Charles writes:
>Reforms are to be struggled for in a revolutionary manner, i.e. in a way
>that >will reveal the need to go further. However, there is to be a
>genuine effort to WIN reforms to relieve suffering of working people.
>
>Lenin may discuss this issue in _Leftwing Communism, an Infantile
>Disorder_, as the worse the better is an ultra-leftist concept.
This is fundamental stuff, Charles. It goes to things like certainty and utopianism. And therefore it's an area in which the nailing of colours to masts is appropriate.
'Worse is better' is the cry of one who either hates humans or does not like them nearly as much as his/her fond utopian imaginings. Two things *all* lefties, whether they call themselves revolutionaries or not, should be *certain* of is that they must be committed to the defense of reforms won for us by our mums and dads and that we must ever demand more.
I happen to think this constitutes revolutionary practice because I *believe* we now live in a world that (a) can not long hide its inability to deliver under this order, and (b) is close to such a development of the forces of production that fundamental flaws in claims made for 'the price mechanism' will be brought into bold relief and the concomitant need for a new social order will become apparent to a vast majority.
But of that, unfortunately, I can not be certain.
If I'm right, a social revolution, which might or might not entail violence, will well up from 'below', and our sustained collective insistence on reform will have been a necessary contributor. If I'm wrong, the world will be better for said insistence and the ultimately futile blood-letting so often associated with top-down utopian adventurism will be avoided.
And that ain't Leninism. Even less is it Trotskyism. But it's not Stalinism either. And I know what a lot of you reckon it is. Me, I reckon it's a tenable Marxism and I reckon it's democratic socialism - and I reckon its recognition of the limits of social science (both as prediction - even if the Manifesto does read rather well just now - and precription - in which arena I submit Lenin does not read well at all) makes it realistically and respectfully human.
This last category being the raison d'etre of the leftie, I'd have thought.
Cheers, Rob.