profit rate falling!

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Mar 17 13:31:50 PST 1999



>>> <Apsken at aol.com> 03/17/99 04:01PM >>>
Charles wrote:

"CB: This can't be an objective example. There was no successful revolution in Germany in the period you describe."

KL:This really gets to the heart of our theoretical difference. Successful revolution is one of the possible outcomes. The other, which befell Europe, is "the common ruin of the contending classes." In my opinion, Alfred Sohn- Rethel's description of capitalist paralysis in Weimar Germany does inded explore one outer limit. I do not have his book today; if I did, I'd post the appropriate passages. (AS-R was a left communist, so Rakesh might be able to provide them.)

CB: To me the reference in The Manifesto to the common ruin of the contending classes refers to the end of the Roman slave and slaveowning classes. Germany had capitalist relations of production throughout the war and immediately afterward , except in the GDR. The latter is a better candidate for your hypothesis. There was a revolutionary change in the relations of production. But the rev. or the common ruin has to be of the WHOLE of capitalism, not just one country , especially given the current "backsliding".

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KL: As for the practical side, Charles reduces revolutionary strategy to an act of will in choosing Lenin over Gramsci because the former led a successful revolution while the latter did not.

CB: I don't think so. That is a practical test. Not a will test. It's not just Lenin's leadership but his theory that was proven by the rev.

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KL"

In fact, Lenin's (i.e., the Russian proletariat's) success is the strongest validation of Gramsci's strategy. Before the prospect of dual power appeared, Lenin advocated only a bourgeois revolution in Russia. Soviet dual power put socialism on the agenda.

CB: I don't agree that Lenin's theory was only bourgeois rev. at time you say, though that might have been first in order. He was a Marxist all along. Soviet dual power was no big surprise to Lenin. Gramsci's strategy was after the Russian Rev. This makes one think he got his strategy from the Russian Rev. How can a prior event validate his theory ?

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KL: For North America and Europe today, Charles advocates preaching and teaching Marxism. Who could object to that? But I add that one must especially search out and join those struggles in which embryonic dual power is manifest, in which workers not only struggle, make demands on capital, engage in collective action, etc., but also display the elements of class rule. This type of proletarian struggle -- the "Rehearsal for Reconstruction" on the Georgia Sea Islands and at Davis Bend, Mississippi, in 1863 and 1864; the Seattle and San Francico general strikes; the Flint, Toledo, Anderson, and Atlanta sit-down strikes; the Minneapolis general strike; the Attica rebellion; the Wounded Knee and Akwesasne occupations; and so forth -- provides the precursors out of which can arise revolutionary challenges to bourgeois rule, as can exemplary revolutionary successes in other countries.

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CB: This in no way contradicts what I said. I didn't say don't use spontaneous crises to argue for the revolution. Also, I didn't say "preach". How we persuade masses today in 1999 is part of the key riddle. "Preaching" is probably not the answer to the riddle. This debate is whether there are objective limits to capitalism. What you say here is not pertinent to that dispute; and doesn't support your argument that there are objective limits. It should not be posed as if I said anything against being involved in concrete struggles. I explicitly advocate intellectuals getting more involved in concrete struggles. The types of contexts you describe are likely fertile areas for influencing subjective factors to reach the limit of capitalism, not "creating" somehow objective limits, in the sense that it is physically impossible for capitalism to go on.

Charles Brown



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