Mao & Avakian Against the Shanghai Commune

[redstar2000]

Bob Avakian wrote: In the city of Shanghai, which was a stronghold of the Cultural Revolution, there was a mass uprising of more than a million people. Different factions or groups among the Red Guards united to overthrow the existing municipal committee that ran the city -- which was following the revisionist line in all the different fields and was a powerful force within the overall government and Communist Party. Education was to train a new elite, health care was for a small elite, not for the masses, right down to the policies that prevailed in the factories which basically chained the workers to their machines and made them once again just cogs in the machinery of producing wealth. All this was ultimately going to be producing a new capitalist system with party members presiding over it.

So they had this mass upheaval in Shanghai, and in the initial stages, after they overthrew the old ruling committee in the city, they established for a brief time what was called the Shanghai Commune. This was modeled after the Paris Commune, which in 1871 arose and briefly held power for about 2 months in the city of Paris, the capital of France, and then was drowned in blood by the counter-revolution. Marx had written about this, summing up some of the important lessons of the Paris Commune, emphasizing that this is what the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like in reality. And one of the things they did in the Paris Commune was that all officials were elected by direct popular vote, and could be recalled by direct expression of the masses in a popular referendum. And so they implemented policies of this kind in the Shanghai Commune, modeling themselves after the Paris Commune.

But, after observing and studying this for a short period of time, Mao came forward with a statement that, under the circumstances, the Shanghai Commune was not the appropriate form in which to exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat. And he made criticisms of this form in his typically "Maoesque" way. He said: "I'm afraid that this commune form is not strong enough to suppress counter-revolutionaries." I'll come back to that in a minute. And he also said, "What are we going to do about international relations -- what about all the ministers we have that are like the foreign minister, who is going to appoint the foreign minister? I'm afraid all these other countries wouldn't recognize the ministers that would be appointed in this way."

Really, in a kind of provocative humorous way, he was saying: Look, we live in a world that has all these imperialist countries out there. He wasn't really talking about Chinese officials, like the foreign minister, and who was going to recognize them, he was saying all these imperialist vultures out there are going to take advantage of us if we don't have a strong enough centralized force to be able to resist them and withstand attacks by them.

And when Mao said that this commune form is not strong enough to suppress counter-revolutionaries, what he was saying was: We are in the early stages of socialism, and not only do we have all the imperialists and reactionary states surrounding us, but within our society, we still have all these inequalities that are left over from the old society. We're far from having overcome all these inequalities. If you have everybody taking part in these elections, directly choosing all the political representatives in that way, then bourgeois forces are going to come to dominate these elections, and we're going to get representatives of the bourgeoisie elected.

Why? Because the people are stupid and not capable of managing their own affairs? No. Because people who ruled in the old society and people they link up who want to go back to the old society have tremendous advantages over the masses of people because of the inequalities that existed for centuries that the revolution was only beginning to address and overcome.

For example, the mental/manual contradiction that I talked about earlier -- the contradiction between the small number of people who do intellectual work, shall we say, and the great mass of people who do manual labor. This cannot be overcome all at once. Not only is it a question of what's left over from the old society, but there is also a question of where are you at in the process of building the new society and transforming it. Because, in order for everybody to be able to engage in all these different spheres of society, you have to be able to produce the material requirements of life with a small amount of the total labor that would go into all the activity in society. If it still takes you a large part of the working day of most of the people in the society to produce the things that can meet the material requirements of society and provide enough to defend that society in a world dominated by imperialism, and to have something laid away for insurance against natural disasters and things like that -- if it still takes you a large part of the laboring hours of people in the society as whole to produce those things, then you will inevitably have inequalities between different parts of your society, because you are not going to be able to free up everybody to spend the time that is necessary to go into these different realms and really learn to immerse themselves in these spheres and begin to master them.

What Mao was saying is this: If you just have direct elections and direct recall of all officials, what you're going to have is a situation where people who have more facility with ideas and can articulate things better will come to dominate this process, or else you'll have people who don't know enough to actually deal in the realms that have to be dealt with to keep society going and keep the revolution going forward, and we'll lose it that way. So this is not a form we can adopt now.

Instead, Mao proposed and popularized a form that had been developed in another part of China, a place called Heilongjiang province, in the northeast of China, where, through the Cultural Revolution, they brought forward what were called revolutionary committees, which combined representatives of the masses with representatives of experts and party members in various forms to actually be the administrative body in all the different institutions: the educational system, the factories, the health care system, and so on.

This, Mao said, more corresponds to where we are in the process of transforming society. This is something that we can actually implement which will keep power in the hands of the masses of people and will actually help to develop the struggle to transform these unequal relations but doesn't overstep where we're at in that process and thereby open the door to a small handful once again dominating the whole process.

So, as much as it sounds "undemocratic" Mao was profoundly correct -- what he was arguing for was based on a recognition that the forms that we develop to give expression to the rule of the masses of people and to the revolutionary transformation of society by the masses of people have to correspond in a fundamental sense to where we are in the process of transforming the economic base and all the social, political, and ideological institutions and structures of society, and where we are in the process of the world revolution overall. If we overstep that, then we're going to get thrown back -- back into the horror of the old society.

rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/avakian_democracy_dictatorship_speech.htm

My comments follow.

[flyby]

great, redstar!

Important issue!

to be clear the headline is a little confusing:

Mao was FOR the January storm, the overthrow of the old party committee and the creation of new state power in shanghai.

He was NOT for the "commune form" for the new power, because he said it was too weak.

Anyway, lets engage a discussion of this important moment, and these crucial issues!!

[redstar2000]

In the city of Shanghai, which was a stronghold of the Cultural Revolution, there was a mass uprising of more than a million people.

Yes, there was. A genuine proletarian revolution...China's first one.

So they had this mass upheaval in Shanghai, and in the initial stages, after they overthrew the old ruling committee in the city, they established for a brief time what was called the Shanghai Commune...And one of the things they did in the Paris Commune was that all officials were elected by direct popular vote, and could be recalled by direct expression of the masses in a popular referendum. And so they implemented policies of this kind in the Shanghai Commune, modeling themselves after the Paris Commune.

The "spectre" of communism made its first real appearance in China.

Mao came forward with a statement that, under the circumstances, the Shanghai Commune was not the appropriate form in which to exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Not "appropriate"? Marx and Engels thought otherwise...but what did they know?

[Mao] said: "I'm afraid that this commune form is not strong enough to suppress counter-revolutionaries." And he also said, "What are we going to do about international relations -- what about all the ministers we have that are like the foreign minister, who is going to appoint the foreign minister? I'm afraid all these other countries wouldn't recognize the ministers that would be appointed in this way."

Is this crap or is it really crap?

The Shanghai Commune had just suppressed the counter-revolutionaries who were running the city!

Too bad their "reach" did not extend to Peking!

And other countries do not, as it happens, give a fucking rat's ass "how you appoint your foreign minister".

One possibility is that Mao told the Commune to dissolve themselves or the army would come in and dissolve them...and the Commune did not wish to share the fate of their Parisian ancestors.

But there could be another explanation: after two plus decades of disgusting leader-worship, the Commune was dismayed that Mao did not support them!

They really believed that Mao would support them, poor bastards!

If you have everybody taking part in these elections, directly choosing all the political representatives in that way, then bourgeois forces are going to come to dominate these elections, and we're going to get representatives of the bourgeoisie elected.

Instead of doing it "properly" -- having representatives of the bourgeoisie appointed by the Communist Party of China!

Because people who ruled in the old society and people they link up who want to go back to the old society have tremendous advantages over the masses of people because of the inequalities that existed for centuries that the revolution was only beginning to address and overcome.

Centuries? Come on, any "advantage" that someone from the old order can have is limited to their actual life-span and the experiences thereof.

"Class superiority" is not genetic.

...because you are not going to be able to free up everybody to spend the time that is necessary to go into these different realms and really learn to immerse themselves in these spheres and begin to master them.

Well, they could have started with a measure recommended by Marx and Engels -- the shortening of the working day -- back in 1847.

What Mao was saying is this: If you just have direct elections and direct recall of all officials, what you're going to have is a situation where people who have more facility with ideas and can articulate things better will come to dominate this process, or else you'll have people who don't know enough to actually deal in the realms that have to be dealt with to keep society going and keep the revolution going forward, and we'll lose it that way. So this is not a form we can adopt now.

Or ever!

Instead, Mao proposed and popularized a form that...brought forward what were called revolutionary committees, which combined representatives of the masses with representatives of experts and party members in various forms to actually be the administrative body in all the different institutions...This is something that we can actually implement which will keep power in the hands of the masses of people...

A fucking lie!

Those "three-in-one committees" were actually overseen by army officers to make sure that the masses "didn't get out of hand".

If we overstep that, then we're going to get thrown back -- back into the horror of the old society.

Which is exactly what happened...thanks be to Chairman Mao!

It is no wonder that the Shanghai Commune is a standing embarrassment to "MLM" -- these utterly pathetic excuses combined with the counter-revolutionary outcome of Mao's response reveal Maoism as nothing more than a shabby caricature of Marxism.

We know Marx's response to the Paris Commune...and here and now we know Mao's and Avakian's response to a similar event.

Need more be said?

The Paris Commune lasted 80 days. Thanks to Chairman Mao, the first Shanghai Commune lasted 18 days.

There will be a second.

[Salvador_Allende]

Do you honestly think a Commune can last in this age of imperialism and revisionism? If revisionism had massively hit Shanghai at that time it would have sped across China at a rapid pace. Mao simply saved China for a few more years.

[Deleted]

Salvador_Allende said:

Do you honestly think a Commune can last in this age of imperialism and revisionism?

If you're not going to try now, then when? As the song goes "It has to start somewhere/It has to start sometime/What better place then here?/What better time then now?"

What good reason is there that it couldn't last? Arm the workers and the people's militias can defend the commune. Why disempower the masses by handing over control to a State?

The Leninist model justifies the perpetuation of the State in the name of defending the revolution, yet it has failed miserably every damned time. Leninism just doesn't work.

[redstar2000]

One additional comment that I left out...

I read the entire speech by Avakian; it is very long.

Much of it consists of a standard Marxist critique of present-day capitalist society; I think few here would quarrel with any of the things he says in that part.

But when he talks about post-revolutionary society, he is vague as hell.

He outlines all these "problems" and "contradictions" inherited from capitalist society...but never says specifically what he would do to overcome them.

His reaction to the failure of the USSR, China, etc. could be reasonably summarized as "we can and must do better".

But he never says how!

He explicitly rejects the "Paris Commune" model but offers nothing in its place.

You sort of get the impression that the party and its leadership will "run the show" but "with a lighter hand" than Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.

One of the painful but necessary lessons that we all learn in capitalist society is to read the fine print before signing up for anything.

In Avakian's speech, the "fine print" is altogether absent. We are left completely "in the dark" about what he would actually do.

This contract may not be valid in some states and may be modified or terminated at any time at the discretion of the Party.

Good idea?

[redstar2000]

Here is another and somewhat different interpretation of the Shanghai Commune...


The Shanghai Commune: The Theoretical and Practical Implications of Its Rapid Disappearance

Here we must go back in time. This is all the more necessary because the Shanghai Commune tends to be passed over, whereas it possesses considerable importance, both theoretical and practical. I shall first recall certain facts.

From November 1966 onward Shanghai (as well as some other industrial towns, notably Tientsin and places in the Northeast) saw a multiplication in the number of factory committees devoted to the Cultural Revolution. These committees established "dual power" in the enterprises. They were a development ratified by a twelve-point directive from the central group of the Cultural Revolution.

In the factories of Shanghai, the power of the Cultural Revolution committees was thus established alongside that of the production groups, which were made up primarily of cadres. At the end of December the latter disintegrated, while the factory committees developed into mass revolutionary organizations (called "headquarters"). Although these had difficulty in agreeing among themselves, they all challenged the authority of the existing municipal council, which they accused of revisionism. In early January 1967, after meetings which over a million workers attended, the municipal council collapsed.

On January 9, thirty-two organizations jointly issued what was called an "urgent notice" which set forth a series of rules and apparently prepared the way for a new form of governing authority. The whole of the Chinese press published this document, and it was held up as a model by Mao Tse-tung himself. Jen-min Jih-pao of January 22, commenting on it, noted: "Of all the ways for the revolutionary masses to take their destiny into their own hands, in the final analysis the only way is to take power! Those who have power have everything; those who are without power have nothing...We, the worker, peasant, and soldier masses, are the indisputable masters of the new world!" On the walls of the city appeared the slogan: "All power to the Commune!"

Nevertheless, developments took their time. It was not until February 5 that the commune was proclaimed, at a meeting attended by a million workers. The speakers declared that "the municipal party committee and the city council of Shanghai had been destroyed and that a new organ of power had been established, in keeping with the doctrines of Chairman Mao and the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat..."

However, the Shanghai Commune was not hailed in the central press, any more than was the formation of communes in other cities, such as Taiyuan. Without being officially repudiated, the commune was not, so to speak, "recognized" by the central authority. Some twenty days afterwards, it ceased to exist, with the birth of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, presided over by Chang Chun-chiao, who had taken part in the work of the Shanghai Commune, in accordance with the suggestion of the central group and with the approval of all the founding organizations.

Thus, in Shanghai as in other cities, the commune form, though it had been mentioned in the sixteen-point declaration, was dropped and replaced by that of the revolutionary committee.

No real argument justifying this change has ever been set forth. A variety of reasons have been given, mainly in Chang Chun-chiao's speech of February 24, in which he alluded to Mao Tse-tung's remarks on the creation of the Shanghai Commune. According to Chang, Mao Tse-tung did not question the principle of the commune, but he did question whether the correct procedure had been followed in forming it. He doubted, moreover, whether the model inspired by the Paris Commune could be adopted anywhere but in Shanghai, China's most advanced working-class center. He also wondered about the international problems that would result from the proclamation of communes all over China. These observations were not very convincing, and took the form of questions rather than arguments. In any case, they did not lead to a condemnation of the commune, but were only an appeal for caution and prudence.

Actually, the principal problem raised by Mao was that of the party. He seems to have been very disturbed by the role assigned to the cadres, and by the tendency of some of the rebels to "overthrow all those in responsible positions." He asked the question: "Do we still need the party?" And he answered: "I think that we need it because we need a hard core, a bronze matrix, to strengthen us on the road we still have to travel. You can call it what you like, Communist Party or Socialist Party, but we must have a party. This must not be forgotten."

The question arises as to how the revolutionary leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, who had supported the political form of the commune, went back, in practice, to their previous attitude, claiming that China was not "ready" for this political form. How did they thereby open up a new course, which was to be marked by a series of retreats interrupted by partial, but increasingly less effective, counteroffensives?

In terms of the concrete unfolding of the Cultural Revolution, two sets of facts need to be taken into consideration. First, the various revolutionary organizations (in Shanghai and elsewhere) were apparently incapable of uniting. They tended to clash, often and violently, and to engage in efforts to outdo each other, efforts which risked causing confusion and mass elimination of honest and devoted cadres. Mao Tse-tung described this situation in July 1967, when he remarked on the inability shown by the most militant supporters of the Cultural Revolution to unite and to ally with all those with whom they ought to come to an agreement.

The second set of facts is the negative reaction of the majority of party members at the highest level to the situation that developed at the beginning of 1967. These party members did not, in the main, take up revolutionary positions. Without saying so openly, they were hostile to the Cultural Revolution. And because they were a majority, their calls for "moderation" were listened to: had this not happened, it would have been all over with the unity and even with the very existence of the party.

The attitude of many veterans of the revolution was expressed in Tan Chen-lin's speech at an enlarged session of the Political Bureau in January 1967, when he said: "Do you still need the leadership of the party? Do you want to destroy all the old cadres? I speak here in the name of all the veterans of the revolution, and I would rather be jailed or beheaded than be a silent witness to the humiliation of so many of our old comrades."

This attitude on the part of most of the old cadres, and the desire to maintain the unity and existence of the party, led the Political Bureau to "narrow the front of attack" and "designate individual targets": Liu Shao-chi, Teng Hsiao-ping, and a few other officials. Another result was that an exceptional role was given to the People's Liberation Army and its then leader, Lin Piao. Thereafter it was the PLA, operating through its "propaganda teams for Mao Tse-tung Thought," that was to "recognize" the genuinely Left rank-and-file committees, guide them toward unifying action, and with them dominate the whole movement.

These decisions led to the withering away of the mass movement and to an increase in the influence of the PLA leaders in the apparatus of the party and of the state. In 1969, at the Ninth Party Congress, the PLA leaders played a decisive role. Of the twenty-five members elected to the Political Bureau, fourteen were PLA generals. The mass movements characteristic of the first years of the Cultural Revolution were replaced by criticism campaigns organized from above...

ptb.lashout.net/marx2mao/Other/GLB78.html

------------------------------

So...I must "tone down a bit" my enthusiasm for the Shanghai Commune while still noting that it was far in advance of what preceded it and what followed it.

And I can only wonder: we see that Mao and the party's leadership endorsed "the principles of the Paris Commune" in theory but "backed off" when confronted with its provisional reality.

Much as Lenin proclaimed "all power to the soviets"...until confronted with the reality of that and what it would mean.

If the "vanguard party" must choose between the masses and the party, it will always choose the party.

[Burningman]

The choice isn't between "the masses" and "the party." Parties are one way, a very important and particular one, by which the masses of people exercise their own agency, their consciousness and their ability to rule.

In fact, there is no other way. Not in an all around sense, a political sense.

You say Leninism just "doesn't work." What's funny about that is the amount of time you spend arguing the history of what it has done, while leaving your council-type theories to be the one true way.

For someone who mocks dialectics, you've got some crazy inversions going on. What is, isn't. What isn't is the only thing that can be.

I'm sure you recognize that what one platoon or even division does in time of war is service the strategic goals of the army. Well, politics is war. And sometimes the plain fact is that choices must be made. Hard choices that aren't often any clearer or easier even after decades of hindsight.

After reading an excerpt moment ago in another thread regarding the RIM's correct criticisms of Dimitrov's popular frontism, I think it should be noted in all fairness the depth of self-criticism revolutionary communists have gone through even on cardinal questions. Acting like people are power mad, or deluded because you think that political mediation and synthesis are impossible is deeply unfair and philosphical bunk.

The masses are inchoate as such, organized to produce and reproduce the conditions of their own oppression. The power of science, class consciousness and a revolutionary vanguard is the only way, (how's this for categorical?), that people can cease being objects and become subjects. It requires a body of collective thought that's more than "twinkling" at a spokescouncil meeting. Parties aren't just how the workers and other oppressed people will come to rule. They are how any social class becomes conscious of itself, its direction and means.

There are arguments to be had with Stalinized parties. The elimination of internal democracy, the tendency to elevate tactical (and even aesthetic) differences to matters of "two-line struggle" between whoever is supposed to be the revisionist or the revolutionary. Sometimes there are three lines. Sometimes there might be more than one "correct" line and or maybe they're all wrong. It's happened more than once.

But the Shanghai Commune, despite my sympathies with the highest aspirations, is similar to Kronstadt. Form doesn't always define content. The defense of the socialist state, the ability to wage protracted political war -- even within the communist party at the highest levels -- isn't just a matter of opening the gates. It's just not that simple.

You also downplay the real ultra-leftism that was going on, particularly among some sections of the student movement. Elevating minor infractions, or family background, into antagonistic contradictions, refusal to consider the larger national and international situations, etc.

Your answer to hard questions is to say the questions themselves are what produce the answers you don't like. And you have the same answer for everything... Leaders are the problem, politics is suspect, and mediation is itself the enemy.

Why we're not debating the track record of "the masses" ruling in some unmediated way is self-evident. Revolt ain't revolution.

[redstar2000SE]

Part One...

Burningman wrote: Parties are one way, a very important and particular one, by which the masses of people exercise their own agency, their consciousness and their ability to rule.

Oh? You could have fooled me.

I'm only aware of two kinds of political parties.

The first kind is the "mass party" which is nominally open and democratic but which is actually controlled behind the scenes by an elite "leadership" -- much like bourgeois "democracy" itself.

And the second is the "vanguard party" where control by the "leadership" is undisguised and the masses have no direct input at all.

To suggest that the masses "exercise their own agency" through such unpromising mechanisms is...far-fetched.

Burningman wrote: In fact, there is no other way.

Curiouser and curiouser. What did those people in the Paris and Shanghai Communes "think" they were doing?

Burningman wrote: You say Leninism just "doesn't work." What's funny about that is the amount of time you spend arguing the history of what it has done, while leaving your council-type theories to be the one true way.

A misunderstanding.

I have indeed spent a rather large portion of my efforts in attacking the Leninist paradigm, both on theoretical and on historical grounds. I do this because its lingering influence, though declining, remains an obstacle to many modern revolutionaries.

These are serious people who want to commit their lives to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class.

I am trying to keep them from entering a blind alley...or get them out of it before they become cynical and "burned out".

Council communism is not the "one true way"...and I don't know what the "one true way" is. But what I do measure the various options and proposals by is: do the masses really run the show after the revolution?

If that is not the consequence of our efforts, then whatever we do will just be a footnote to the continuing development of class society.

Burningman wrote: I'm sure you recognize that what one platoon or even division does in time of war is service the strategic goals of the army. Well, politics is war. And sometimes the plain fact is that choices must be made. Hard choices that aren't often any clearer or easier even after decades of hindsight.

This is another example of the "military metaphor" so dear to the heart of every Leninist. I've criticized it elsewhere so there's no reason to take it up again here.

Instead, let's assume for the sake of argument that "politics is war". Ok, in war, there's a winning side and a losing side, right? And, just as military historians look at the losing side to discover why they lost, we should do the same in politics.

Why have all the Leninist variants lost? In particular, why is it that every single Leninist party in the advanced capitalist countries has come to grief? Why didn't at least one of them ever "get it right"?

Was it just "bad luck"? Or is there something fundamentally wrong about the whole approach?

Burningman wrote: ...I think it should be noted in all fairness the depth of self-criticism revolutionary communists have gone through even on cardinal questions. Acting like people are power mad, or deluded because you think that political mediation and synthesis are impossible is deeply unfair and philosophical bunk.

I do not think that the current generation of Leninists as a whole are "power mad" (though some of them might be).

But I do think they are "deluded" -- for all their criticisms of 20th century communism, they still "shy away" from the roots of the problem. They criticize this "error" here and that "error" there...much in the same way that the ruling class criticizes its own errors.

The ruling class can't very well criticize the roots of its own paradigm...and Leninists, though not bound by material concerns, find it almost equally difficult to confront their systematic faults.

Although I am the "designated pragmatist" on this board and they are "masters of the dialectic" -- it is actually they who "tweak" and "fine-tune" this or that "setting"...confident that one way or another they will get this damn machine to work.

Am I being "unfair"? I don't challenge their sincerity or their seriousness.

I just think they're wrong.

Burningman wrote: The masses are inchoate as such, organized to produce and reproduce the conditions of their own oppression. The power of science, class consciousness and a revolutionary vanguard is the only way, (how's this for categorical?), that people can cease being objects and become subjects.

It's quite categorical, all right. But is it true?

When your "revolutionary vanguard" takes over, who have then become subjects and who are still objects?

Who now acts and who remains acted upon?

Your "only way" becomes no way except for the leading circles of the "revolutionary vanguard"...who have simply replaced the leading circles of the old ruling class.

Although the flags look nicer.

Continued...

[redstar2000SE]

Part Two...

Burningman wrote: Parties aren't just how the workers and other oppressed people will come to rule. They are how any social class becomes conscious of itself, its direction and means.

No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. The political party is an invention of the bourgeois epic of production...in earlier class societies, "politics" was quite literally a "family affair" (it still is in the Middle East).

The German working class borrowed the idea and, with the encouragement of Engels, ran with it. Lenin adapted it for clandestine struggle and Mao used it as a framework for peasant guerrilla warfare.

But it's by no means a "given" of history and the working class is not chained to its limitations. Other kinds of formations may prove to actually be superior for our purposes.

Burningman wrote: But the Shanghai Commune, despite my sympathies with the highest aspirations, is similar to Kronstadt. Form doesn't always define content. The defense of the socialist state, the ability to wage protracted political war -- even within the communist party at the highest levels -- isn't just a matter of opening the gates. It's just not that simple.

Well, Kronstadt was a very murky affair -- evidently there were both revolutionary and reactionary elements involved.

But the Shanghai Commune did not, as I understand it, propose to "overthrow the socialist state" as such...but to change its form in a more socialist direction.

I've said on many occasions that history offers us few "guarantees" -- "opening the gates" to the masses does not "guarantee" that capitalism will not be restored.

But I do assert a "simple" proposition: closing the gates does guarantee that capitalism will be restored.

If the process didn't take so long, I'd bet the rent money on it.

Burningman wrote: You also downplay the real ultra-leftism that was going on, particularly among some sections of the student movement.

Yeah, I heard the kids were actually shooting at each other at the University of Peking over some childish feud.

But I have to ask: whose fault is it when politically unsophisticated kids do stupid things? Where did those kids acquire their "Marxism"? Whose "little red book" had they been reading?

And, for that matter, what do we really know about the "ultra-left" in China? Is there even one reliable text on the subject? Have you ever seen a copy of Selected Ultra-Left Writings from China[/b]? I don't think such a book even exists...at least not in English.

The only thing I "know" about the "ultra-left" is that one of them put up a "big character poster" that said "95% of the party cadre are capitalist-roaders!"

I think history has vindicated that excellent judgment call.

Burningman wrote: Your answer to hard questions is to say the questions themselves are what produce the answers you don't like. And you have the same answer for everything...Leaders are the problem, politics is suspect, and mediation is itself the enemy.

Well, isn't "mediation" the enemy?

What does it mean to get "mediated"? It means that power is exercised "in your name" but not necessarily in your interests.

In fact, when you get "mediated", you are requested to "have faith" that the "mediators" have your "best interests at heart"...even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. (And there's a guy in a uniform with a gun watching you to make sure that your "faith" is appropriately enthusiastic.)

Be honest: is that the kind of society that you would want to live in?

I've never denied that there will not be any "hard questions" in post-capitalist society. But you can't hide behind the "difficulty" of a question when you offer wrong answers...answers that lose.

And I've never said that "leaders are the problem" -- there are, as I'm sure you know, many problems.

But I don't see how you can deny that one of the major problems with the Leninist paradigm is the marked tendency to rely on a "great leader" to decide all questions of substance.

It doesn't always happen, of course...but it certainly happened in Russia, Yugoslavia, and China.

Go back to your earlier comment about "politics" being "war". If you set up a party on the model of a combat organization, then, sooner or later, you will have a commander-in-chief.

In what direction will his consciousness develop as a consequence of being a commander, day after day, year after year?

How many orders do you have to give before you start to believe that "history itself" has designated you to be "the order-giver of the ages"?

Burningman wrote: Why we're not debating the track record of "the masses" ruling in some unmediated way is self-evident. Revolt ain't revolution.

Yes, there is much remaining to be discovered on how the masses might rule in an unmediated fashion.

But since your own heart seems set on being a "mediator", I won't bore you with the alternatives.#nosmileys

[kasam0]

[still can't log in as kasama. But it's me!!]]

Many interesting questions.
I agree that the heart of the question is how is revolutionary change led. Is it just "unleashed" or does it have to be led.

Redstar argues that people who say there must be leadership (or "mediation to representation") just are powermad (i.e. just want to be the mediators). That makes the discussion difficult -- because he negates all the objective reasons why people can't simply decide for themselves, immediately, early in the rev process.

It becomes a moral issue, for him, and what we see as "objective," he sees as our sinister and corrupted intent.

It is also important to not that the point is to increasingly expand the "we" that rules -- to both build parties based on and serving the oppressed, but also bring the oppressed themselves as much as possible and increasingly into the process of transforming and ruling society.

Much damage and oppression has been done by small groups who applied the simple logic that "we are the people's representatives, so anything we decide to do serves the people, and anyone who questions us must be a pig."

It is an orientation that opens the door up to being dogmato-revisionist tyrants -- and opposes an orientation that recognizes that communists (even at their best) don't know everything, don't automatically know what needs doing, don't inherently have the right ideas before anyone else, and don't need criticism and interrogation from each other and the masses.

On a historical note:

Burningman wrote: "But the Shanghai Commune, despite my sympathies with the highest aspirations, is similar to Kronstadt."

I think these events are worlds apart. Kronstadt was a complex event (as redstar points out) but objectively, at that moment, revolting against the Soviet government would have led to a shattering of the revolution and a triumph of the counterrevolutinoary whites (regardless of the intent of the sailors on Kronstadt island.)

The January storm of Shanghai by contrast was a historic high point of the world revolution. It was led (overall) by Mao's supporters, and rooted in hundreds of different mass organizations. Mao did not call for crushing the Shanghai Commune (as Lenin did Kronstadt) -- he upheld the movement, while leading it.

He thought the overthrow of the local city party committee was a historic and watershed leap in the GPCR, and encouraged rebels to do similar overthrows across the country.

But he did lead by proposing a different form of proletarian rule -- and arguing that the commune form was too weak, and there needed to be a solid core of leadership somewhere.

If the proletariat didnot form a solid core within the new Shanghai power structure, the bourgeoisie certainly would.

So in all those ways the Shanghai events were not even loosely similar to Kronstadt -- Shanghai was one of history's most advanced and breathtaking revolutinary uprisings, and Kronstadt was a reactionary revolt born of desperation and pessimism.

Redstar said: "But the Shanghai Commune did not, as I understand it, propose to "overthrow the socialist state" as such...but to change its form in a more socialist direction."

Well, the January Storm was actually to overthrow the capitalist roaders within the socialist state, and turn society in a more deeply communist direction.

And the new forms Mao proposed (the three-in one Revolutionary Committees) emerged as a way to combine consolidate new forms of leadership and power.

Burningman wrote: "You also downplay the real ultra-leftism that was going on, particularly among some sections of the student movement."

And redstar answers: "Yeah, I heard the kids were actually shooting at each other at the University of Peking over some childish feud. But I have to ask: whose fault is it when politically unsophisticated kids do stupid things? Where did those kids acquire their "Marxism"? Whose "little red book" had they been reading?"

All of this is confused.

First because it views the problem by pointing the spearhead down. The issue was not the students, but lines that were being led from high places.

Second, these issues were not "ultraleftism." Mao opposed that label, while the rightist forces of Chou Enlai and Deng Tsiaoping promoted them. And the issue was "is the movement too left, or has it not gone far enough."

Mao thought "not far enough" and we know what the right thought.

There was an intense struggle over how to sum up the errors of Lin Biao, chen po-ta, and the groups associated with them (like the May 16th movement, with roots in the students). The right said "ultra-left" (as does Hinton in his Hundred Days.) The Maoists said "left in form, right in content."

In any case, the root problem here was not "ultra-left students" but those in power taking the capitalist road.

That is the whole point of the key polemic from this struggle "On the social base of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique" -- a major theoretical breakthrough in the GPCR.

Redstar writes: "And, for that matter, what do we really know about the "ultra-left" in China? Is there even one reliable text on the subject? Have you ever seen a copy of Selected Ultra-Left Writings from China?"

Heh. I won't point out that Redstar typically doesn't do his homework, and assumes no one else has either.

Of course there are works documenting all trends of the GPCR.

There are academic works of many kinds.

PLP (which like Redstar upheld the Shanghai Commune, considered Mao oppressive and upheld the "overthrow all" reactionary underground groups) wrote a whole issue of their "Road to Revolution" reprinting the key documents of these trends.

Redstar writes: "The only thing I "know" about the "ultra-left" is that one of them put up a "big character poster" that said "95% of the party cadre are capitalist-roaders!""

It does not take much thought to see that this slogan (including the "overthrow all" slogan) is a call for overthrowing the Chinese socialist state and its communist party.

Mao argued that the overwhelming majority of cadre were good, and that the overwhelming majority were also following the revisionist line at times. It takes dialectics (which redstar rejects) so see that in its living dynamics and complexity.

Did most cadre play backward roles at times? yes.

Did that mean (in some mechanical and linear way) that the revolution should discard its cadre at all levels, and just "grow another head" from scratch?

No. Because that path would have actually isolated the revolution, driven millions needlessly further into the camp of the capitalist roaders, and would have led to the rapid victory of the right.

Burningman wrote: "Your answer to hard questions is to say the questions themselves are what produce the answers you don't like."

Bingo. Redstar is not materialist. If Avakian points out that the revolution can't simply put the people directly in charge, Redstar assumes this is because Avakian doesn't want to have the people rule.

In redstar's world, the people who say "hold onto the railing" have created gravity out of their will and intention.

Burningman wrote: "Why we're not debating the track record of "the masses" ruling in some unmediated way is self-evident. Revolt ain't revolution."

We are not debating it because we can't.

There is a process by which the people become "fit to rule" as marx said. It is in the process of revolution -- both before and then after the seizure of power.

It is part of a long process that prepares people broadly to handle ideas, to eliminate the antagonistic contradicion between mental and manual labor, to create material and ideological conditions to break down all the obstacles and barriers created by millenia of class society.

[redstar2000SE]

kasama wrote: Redstar argues that people who say there must be leadership (or "mediation to representation") just are powermad (i.e., just want to be the mediators).

Kasama may fairly criticize me because I am not aware of and thus haven't consulted texts with which he claims familiarity.

But you'd think he would at least read what I just wrote in my previous post before attributing to me a completely opposite view.

I wrote: I do not think that the current generation of Leninists as a whole are "power mad" (though some of them might be).

Perhaps I should expand this a bit.

In ordinary usage, when we say that someone is "power mad", we mean that this person enjoys dominating and humiliating others in and of itself...the purposes that power might be exercised for are secondary and may even not exist at all.

This "authoritarian personality" is usually found not at the top of a social pyramid (class society) but in the lower middle ranks...where status insecurity must be overcome with capricious and arbitrary orders to inferiors.

The people at the top of a class society are authoritarian for a purpose...which may or may not be "benign" and which changes over time. They are not "power mad", they want to do something with that power.

Leninists want power for a reason...and Avakian is, as I've noted elsewhere, refreshingly blunt about this. The Leninist party, if it succeeds in seizing power, intends to begin with a "benevolent despotism" which will be "relaxed" as time passes and people "become fit" to rule themselves.

Thus the real questions are not "moral" ones at all but rather grounded in very materialist considerations.

1. How do despotisms change over time -- do they become more or less "benign"? Why?

2. Do despotisms have any "built-in" tendencies to "relax" or "grow more harsh"? Again why?

3. What happens to the consciousness of both despots and their subjects over time? And once more, why?

It seems to me that what Leninists ask us to do is not only recognize their "good intentions" now but also grant them a "free pass" of indefinite duration on the basis of their present intentions.

In the light of historical experience, that simply makes no sense.

In a capitalist society, if someone said to you "I want you to sign over all your present and future wealth and, in return, I'll take care of you and you won't ever have to worry about money again" -- would you do it?

If you did, you'd be a fool!

Why then should the working class, having risen to smash the power of the bourgeoisie, then turn around and "sign over" the power that they've won (and that cost them so much) to folks who promise that they'll "take care of them"?

Why should any of us want to do that?

You tell me!

[Burningman]

Still confusing ethics with politics?

"Yes, there is much remaining to be discovered on how the masses might rule in an unmediated fashion. But since your own heart seems set on being a 'mediator,' I won't bore you with the alternatives. "

It really has nothing to do with my heart. After over a decade of organizing popular movements and institutions, I can't help but observe that every single one has had a mediating function (people), including – indeed especially – those that denied it. This last point is key.

Anti-authoritarians, in my experience, deny their leaders so that they are totally unaccountable. This gives rise to leadership by class (those who can afford to travel and not work full time to earn an income), age (post-college graduates dominate leadership) and race (those who uphold these ideas tend to be disproportionately white). It also means that political line is often less important (or clear) than position in the "network" and control of communications.

I would love to hear you whip up some ideas because the movements I see fixated on "immediatism" are often the most undemocratic of all.

This is the difference between socialism and anti-social rebellion. I don't mind the rebellion, I just don't confuse it for anything more than a sentiment.

---

The Shangai Storm is an excellent place to have this discussion because it cuts to the quick on many of these key issues.

1) the relationship between form and content of political rule.

2) the role of spontenaity

3) the limits of socialist construction in an age of imperialism and uneven development within third world countries.

4) the question of how line leads.

5) the historical lessons of the communist fight during the socialist period: or, how can we better wage the class struggle under the contested dictatorship of the proletariat?

[redstar2000SE]

Burningman wrote: Still confusing ethics with politics?

Actually, it does seem to me that there are "communist ethics" that are very closely associated with communist politics. In fact, you might well say that they derive from communist politics.

From a communist standpoint, to behave "unethically" is to subvert the communist project itself, to act as an unknowing "agent" of the class enemy.

To stand at the barricades and oppose the upsurge of the masses (Lenin in July 1917; Mao during the Shanghai Commune) is, in a sense, to act unethically as a communist.

Burningman wrote: After over a decade of organizing popular movements and institutions, I can't help but observe that every single one has had a mediating function (people), including – indeed especially – those that denied it. This last point is key.

I don't dispute your observations; compared to SDS in its best years (1965-69), none of the existing groups that I've run across in recent decades greatly impresses me.

But I don't think this is due to some kind of "sociological inevitability"...I think it reflects the political backwardness of all "left" political groups in this period.

The anti-authoritarian groups seem to be trying to move in the right direction -- and perhaps one or more of them might eventually manage the trick. But I confess that for every time I hear of them doing or saying something half-way sensible, I hear of two (or more!) acts/statements that I regard as nonsense...or worse.

I think it falls upon us as Marxists to take a sober look at the dysfunctionality of the "left" (all of it!) and figure out what might be constructively advocated and struggled for to "get us out of the shit".

Burningman wrote: Anti-authoritarians, in my experience, deny their leaders so that they are totally unaccountable.

Yes, I've sometimes noticed that myself. I don't think it's a "universal" phenomenon though.

My experience has been that the problem is caused by the use of "consensus" as a decision-making mechanism...it "appears" to be the most "democratic" mechanism of all -- but, in the hands of the manipulative, it can be in practice as coercive as anything in "democratic" centralism.

Indeed, both mechanisms generate "leaders" who are effectively "unaccountable" for what they say or do. The "consensus leader" says "Don't criticize me -- you consented." And you can't criticize the "party leader" at all...unless you're willing to quit or be expelled.

Burningman wrote: This gives rise to leadership by class (those who can afford to travel and not work full time to earn an income), age (post-college graduates dominate leadership) and race (those who uphold these ideas tend to be disproportionately white). It also means that political line is often less important (or clear) than position in the "network" and control of communications.

Yes, those things are not uncommon in anti-authoritarian organizations...and also in "democratic" centralist organizations. They are, in part, a reflection of class realities at the present time -- and also reflect, once again, political backwardness across the whole spectrum of the "left" in the U.S.

There are obvious ways to struggle against some of those things...ways that have actually been used (too rarely).

People can have their travel to important regional or national meetings subsidized -- in SDS, I used to actually do this out of my own pocket, especially for new members. (I did have a full-time job and my personal expenses were modest.)

And the "network" of "internal communication" can be subverted by any member who wants to take the trouble to "spill the beans" -- there wasn't much in SDS that didn't become "public knowledge" fairly quickly. I passed on everything I found out to all the members of the chapters I worked with -- I was never a believer in "official secrets".

I don't think there's too much that can be done about age and "race". Active revolutionary politics is a "young person's game" -- the physical energy required rules out all but intellectual participation by the older generations. And "race" is a special consideration in the U.S. -- except for brief periods, a truly "multi-racial" movement has never emerged here.

There does exist now an "Anarchist People of Color" organization -- and we'll see how things work out for them.

As to "line"...well, that's a responsibility that falls on every revolutionary, does it not? Are we not obligated to evaluate carefully every serious idea that's publicly put forward by ourselves and our class enemies? I know, some folks are lazy about that...but then we have to struggle against that kind of laziness, do we not?

Burningman wrote: I would love to hear you whip up some ideas because the movements I see fixated on "immediatism" are often the most undemocratic of all.

Well, as I've indicated, I am partial to the "SDS model" for building a sustained revolutionary movement.

But there are others that I also find interesting...

Democracy without Elections; Demarchy and Communism

Demarchy and a New Revolutionary Communist Movement

Further Notes on Demarchy

It's unlikely that we will see fresh possibilities until we learn to look for them.

[Burningman]

participatory democracy is a fine idea. Modern anti-authoritarianism in the US strikes me as having a lot more in common with that ethic than traditional anarchism (syndicalism, et al)

Perhaps the article about SDS that influenced me the most was "Grand Coolie Dam" by Marge Piercy. She was a poet, novelist and early feminist who broke down how the structures of SDS gave rise to "machers" and honchos, reinforced (or failed to challenge) traditional patriarchal relationships and in general was the epitome of the hierarchichal system they criticized elsewhere.

I like and agree with the "participatory" part, but deeply believe that democratic formalism is often (intrinsically) a way of figuring out disputes among the like minded. It is not so good for resolving fundamental contradictions, such as befell SDS when they were moved on by PL or, for that matter, Shanghai.

I feel your affinity for this model. But I think if we approach it idealistically instead of materialistically, democratic illusions often (enough) mask the power relationships in a "circle of equals."