Still propagating wrong conceptions as ( The transitional society )
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I couldn’t see anything extremely objectionable in that IP piece. They are talking about a *transition period* not a *transitional society* which is an entirely different thing.
I know that, you are not telling me anything new. The problem is that the left-winger always follow Lenin separation between socialism and communism, and most left communists are Leninist too. The article written by Adam covers all those aspects and distortion
The first two sections — accepting the need for widespread socialist consciousness and for democratic decision-making — represent advances for groups in the left-communist ‘milieu’. It is third section that presents a problem.
It’s what they say about the state during the ‘transition period’ as ‘representing all non-exploiting strata and people’, defined not just as ‘petty producers and the peasantry’ but also ‘the huge numbers of people thrown out of the productive process, unable to integrate the productive forces, the homeless, unemployed, and others, victims of famine, disease, and war’? Presumably it will also include other non-economically active people like the retired, students, housewives and the chronically ill. Even in an advanced capitalist part of the world like Britain the percentage of so-called ‘inactive’ people is about 20 percent of the adult population.
These ‘strata’ are to be submitted to the dictatorship of the ‘proletariat’ defined only as those working in factories, offices, etc. The state is supposed to represent them (but how and by who?) but is to be subordinated to “workers’ councils”.
What IP is imaging should happen shows the limitations of the concept of “workers councils” running society. Why can’t those who make up the “non-exploiting strata” have an equal say with “workers” in the way post-capitalist society is run?
It also shows how their thinking is still conditioned by what obtained in Russia in 1918 and the 1920s. They would still seem to be, at heart, Left Bolsheviks trying to cope with the problems of yesteryear.
Whoever base his/her analysis on the Soviet Union/Bolsheviks/Lenin experiences will always end with wrong conclusions or analysis, they might use socialist phraseology like Lenin, but the analysis is incorrect
They are talking about the transitional period, but in reality they are referring to Lenin transitional society, and the separation between socialism and communism which is a Lenin distortion.( Marx and Engels never separated both ) For Marx, the real transitional society was capitalism.
The IP is a split of the ICC but they have not abandoned their Leninist/bolsheviks past, and neither one of the left communists have not abandoned their Leninist inheritance
The DOP was only a transitional measure applicable to the XIX century when capitalism was not a world economic system, which could have conducted the society into state capitalism, as the Soviet Union and all other so called socialist countries
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not longer needed, but they continue holding the same conceptions, they are still attached to the bolsheviks past, and all Leninists groups continue advocating for the Dictatorship of the proletariat, but in reality it is the dictatorship of the so called socialist/communist leader and the communist party .
What have they done ? Just to create millions of anti communist workers who associate third world dictators with socialism and communism
One thing that stands out to me is this; “In the previous revolutionary wave in Russia, in the territorial soviets, the workers were represented by one delegate per 25,000 workers while the other strata had one to 125,000” So much for the supposed democratic superiority of the soviets.
This was picked up by the Socialist Standard at the time, as in this extract from an article that appeared in July 1920:
“Another interesting point is the ratio between the urban and country representatives. Thus for the All Russia Congress of Councils the Urban Councils send one representative for every 25,000, while the County Council Congresses send one delegate for every 125,000, or to put it another way, the Urban Councils have five times the representation of the County Councils. The same ratio applies to Regional and County Congresses. These figures have a peculiar significance.
The Bolsheviks, naturally, find their chief support in the urban centres. By this basis of representation they are able to ensure the practical certainty of a majority in “the supreme authority of the Russian Republic”. “And that’s how it’s done”, as the stage conjurer says.
This method may be suitable to Russian conditions, but to claim for such a system that it is “a million times more democratic than the most democratic regime in a bourgeois republic” – where the workers have a direct, and overwhelming, vote for the very centre of power – is the wildest nonsense.”
The full article, entitled “The Russian Dictatorship” can be found here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/fitzgerald/1920/leninkautsky.htm
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