Hong Kong
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“All the adults are in the room but we have a nasty child playing in the backyard”
The lunatics in the insane asylum don’t count. I mean the competent adults.
You are a product of your own society populated by men who are like little children and spend their whole life playing around and never take social , Economical , class consciousness and adulthood. This forum was created in order to learn, discuss and study the socialist party case it is not a place to realize your own psychological catharsis. I think you are in the wrong place. In clinical psychology there is a personality known as bizarre personality and you fulfill all the requirements
“This forum was created in order to learn, discuss and study the socialist party case”
That’s precisely what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to learn what is your strategy for combating the inevitable counter-revolutionary violence. Instead I hear there will be none, Lol, or I’m insulted. Why won’t anyone directly answer the question?
Here’s what I think. You won’t answer the question because you cannot deny you need leaders to organise military violence. You can’t run an army in which every decision is run through committees of soldiers. It just wouldn’t work. You’d be destroyed by the side that doesn’t do that. Instead of facing this reality you obfuscate. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.
This website is devoted to world socialism.
We have no interest in nation-states or in their rivalries and squabbles. We are not nationalists nor patriots. In both world wars, members of this organisation were required to either go on the run to avoid compulsory military conscription or they were sent to labour camps – Yes, Britain had its form of gulags, too.
“Taiwan is a province of China…There is only one China…”
What surprised me is your support for nationalism. What does it matter to you if the ROC remains separate or if it becomes part of the PRC? Why are you so emotionally attached to the idea of unification? What concern is it of you if a region chooses self-determination?
“The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground.”- Karl Marx,
“The revolutionary proletariat will have neither to keep its ancient nationalities nor to constitute new ones, because by becoming free it will abolish classes: the world will be its fatherland.” – Paul Lafargue, Marx’s son-in-law
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” – Thomas Paine
“Nature made us relatives by creating us from the same materials and for the same destiny.”- Seneca (4-65 A.D.)
‘…The poor have no country, in all lands, they suffer from the same evils, and they, therefore, realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be the more thoroughly to enslave the people must fall’ – International Working Men’s Association.
‘In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights”’ – Rosa Luxemburg
‘Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.” Arundhati Roy
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; and I am a citizen of the world.” – Eugene Debs
But to return to your own national chauvinist beliefs. You don’t mention that the indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan have been dispossessed and oppressed for hundreds of years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_indigenous_peoples
If any group has a claim to Taiwan it is those people, the original Taiwanese, ethnically very different from the Han.
These islanders have been subject to colonisation and invasion by the Dutch, the Mainland Han, the Japanese and then the Kuomintang army.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Taiwanese
As world socialists, our interest extends to every industry and every country. What happens to the workers anywhere is the business of us here. We are not at all worried about the accusation that we are “poking our noses” into matters that do not concern us.
However, your position is very much different. You don’t take the side of your class but support particular governments.
Still no answer, eh Alan? This is comical. I’ll ask yet again! How are your lot going to deal with counter-revolutionary violence? How? How? How? How? How? How?
This video seems made about you lot. It’s title, “The Uselessness of the Western Left”. Enjoy.
The Left has always assumed that there will be counter-revolution by the threatened ruling class. It is propped up by something Robber Baron, Jay Gould, once suppose to have stated that he could hire one-half the workers to kill the other half.
Marx had observed how the slave-owners of the Confederacy resorted to armed resistance to the possibility of the emancipation slaves. Marx expected a similar “slaveholders revolt” once the working class began to use the political power they had captured peacefully to legally dispossess the capitalists and landlords. It was Marx’s view that, in the end. the working class would have to use the full power of the state machine, including actual physical force, against a recalcitrant capitalist minority, in order to establish socialism.
We do not dismiss such a rear-guard action by the ruling class as impossible but in the key countries, we consider such a counter-revolution as unlikely because our strategy is based upon a majoritarian principles as the CM explains.
“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.”
Our case is one that is based on the old Chartist axiom, “peacefully if possible, forcefully if necessary?
Our goal is a volutarist society which leads to the conclusion that the means cannot be coercive.
That is a very difficult concept for you to accept, I know that.
The position of the SPGB is that the control of the state neutralises the threat of a recalcitrant capitalist class thwarting the will of a class conscious majority, which is the precondition of establishing socialism. The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class. In many of the so-called revolutionary situations in the past that majority did not exist within the working class .
Can we prove that achieving socialism requires little bloodshed? The SPGB has perhaps the most thought out argument for maintaining that there is all possibility that socialism can be achieved by little violence. Its been discussed and debated within the SPGB since it began all through the various stands of popular contemporary political currents of the time, from insurrectionists to syndicalism. So far, it has been a matter of the Socialist Party unfortunately saying “we told you so” and that hurts and gives no satisfaction to most SPGB members. We want to be proved wrong and that somehow there is a shortcut to socialism. But we are a miserable lot of gloom and doom merchants, but again at same time, we are rosy eyed optimists too in our views that the workers are fully capable of eventually understanding socialism and organising for it with the minimum of social disruption and upheaval and chaos, normally associated with revolution.
The SPGB case is a valid proposition for the working class to choose or reject and it should not be denied to them though omission or by misinterpretation. The SPGB position is that we deem it as very unlikely that the capitalist class would be capable of resisting socialism violently and have argued that in my posts.
Our view is that the power of dictatorships ultimately comes from the willing obedience of the people they govern. All hierarchical systems require the cooperation of people at every level, from the lowliest workers to the highest bureaucrats. Despots depend on the population’s cooperation and submissiveness – and if the people effectively withhold their consent, even the strongest of regimes can collapse. Without the consent of the working class – either their active support or their passive acquiescence the ruling class would have little power and little basis for rule.
The only place violence comes into the revolutionary process is to defend the new revolutionary system from attack by the ancien regime. Similarly, the political content of a given struggle against capital does not rely on whether the working class has taken up arms against the State. Rather, the political content needs to be judged according to the social relationships forged in the struggle. The only violence in which we should engage is that which is reasonably necessary in self defence
Although we always have the right to use reasonable force in self defence, it is sometimes the wiser course not to exercise that right. Sometimes it’s better to take the hit and make our enemy pay by exposing them publicly. This can be especially effective when the perpetrator has a reputation to uphold. And sometimes the best response to violence is not counter-violence.
One argument in favour of minimising the resort to violence by our movement is that we take damage every time we use it. Even when the use of force is justified, we take damage – it’s just that, in those circumstances, we take less damage by using force than by not using it. We take damage because the use of force encourages the authoritarian idea that might makes right. It disorients people on our side and entrenches our opponents in their positions. The more force we have to use in the course of the Revolution to prevail, the more difficult will be our problems afterwards.
If we must use force in self defence, then let us do it without hesitation and with all vigour necessary to prevail in the concrete situation. But let us not use force to substitute for having insufficient numbers on our side, because that is a confession of political weakness.
What defeated the attempted Kapp Putsch in Germany 1920. The trade unions did. They downed tools. Folded arms rather than taking to arms is an option.
We do not envisage a Red Army or Workers’ Militia but that by holding constitutional power we state clearly in our Declaration of Principles Clause 6
That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
The working class in possession of the State holds the ability of force to ensure the capitalist class gives up its position of privilege.
TS
That’s precisely what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to learn what is your strategy for combating the inevitable counter-revolutionary violence. Instead I hear there will be none, Lol, or I’m insulted. Why won’t anyone directly answer the question?
Your question has already been answered but you are refusing to open your ears and listen
Our conception of socialism – the Marxian one – requires that a significant majority of the population first want and understand it. It cannot be imposed from above by some tiny clique of Leninist vanguardists
In the process of arriving at that socialist majority, the entire social outlook will almost inevitably and progressively change in an incremental fashion. Socialist and democratic ideas cannot gain traction, grow and flourish in the same soil as undemocratic or pro-capitalist ideas. One can only grow at the expense of the other
What does that mean? It means by the time socialists constitute a significant majority of the population and socialism is on the cards, the character of the opposition to socialism will have changed as well in line with the change in the entire ethos of society. Even socialism’s sternest opponents will be far more heavily be influenced by democratic values than is the case today.
In this situation, the likelihood of a recalcitrant minority attempting to violently resist the democratic will of the majority is absolutely minimal. Even in capitalism, as has been explained to you many times, when the will of the majority is peacefully and vigorously asserted, dictatorships crumble. The collapse of state capitalist dictatorships in Eastern Europe was accomplished with little or no bloodshed (apart from Rumania, if I remember correctly).
The “people’s will” is an irresistible force once it gets going and no army however heavily armed can defeat it. Besides the armed forces by the time socialism is on the cards will itself have been heavily influenced by socialist ideas as well as the climate of opinion in society changes. The idea that some crazed General can direct soldiers to flout the clear will of the majority is ludicrous and there are plenty of historical precedents to prove this point.
So it’s sheer romantic nonsense on your part to imagine you need some kind of large-scale military force organized on authoritarian lines to deal with some imagined counter-revolutionary threat. Since you are not a socialist but a bourgeois nationalist, you take as your template of “revolution”, the violent civil wars to eject some existing capitalist government and install another. This is implicit in your whole line of thinking. You are not looking at this issue as a socialist might.
The SPGB does not rule out completely the possibility that there might some small-scale violent resistance. This will have to be dealt with but it doesn’t require battalions of military personnel to squash the resistance. That’s an absurd scenario on your part. The vast majority of non-socialists – a minority of the population – by the time socialism is on the cards will almost certainly just go along peacefully with what society as a whole has decided. It would not be in their interests to support a handful of nutters taking to the hills with their Kalashnikovs to foment violence and they would see this.
And any minimal support for violently resisting the new freely established social order will pretty soon die out as the benefits it brings soon enough become apparent to all
This turn in discussion reminds me of the absolute poverty of Trotsky’s writing. I’d been led by his acolytes to expect some sort of major political insights, but the reality is his message was “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for civil war.” Of course, if you premise is civil war, then you need a command control apparatus for an army, and that shapes the conception of the party, if, instead you envisage a political process based on the overwhelming majority of people acting in their own interests, you don’t need that command control apparatus. This isn’t spontaneism, it’s simply democracy as the means to the end. Democracy and conspiratorial/minority organising are incompatible, and this goes to the heart of this whole debate.
To précis the previous replies, if a minority attempt to disrupt the majority and the overthrow of capitalism through violent means, we would organise a forceful response based on delegated, capable group of those willing and able to take on that role. As I have said before, real Socialists are not sheep, we do not need a leader to organise our selves and take necessary action.
In terms of who would take part in the “capable group” I strongly suspect that you won’t be part of that group so you can change your soiled undergarment, go back to the frat house and return to watching re runs of “friends”.
BD, it is strange how different people perceive others on the internet.
You appear to have the impression that TS is some youthful student type who has adopted certain views that were once very fashionable but now viewed as redundant and superfluous.
Whereas I have the assumption that TS is someone getting on in years, unable to jettison his original entrenched position when they were superseded by improved analysis and new information.
I don’t remember how many times we have explained to this Taliban the socialist party marxist case, but like they say in Jamaica: You can not insert water in a dry coconut.
His problem is that he came here to give lectures, and he is just an amateur and he does not have any socialist principles, he is just a nationalist supporting the Chinese capitalist government, we are not living in the time of the USA civil war when two capitalist class confronted each others in order to take the resources and the slaves for their own benefits using the poor peoples.
We do not have the mentality of a white supremacists militia, or an American militia, or a Texan Red Guard to confront the state and they can be wiped out completely by the strong forces of the state apparatus and the majority of the peoples are not going to support them
We are not a Leninist vanguard party conducted by leaders and cadres with Blanquist mentality who believe that a minority armed to the teeth can revolve the problem of a majority without political and socialist consciousness. We need socialists to make a revolution and to create a pos capitalists society
His best choice would be the group conducted by Bob Avian and he can be kicked out due to his support of the Chinese government
Our case is easy to be understood because it is logical and coherent and everything is written, and everything has been published, but old peoples say: If you want to eat fresh fish you must wet your ass, which means you must do your own homework, you must be humble and recognize that you are politically ignorant and instead of providing answers you must ask questions.
Lenin and Stalin spent their whole life talking about counter revolutionary, but their were the real counter revolutionary because they were a minority groups who took power thru a coup and impose themselves as a minority group and they were scare that a majority of peoples were going to over throw them.
In a socialist society the majority of workers are not going to shoot themselves on the foot against their own will, they are not going to comeback to the past, they are not going to leave a free access society and voluntary labor society to become slaves again , the slave is not going to oppress his/her selves, a minority might try to go against socialism, but they are not going to succeed, even more, in a socialist revolution some member of the capitalist class would be forced to become part of the society, they do not have any other choice, those are Leninist,blanquist and terrorist pipe dreams.
In order to have capitalism again we must have a ruling class, means of production in their hands, how are they going to get the means of production when they are common possession of the majority of the human beings ? , that is completely illogical, they are not going to try to do that, and money would become tailor paper and paper to cover the walls for decorations. Leninists are like evangelicals they believe everything written by Lenin and the bolsheviks
We have had Leninist theoretician in this forum and honestly they have recognized their mistakes, but he does not want to learn anything, he is just playing like those young guys that are always playing video games and using you tube to make jokes, bullying against each others, and publishing caricatures and stupidities.
The socialist party case is for political matured socialists and peoples willing to learn, and it takes time to learn it, I am still a student of the Socialist Party
alanjjohnstone
Participant
BD, it is strange how different people perceive others on the internet.You appear to have the impression that TS is some youthful student type who has adopted certain views that were once very fashionable but now viewed as redundant and superfluous.
Whereas I have the assumption that TS is someone getting on in years, unable to jettison his original entrenched position when they were superseded by improved analysis and new information.
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Those were ideas which became popular during the 60 and the 70 proven that they were completely wrongs, many peoples are still living in the past and they romanticize the past. In that time the solution for many peoples was to have a rifle and to confront the police, that is reason why so many young peoples were killed. Those old ideas have been replaced with real socialist conceptions. Those ideas created the Black Panthers and they were killed by the forces of the state, most guerrillas groups were wiped out completely and some became presidents of a capitalist state like the president of Brasil and Uruguay
It is indeed strange Alan, in fact from the internet I have the impression that you are are a pessimistic and wily Scotsman of a certain age, where in fact I am informed that you are a youthful, playful, optimist from the Home Counties.
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I am an old Fox and I have the force of a young person, and I believe that mankind as a majority force is going to rise up against capitalism and will establish a new society.I am a Lone Ranger and I do not give up I will continue until I die, but if we are frustrated and burn out we become depressed and we lose the vision that a majority of peoples will win the battle, most of the peoples that I knew they gave up and they became pessimists because they had the wrong principles in their brains, we have survived as a group because we do not have any leaders.
I went thru hundreds of splits based on leadership, like pastors from a church taking with him some members of the congregation to form a new congregation, and from a new congregation another leader formed their own group, it is a perverse and volatile ideology
The Leninist do not believe that workers by themselves can obtain freedom from capitalism because they do not have an independent mentality, the will spend their whole wait lives depending on a leader and electing leaders, they are like sheeps who always need a shepherd, like peoples in church they always need a pastor.
They have an obsession with leadership, counter revolution, conspiracy theories, and CIA agents
Just look at this message,(223373 ) these are messages for little children, my grand son is a child and he spends time playing with caricatures, and the personalities of Disneyland, this is not a political message. It is child play
When we were child we were always reading comics books, epic novels, cowboy movies and we had a romantic vision about the world
My father always told me: The difference between a man and a child is the type of toys that you play with. I play with the matured ideas of the socialist party and I do not educate myself with comics and epics books
In any way, the video is completely wrong because it is not what Don Quijote is all about, and in order to understand it properly it must be read in the old Castilian language, and it is part of the rich literature world of Spain which wrote many famous novels, and they had many good writers in that historic period, it is a wonderful experience to read the Spanish novel, and they were heavily influenced by the Arabs.
world,Second point we aren’t leftists, and leftism actually means reformism, and he is part of the nationalist left, the concept has lost the meaning or the approach that Lenin had with the left communists, and leftism was never a revolutionary concept since the very beginning. The ICC has created a concept known as the left of capital
The concept of Western, west, and Eastern has theological origin and that division was created by the Vatican and the Catholic Church
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