Re: [Marxism] The Teixeira thesis

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Marvin Gandall:
> it was even publicly (!) and forcefully opposed by leading members
> of the party like Zinoviev and Kamenev, and they had no way at all of
> foreseeing the outcome. So why are you so certain that if the Bolshevik
> central committee were actually presented with hard evidence that the
> revolution would not spread to the West but would instead "degenerate"
> into Stalinism and finally collapse within a few generations, it would
> still have voted to unilaterally seize power in the name of the Soviets?

You only see the downside of the Russian Revolution. I am not surprised.
Without the Russian Revolution, the Cuban revolution would not have been
possible. In our lifetime, we have a living example of an alternative to
capitalism. This counts for more than a million blueprints about some
glorious future.

> There's not the slightest doubt in my mind - because the Bolsheviks were
> not fools - that presented with such evidence, the entire leadership,
> Lenin and Trotsky included, would have reverted to Lenin's more cautious
> perspective of a "democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants",
> which implied an extended period of capitalist development and
> cooperation, even in a subordinate role, with the rural-based SR's, the
> Mensheviks, and the other peoples' parties.

An extended period of capitalist development? Aren't you aware that Lenin
had moved beyond this outlook with the April Theses? This is not Lenin's
authority you are appealing to, but Kautsky's. This kind of stagism was
enshrined in the Second International. Furthermore, it was impossible to
carry out a "more cautious perspective" because the Russian bourgeoisie and
its imperialist allies would not allow this, any more than their
counterparts in Chile in 1973 or in Venezuela today will allow it.
Permanent Revolution is not based on dispensing with caution, but on the
iron logic of class society. Workers exercising political hegemony in a
society based on the economic hegemony of the bourgeoisie is inherently an
unstable contradiction. It is one thing to say that the Russian revolution
was a leap into the unknown. It is another to say that the Kautskyist
perspective has any possibilities as a viable form of socialist development.

>  Trotsky's formulation of
> "permanent revolution", which Lenin adopted in April, 1917, was entirely
> predicated on the Soviet revolution triggering a Europe-wide one which
> would overcome the problem of Russian isolation and backwardness -
> exactly that which the Mensheviks were warning about, prescient as it
> turned out. The Bolsheviks shared these fears, but proceeded to seize
> power anyway on the mistaken understanding the revolution would spread.
> So, yes, you can ask whether I would have hesitated on the basis of what
> we now know.

We can only proceed on the basis of revolutionary *possibilities*. We know
from history that Germany was rotten-ripe for revolution. The proof of this
was the rise of Nazism, which was an outcome guaranteed by CP and SP
betrayal and stupidity. In any case, revolutions do not "spread". Epidemics
of influenza do. In distinction, revolutions are conscious acts of
organized political movements. If we were to refrain from acting until we
had a guarantee of success, we'd not be revolutionaries. You are describing
the outlook of real estate developers, not Marxists.

> The dividing line is whether you think organized workers and
> social movement activists are more likely to be  receptive to your views
> if you participate in the organizations where they are to be found in
> any significant number  - the trade unions in the economic arena, the
> Democratic party in the political - or whether they are more likely to
> respond to you, as I noted, "standing outside their plant gates and
> convention halls selling your broadsheet along with competing handfuls
> of other revolutionary- and Green-minded intellectuals and students."

Trade unions are necessary for material gains of the working class,
especially when they have a militant, class-conscious leadership. The
Democratic Party, on the other hand, is an instrument for the class that
exploits it. In the south, the Democratic Party was openly racist and
labor-hating through the 1950s. In the North, it has collaborated with the
most reactionary elements of the trade union bureaucracy to allow the trade
unions themselves to be dismantled. Progress in the trade union movement
will only come through resolute and fearless confrontation with the
Democratic Party.

> Take, for example, the Dean campaign which challenged the main
> leadership candidates about their position on the war in Iraq, certainly
> the most significant political development this year in relation to what
> we're discussing, and one which ought to have been encouraged and
> assisted.

The main lesson one can draw from the Dean campaign is that the masses have
no influence on who becomes a presidential candidate. In other words, the
Democratic Party is anti-democratic to its core. Why anybody would be
attracted to something that is even more top-down than a corporation is
beyond me.

> Brave words spoken with a dramatic flourish, as usual. In fact, the 30's
> were a text book case of how the workers' radicalization expressed
> itself through the Democratic party. It was not the CPUSA which was
> responsible for the radicalization not proceeding further; it was the
> economic recovery, prompted by unprecedented Keynsian-like spending on
> public works programs and then war, as well as the acceptance of
> collective bargaining which revived purchasing power.

This is addled history. There was no "economic recovery" until there was
war. I would suggest some reading on the matter, but I am sure that
everybody on Marxmail knows this already--except you. In your case, you
might have once known it but have conveniently rewritten what you once knew.

> Marvin: The parallel to the Spartacist League, I can see, causes you
> some discomfort, as it ought to. The fact that you want to peddle Green
> Party leaflets outside plant gates and convention halls instead of
> anti-Pabloite tracts does not negate that you share a common mode of
> intervention.

Bizarre. This is not how the Green Party organizes. The Green Party does
not even show up at plant gates, as anybody should obviously understand by
its middle-class foibles. It shows up at street fairs in neighborhoods like
Greenwich Village, at Grateful Dead concerts, etc.

> I don't begrudge you marxmail. It is a useful resource which aids my
> understanding. I also know you have a full-time job which for a long
> time I thought was that of a Maytag repairman, given the prodigious
> amount of time you spend posting to this and other chat groups, and
> attending to your writing, of which the cultural stuff is, IMO, quite
> outstanding. I simply find it remarkable that you can, with a straight
> face, describe this as "revolutionary" activity.

I would find it even more remarkable if you thought that anything outside
of wearing a Kerry button was a worthwhile activity for Marxists in this
period.

> way. Your agitated description of Clinton, Kerry, and Gore as "scum" I
> find more objectionable in the sense it is evidence of the difficulty
> you have exercising self-restraint in debate, and is not the kind of
> characterization I associate with politically serious people. As for my
> "preaching on their behalf", if you can point to evidence of this, I'd
> be glad to take up your charge.

I must admit that in your own mind you are backing people that you regard
as the USA versions of Clement Atlee. If they really were, I would have no
right to call them scum. As it is, I find them the equivalent of Winston
Churchill so therefore I will continue to call them scum, murderers,
thieves and degenerates. Just like Churchill.


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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