RE: [Marxism] Chavez embraces socialism (but not the old kind)

[Steve Gabosch <sgabosch@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:16 PM 2/26/2005 -0500, Mark Lause wrote:
> ... "the workers and farmers government" become[s] a mere slogan
> applicable to virtually any situation where dual power develops...or
> it's a magical incantation to ward off the evil eye.

Mark is correct to insist that a "workers and farmers government" be more
than a mere slogan with subjective appeal and different meanings for
different people - it must be understood objectively.  I believe this is
possible because it is a concrete product of modern history under the right
circumstances.  What are the objective features of a workers and farmers
government?  Mark touches on one, quoted above - it resolves a situation of
dual power in favor of the workers and farmers.

There are more, but for consideration in this discussion, here are eight
features of a workers and farmers government that I think we can generalize
from historical experience:

1.  It resolves a situation of dual power in favor of the workers and farmers.
2.  It is the first form of government that can be expected to appear as
the result of a successful anticapitalist revolution.
3.  It comes into being as a result of massive revolutionary mobilizations
and upheavals.
4.  It is independent of the bourgeoisie even though it stands on
capitalist economic relations.
5.  It is the most powerful instrument the working class can wield short of
a full-fledged workers state.
6.  It has full control of an army based on the revolutionary mobilizations
of the workers and the oppressed.
7.  It carries out a program of expropriating the bourgeoisie in the
direction of establishing a workers state.
8.  There is no a priori time limit to how long the transition from a
capitalist system to a workers state will take under a workers and farmers
government.

In solidarity,
- Steve Gabosch




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