>>> seamus2001 at home.com 08/13/01 03:13PM >>>
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> CB: Democratic centralism is an effort to deal with the unity and
struggle of the opposites of "all power to all the people as a whole"
and , yet,the need for leadership and unity especially when the
struggle takes on a military or paramilitary structure. Actually, the
first era of trying to build socialism teaches that the bourgeoisie
are able to force the working class to take up militarized structure
in order to survive. The riddle of organizational form for the
working class' struggle must be solved, but posing the issue as "how
democratic centralism" has not be exceeded or gotten beyond.
Vanguardism has not been proven more of failure than non-vanguardism,
which amounted to almost donothingism, critcism from the sidelines.
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Well we need to out jujitsu them on "forcing" the military structure;
we become like them in that very act.
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CB: Yes, the problem to be solved for the Next Socialism is the ability of the bourgeois to force socialism down to the lowest common denominator, upon penalty of annihilation. I mean the bourgeois war(s) on the SU were the biggest in the history of the world. Our failure to make revolutions in Germany or the U.S. were the critical failures.
In the total picture , it was not at all proven that vanguardism or democratic centralism was the critical cause of failure of socialism. On the other hand, we must complement vanguardism with Leadership from the Ranks, DEMOCRATIC centralism. All power to the People as a Whole, superdemocraticize the "democratic" Americans.
And it is on Americans, not Japanese, Russians or Cubans, to wrestle the Evil Empire down from inside.
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There's a big zone between do-nothingism and vanguardism that we need to explore and learn how to navigate. The sheer amount of weapons floating around in the world today presents us with different kinds of challenges on this issue, imo.
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CB: We must stop Star Wars !!!