Re: A reading list for Anthony

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a Re: A reading list for Anthony,
el 25 Nov 00, a las 15:50, Macdonald Stainsby dijo:

>
> In the modern Imperialist epoch, I am a tad concerned with
> the formulation as it laid out here. You ... you speak of the bourgeois 
> revolution
> as the current stage (or more specifically, the needed stage) and I agree 
> that this
> is a great approach to defeating the #1 enemy, Imperialism.

Er, sorry. Did not say "bourgeois revolution". And if I did, it was a mistake. 
What
I had in mind (and I guess I said) was  "national tasks" or "bourgeois tasks" 
(most
probably first one). In fact, when people move towards revolution they are not
thinking of its specific character. People just do revolutions, and these 
advance as
much ahead as historic circumstances allow. It is a great merit of the French
Trotskyists in the 50s (D. Guerin, who was a T by those times) to have strongly
stressed that in EVERY revolution there is at least one wing which pushes 
forward,
even though the feat itself is so to say doomed by the concrete relations of 
power
and the level of development of productive forces. Just think of Babeuf.

> Small catch22, however.
> We both see (as do the imperialists themselves) that Imperialism is equally
> threatened by a Castro or a Chavez (should he survive to complete his 
> program) and I
> wonder what it is that makes the bourgeois revolution *necessary* before the
> proletarian. IOW, are you stating that one cannot advance the need for 
> socialism as
> yet? Is this similar to the Maoist bourgeois-proletarian in one revolution 
> (but two
> phased) idea here?

Well, er, in fact I believe the opposite. When we revolutionaries in the Third 
World
struggle against the oligarchic groups and the imperialist system, we are 
directly
struggling against the imperialist bourgeoisie. But at the same time, obviously,
this struggle is a struggle against _capitalism_ as a whole, and it includes our
local bourgeoisie (when it exists, which is not _that_ usual in the Third 
World).
BECAUSE there are national tasks that tbe bourgeoisie cannot take to completion,
then workers will have to do it. And workers not only need not, they (we) MUST 
NOT
stop at the doorstep of socialist methods, theories and practice. In this 
sense, the
class and the theory are still, as Rosa pointed to, one and the same thing.

It is not easy, I know. It is furthest from easy, particularly because a 
victorious
revolution in a Third World country may even allow for a place, not always a 
small
place, under the Sun for what could be called our "bourgeoisie".  Everything 
depends
on circumstances. Bourgeoisies in the Third World face a bleak future: either 
to be
crushed by imperialism, or to be crushed by the workers. It is up to them if 
they
prefer to remain together with the workers against imperialism (which will most
probably not happen, save for individual figures) and choose a mild death 
instead of
what is usually the rule with ruling classes (even ruling classes in a RULED
country), that is death in struggle for their privileges. But since our 
bourgeoisies
are so misfit and sad a thing, who knows?

What really matters is that NO revolution must stop until it removes the whole
carcass of the old regime. The _immediate_ carcass in the Third World today is 
the
imperialist system, but at the same time the imperialist system is unextricably
enmeshed into our own capitalisms, so that we are AT THE SAME TIME fighting 
against
imperialism AND capitalism when (ironically) we are fighting in order to 
realize the
bourgeois tasks... that our bourgeoisie will never wish or dare to take to
completion!

>
> ps: Agree on the democratic revolution, it will only come under socialism 
> (but then
> that might just be the romantic dreamer in me).

No, that is the starkest and most down-to-earth Leninist in you.

>
> Macdonald
>



Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx