-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Rob Schaap Enviada em: sábado, 27 de maio de 2000 05:59 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Democracy and socialism
>The reverse is true today. If it ain't socialist, then it ain't
>democratic. >That's a Marxist approach to democracy.
The reverse was always true, Charles. They aren't mutually incompatible notions, are they? The thing is to bear both sides in mind at all times.
And I think Trotsky's suspicion, that the Russian revolution (which he saw as necessary once the opportunity arose to go that distance) was probably doomed by the contemporarily underdeveloped system of soviets, and the consequent improbability that a dangerously established elite could be avoided. That's not to say the majority of people did not go on to do a lot better than they otherwise would have, or even that they would not have done a lot better than their proletarian counterparts in other contemporarily comparable political economies. But it couldn't last. *And it didn't*. And now they're dying like flies in Russia (where the aparat's transition to bourgeoisie was a suspiciously seamless event, for mine) as they are in North Korea.
-It is interesting, but if you consider that Trotsky was right you will in the end accept the idea that the Mensheviks were right (in Marxist terms), ie., 1917´s Russia was not prepared for socialism. However, the Menshevik position in fact was suicidal, since it required the working class to take the power and then give then to the burgoisie (which, in Russia´s case, was not interested in burgeoise democracy). It was surprise that the Mensheviks had only 3% votes in the elections of 1917.....So what were the alternatives or Russia in 1917. I agree with Orlando Figes (althought he is anticommunist) that the better alternative was to make a coalition between Bolsheviks, left wing Mensheviks, Left and Center SR´s (the right wing of Mensheviks and SR´s din´t want a socialist coalition). Figes blames Martov and Tchernov for not breaking up with the right wing of those parties to make the socialist coalition viable. He also blames Lenin and Trotsky for excessive greed for power (but he has a strong prejudice against then, I think, and he doesn´t support this opinion with facts, we know that Lenin gave Kamenev an opportunity to negotiate a socialist coalition that was not accepted by Menshevik ans SR´s opportunists)
Nope, what you need is a mechanism, a culture, a commitment, a structure, wherein and whereby the people have the agency regularly to make wholesale changes to the political economic lever-fondlers. The notion of the soviet seems to me to work just so. That's the only way to avoid your heroes becoming your tyrants, anyway. If that comes as a surprise to you, I'm - well - surprised.
-You´re right, but we also have to take serioulsy those burgueoise liberties (except right to property o production means, of course....) -The Soviets were good instruments to establish a democracy and the Bolsheviks lost a good opportunity to develop a democratic socialism by turning the instruments of the one party system.
And, by the way, I'll thank you not to throw tags at me unless you make damned clear what you mean by them. If I am a liberal because I believe 'the sovereignty of the people' must be seen to be done, rather than just invoked by fat theory-peddling commissars by way of self-legitimation, then, yeah, I am a liberal. But that's a very personal definition, Charles!
And, I submit, one that tells us more about the definer than the defined.
Yours mildly indignant, Rob.