Struggling Over Formal Democracy

[transplant]

I am moving some of the content of a deleted thread...
so that we can discuss the important ponts that various people raised.

These are excerpts, because the parts dealing with speculations about the ICM were taken out (according to the long-standing rules of this message board.)

[RTOT excerpt]

....Are multiple parties and contested elections "doable" under socialism without leaving the dictatorship of the proletariat open to dismantling or reversal?

"Some of the key components of the bourgeois form of democracy, namely multiparty competition, periodic elections, universal franchise, rule of law, freedom of the press and speech, etc., however, seem to enjoy wider validity. We have, therefore, sought to incorporate these characteristics in the future democratic setup in the country."

I would be more interested in what people have to say about THIS and the ideas contained therein more than I am about the particular individual who spoke them.

[burningman excerpt]

....I managed to see William Hinton speak once, near the end of his life. Much of his discussion involved his failure to grasp what was happening in China when capitalism was restored, but the part that was most interesting was his analysis that there were ALWAYS two Chinese CPs. One was led by Mao from the liberated base areas. The other was cultivated under the leadership of Liu underground in the south.

While China (effectively) had only one party, allowing vestigal "representation" from other parties, there were always competing lines. Even among the revolutionaries during the GPCR, there were profoundly different methods and objectives among the subjectively communist forces. That's how it goes folks, and no line or analysis will change the fact that class society, which includes New Democracy and socialism, generates different lines. I imagine that even once we've overcome classes, there will still be divergences. Dialectics are a law, so to speak, and one always divides into two.

Even people with similar objectives see the need for different methods, different paths. That in NO WAY intrinsically means that when revolutionaries disagree that one side is applying a bourgeois line. Or, in this case a "feudal" line. There are some parties in the ICM that have viewed contradictions among the people as antagonistic, and the results in my opinion have been a learning experience. Dogmatism, sectarianism, a divorce from the masses of people, and all the affiliated vices that come from THAT method have meant defeat, or at times victories not worth winning.

Those who seek to turn every contradiction into a test of the entire class struggle will find themselves not only lonely, but defeated. What I see at issue here is whether we seek a living socialism, where the masses are engaged, or the imposition of a "new power" that doesn't fundamentally challenge the NATURE of the state....

It was Mao in the GPCR who went to the court of the masses. And it was people like Lin Biao who demanded a monolithic party. Food for thought. What made Mao such a bad motherfucker was his willingness to "risk it all" to bring the masses of people into political life and challenge even the party and government he had constructed.

[flyby excerpt]

....It is true that communist parties have two-line struggle -- and that political lines of capitulation and defeatism contend with the revolutionary communist line even within the vanguard (or especially within the vanguard.)

But (and here I am responding to the impression Burningman gives) it would be wrong to say "a party is like a bird, and needs two wings to fly." It would be wrong to say "a little communism and a little revisionism balance each other out and give a party the creative synergy and flexibility it needs to fight and win." (And we don't need the Chou Enlai approach of "walking a fine line" between revolution and revisionism, and seeking a middle ground -- and history shows how that approach inevitably made it difficult to stop the rise of revisionism to power in 1976, and in the case of Bill Hinton of seeing what had just happened and taking a correct stand on it in China and around the line.)

No. Revisionism is the rise of the oppressors politics and ideology within the revolution. the correct line develops and grows (and wins over people) in struggle with the incorrect line -- but that does not mean "it's all good" or "who can know til its over what was revisionist and what was not."

Parties do, inevitably and necessarily, have a range of views -- but at the same time a revolutionary communist party needs a "solid core" precisely on those views that are cardinal (in the larger sense, and often in the immediate strategic and tactical sense are life and death.)

If you have elasticity without that solid core, you have no hope of making revolutioin, and even if you come to power you can't do anything good with it. (Meet Pol Pot, or the Vietnamese party, or the events in Eastern Europe, or Castro for that matter. The problem with Che was not just practically "that he lost" -- if guevarists come to power, with their view on the process and the revolution... their power does not open a road of revolutionary transition to communism.)

We can't simply or magically prevent the emergence of revisionism, or the repeated eruption of sharp two line struggle (especially at key turning points). This happens within the vanguard because of the very dynamics of class struggle and class society. But it would be deadly (in fact it would be revisionist) to think that that means that revisionism is "part of the scene" or "part of what makes us who we are" or "part of the creative synergy that makes any party viable" or whatever.

The heart of the issue is "what line leads" -- and what it takes for the correct line to lead in a vanguard party (what kind of solid core is required, what kind of clarity and leadership).

If the correct line leads, if a revolutionary communist line is developing and commanding, then the chance for revolutin and victory become real. If the revisionist line comes to lead, the revolution will be defeated (from within and from without). And to the extent that the revisionist line leads in secondary ways, the party is in danger of capitulation or betrayal of its cause....

[flyby excerpt]

....Burningman talked about not wanting to "rehash Stalinism." Ok. well, the way I would put it is we don't want to be a residue of the past, and we need to aspire far higher than simply trying to repeat the past (including repeat the errors and shortcomings of the proletarian revolution in the past.)

But where do we go, how do we build on the past, what should we do differently? If we are not clear, we can substitute a tired and anticommunist social democracy (and all kinds of bourgeois democratic illusions) and pretend this is new, exciting and innovative.

I think there is great value in reading chairman Avakian's K Venu polemic (on the attempt to see formal democracy as the solution to capitalist restoration).

rwor.org/chair_e.htm#democracy

And his pathbreaking Dictatorship of the Proletariat talk -- that makes major and pathbreaking new developments in how to view the issues of democracy and dictatorship in the transition to communism.

rwor.org/chair_e.htm#democracyspeech

If you want to really unravel what is right and wrong on these issues of democracy and socialism -- this is the place to dig in. These things are not nearly deeply enough grappled with.....

[burningman post]

Not wanting to "rehash Stalinism" mean not wanting a state that speaks in the name of the people while gagging them. Not allowing open debate, and adoping a strategically defensive position, hamstrings socialism. It has led DIRECTLY to the defeat of socialism in the USSR. Stalin's method rewarded hacks and opportunists, toadies and fools. Those who spoke their mind often had their heads cut off, speaking barely metaphorically. He could label his opponents whatever he wanted, if he even bothered to. That kind of "power" stripped of any kind of accountability to the working people is NOT socialism in the sense we need to be building it.

Dismissing "democracy" with the stroke of a hand can mean some different things. To many it sounds like "do what you are told in the name of the people." Socialism must come through the people, and freedom of conscience is essential to that goal -- even when people are "wrong."

Consolidation of all power (military, ideological, administrative) in the hands of any person (or small junta) is seriously dangerous. It cultivates bad habits of obedience, what Bhattarai calls the idea that feudalism is better than capitialism. We don't just need to supress bourgeois right, we need to VASTLY improve upon it. A stifling socialism will not be able to reach even its self-professed goals.

It is the revisionsists who worship statues. Claiming the mantle of orthodoxy, from Kautsky on, is often a signifier that "correct" rhetoric will stand in the place of people's agency.

The point of my Hinton observation was NOT to say that we should tacitly support revisionism... if revisionism means "class collaboration" instead of "class conflict." It's to note that even in "one party" states, there are IN FACT a diversity of positions. And among revolutionary forces, there will be SHARP disagreements that are not necessarilly antagonistic. Every disagreement is not a contest between communism and capitalism. Considering that, calling for OPEN parties to form and speculating that maybe we need MORE elections and not LESS is a way of figuring out how power gets into people's hands.

Claiming to be a vanguard don't make it so. Claiming to have a "proletarian line" don't make it so. The proletariat does. People make socialism and they won't do it by just getting in line.

(And noting that the revolutionary movement is in fact larger than MLM forces at this time is just obvious. In many parts of the world, Maoism never took hold and revolutionaries formed a whole variety of other forms and movements that aren't just "holding things back." The Zapatistas, who I am normally quite critical of, are an example of a catalytic movement that has inspired massive anti-capitalist struggle internationally though methods that can be learned from. Their "leading by obeying" line is very similar to the Mass Line, even if they use a different, often obscuring rhetoric.)

[Burningman]

Responding to the RTOT excerpt: "....Are multiple parties and contested elections "doable" under socialism without leaving the dictatorship of the proletariat open to dismantling or reversal?"

Well, the record on one-party states leaving the dictatorship of the proletariat open to dismantling or reversal is exactly 100%.

[flyby]

There are many points here.

The communist approach to democracy (as concentrated in Avakian's all-tto-often ignored writings on the subject) is to point out (first of all) that there is no "class less democracy" -- there is no way to have "rule of the people" in the abstract, or organizational forms that simply serve that (in the abstract). You can't guarantee the "rule of the people" simply by demanding or imposing forms of organization that more and more adhere to "formal democracy" -- all such forms (without exception) can serve a bourgeois line, and can become a shell through which the bourgeoisie rules.

And if we (in the U.S.) don't see that, after all our own experience, with all the bullshit of bourgeois democracy, then we have to ask "what is the material, class basis for that blindness?"

In a world divided into classes, you cannot talk about pure democracy, or see democracy appart from classes.

There is a powerful line in society (and in the "movement") that says "The problem in this society is this society is that there is not enough democracy, and the solution is to extend and expand democracy."

This is exactly an example of that Avakian is talkinga bout and warning about when he talks about the danger of viewing democracy apart from classes.

In fact, this society IS a democracy (of a particular type -- a bourgeois democracy) and you can see many of the crimes, illusions and problems of that if you look.

And we need to break down the line that thinks the problems of capitalism can be solved by "extending democracy" or "making it real" in some classless way.

I thought burningman actually concentrated something with the following statement: "Dismissing "democracy" with the stroke of a hand can mean some different things. To many it sounds like "do what you are told in the name of the people." Socialism must come through the people, and freedom of conscience is essential to that goal -- even when people are "wrong.""

On one level, there are things in this statement that are true.

No one (least of all Avakian) is arguing for a superficial handling of the idea of democracy (with the stroke of a hand). So that is true. (And it is also true that Burningman wants to imply that this is what the RCP does... and that is not true. It is a strawman. No one has argued for going *deeply* into this more than Avakian!)

Is it wrong to "do what you are told"? I think that is an important question for communists.

First of all, you can't rule society (meaning the proletariat and its political represenetatives can't rule society) as if problems can be solved just by issuing directives and then enforcing them. Why not?

Well, for one reason, because it is a struggle to have correct directives in revolution -- and if you don't listen, or wrangle, or allow others to wrangle, or if you see disagreement simply (or mainly) as fundamental opposition -- then inevitably the society will dry up, and even if your directives were more-or-less correct (in some senses) they cannot be consciously embraced and carried out, and they will inevitably not continue to be correct.

For another reasons, the masses of people and party cadre can't correctly carry out directives if they don't understand them, if they don't embrace them. And so it can't be a matter of just "enforcing" poliices, (or just removing those who don't carry them out.) If the masses don't grasp a policy, and see the living link between where we are and the communist goal, then it can't be carried out correctly -- even if it is correct, even if people want communism, and even if you try to "enforce" it.

And so, Avakian argues for a vibrant society -- full of wrangling, debate. For example he has suggested that there needs to be contested elections at some level (as long as you don't allow the revolution itself to be put to "a vote" under conditions of imperialist encirclement and class struggle.) He has argued to allowing "even the books of some reactionaries" to be published -- not because they "deserve" it, or because "everyone should have such rights" -- but because the masses of people need to hear ideas from the mouths of their most ardent defenders in order to be able to better grasp correct ideas, defeat reactionary ones, and carry though the revolution. (in other words the issue is not "democratic rights for all" in the abstract, but the ways that democracy and centralism actually need to function in order to advance toward communism).

Another example: under socialism we need some kind of constitution, and socialist defining of the framework of discussion and dissent -- so that everyone knows "what the rules of the game are" and so people can have "ease of mind" to speak out, and so people in various positions of authority can't arbitrarily "change the rules" whenever their seat gets hot.

So, if that is what Burningman is getting out when he writes "freedom of conscience is essential to that goal -- even when people are 'wrong,'" that is important to elaborate.

But on the other hand, what about when the people are wrong? Should wrong views predominate then? Is that what "the people" want and need?

As Avakian pointed out in the K Venu polemic -- if you follow that logic you will oppose revolution itself, and certainly armed struggle.

Right now, many of "the people" are clearly "wrong" about many things... What should we do about it? (they are often wrong about religion, about communism, about the system, about the value of bourgeois elections, about the war, and many things that each of us can list.) And again, what should we do about it? And more important, what do the people need and want for us to do?

One of the best things about Malcolm X was that he said "You don't believe this, and you don't want to hear this, but I'm going to tell you anyway!" And people loved that, they valued that.

so obviously when "the people are wrong" that is not a verdict for us, it is a sign of the need for intense work, of going against the tide, of even more struggle and clarity by communists (including sharp struggle with "the people"!).

And lets go further: If you think that there needs to be some kind of numerical "majority" among the masses of people (or even the masses of party members!) before the vanguard can act -- then you would be simply (and inevitably) abandoning revoltion. That is the result and implication of insisting on "formal democracy."

You will never have a numerical majority for the revolution before the revolution -- and no revolution has even had one. These are the actions of determined miniorities (in contexts where their opponents are divided and the middle forces are neutralized or paralized.)

On another point: saying that you can't run society simply by directives, should not be taken to mean that the revolution doesn't need directives (or to put it another way, that it doesn't need a leadership.)

Sometimes the revolution needs to say "we are doing this now." Sometimes there is no time to discuss the ins and outs of why -- and the focus needs to be on the ins and outs of how do we carry this out. Sometimes, people need to set aside their questions and disagreements, and act in a determined, unified, disciplined way. In fact, this is often true in political life. Sometimes the "whys" can't all be discussed, and won't be.

Take war as an analogy (just an analogy, not a proposal or example). Sometimes the order comes "take that hill." Is it appropriate to debate all the way through "why this hill?" and "why us?" Why not the other unit? What are they doing that is so important? Please give us the full battle plans? What about the reserves? Please tell us if reinforcements are coming, and if so, by what route?

Clearly, there is in warfare a need for discipline. You need larger political debate and deep unity over the goals of the struggle (over line!). Over methods, over how what we are doing serves our larger social goals. But there need to be directives.

And there needs to be subordination -- of the individual to the larger social process of revolution, of the lower level to the higher level, of the part to the whole... of the revolutionary movement to its revoltuionary leadership.

I know the word subordination shocked and infuriates every nerve ending that is influenced by anarchist and individualist thinking. But ok.... that is what needs to be said. Without saying it, there is no MLM or communism.

And such conscious, fundamentally voluntary subordination exists (naturally and inevitably) in a unity of opposites with the democracy that is needed in a revolutionary movement, a party (and in a different way, in an army). All of those three have different dynamics of democracy and centralism... but they all need democracy and centralism as a unity of opposites.

On a related point: a revolutionary vanguard party does not exist to serve its members. It is not about them. The leadership of a vanguard party is not beholden to the views and approval of the membership in some radical democratic way -- it is beholden to (and should serve) the people of the world, the proletarian struggle for communism (in the most sweeping and non-reified sense).

And in fact, it is often true (not just occasionally) that a leadership must fight for ideas, policies, plans, and directions that are (frankly and even stubbornly) opposed by the membership. Lenin was often alone. Mao was often alone. They were repeatedly not supported by their own central committees (let alone the membership at the most grassroots level.)

And in such situations (which are not rare or unusual, and which often get sharpened up at exactly the most crucial moments!) -- what should be the approach of communist organization? "Take a poll" of the rank and file and overrule Mao? Take a vote of the membership, before acting on the April Thesis of Lenin?

MLM argues that the membership must supervise leadership... and it should! But what does that mean? Does it mean (in some bourgeois democratic sense, or radical democratic sense) that the leadership must "do what the membership demands"? Or that "all major decisions must be debated at the lower level before the upper level can decide"? Absolutely not! That method wouild (and not so slowly!) lead to complete defeat -- capitulation, division, the domination of bourgeois lines, and the destruction of the cause of the revolution. There would be no communism and no hope of communism.

The membership needs to supervise whether leadership (at their next level, and all levels) is really on the communist road.

In china, the masses needed to examine whether their factory or school leadership was really upholding and applying Mao's line -- or something else!

This was not a matter of just taking a poll of the masses, and asking "what do you want us to do?" and then seeing whether the party (and Mao!) were obediant to that.

Why? Because politics and society doesn't work in such an idealist way. The workers at a shop floor literally can't know how the plan should be built -- and such a socialist economic plan literally can't be build "from the bottom up" -- why? because the factors of a socialist economy require overview, sweeping summation of the whole process (and the world situation!)

Workers can and should be involved in the creation of the plan both in the process of "going up" (summation and creation) and the process of "going down" (implementation). But not in some naive, and ultimately bouregois democratic "grassroots democracy" sense. The actually communist approach of democratic centralism is infinitely more suited to actually developing the revolutionary change -- including the correct organizaiton of productive forces, the focus of revolutionary energies, the emergence and implementation of a correct line, and also the maximum involvement of the masses in the rulng of society at each stage.

The conscious sections of the masses will never forgive us if we capitualate to them "when they are wrong." Because the masses don't just want to be tailed... they want to win, and rule and transform!

[redstar2000SE]

I can't help but wonder why flyby keeps returning to this question...every time he brings it up, he just makes things sound worse.

flyby wrote: Is it wrong to "do what you are told"? I think that is an important question for communists.

It reflects a certain "mind set"...a way of looking at the world in terms of "superiors" and "inferiors".

It is in fundamental contradiction with a communist outlook...which at least attempts to develop a critical and questioning "mind set" to all of social reality.

flyby wrote: If you think that there needs to be some kind of numerical "majority" among the masses of people (or even the masses of party members!) before the vanguard can act -- then you would be simply (and inevitably) abandoning revolution. That is the result and implication of insisting on "formal democracy."

Is this true? Would it be prudent for communists to proceed "as if" it were true?

I am not suggesting that an insurrection must be approved by a referendum of the general population or even of the party membership. But it would be extraordinarily unwise to attempt an insurrection without clear and compelling evidence of wide-spread support among the people and among the party membership.

A protracted people's war is different...it can begin with a handful of dedicated revolutionaries.

Urban rebellion in modern societies needs massive support among the masses from the beginning.

flyby wrote: Sometimes the revolution needs to say "we are doing this now." Sometimes there is no time to discuss the ins and outs of why -- and the focus needs to be on the ins and outs of how do we carry this out. Sometimes, people need to set aside their questions and disagreements, and act in a determined, unified, disciplined way. In fact, this is often true in political life. Sometimes the "whys" can't all be discussed, and won't be. -- emphasis added.

It is "often true" in bourgeois "political life"...in fact, it's routine. It's "business as usual".

Is that how the RCP wants to do things? Just tell people "this is what we're going to do" and expect everyone to "fall in line"?

flyby wrote: Take war as an analogy...

Is that a useful analogy? Should a post-revolutionary society operate "as if" it were an army?

flyby wrote: You need larger political debate and deep unity over the goals of the struggle (over line!). Over methods, over how what we are doing serves our larger social goals. But there need to be directives. -- emphasis added.

So someone thinks that the existing line really sucks -- but is nevertheless expected to implement that line in a "determined, unified, disciplined way".

Does that make sense to you?

flyby wrote: And there needs to be subordination -- of the individual to the larger social process of revolution, of the lower level to the higher level, of the part to the whole... of the revolutionary movement to its revolutionary leadership. -- emphasis added.

Yes, this is common to all the variants of Leninism.

The shrinking acceptability of Leninism in the "west" is probably due more to this particular "need" than all other matters put together.

flyby wrote: I know the word subordination shocked and infuriates every nerve ending that is influenced by anarchist and individualist thinking. But ok.... that is what needs to be said. Without saying it, there is no MLM or communism.

Setting aside the matter of "anarchism" or "individualist thinking", I don't see what subordination as such has to do with communism.

But I agree with you that without it, there could be no Leninism-Maoism...and indeed, no Leninism at all.

flyby wrote: On a related point: a revolutionary vanguard party does not exist to serve its members. It is not about them. The leadership of a vanguard party is not beholden to the views and approval of the membership in some radical democratic way -- it is beholden to (and should serve) the people of the world, the proletarian struggle for communism (in the most sweeping and non-reified sense).

This is yet another revelation. If the party and its leadership is not accountable to its membership, then the leadership may do whatever it pleases.

Why? Because the "people of the world" certainly have no power over a particular party and its leadership...except to simply ignore it.

Which is, of course, what's been happening over the last few decades in the "west".

flyby wrote: And in such situations (which are not rare or unusual, and which often get sharpened up at exactly the most crucial moments!) -- what should be the approach of communist organization? "Take a poll" of the rank and file and overrule Mao? Take a vote of the membership, before acting on the April Thesis of Lenin?

Why not? If Mao's ideas or Lenin's ideas are the better ideas (more revolutionary, reflect a more incisive grasp of social reality, more useful, etc.), will not the party and the masses be won over to those ideas?

Or are the party members and the masses "too backward" and must therefore be compelled to "do the right thing"?

Leninists usually do think that even the party membership, much less the masses, "are" too "backward".

flyby wrote: MLM argues that the membership must supervise leadership... and it should! But what does that mean? Does it mean (in some bourgeois democratic sense, or radical democratic sense) that the leadership must "do what the membership demands"? Or that "all major decisions must be debated at the lower level before the upper level can decide"? Absolutely not! That method would (and not so slowly!) lead to complete defeat -- capitulation, division, the domination of bourgeois lines, and the destruction of the cause of the revolution. There would be no communism and no hope of communism.

How does one respond to such a plainly expressed fear of the masses?

"Fear" is too mild a word -- gibbering terror is probably closer to the mark.

Power to the people means "total ruin".

flyby wrote: In China, the masses needed to examine whether their factory or school leadership was really upholding and applying Mao's line -- or something else!

It would not matter if they had done such examination or not...the local leadership was not accountable to them, it was accountable only to its superiors.

flyby wrote: Why? Because politics and society doesn't work in such an idealist way. The workers at a shop floor literally can't know how the plan should be built -- and such a socialist economic plan literally can't be build "from the bottom up" -- why? Because the factors of a socialist economy require overview, sweeping summation of the whole process (and the world situation!)

It seems to me that flyby is guilty of the very mistake that he freely attributes to others.

That is, he introduces abstract concepts like "war", "politics", "society", etc. and suggests that they have fundamental characteristics divorced from their historical and class origins and development.

If bourgeois politicians function in a certain way...well, we have to do that too -- but with a "communist line" instead of a bourgeois line.

That won't work (and didn't, in fact, work). If you replicate the processes of bourgeois society, then the abstract correctness of your line will mean very little in practice. You will be "teaching" by example...and the masses will draw the appropriate conclusions.

flyby wrote: The actually communist approach of democratic centralism is infinitely more suited to actually developing the revolutionary change -- including the correct organization of productive forces, the focus of revolutionary energies, the emergence and implementation of a correct line, and also the maximum involvement of the masses in the ruling of society at each stage.

The party leadership is not accountable to either the party membership or to the masses -- and this is (verbally) transformed into "the maximum involvement of the masses in the ruling of society".

"Dialectics" at "work". *laughs*

[celticfire]

My first reaction to flyby’s last post was, “wow! I agree with the redstar2000, this is bullshit!” But after reading it over and really thinking about it…I agree with flyby. He isn’t advertising – he isn’t promising a land of milk of honey, he isn’t telling us everything will be cool after the revolution and all the social inequalities will disappear just as soon as the proletariat takes state power. If he did he would be lying, and attempting to deceive people – but he isn’t doing that. He is telling it “like it is” so to speak.

Trotskyites often use “democracy” the same way revisionists do – in a classless way, and they use it to attack socialism and its history. We can’t take up that approach. Stalin for example – it wasn’t that Stalin was a “totalitarian” that personally dictated everything (that would be impossible anyway) – there was a conscious effort of the party of Khrushchev & co. to undermine the building of socialism and helped to widen the contradiction between the party and the masses, the leadership and the led, etc., building on the contradictions that existed in Stalin’s methodology.

But I think there is some real truth in Burningman’s point, especially that there are no “good” kings! Stalin repeatedly violated democratic centralism, and I am sure his thinking was “the backward people need this!”

Avakian’s has often pointed out that even with a correct line and methodology, you can’t always be right. And I am sure Bob would agree leadership needs supervision, and accountability, but that does not override the contradiction that sometimes problems can’t be “put to a vote” - or even discussed by the broad masses of people. The mass line demands that the masses be brought into control in every sphere possible as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean everything can be put to voting, or discussion.

And as much as it annoys redstar2000 war is a reality. China faced real threats from the Soviet Union and I’m sure the threat of war will loom over the next revolution too. We are wrenching away power from the bourgeoisie – and seriously doubt they will passively watch as we construct socialism – they will do everything in their power to undermine revolution and the construction of socialism.

Socialist society will bring real and unparalleled democracy for the masses of people—but that does not mean and can not mean that there wont also be limitations and new contradictions.

[Burningman]

Celticfire: The mass line demands that the masses be brought into control in every sphere possible as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean everything can be put to voting, or discussion.

What do you think the Mass Line is?

[Burningman]

Let me put forward a few more questions:

What is the difference between state ownership and socialism?

What class does the party become if it has unaccountable control over culture, politics and the economy, particularly if their rule faces no form of popular check, by the proletariat or anyone else for that matter?

Does the "proletarian line" have anything to do with the actually existing proletariat?

What does capitalism's restoration in China and the Soviet Union by the Communist Party itself , with no mass revolts by the proletariat or peasantry, mean to future efforts to build socialism "on the communist road?"

What is the nature of "proletarian democracy?" Has Avakian just written democracy off? And if so, what would Lenin, Marx and other significant leaders of communism think about that?

One political leader in South Asia said he thought there were still those in the commuist movement who preferred feudalism to capitalism. I wonder what he was talking aboutl...

Flyby says that "wrangling" is important, but looked at from here... outside the camp of the one-true-and-only, it souncs like a group of ideolgues wants to take power and "wrangle" the rest of us into doing what we're told, for our own good, whether we agree or not, and if we don't like that, then we're suffering from some bourgeois delusion. Which seems a little... strange. Particularly from a group that's uses words like "liberation." What does it mean to be liberated? To have a good king, who listens and cares?

RedStar's point that the masses of people have "voted" to ignore the parties that think like this in the West is obviously true. And in response to that point, I've heard nothing but silence.

Isn't the problem with the bourgeoisie that they make the rest of us into their slaves? That social labor becomes the property of a class, not the people? Wouldn't Flyby's plan subject the rest of us to state capitalism, without the benefits of even "bourgeois right?" In effect, trading one set of bosses in for another -- minus all that freedom of conscience, assembly, speech, and press that many bourgeois dictatorships have IN FACT granted?

Many of the most creative communists who fled Nazi Germany didn't go to the Soviet Union. Why was that? Why did they instead largely come to bourgeois democracies?

Anyone care to guess?

These are just questions... and they are obvious questions that any person interested in advancing humanity must ask. Flyby's answers may seem like "necessary truths," but they are naive and willfully blind to the lessons of history... which is frightening. Because while we can discuss this now, under capitalist democracy, should THAT line come into power... have no doubt that even a forum as small as this would certainly find itself shut down. Because that IS what happened over and over again. With the critics murdered, disappeared and slandered as "agents of Hitler" or whatever the pejorative of the month was.

FUCK THAT.

I have much to say in response to Flyby. That said, I'm curious what other people think and how they are, or aren't, grappling with these questions.

One thing I'd like to say about Brother Malcolm X, love him as I do, is that he was not a socialist. He was certainly not a communist. He was a revolutionary nationalist, with all the vices that go along with that ideology. He was, after all, a minister. He was profoundly male chauvinist and patriarchal. He believed in mystical truths, and for much of his life promoted "truths" that were anything but. He built an organization that appealed to the Black middle class and represented their class interests. From the old school "talented tenth" right through to Malcolm, there was a deep thread of "uplifting the race" through messianic leaders that would answer people's problems and lead them like Moses to the promised land. Malcom was better than that, and his genius was in bringing change OUT of people, not imposing it on them.

Malcolm X was not interested in formal democracy, but in the power of black people. Real power, over social institutions that served their nation. He got on a deep level that "democratic representation" by demogogues wasn't going to cut it. But he failed to answer the questions he put out there. So has Flyby, frankly.

Capitalism has a way of doing things: bosses and workers, owners and owned. Socialism isn't just a re-direction of that system. It is "real power" over "real institutions." And if revolutionaries don't grasp the means of creating "new needs," as Herbert Marcuse pointed out so long ago, then they are doomed to the repeat of tragedies.

This will be an interesting discussion.

[celticfire]

Mass Line: Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action.

The mass line as I understand it is being rigoruosly upheld by the RCP and it's supporters.

Now if I am wrong, and the RCP does want unaccountable leaders with a dash of Stalinist patriarchy - then I unite firmly with you in your criticism Burningman. I personally think Avakian has upheld proletarian democracy and the mass line while at the same time studying the short comings of the forms and methods of the past, including Stalin's methods.

I've agreed with you largely Burningman with most of your statements about socialist democracy and the need to radically advance it to work to serve the masses of people and overcome the difficulties of the past. But I honestly don't see what you are arguing for now - no leadership, direct democracy, anarchism? I'm certainly not for Stalin's methods, and I don't think flyby or the RCP is either. So I am very confused about what you are arguing for here?

[repeater]

First off it is clear that this thread is about formal democracy. This point has been lost in the criticisms of flyby by both redstar and burningman. The entire point of his post as I see it is that popular conceptions of democracy are imbued with a class content which expresses itself in reification of the democratic process. Highest above all these processes is the act of voting.

Flyby's point

if we (in the U.S.) don't see that, after all our own experience, with all the bullshit of bourgeois democracy, then we have to ask 'what is the material, class basis for that blindness?'

should be seriously considered. Instead burningman has chosen to ignore the problems of democracy, to put forward the very illusions that flyby is discussing here, and to willfully misrepresent the RCP in relation to all this.

You wish to throw questions around, but let me ask you to define your own position burningman.

What is Democracy? What is Stalinism?

In this discussion we have taken voting as the quintessential formal act of democracy. Is voting truly liberating? Do you really have a say in this democracy when you vote? No, you don't and historically the masses never have in any democracy. Consider this when you suggest that flyby is naively ignoring historical lessons. The fact remains that the advent of bourgeois democracy, just as capitalism, has wrought the most violent and oppressive era in human history.

And further, for you to uphold bourgeois rights in such a classless way, effectively reifying them is, to my mind incredibly naive. What does the right to assembly, and freespeech mean in this society? I think The Clash summed it up best when they said, "you have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it."

You keep raising the spector of Stalin in this discussion. I can only ask how much do you actually know about it? How was the Soviet Union organized politically? Moreover what does this mean for the experience in China? Were the Chinese just Stalinists?

No one voted on the Cultural Revolution and yet it was the most democratic experience in human history. Even Redstar will agree with this up to a point.

No one voted to end protitution in China, or to put an end to the opium trade, or syphilis, and yet all these efforts led by the Communist Party of China were profoundly democratic.

But there was also centralism. If the people of China had been of the mind to not eliminate prostitution and the opium trade would it have been right for the Communist Party to agree to that?

How and why were these efforts so profoundly democratic when there was, as you would put it, "no accountability of the leadership to the masses"?

Or do you see the unleashing of millions of people, using the mass line and democratic centralism, to actively partake in politics and transform the world for the better as mere "consultation".

I would really like to see you take these issues seriously. I want to hold you accountable for your line, which is expressed, as I've said before, in purely critical terms. What is your position? What do you stand for? Not what do you stand against, because no one here believes in totalitarian methods, creating political drones, and stifling dissent. You keep ascribing these things to the RCP despite both a completely different methodolgy in their mass work and clear positions against such methods in both Avakian's writings and elsewhere.

I believe that ultimately your line is not about moving anywhere new on this question, and that you use the spectre of Stalinism to argue a liberal position, this is Trotskyism. But in the absence of a clear position from you all we have are skewed criticisms, based upon the "common knowledge" of contemporary politics.

As for your comment about the South Asian leader, this is a really stupid way of bringing into the discussion something we all decided we wouldn't talk about. I could very simply finish the thought which you started by arguing the logical conclusion of this leader's line, but instead I'll simply say that Bush has essentially argued the same thing as this leader in the face of criticisms of his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the point of Malcolm X, the fact that he was patriarchal and held many incorrect views does not discount those views of his which were correct. The essence of what Flyby was bringing out in that quote was simply dodged by you when you decided to attack other aspects of Malcolm's line.

[celticfire]

repeater said:

No one voted on the Cultural Revolution and yet it was the most democratic experience in human history.

Just to add to repeater's comments, there were many things "voted on" under socialism formally, but the point here and Burningman agreed earlier that sometimes formal democracy does miss the point, and as communists we have to lead the struggle against the capitalist-roaders who would attempt to take power (very undemocratically I might add). Hence the Cultural Revolution.

It seems to me that Burningman is arguing for a Constituent Assembly of some kind. Would you [Burningman] allow the reactionaries to participate too? The KKK? The Christian Coalition? That seems like what the Sandinista's (sp?) did to me Burningman, which you rejected earlier.