Re: [Marxism] Bureaucracy and Revolutions (part b)

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

II. 
 
Theoretical communism of the Marx brand remains in error to the degree it  
puts forth propositions that a transition to communism - (an economic 
order), is  possible on the basis of political organization of the working 
class 
within an  economic formation and infrastructure suitable to and 
corresponding to  industrial society. One may as well say that the bourgeois 
property 
relations  and bourgeois rule, as a dominating system of society production, 
as a system of  value production, can exist on the basis of the productive 
forces peculiar to  the landed property relations and political feudalism. 
Such is impossible and  the reason for social revolution. 
 
What makes a transition to communism possible is not the market but rather, 
 the material building blocks of the economy. The international unity of 
the  working class, in at least the industrially advanced countries does not, 
could  not and did not, make a transition to communism possible. During the 
past  century the only transition theoretically possible was socialism or 
public  property relations within the industrial system and this was only 
possible at  the back of the curve of industrial development. At the front of 
the curve of  industrial development the working class and capital was 
fighting to complete  its boundary of development, with no possibility of a 
transition of political  power from one class to another.  This âclass 
struggleâ 
took the only  expression possible, a fight for expanded political liberties 
and a greater  share of the social product. 
 
World socialist revolution was out of the question in the past century. Not 
 because of the state of development of the subjective factors as the 
political  organization of the advanced revolutionaries/advanced workers, but 
because of  the configuration of the mode of production itself. The reason 
revolution at the  front of the curve was not possible is the exact same reason 
revolution at the  back of the curve was possible. The back of the curve was 
undergoing a  transition to the boundary (configuration of productive 
forces) at the front of  the curve and this gave an opening for revolutionaries 
- 
communists, at the back  of the curve to take power when and if conditions 
favored them. After taking  power the communists discover that they are 
bounded by a quantitative phase of  history. 
 
World socialism (not communism) as a theoretical proposition is impossible  
with one-half to  of the world mired in agrarian, the landed property  
relations, and its corresponding expression in political feudalism. The reason  
world socialism is impossible is not because of the political contains of  
feudalism and its legacy, but because of the manufacturing configuration of 
the  productivity infrastructure implied in the word feudalism. 
 
This material relation of production has not stopped individuals from  
conceiving of impossibility and fighting from that direction. The problem is  
that when world revolution did not materialize, someone had to be blamed for 
the  failure rather than admitting such was not possible in the first place. 
 
Hypothesis about what was possible, what could have happened if the Soviet  
regime took a different democratic direction and deployed its social forces 
 differently is subject to debate and critique but has to be based on 
something  other than ideology or ideas. 
 
Here is the issue presented again from another side of the social  
equation.  
 
No political force or political organization of a class can decisively  
defeat its historical enemy based on its enemy economic infrastructure. It is  
impossible. To decisively defeat a class means to defeat it in a way and 
under  conditions where restoration of the old mode of production is 
impossible. The  old mode of production has to be polarized and then shattered, 
with 
the new  social (material) relations having partially emerged and taken root. 
It is the  âtaking root,â of new material relations of production, tied to 
and  corresponding with actual configuration of the machinery of society 
that creates  the boundary society is passing from and to. 
 
The same dynamic apply to decisively defeating the bureaucracy. What the  
revolution can do is complete the quantitative boundaries of the existing 
system  and survive. Survival is riveted more on questions of ideology and  
self-organizations of the workers, which allows them to defeat the various  
layers of alienation and establish the political feature of the new boundary in 
 their interest as ruling class. 
 
The theory problem is the distinction between quantitative boundaries of  
development. 
 
The theory problem does not arise because Marxists are anti-democratic  
dummies with a blind spot or seek to skip stages. The theory problem arises  
because no one can/could define the physical properties or configuration of a  
new revolution in the material power of production before the material  
properties arise and take root. That is to say, no one can define how much room 
 a mode of production has within it for the development of its unique  
configuration of the productive forces, until the room -  space is  exhausted, 
and the space cannot be exhausted until a new revolutionary  technology 
emerges. Stated another way, no one can see emergence, only that  which has 
emerged and this indicates you are at the second phase of a new  qualitative 
reconfiguration. One can make an educated guess, but not before the  new 
property has arisen.   
 
Rather than speculate, Marx wrote about economic communism from the  
standpoint of division of labor rather than communist consciousness. Lenin  
writes 
about communism being achieved based on political organization or  
communist consciousness, and ended up confusing a generation of Marxists.  
Leninâs 
confusion was my confusion for a lifetime because Lenin won and he had  to be 
âdoing something right to win.â  
 
Then something happen while reading Lenin for the thousandth time. A new  
revolution began in the material power of productive forces and I watched its 
 incremental impact on society and nervously laughed with all my colleagues 
about  how âadvanced roboticsâ - not the automation Marx writes about, was 
kicking all  of us outside the sphere of production as one decade of 
falling wages collapsed  into another two decades. We nervously laughed about 
this 
and spoke of how we  would turn the lights off on an era when we retired, 
only sensing the truth of  Marx meaning. 
 
Marx could not be more clear on this point. When Marx writes about the  
higher phase of communism, he conceives âhigherâ as a stage in the 
development 
 of the division of labor, that is measured against the state of 
development of  the industrial infrastructure and its corresponding division of 
labor 
that  existed at the time of writing the Critique of the Gotha Program. 
 
The leap - (and the word leap means transition and all the dynamics  
inherent in transition in any process) is precisely the issue. The specific  
issue 
is transition between boundaries in a quality - the industrial system, and  
transition from one qualitative definition to a new qualitative definition. 
Here  one is dealing with two distinct processes that were historically 
combined  together and remained incomprehensible for a couple generations of 
communists.  The former transition movement proceeds from class struggle as 
the unity and  strife of wage-labor and capital. The later transition proceeds 
from the  movement of class antagonism. Within socialism transition 
proceeds as the  crossing of successive boundaries of the industrial system 
based 
on continuous,  expanding and uninterrupted reproduction. How human agents 
are deployed  determines the velocity of the passing from one qualitative 
boundary to another,  once a property relation has taken root. 
 
The Soviet Revolution occurred at a moment of history when the leap  
underway in society was the continuation of the industrial revolution. Calling  
the past century the transition from capitalism to socialism was dreaming and  
most advanced thinkers in the industrially developed countries sense this. 
We  fell in line with this ideology and theory vision from the back of the 
curve of  industrial development because we were good soldiers and wanted 
socialism in the  real world. What we experienced from one decade to the next 
ran counter to  political Leninism as a doctrine that emerged at the back of 
the curve (the  middle and below) of industrial development. 
 
Lenin and the Bolsheviks role was to carry out the continuation of the  
industrial revolution and decided the most appropriate way to do this was on 
the  basis of public property vested in the state. Here was the primary agency 
of  transition. Once this decision was made, the various quantitative 
junctures to  emerge would be resolved on this basis. 
 
Leninâs pre-October 1917 theoretical error flow from conceiving transition  
based on the boundary of development of the productive forces in which he 
lived.  Then he relented and for the rest of his life spoke of building the 
material  perquisites for - not communism, (!!!) but socialism. That is to 
say, Lenin  expressed the idea that the first stage of communism, as conceived 
during the  first and second decade of the past century was not possible in 
1920 Russia.  This understanding governed Lenin approach to his boundary of 
development,  rather than general theoretical formula. Lenin basically 
stated, the boundary of  development in front of us is to build the material 
perquisites of socialism,  not socialism but the outline of an industrial 
infrastructure. 
 
Here is the meaning of transition post October 1917. Ten years later -  
1928, another boundary of development would be fought for. The post 1928  
boundary of development of the Soviet industrial system coincided with the same 
 
boundary in the capitalist world. Each boundary of development of a social  
system - any system, calls forth different social forces or different form 
of  organization matching the existing and coming reformation of the system.  
Transition concretely meant the passing through of successive boundaries in 
the  industrial system, while preserving and strengthening the socialist 
property  relations. 
 
I am saying that the political organization of the working class, under  
capitalism and within Soviet Power as a property relation, can do one and only 
 one distinct thing and this distinct thing is to drive or push what ever  
boundary of development of the system and property relation exist. A 
boundary in  a system is a quantitative thing. This does not means there are no 
qualitative  features of the system. Not even Spartacus could exceed the 
boundary defining  his moment of history. No one accuses Spartacus of failing 
to 
usher in a new  mode of production. The Bolsheviks - (the real ones however 
one defines the real  ones), cannot be accused of ushering in a 
counter-revolutionary restoration of  the bourgeois property relations or 
de-evolving the 
productive forces, between  October 1917 and 1970/1980. 
 
In pushing to complete ones boundary of development, the push can take  
place on different property platforms. 
 
The political mechanisms deployed in pushing - pressing against and  
driving, a historically distinct boundary is important and decisive to driving  
the social process through its quantitative stages and continuously winning 
the  masses to the cause of communism. 
 
The first question is did Soviet society complete the boundary Lenin  
described? 
 
Did Soviet society complete the boundary that began in roughly 1928? If the 
 boundaries were completed and they were, then no one in their right mind 
can say  the Soviet regime ushered in a counterrevolutionary restoration of 
the old order  based on incorrect political policy. A political regime can 
have reactionary and  undemocratic policies  (how ever the individual defines 
reactionary)  without changing the property relations one iota. 
 
Here is the direct political problem that emerged. Movements and political  
currents that conceived of themselves as revolutionary movements rather 
than  reform movements within a specific boundary of the development of the 
Soviet  system, came to naught. 
 
In this sense, without question my politics and vision is passive, even  
conservative. One cannot defeat the Bureaucracy. 
 
part B. 
 
 
WL. 



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