“Healing the First International” – A CCS public meeting this Thursday

[Jonny K.]

Hello… I hope I understand rightly that it's okay to publicize a non-SPGB public meeting here?

This Thursday, 31st January, I'm introducing a public meeting for the Communist Corresponding Society on the title "Healing the First International", at 7.30 pm in the meeting room at the Anchor Inn, Bradford Street, Digbeth, Birmingham. 

The format is up to 20 minutes introductory talk by the speaker (me, in this case), then a usually fairly informal open and free discussion around the topic for an hour or two (depending on how well it goes!). 

As you might guess from the title, I'm approaching this with an inclination that there is a need for rapprochement among the anarchist, left communist, and other Marxist traditions; and my very tentative thesis is that a lot of division emerges as in so many sectarian disputes from differences in use of language, conflicting and mutually incomprehensible jargons. 

I say 'thesis'; in fact, I mostly just have vague questions that I hope will spark discussion from people more knowledgeable than I.

Since an SPGBer who usually attends our public meeting series won't be able to make it to this month's, I'm particularly keen to have more people of a left-communist perspective come, especially to this meeting, given its focus.

[jondwhite]

Hi Jonny K,the description for the Events and announcements subforum reads "Publicise non-spgb events, publications etc. SPGB events should be added to the 'upcoming events' section " so it is welcomed to publish non-SPGB events here. I am not in Birmingham but I hope SPGB members will attend. If you can, let us know how it went.

[Jonny K.]

Cool, thanks.

[Jonny K.]

So… sadly, I think I was the most left-communist person there (well, I'm left-communist or anarchist on some things, Leninist on others, actually)… just the usual suspects, mostly; which, in Birmingham, is CPGB-ML and their associates. No anarchists or guardian readers (despite Martin Rowson publicizing the meeting on his twitter feed)…. no impossibilists (despite me publicizing the meeting in their forum, albeit with very short notice )… so it was inevitably somewhat one-sided.But I read some Kropotkin out (without saying in advance who the author was), and the Stalinists happily approved it. So that was nice. Er… and, well, what I ended up saying (and I only really reached this position *as* I said it, as I was thoroughly ill-prepared) was that I thought that perhaps part of the difference over the state between ultraleft-communists/anarchists and not-so-left-communists *was* down to mutually unintelligible jargons, but part of the difference was rather more substantial.So, the – I contend – insubstantial, semantic part first. When a Marxist Leninist, say (so, a Trot, a Stalinist, a Hoxhaite, a what-you-will), says 'state', they mean 'the mechanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class'. Expressed in these minimal terms, I find it difficult to see how any revolutionary communist, howsoever left- they may be, would not agree that, following the revolution, the proletariat would have to resist violent counterrevolution from the minority former ruling class. (I dearly wished there was an SPGB member present when I came to that point; because I'm putting words into the mouths of a movement I do not know enough about to analyze with any confidence. I'd be delighted if anyone can either correct me or confirm my proposition.)However, I argued, there is another function of the state, well, another function that a not-SPGB Marxist would, I think, have to ascribe to the post-revolutionary socialist state. The post-revolutionary state (which, let's be clear, doesn't have to mean a party, a subset of the (former) proletariat – it can mean the proletariat as a whole, acting in whatever suitably democratic way it sees fit) will have to subjugate not onlly the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, but also the interests of individual (former) proletarians. Because, in a sense, we will not yet be former proletarians. As long as we do not have sufficient automation and superabundance to permit each person to work only as much as they voluntarily will work, and only on the things that they want to work on, it will be necessary to oblige people to work (perhaps in the same way people are obliged to work under capitalism; perhaps in a different, less morally repugnant way).And we cannot, I think we (anarchists, left-communists, Leninists) would all agree, expect that such a level of superabundance and automation will ever be achieved under capitalism.So I end up at a position of thinking that this is a genuine sticking point between the two sides on the question of the state. And I cannot see how we can expect to be able to instantaneously have communism (no state, no classes, no private ownership of the means of production) under the socioeconomic conditions immediately inherited from dying capitalism.I'm sure I'm rehearsing ancient arguments that have been had often before by others between possibilism and impossibilism (or possibly just gibbering inanely). Forgive me.But yeah… on questions of power structures and organization within the socialist movement and any future socialist society, I find a lot of merit in the positions of left-communists and anarchists (I see no value in vanguardism or democratic centralism or even the existence of a party at all; and I value participatory and/or direct forms of democracy); but on the need for transitional forms of society between capitalism and full communism, I'm with the Leninists.

[Jonny K.]

[EDIT: sorry, double-post]

[ALB]

Jonny K. wrote:

When a Marxist Leninist, say (so, a Trot, a Stalinist, a Hoxhaite, a what-you-will), says 'state', they mean 'the mechanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class'. Expressed in these minimal terms, I find it difficult to see how any revolutionary communist, howsoever left- they may be, would not agree that, following the revolution, the proletariat would have to resist violent counterrevolution from the minority former ruling class. (I dearly wished there was an SPGB member present when I came to that point; because I'm putting words into the mouths of a movement I do not know enough about to analyze with any confidence. I'd be delighted if anyone can either correct me or confirm my proposition.)

Well, yes. Our position is that a democratically-demonstrated socialist majority would not/should not allow, should it occur, a "recalictrant minority" to impede the establishment of socialism by violent action and that, if they tried, they would have to be dealt with one way or another if necessary by arms. As the Chartists put it, "peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must". Whether or not a minority of anti-socialists would be prepared to take up arms against an overwhelming majority is another matter. There is no reason to think that it will necessarily happen.and some reasons to think that it might not. So your "would have to resist violent counter-revolution" should more correctly be "would have to in the event of…"In any event, we can't imagine the whole capitalist class and their hangers-on being prepared to do this, even though (peaceful) political power will be being used to dispossess them. That will be the action of one class (the working class) agains another class (them). Since this action need not involve violence the Leninist definition you give of the state as "the mecanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class" could be misleading unless it is explained that "force" doesn't necessarily mean physical violence and armed suppression. It just means the exercise of political power.  But of course Leninists don't envisage the working class as such imposing their will on the capitalist class. They envisage themselves, as the self-appointed "vanguard of the working class" doing this, a quite different matter.

Jonny K. wrote:

However, I argued, there is another function of the state, well, another function that a not-SPGB Marxist would, I think, have to ascribe to the post-revolutionary socialist state. The post-revolutionary state (which, let's be clear, doesn't have to mean a party, a subset of the (former) proletariat – it can mean the proletariat as a whole, acting in whatever suitably democratic way it sees fit) will have to subjugate not onlly the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, but also the interests of individual (former) proletarians. Because, in a sense, we will not yet be former proletarians. As long as we do not have sufficient automation and superabundance to permit each person to work only as much as they voluntarily will work, and only on the things that they want to work on, it will be necessary to oblige people to work (perhaps in the same way people are obliged to work under capitalism; perhaps in a different, less morally repugnant way).

After the state has been used to dispossess the capitalist class then classes will have been abolished and the working class will become "former proletarians" just as the capitalist class will have become former capitalists. This being the case (even on the Leninist definition of the state you quote above: for one class to oppress another) there will be no longer any need for a state and it can be dismantled (i.e. the coercive aspects of the central administration lopped off). Socialism will have been established and there will no longer be a state.In fact, our view is that the term "socialist state" is a contradiction in terms ((like "Marxist-Leninist!"). There could be no physical coercion to get people to work since with no state there'd be no way of doing this. (if there was, then there wouldn't be socialism). Why should there be? People who had just carried out a socialist revolution (the dispossession of the capitalist class) would surely have done this in the knowledge that, this done, they would still have to work and would still want to work, if only to keep socialism going.

Jonny K. wrote:

So I end up at a position of thinking that this is a genuine sticking point between the two sides on the question of the state. And I cannot see how we can expect to be able to instantaneously have communism (no state, no classes, no private ownership of the means of production) under the socioeconomic conditions immediately inherited from dying capitalism. (….) But yeah… on questions of power structures and organization within the socialist movement and any future socialist society, I find a lot of merit in the positions of left-communists and anarchists (I see no value in vanguardism or democratic centralism or even the existence of a party at all; and I value participatory and/or direct forms of democracy); but on the need for transitional forms of society between capitalism and full communism, I'm with the Leninists.

You are right that the argument that as long as there is not (super) abundance there will therefore be the need for a necessarily coercive state is a Leninist argument put forward by both Lenin (who said it would be needed to enforce the "bourgeois right" of some receiving more than others for working more) and Trotsky (who said it would be needed to make people stand in line for their rationed supplies of consumer goods and services). There are two separate questions here:1. Will socialist society, even in its early days, really not be in a position to produce enough of the things people need to live and enjoy life? Given the end of the artificial scarcity (production stopping at the amount beyond which it is no longer profitable to go) and the organised waste (not just wars and preparations for war but also all the resources devoted to buying and selling and money shuffling including collecting and spending taxes), it should be possible to go over to free access very rapidly after the establishment of socialism. "Superabundance" is a red herring; all that is necessary is the ability to produce enough for all.2. Even on your assumption that this won't be the case, it doesn't follow that there would therefore be a need for a state to coerce people to work and stand in line for their food, etc as advocated (and implemented) by Leninists. There are various non-Leninist, non-State proposals of how to deal with this perceived problem: labour-time vouchers as advocated by the De Leonists of the Socialist Labor Party of America, the Dutch Council Communists and the advocates of Parecon. We don't think much of these blueprints but at least they don't envisage a State like the Leninists do.

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