>
> >>> "Mr P.A. Van Heusden" <pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk> 08/18/99 07:17AM >>>
>
> I'm with Carrol on this one. I think Marx's critique of the early Utopian
> communists in the CM (Only from the point of view of being the most
> suffering class does the proletariat exist for them.") has in it the seeds
> for a critique of any kind of attempt to 'rationally and reasonably' plan
> one's way to communism.
>
> ((((((((((
>
> Charles: Isn't Marx's focus on the working class as the gravediggers of
> capitalism some scientific, rational and , reasonable planning on the
> route to communism ? Historical materialism is a rational plan. Some of
> the road to communism is outlined by theory ,and some is discovered in
> revolutionary practice. In the aphorism "without revolutionary theory,
> there is no revolutionary movement (practice)" , the notion of "theory"
> has a sense of rational planning in it.
I kinda thought this objection might come up.
I said right at the end of my post that "I think history has taught us sufficiently that Marx was right, and the 'plan' for a future society will be layed, in pieces, incompletely, but always at times of real, revolutionary working class struggle."
I would disagree strongly with your assertion that '[h]istorical materialism is a rational plan'. What is this historical materialism? Some plan, outside of, and above history? If not, then it exists only in the minds and the motions of real human actors - and those human actors are currently not in any manner or means moving towards socialism.
All of the road to communism must be discovered in practice, or else there will be no communism. To me this seems self-evident. That practice will be human practice, which to me implies that theory must always stay 'close to' the particular people who are engaged in that practice. That is why I assert that the plan for a future society will always be layed 'in pieces, imcompletely', just as the human organisation for such a future society is layed in pieces, incompletely. What makes socialism (and life, in fact) is the real, practical activity of many, many humans. Not a plan.
I agree with the slogan "without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement", but I see that as a statement about the necessity of revolutionary consciousness amongst a broad layer of the working class. Instead, this has often been interpreted (from the 2nd International onwards) as meaning that all that is needed to overthrow capitalism is that the mass of working people adopt the 'revolutionary' plan of the 'revolutionary' party. This conception - a fundamental misreading of Marx, imo - has poisened orthodox Marxism for over a century.
Back to the Chomsky / USSR debate - I had the opportunity to hear Chomsky speak a couple of years ago in Cape Town. At that meeting, he made the statement that 'Bolshevism is the same as Facism', a statement which displays, in my mind, a total lack of historical analysis. That, and other writings of his on the question of Lenin and Leninism (can't recall the source now - it was just some stuff that got email to me by an anarchist friend), have convinced me that Chomsky isn't much of a scholar on this question.
The question of the history of the Russian Revolution, and its defeat, is an interesting one, but I doubt that a debate on a mailing list about this question can result in anything but the same old mudslinging between rival camps.
Peter P.S. according to Lise Vogel, one of the most read books in the libraries of the German Social-Democratic Party before WWI was August Bebel's 'Women and Socialism', which gave some view of a socialist future. I think Raya Dunayevskaya's scathing critique of the 2nd International in her 'Marxism and Freedom' is a good critique of the role of the 'plan' in that movement. -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available 'The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.' - Karl Marx