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

["Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

Of these eight points you ennumerate, numbers 1 through 6 are
essentially different ways of saying the same thing.  That is, they are
all aspects of a resolution of dual power.

No. 7, requiring a program of expropriation excludes some models of the
"dictatorship of the proletariat" acknowledged by Marx himself, ie., the
Paris Commune.

No. 8, leaving the process of expropriation open as to time, seems both
unnecessary and a real potential loophole.

I'm suspicious of "models" allegedly based on history.  They are always
put forward as accurately describing reality, if we'd only ignore the
ways in which they don't.

Solidarity!
Mark L.

-----Original Message-----
From: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Gabosch
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:34 AM
To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: RE: [Marxism] Chavez embraces socialism (but not the old kind)

[snips]

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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