been more than clear for a considerable time that the Republican Party is a party of imperialism and war, but what is not so clear to much of the population is that the Democratic Party is also and imperialist party that has consistently supported the war since day one.

The only feeble attempt at opposition to the war that the Democrats managed was the “non-binding” resolution to oppose Bush’s “troop surge.” But this resolution was a flop and when it was shot down, the Democrats stuck their tails between their legs and gave Bush and the republicans exactly what they wanted: more troops and more money for the criminal war in Iraq.

And it has been the same story ever since. The only basis for the Democrats’ supposed “opposition” to the status quo is that the current strategy isn’t “working,” and this becomes clear when one looks at their legislation. The only difference between what the Democrats advocate and what the Republicans do is that the Democrats have a different way of achieving the same imperialist goals as the Republicans. Both parties are committed to establishing a permanent military base in the middle east and taking advantage of its oil resources, and both parties have yet to seriously propose a total withdrawal from Iraq.

There has been talk of “partial” withdrawal and a replacement of U.S. troops with UN troops. But the current plans for partial withdrawal call for thousands to remain in Iraq and thousands more to remain in the region to “re-intervene” if the things go badly. Secondly, putting UN troops in Iraq still continues U.S. imperialism and the imperialism of other nations because the UN is dominated by the U.S. and other imperialist powers.

The fact that the Democratic Party is an imperialist party that is not really against the war has become apparent to many. But there is still a strong tie to the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party in the anti-war movement. These “progressives” appeal to anti-war activists because they occasionally mouth off about Bush and the war in Iraq, and they promise to oppose it if the people vote for them. But these progressive have a special role: they make the Democratic Party appealing so that, once in power, they can go on passing pro-war legislation.

The American people spoke when, in 2006, they voted the Democrats into power in both houses of Congress. They demonstrated that they wanted a change of course. However, since then, no change has happened, and that has enraged many. It is the job of these progressives to appease the masses and keep them docile so that they do not become a threat.

For example, in March of last year, MSNBC and some other media such as the Wall Street journal reported on a closed-door meeting between Nancy Pelosi and some of these “progressive” Democrats. In it, these “progressives” promised that Pelosi’s $100 million escalation of the Iraq war would pass in the “Out of Iraq Caucus,” and then they promised to vote against the bill when it reached the floor! Sure enough, when the Democrats were sure the bill would pass, these “progressives” voted against the bill, and the Party allowed some of their top presidential candidates (like Clinton and Obama) to oppose it as well, while Edwards opposed it from outside the Senate.

So what do we get by voting for a Democrat in 2008? Absolutely nothing. Except of course a continuation of the bloody, imperialist war in Iraq. Consistently, the Democrats have promoted themselves as an anti-war party while passing pro-war legislation in practice.

Yet countless people still insists that by standing behind whoever is nominated as the Democratic candidate this year will make it easier for the anti-war movement to win. Here’s a question: How exactly does supporting a candidate not remotely committed to ending the war make it easier for the anti-war movement to win? It doesn’t.

By voting for imperialist politicians, we are showing them that they don’t need to listen to us, because we already support them. No change will come about by voting for a Democrat in November. On the contrary, it will ensure the continuation of the status quo. If we can’t show the politicians that we don’t support them, they have no reason to do anything.

What is really needed at this point is to understand why the war in Iraq started and why neither party is interested in ending it any time soon. The answer is imperialism: it is an economic and political system into which we are born where the government uses its military and economic power to force its influence upon other nations for the profit of corporations (like big oil). It’s not a policy, so it cannot be “fixed” by any saviors from above. Since all politicians take huge amounts of money from corporations that thrive on the profits of imperialism, both parties will fight tooth and nail to continue the status quo, as it gives them large piles of money.

Imperialism and capitalism are inseparable. The root of the problem is in the nature of our economy, and as long as capitalism exists, there will be endless war and destruction. Anti-war organizations need to first break from both imperialist parties, but then they must also stop fearing the use of the word “capitalism” and make a decisive break from the entire economic system under which we live.

Only in this way will the anti-war movement show the ruling class of big-time capitalists that it is a threat, and only in this way will the government feel pressured enough to end the war.

FOOTNOTES

[1]http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=1413

An Example of What Not To Do

There is a scene in the movie Monkey Warfare where Nadia’s “revolutionary” group smashes an SUV in a futile attempt at protesting capitalism.

That scene is a perfect example of what many self-styled revolutionaries actually do. Enter “The Wreath Underground”, a group of university students at the University of British Columbia trying to stop development on the campus by, get this, smashing windows.

No doubt by invoking the Weather Underground in their name, they are trying to portray a grander vision than simply how the campus should develop.

Yet smashing windows isn’t revolutionary. It’s petty, and it’s regressive. The capitalist classes can point to this and say “look, we told you so,” and all we have is an even more staunchly capitalist society with a few broken windows which, incidentally, somebody will get rich off replacing.

But this is a metaphor for the radical left right now. We spend too much time talking about what we want to dismantle and not what we want to build. After all, revolution isn’t about destroying capitalism so much as it is about building in its place an egalitarian society that raises the workers standard of living.

We can certanly sympathize with the protesters. Anyone who has tried to stand in the way of moneyed interest should know that it is virtually impossible to stop – public consultations are a rubber stamp process that only serve to let us vent our rage, rather than truly influence change.

But if we ever hope to convince anyone of anything, then painting ourselves as vandals and criminals is the wrong path to take. We have to show a compelling and credible alternative to capitalism, to show that it can work, and to show true leadership and resolve in the face of adversity.

For when groups such as “The Wreath Underground” finish smashing windows, they just run back into their own glass houses.

Read the story: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=96fa0fcc-dff5-44cc-bb46-dfa67da2f6f6&k=11565

On Vanguard Parties (What Will They Look Like in the 21st Century?)

By Alex

However necessary a vanguard party is, the Left as a whole is currently confused and disoriented because not only is there no vanguard, but the whole idea of a vanguard has become muddled and distorted by the degeneration of the workers’ state in the USSR and the flat-out non-existence of the workers’ state in other “communist” nations.

The massive amount of misconceptions that came out of the October Revolution of 1917 will be difficult to clear up, but it is possible.

Unfortunately, the main reason those misconceptions have NOT been cleared up at this point is because of the countless cult-like organization where Marxism and Leninism have been converted into a sort of religion. These groups denounce the failures of the USSR and other regimes on the surface, yet they turn around and throw phrases at us like “democratic centralism” and “dictatorship of the proletariat” without understanding what those phrases actually mean.

These organizations claim to support democracy and genuine workers’ rule, but when asked the tough questions like “will one party hold a monopoly over political power?” they cannot answer! When asked about the need for the entire working class to have CONCRETE democratic rights of free speech and organization, they cannot answer! When asked about whether the workers will have direct control over their vanguard organization, they will not answer!

This is extremely confusing for people on the Left and it has led to the complete theoretical bankruptcy of nearly all 21st century “Marxist” thought.

We have to be clear that classes are led by parties. I believe that history has demonstrated that a vanguard party in some form will be a necessary tool in mobilizing the masses.

However, if we want to create a successful vanguard capable of mobilizing the masses and ending bourgeois rule, I believe there are several things that have to be done:

1. This organization must implement the principle of COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY. Workers need to be able to see what goes on behind the curtain and provide input, or else it’s not really their organization is it?

2. We must dare to talk about our goal. We must make clear that workers’ rule WILL NOT look like the degenerated police state of the USSR. Further, we must also drive home that even workers’ rule is not our ultimate goal. Stateless, classless society with peace and abundance is our long-term goal, with the necessary precursor of workers’ rule as a short-term goal.

3. We must make clear that in a post-revolutionary situation, the vanguard party CANNOT be the ruling party. If there is one party that maintains a monopoly over political power, it must suppress all that oppose it to maintain this position. This includes the suppression of those who expose the possible corruption, hypocrisy, and degeneration that may exist within the party. Thus, a monolithic party-state will lead to degeneration (this is what has happened every time to date) and is contradictory to the concept of workers’ rule.

4. Above all, we have to be clear that workers will have concrete democratic rights of free speech under workers’ rule.

We have to be sure not to separate democratic rights from popular support, however. Revolutions like the Hungarian revolution ultimately failed because the revolution did not have popular support.

If the vanguard party does not have the popular support of the masses before and after the revolution, it cannot allow democratic rights of free speech and organization because the unhappy population will go along with anyone who opposes the vanguard, and thus the bourgeoisie will be able to manipulate the masses and retake power.

However, workers’ rule will be suffocated and in its place will arise a corrupt bureaucracy if such democratic rights of free speech do not exist.

So, we had damn well better make sure that the vanguard party has the support of the masses.

Many Leftist organizations insist that one party (the “real” Marxist party) will have to maintain a monopoly over political power because they are the only “real” representatives of the class, and that socialism cannot afford “breaks in the ranks.”

But if the “real” Marxist party has the popular support of the masses, it will not need to suppress democratic rights, and thus, workers will be able to expose any potential corruption from within the party and deal with it. In short, workers’ rule will be successful.

Further, the key to gaining the popular support of the masses is to assure them that true workers’ rule will not have to suppress democratic rights. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: if we gain popular support, workers will have democratic rights of free speech and workers’ rule will be successful; if we assure the masses that they will have democratic rights and workers’ rule will be successful, we will have popular support.

——————————————————————————————-

Appendix A: On Centralism

——————————————————————————————-

One of the reasons for the rejection of the concept of a vanguard party is that it has a tendency, many claim, to become a corrupt group of elitists who do not really represent the class. They assert that such a party is naturally undemocratic. It is true that vanguard parties in the past have has this problem, but this is no reason to reject the entire notion of a vanguard party. The Left in a state of confusion and disarray, and a vanguard in some form will be a very usefull and, I believe, necessary tool in organizing the masses. Unfortunately, this issue is not being resolved because of the prethera of “Marxist-Leninist” groups that continue to assert that centralism is a necessary feature of a vanguard party in the 21st century.

Lenin’s ideal vanguard organization was one that would have been completely transparent, where the “entire political arena is as open to the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience.” In this way, elitism and corruption that could emerge in the party would be exposed, and the masses would be able to assert genuine control over the vanguard organization. In short, transparency would allow such a party to belong to the working class.

However, the implementation in Russia was quite different. The extremely harsh political conditions led Lenin to believe that the vanguard would need a more centralized and secretive structure. Members of the party had to distribute pamphlets and newspapers in secret, as they were illegal, and they often had to avoid Russia’s secret police. Further, such a centralized structure can be useful in terms of military effectiveness, as it was understood that in Russia, such military discipline would be necessary in order to effectively confront the powerful Czarist regime.

The first thing we have to understand is that this centralized structure comes with a fairly large number of problems. Centralization and secresy, which was intended to keep the Russian government “out of the loop,” in many cases kept the workers “out of the loop” as well. And organization can also be so secretive that members of the party don’t know what’s going on. Although this ensures that no one will leak any information, it can lead to huge misunderstandings in a time when clarity is needed. Moreover, if the workers cannot see what goes on behind the curtain, corruption, hypocrisy, elitism, etc. can all go unchecked.

The second thing we have to realize is that the centralization of the vanguard party in Russia was a measure designed for Russia specifically. Russia was an extremely backward society. It is wrong to believe that such measures will be necessary in a stable, modern society like the United States, for example. And the risks of centralism today far outweigh its benefits.

It is necessary for vanguard organizations in the 21st century to adopt a much more transparent program similar to that which was advocated initially by Lenin in “What is to be Done?” The workers must be able to see what goes on behind or else it’s not really their organization.

——————————————————————————————————-

Appendix B: What about counter-revolutionaries?

——————————————————————————————————-

This came up in a discussion when I mentioned that the vanguard party cannot be the ruling party:

>not necessarily. The revolution may need to defend itself and thus need to
>defend the workers. a party of opposition may be to the state a party of counter-
>revolution.

Indeed. But first of all, it is not practical or necessary to suppress such parties for this reason:

The authority to decide what is acceptable, healthy, or unhealthy in culture must be given to the working class and not a centralized point of control.

Frank (founder of the CVO and a proponent of single-party rule) argues:

> 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.

This is simply not true. In capitalist nations, the bourgeoisie firmly hold power, but the workers still have democratic rights of free speech even though what they say goes against the very existence of the bourgeoisie [this is why we are able to have this discussion ]. But no one who truly understands how our society works would say that the workers rule.

Similarly, the democratic rights of those who oppose workers’ rule will not need to be suppressed for the workers to rule.

Secondly, if the vanguard party has the popular support of the masses, it will have nothing to fear from allowing democratic rights. Specific, corrupt individuals may have something to fear from it, but workers’ rule, as a whole, will have nothing to fear. On the contrary, workers’ rule NEEDS these democratic rights.

Further still, there is a major difference between closing a bourgeois TV station that exploits its workers and limiting the ability of people to organize in the streets and distribute leaflets, etc. The first would be completely acceptable. But the second is extremely dangerous and such suppression has led to the degeneration of every single workers’ state to date.

The fetish with centralized control over politics and economy that has infected a large portion of the Left comes from a misunderstanding of what happened in the USSR. The suppression of democratic rights in the USSR didn’t start with Stalin. It started with Lenin. But the fundamental difference between these two people was that Lenin made clear that the limitations on democratic rights and the merger between party and state were temporary emergency measures. Lenin knew it was a gamble but in Russia there were two options: a) Hand over power to the bourgeoisie, or b) temporarily suppress democratic rights to allow the Bolsheviks time to repair the shattered economy, so that there might be a chance that workers’ rule would be possible in the future.

But Lenin was incapacitated and Stalin took over. Stalin turned these temporary emergency measures into supposedly necessary and essential features of socialism. And although most organizations on the Left denounce the Stalin of the 1930s that murdered a huge portion of the working class, they do not denounce the early Stalin that asserted that the suppression of democratic rights was essential to socialism. And this is where the Left is crippled theoretically.

It is completely backward to assume that such measures, which were recognized by Lenin to be temporary emergency measures that were necessary specifically in Russia, will be necessary in a stable modern society.

In fact, such suppression will not only be dangerous to the emergence of genuine workers’ rule, but it will be detrimental to the economy. Suppression of democratic rights will necessarily mean the censorship of the internet to some extent. And since so much of the economy has gone digital, this will mean that limiting the internet will cripple a modern economy’s ability to function and sustain itself. One only has to look at China to discover the impracticality of censoring democratic rights.

In short, we need new paradigms that apply to modern societies like the ones in which we currently live and are applicable to the 21st century. And to be able to mobilize the masses and guide them to victory, political organizations will have to make this point clear; they will have to physically go out an tell people that complete democratic rights will be essential to workers’ rule, instead of just “implying” it the same evasive way that people use to justify the corrupt Soviet and Chinese regimes. Because without doing this, the masses will remain confused and will be turned off by the increasing cultishness of mainstream Leftist organizations.

The party can lead the class, but the party is not the class. If one party rules, the class does not. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

“The proletariat cannot achieve the socialist revolution unless it is prepared for this task by the struggle for democracy; victorious socialism cannot retain its victory and lead humanity to the stage when the state withers away unless it establishes complete democracy.” — V.I. Lenin

Free Trade: Twenty Years Later

By Garnet

Free trade is like an aging socialite. Every birthday it looks in the mirror, it sees more wrinkles and gray hair.

On January 2, the FTA agreement, which brought free trade to Canada and the United States, turned 20, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives rang in the bash with a bright light to expose every one of those wrinkles, every gray hair.

When this baby was born, the upper classes lauded the deal as one that would bring prosperity to  both countries. In Canada, they told us that we would see more, higher paying jobs, rising living standards that would be shared among all economic groups, whether working class or owners.

Canadians didn’t buy it: The free trade Progressive Conservative Party got a minortiy of 43 per cent of the votes, whereas the Liberal and New Democratic Parties, both of which fought free trade, received a combined 51 per cent of the vote. Yet the Progressive Conservatives won a majority government. Free trade was realized.

Since that time, who has been proven right?

That’s where the Centre for Policy Alternatives study comes in. They took a look at companies as part of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the group of top companies that effectively negotiated the agreement on behalf of Canada, to see how their companies had done.

They’ve done remarkably well. Out of 41 companies with available statistics, they more than doubled their combined revenue to $310 billion from $142 billion.

The workers lost. At the same time as revenues soared, they cut their combined workforce by over 188,000 jobs.

But here is where it gets interesting.

The 13 companies in the group that increased their combined employmemnt by 88,580 increased their revenues by $65 billion. The 28 companies that reduced their workforce by 205,062 workers managed to increase their revenues by $93 billion.

The big three auto-makers shrank their workforce by over 50 per cent, to about 43,000 from 87,626, but increased their revenue by 70 per cent to 67.3 billion in those 20 years, while at the same time losing market share to other companies.

Oil companies saw the largest rise in profits, a 290 per cent jump to $53.4 billion from $13.7 billion. Again, that came at the expense of more than 6,000 jobs.

What this amounts to is a massive incentive to cut jobs, to put ordinary working people out of work, so that companies can pass on exorbant profits to their shareholders who never put a day’s work into building the company.

At the same time, workers’ real incomes have been stagnant or dropping for 80 per cent of the population.

We can do far better. If workers had the power to decide the future of their economy democratically, then we would see a situation where workers interests were put first. However workers are kept confused by the actual reslults of trade agreements such as NAFTA and the FTA and currently the SPP agreement. That is evidenced by continued public support for free trade that can’t be ignored by socialist movements. As long as workers are left in the dark about how the economic system works, how can they be expected to understand the need for change?

If socialists hope to achieve any change, we must reach out to everyday working class people and get this message across.

The full report can be found here: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2007/FTA_20_Years_Later.pdf

It’s definately worth a read.