Manifesto, was Re: Planning; or marx versus lenin versus lenin

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Thu Sep 2 19:17:18 PDT 1999


peter, curtiss, lew, chaz et al,

peter, apologies for a belated response. i think the almost immediate crisis russia faced is important, and certainly nothing to be understated in terms of its impact on events. but i was thinking of the way in which lenin and the bolsheviks responded to this crisis, and in 1919, at the 8th party congress, the russian cp moved to get exclusive control over the soviets and their day to day running. that's the most concrete date (event) i can find which both contradicts the previous position of "all power to the soviets" and uses the theory of the vanguard/revolutionary consciousness exemplified in _wtbd_ (of the vanguard 'by right') as a justification. in any event still a continuation of lenin's theory of how workers acheive a revolutionay consciousness, so not perhaps a 'break'.

an interesting read of the _manifesto_ curtis, and important to note just how much official readings can become a sort of blindness that won't even allow for a reading of what's there on the page. but anyone know sufficient german to know if this translates like that? (where are you anita?)

on carrol's innocent bewilderment: the passage cited is not simply a reference to what has happened in russia, but a theory of what *can* happen based on what is already an incorrect interpretation of the history of "all countries", including therefore the possibilities in russia. three years after the book is written, that theory is disproved, dramatically, with the emergence of the revolutionary councils, admitted by lenin in 1906 to be revolutionary and to have developed (according to lenin's terminology) spontaneously, ie., without the leadership of a party of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. which is why lenin writes in 1906, "It was not some theory, not appeals on the part of someone, or tactics invented by someone, not party doctrine, but the force of circumstances that led these non-party mass organs to realise the need for an uprising and transformed them into organs of an uprising." leaving aside that lenin's phrasing still betrays his objectification of the working class (they are not "someone", not subjects), this is still a far cry from the perspective of _wtbd_.

for an alternative to this kind of intellectualism and (by implication) derision of the working class, we need only look at marx's account of the chartists and the paris commune, where neither does he claim they are by nature limited to economic struggles nor that the working class is unable to develop revolutionary politics on its own without the tutelage of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. moreover, contrary to lenin's dictum that 'without theory there is no revolutionary movement', marx's parallel phrase can quite easily and throughout (esp _poverty of philosophy_ and the passage i cited in an earlier post) be characterised as 'without a revolutionary movement, there is no revolutionary theory'. (and that, more than anything else suggests why claims to have accomplished a revolutionary theory that have evaded the aporias of the capitalist ideological horizon (kant, hegel, butler and even marx himself) are a kind of strong idealism. those dualisms and aporias get overcome in practice, not in theory, and claims to have overcome them in theory are little more than a bid by 'intellectuals' for autonomous leadership.)

contrary to lenin in _wtbd_, marx writes, referring to the Chartists, "In the struggle, of which we have only noted some phases, this mass unites, it is constituted as a class for itself. The interests which it defends are the interests of its class. But the struggle between class and class is a political struggle." so, once again, where lenin wants to resolve any perceived 'gap' between revolutionary consciousness/forms and (what's a word?) acquiescent consciousness/forms by attributing the former to something that already exists like a key ready to be turned (p-b intellectuals), marx always thinks that 'gap' as a temporal one, of the development of the working class. this is why the issue is one of class composition and not one of theory or theoreticians.

and chaz, you seem to move damn fast into accusations that i'm slandering, without once acknowledging that i showed you exactly where lenin writes of the party as composed of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. and you still haven't told me where lenin says the party should be composed of a 20% 'worker-intellectuals', and without realising that this implies that the majority of members are not 'worker-intellectuals'. it certainly isn't in _wtbd_ where this appears; and i'll bet you a dozen bottles of wine it isn't after 1919, in which case, there's no argument. but there's still a problem in positing such a bizarre formula for a communist party.

but yes, chaz is right. lenin does not write of "ten wise men". there are two more, which makes the biblical connection even tighter: "The Germans too have demagogues in their ranks who have flattered the 'hundred fools', exalted them above the 'dozen wise men', extolled the 'horny hand' of the masses, and ... have spirred them on to reckless 'revolutionary' action and sown distrust toward the firm, and steadfast leaders."

and, i don't think you quite get the very idea of 'organic intellectuals' that gramsci offered if you still insist that they are separate from the working class, as you do when you think that these 'organic intellectuals' are still defined as petty-bourgeois and they "modify" their ideas by having chats with workers. really, you must think we're (hey, i get it now!) working class not to be able to spot that fudge!

in any case, does the division between intellectual and manual labour still obtain today, or does it obtain in such a way as to make for a distinction external to the class as you suggest? i take it you don't think there's been any passage from formal to real subsumption? and, no, i don't think the class should be led by the petty-bourgeoisie, which in any event means today being led by small farmers, shopkeepers, managers, and so on. if i wanted that i could join the ALP here.

and, the passage cited in the previous post does i think support what i wrote. what did i write that is unsupportable? that lenin does not in _wtbd_ beleive workers can be revolutionary without petty-bourgeois intellectuals *importing* a socialist consciousness to them; that lenin makes the these intellectuals and the bourgeoisie into the decisive agents of conflict; that lenin changes his mind from this to 1905, and then back again after 1919 without once abandoning the idea that the working class are incapable of autonomously developing socialist consciousness? all of this has been pretty well substantiated i think.

slander, slander, slander... next, chaz, you'll be telling me you're a lawyer and all {grin}

Angela _________



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list