Is this how capitalist rule will end?
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We are often told that the last capitalist government would not accept the verdict of an election which resulted in a socialist victory. Rather than give up power it would suspend the constitution and establish a dictatorship, so that a socialist majority would have to fight its way to power in the end. Examples are given of this happening in the face of an opposition electoral victory (Spain and Chile are favorite examples). This could happen but there are counter-examples that are rarely mentioned such as the surrender of the last state-capitalist governments in East Germany and Czechoslovakia (and that simply to mass popular pressure, not even an election defeat). What happened last week in Sri Lanka might be another example:
Quote:Sri Lanka's new government is investigating an alleged attempt by former President Rajapaksa to mount a coup after election results showed that he would lose last Thursday's general election to a former ally.
The inquiry will test the army's loyalty to the newly elected President Sirisena, and mars what had appeared to be a peaceful and democratic transition.
"The first thing the new cabinet will investigate is the coup and conspiracy by [former] President Rajapaksa," Mangala Samaraweera, the spokesman for the new president said.
He alleged that Mr Rajapaksa organised a meeting of the army and police in the hope of stopping vote counting, after internal polling pointed to his defeat. Mr Rajapaksa had as many as 800 police and military officers guarding his residence on election night.
The attempted coup failed when several officers declined to answer Mr Rajapaksa's request, according to Mr Samaraweera, and it was only then that he conceded defeat.
"He stepped down only when the army chief and the police Inspector-General refused to go along with him," he claimed.
Mr Rajapaksa, who was south Asia's longest-serving leader, battled persistent allegations of corruption, nepotism and other abuses during the campaign, but was widely praised for conceding the election in a peaceful manner early on Friday, even before the last votes had been counted. He vacated his office and the official presidential residence, saying that he respected the people's mandate.
(The Times, 12 January)
Of course, in Chile, as I've been reading up recently, it wasn't an automatic process. They had to assasinate the head of the army, Schneider, and then his sucessor managed to discredit himself at the worst possible time…it's like a football goal, fifty percent planning, fifty percent luck, to pull off a coup.
Another interesting coup was the one that overthrew the dictatorship in Portugal in 1974. This showed that no regime that looses the confidence of the armed forces can survive:https://portugueserevolution25thapril1974.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/a-bloodless-coup/Of course a military coup by socialist-minded junior army officers is not how capitalist rule is going to be ended !
Transcendentalism, that is, believing in ideal beings such as heroes, martyrs, and saints, or messiahs and saviors are all part of the culture and tradition perpetrated by capitalism, it is thousands of years of brainwashing that it is hard-wired in our emotional system, the origin of which is already lost in the archetype of human history. For as long as transcendentalism is the prevailing thought of our society, the ruling elite will use it to maintain their domination.sardaan Ordinarian
I see the end of capitalist rule through the workers five basic principle:1.Don't be a burden!2.Be independent!3. Strive to be equal and be counted!4. Be practical!5. Learn and improve!Very basic and easy to understand, and they already had a grasp of them.Once the workers of the world formally unite (they are already united informally) to those principles there's really nothing much the capitalist can do to stop it. Yes, there will be a bit of reaction and resistance but what are they going to do to counter the principles, become suddenly generous like giving the workers more higher wages?As capitalist rule vanish, I only see a society where the only way of life is education and science.sardaan Ordinarian
I don't know where you get these 5 principles from, hazarding a guess you've just pulled them out of thin air, but they've got nothing to do with socialism. Perhaps you could add "Work makes free" as number 6?
Considering the fact that the world consists of hundreds of states (and state-like organizations), I guess that we are going to see examples of both. In some cases, there might be no attempt to organize a coup, in others this will be attempted and fail and in some more the workers will be refused seizing power democratically and perhaps even subjected to a great deal of violence.Even if the revolutionary workers are to take care of ‘their own’ nation states, the proletariat as a whole will be in conflict with the capitalist class as a whole and the entire process is not likely to take place over the course of a few weeks.I think we should expect both advances and setbacks and aim for a final victory. I also think that the best way of preventing that the world revolution is drowned in blood is that the workers conquer the state machinery and secure the loyalty of the armed forces so that violent minorities can be dealt with swiftly. The nightmare scenario would be a situation like the current one in Syria and Iraq on a world scale in which case socialism will certainly be postponed once again.If a majority of socialist workers should take power only in a country like the United Kingdom, then there wouldn’t be a socialist revolution; only managing capitalism would be possible.
Quote:If a majority of socialist workers should take power only in a country like the United Kingdom, then there wouldn’t be a socialist revolution; only managing capitalism would be possible.Or, alternatively, remaining in opposition making capitalism ungovernable and unmanagable. See my letter in the current issue of Weekly Worker (although some quotation marks have been omitted in the letter)http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1041/letters/(ALB too has a related letter published)
Although I see that there are arguments for remaining in complete opposition in such as situation, I think we should definitely still argue that the armed forces of the state are too dangerous to be left with the capitalist parties. Even if the Socialist Party, with a majority of votes behind it, should decide not to carry out the programme of the capitalist class, it shouldn't leave the guns, fighter jets and nuclear missiles with the class enemy. Or what do you think?
DJP wrote:I don't know where you get these 5 principles from, hazarding a guess you've just pulled them out of thin air, but they've got nothing to do with socialism. Perhaps you could add "Work makes free" as number 6?I got them from the workers not from books.Yeah, you may think there is no greatness and glory with those principles but that's just how the workers will treat us, like them, just human. And if still you don't see the equality there, perhaps you need to go out more.sardaan Ordinarian
1875 wrote:If a majority of socialist workers should take power only in a country like the United Kingdom, then there wouldn’t be a socialist revolution; only managing capitalism would be possible.There is, I think , an intermediate position between that of socialism-in-one-country and that of instantaneous worldwide revolution, neither of which seem plausible for different reasons. That is to acknowledge that, were a majority of socialists to take power in one country first, this would necessarily presuppose a near majority of socialists almost everywhere else. It is inconceivable that you could have significant spatial lags in the spread of socialist ideas given the potential of modern telecommunications as well as the increasingly interdependent nature of modern production. Not to mention the determination and resolve of the globally based socialist movement itself to minimise the extent of such spatial lags through the redirection of effort and assistance to those parts of the world where the growth of socialist conscious appeared to be lagging most. Therein perhaps lies the key to an approach that the socialist movement might increasingly put into practice the larger it become. The domino theory of revolution, as I like to call it, fundamentally differs from the socialism-in-one-country model in that the latter regards the spread of socialist ideas outside of the country in question , though useful, to be essentially a matter of indifference whereas the former regards that spread to be absolutely indispensable.Socialism in one country is a recipe for managing capitalism under the aegis of the so called dictatorship of the proletariat – an oxymoron if there ever was one – which will sooner or later morph into just another capitalist government managing some kind of state capitalist variant (probably) of capitalism; the domino theory, on the other hand, allows for the direct implementation of genuine socialism in some or other part of the world first to be followed soon enough afterwards by others parts. Its confidence and ability to take that giant step depends on the certain knowledge that other parts of the world are hard on its heels. It recognises the external constraints on implementing full free access socialism immediately, given the fact that t has still to deal with a residual capitalist world outside and with which it will still have to maintain certain economic relations for a little while longer, relations which will probably take the form of barter. But internally, it eliminates the commodity relation altogether and administers society no longer under a state (since classes will have disappeared) but through the democratic organisation of society itself within the temporary and increasingly porous territorial shell of the now completely extinguished nation state. In short, there is no country anymore and therefore no socialism-in-one-country. If there is a sound rationale behind the distinction between a "lower" and "higher" phase of socialism/communism as outlined by Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme then perhaps it derives its force from this distinction that could be made between the external relations a newly constituted socialist zone has to maintain with the residual, if rapidly shrinking, capitalist world outside and its own internal mode of production and way of life
sarda karaniwan wrote:Yeah, you may think there is no greatness and glory with those principles but that's just how the workers will treat us, like them, just human. And if still you don't see the equality there, perhaps you need to go out more.I could see your "principles" written on the wall of a young conservatives club.For some principles written by workers (who where not afraid of reading books and educating themseleves) that form the basis of a sound understanding of socialism see these:http://www.worldsocialism.org/english/object-and-declaration-principles
Young Master Smeet wrote:Of course, in Chile, as I've been reading up recently, it wasn't an automatic process. They had to assasinate the head of the army, Schneider, and then his sucessor managed to discredit himself at the worst possible time…it's like a football goal, fifty percent planning, fifty percent luck, to pull off a coup.Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular only obtained 1/3 of the votes, he did not obtain a majority of votes. The case of Venezuela was different, Hugo Chavez had to be placed back in power because he was supported by the majority of the workers, and they were willing to fight back. Juan Bosh could have been placed back in power because he had the support of the workers and the support of some sectors of the milliary forces who were willing to place him back, but he did not want to be a president again.
I think 1875 and Robbo are right: that if the socialist movement has majority support in one state and is in a position to win control of political power there they should, if only for the reason 1875 gives of taking control of the armed forces out of the hands of the capitalist class. Also to use the TV and radio possibilities this would give. The danger of being isolated for any length of time in that one state won't be very high as it is likely (given the way that ideas spread) that the socialist movement will be in a strong position in many other states. In fact, the decision as to what to do would probably be up to the socialist "international".Our objection is to socialists (if they are socialists) taking power in one country where they don't have majority support for socialism but only for reforms or for something else less than socialism, i.e have no "mandate" for socialism, as was the case of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 and as will be the case of Syriza if they win the Greek elections next Sunday (I'm assuming that some of them and of the Bolsheviks did want socialism in our sense).
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