>>> Alexandre Fenelon <sfenelon at africanet.com.br> 12/21/99 05:24PM >>>
At 16:06 21/12/99 -0500, you wrote:
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>>>> Alexandre Fenelon <sfenelon at africanet.com.br> 12/20/99 07:19PM
>Here I agree with you. That's why there were not anarchist revolutions
>in the world.I don't know if a "stateless society" is n objective to
>be pursued. Instead I think there should be a genuine democratic state
>in a socialist country. Is it possible?
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>Charles: When you say "is it possible ?", it better be or I'm out of
business ( ha ha).
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>CB
>
Unfortunately, it couldn't happen up to now, that is because I have some doubts about it.
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CB: Well, capitalism hasn't been democratic up until now either. With all the genocide, racism, fascism, imperialism, male supremacy, McCarthyism, economic dictatorship of the history of capitalism, socialism didn't do worse than capitalism from the standpoint of democracy. Elections do not define democracy. And even elections are completely corrupt in most capitalist countries in the sense that money rules elections more and more efficiently.
So maybe we should ask is demcracy possible period, not just is democratic socialism possible.
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I think troubles are mainly operational. If you makes a violent revolution, so you must use repression to keep power. Won't this create a "new class" that can destroy the socalism in the long run? And if you win a election, then you've accepted the "game rules" (this means capitalist order) and then it's difficult to build socialism while the communication means and economic power remain in private hands.
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CB: Yes, capitalism holds on to power undemocratically. It has fake democracy.
Marx did invent the dictatorship of the proletariat. So, maybe he was right that socialism must use some dictatorship , temporary dictatorship to break the bourgeois dictatorship. It is very important to be clear that the bourgeoisie rule by dictatorship ultimately. They use fake democracy up to a point, but if truly challenged they resort to full dictatorship as with fascism or McCarthyism in the U.S.
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So there must be an alternative, but none of us know it. I think we must pay attention to Hugo Chávez "democratic rupture". Neither he is a socialist nor his movement is based in working class mobilization, but the idea of winning a election and after this convocate elections for a constituent assembly could be a legitimate way to start socialist changes if the working class is properly organized.
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CB: Yes, we need 100 Chavez's maybe, so that imperialism can't keep up with all of them. Socialism in fact but not in name ?
CB