Answers to some questions. Part 1
Original: https://telegra.ph/Nekotorye-otvety-na-nekotorye-voprosy-CHast-1-03-30
Some time ago on a conference among some personalities that aim to help the labour movement were spread up questions, on which it was suggested to answer.
1) Does your organization have a common ideological position? How is it fixed?
Theoretically speaking of some organization, the necessity of which could exist in present time, in past or in future, we can respond that declaring such thing is appropriate only in condition of real public positioning. Without such positioning in modern Russian (Ukrainian, Kazach, etc.) conditions declaring somebody as “organization”, “party” or “Empire” can be useful only to “anti-imperialistic” structures. In other words, question has the wrong form and the only adequate answer to it is – there’s no such organization and it’s not going to appear in the nearest future.
About the question of “these and those” position: the correct position has always been a plug floating in the misconception jelly. If there is a correct one, then this is a single concept, regardless of whether the ratio of those who share it is in favor. This is a position everybody should come to, but not everyone is able to. But if not everyone has come to it, how can it be single than? Only those who share the truth can make unity. Nevertheless there are no pure forms in nature or society. The necessary conditions for acceptance single position are being set during the advanced process of developing the correct position, hand to hand with the involving a greater number of minds.
But also such involving should be correct in sketching single position and shouldn’t replace the one with the wrong one. Truth and unity should be fought for. Single concept develops during this fight as well as the people who are on their way to finding their position.
Is it appropriate for the vanguard to speak for everyone? Who’s going to prevail in the end: the vanguard or elements standing behind the front line? Who can take the responsibility to distinguish them? The outcome can be decided in struggle. The right position exists, the truth exists, but the "pluralism of truths" is a petty-bourgeois delusion. One must seek the truth and the unity in it. It happens that delusion triumphs in the short term. Also the truth can fail in a short term. But by the end of the day truth always prevails.
How to distinguish whether you are mistaken or not? Doing anything without fair share of doubts is impossible, but on the other hand it’s impossible to continue doing something without certainty that you’re right.
We must seek the truth, ingrain ourselves in it, fight for it, but we shouldn’t be afraid that in the end we may remain on the side of an error. If you remain on the side of the delusion, there will be somebody to take you over.
Both truth in the end and lies in a short term prevail because of human will.
You can go through the articles "Who and how should a communist work with during the absence of a mass labor movement?", "Go the right way, comrades!", "Dialectics of the cop. To the question of the class essence of the modern militia", "For the Soviets of workers and militia deputies!", "The Left. Why don't we like you", "Your left Foucault is too Zizek or Heil Heidegger!" and the notes on Telegram channel DHARMA1937 by hashtag #какнадопонимать (howoneshouldunderstand) to find more info about the sketch of a single position, which needs the further development and is not limited to the issues raised before.
We also consider as important the next set of questions that hasn’t been brought up before: about the role of continuity in the revolutionary movement, about the new edition of "legal Marxism", about the class nature of the intelligentsia and its role, about the forms and methods of achieving ideological hegemony by the proletariat in new conditions, about communism as a way out of the block of exploitative socio-economic formations (that is, about the exit of mankind from civilization), etc.
2) What is Marxism for you?
Objectively, Marxism is the doctrine of the liberation of the proletariat by its own efforts. Subjectively, Marxism is a consciously and continuously chosen core of personality, tested by many years of life experience and struggle. It is also necessary to point out separately that the objective content of Marxism is determined by its subjective nature. Otherwise, Menshevism is obtained instead of Marxism.
3) Do you acknowledge the necessity of the eradication of private property by the process of socialization?
Of course private property is a core of the free personality in amazing-Russia-we-all-want-to-live in. It makes one want to quote The Great Stalin:
«[…] The other day The Comintern and the CPSU(b) decided to return to the USSR all the landlords and capitalists banished from our country and return them factories and plants. But that's not all. The Comintern and the CPSU(b) went further and decided that it is a high time for the Bolsheviks to switch to eating human flesh. Finally, we have a decision to nationalize all women and introduce the practice of raping our own sisters. [...]»
From the speech to foreign delegations of workers 5th November of 1927.
Jokes aside, but this question cannot be criteria of Marxist position despite being correct from by its’ form. Because the correct answer is present in cards that were given beforehand. Formal answers to formal questions have never clarified the real way of thinking.
4) Do you acknowledge the class struggle and the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
There is a Lenin definition of Marxist that hints on this matter: «The one who acknowledges only the class struggle is not a Marxist yet. It can be a person who hasn’t yet left the way of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois politics. The only Marxist is one who develops an idea of class struggle to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a core difference between the Marxist and a common petty (or a big one) bourgeoisie».
It is known that the success and the triumph of Leninism makes those who opposed Lenin a hundred, a hundred and twenty years ago to make every homage and shuffle towards Lenin today. Therefore, the definition of a Marxist today must be supplemented in order to correspond to the spirit of Leninism in nowadays reality. A Marxist today is not the one who just brings the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There are a lot of individuals who verbally acknowledge the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat but at the same time deny the rights to its successful realizations. The can do it either by fair mistake or maliciously. A Marxist is someone who also correctly understands what the dictatorship of the proletariat is, and at the same time is not hypocritical about his intention to fight for its ingraining.
Despite the fact that the White Guard, conservative, Nazi, and simply liberal enough so-called "discourse" lies furiously about the intentions and practices of the revolutionary proletariat that has established its state power, nevertheless, in order to understand whether you are with the proletariat or not, you should conduct a thought experiment . There is no smoke without fire, and, according to Lenin, revolution cannot be done in white gloves. Will you stay with the proletariat and on its side even if the acting proletariat looks not like in Soviet heroic revolutionary films, but exactly like on enemy posters? Moreover, we are not talking about a film or a poster, but about the current reality here and now. We are talking about those things that will not be told to grandchildren later having survived on the historical path. Will you remain on the side of the proletariat when your quite moderate motives that pushed you to fight on its side disappear? Or will the realization of the broad democratic tasks of the revolution (as well as personal or group interest) slow you down one step before the "horror of Stalinism" and the "madness of Maoism"? After all, this "horror and madness" of Leninism is the "horror and madness" of the proletariat that moves towards a goal which is fully interested for the proletariat itself. This goal goes beyond the broad democratic tasks of the revolution that can satisfy intellectuals and non-proletarian workers. This goal may justify any means if they do not interfere with its achievement. This refers us to question No. 1 brought up above. This also refers us to question No. 2, but with a completely different sauce.
Such an answer doesn’t change the fact that our traveling companions on this historical way are useful. It also doesn’t mean that your answers can shift between the better and worth.
5) Which states that exist today or existed in the past you acknowledge as the dictatorship of the proletariat?
The Paris Commune is an example of the state where the dictatorship of the proletariat was established but wasn’t completed.
Soviet Russia and the USSR from the moment of the seizure of power by a de jure coalition of Bolsheviks and left SRS, and de facto by a coalition of Bolsheviks, Menshevik interdistricts, left SRS and anarchists, until the moment of the political act of reading Khrushchev's closed report at the twentieth Congress of the CPSU on the topic of so-called "cult of personality". We take out of brackets certain economic measures due to the fact that capitalism existed in the USSR under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and socialism was not completely eradicated after the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat, although it was doomed. The Twentieth Congress was not a cause, but a consequence of the proletariat's loss of state power. This topic requires much deeper research than can be discussed here.
It’s difficult to establish the moment of the beginning of the dictatorship of the proletariat regarding to PRC. Also it’s difficult to say whether the new democracy is a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat or a form of bourgeois-democratic revolution carried out by the proletariat, other non-proletarian working masses and the national bourgeoisie under the leadership of the proletariat. Is it Chinese February conducted in circumstances of more fortunate balance of power? We can be certain about the dictatorship of the proletariat from the moment of The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. However, the pressure of the right, which led to the curtailment of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and the further defeat of the heirs of Mao Zedong in the person of the so-called "gang of four" can be confidently identified as the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The situation on Cuba is very speculative at the moment. One thing is certain – a successful national liberation struggle is impossible without Communists. To the point that if there are no communists, then consistent national revolutionaries will have to become them.
Being isolated and having the necessity of maneuvering in the international political field, North Korea couldn’t help but to have the stamp of degenerative processes. We don’t know how the Soviet Resistance in western parts of USSR would have looked like in 70th-80th if Moscow had been taken by fascist horde. In such case the very existence of Soviet Resistance is a speculative matter. It is worth noting that many of the features that cause such great skepticism among the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia from the metropolises of the advanced imperialist states were born from the fact that until now the proletariat has taken power mainly in agrarian countries and had to develop them, simultaneously solving the tasks of the bourgeois era. Becoming a real subject of their own lives for short periods of time, people consciously or unconsciously tend to preserve some external manifestations of an old era due to different reasons. This is the flip side of what people decide for themselves. Apparently, the Romans during the times of the declining of the Western Roman Empire were also frustrated by strictness of morals and archaic external manifestations the barbarians’ life. Such frustration doesn’t change the fact that so-called barbarians were one of the driving forces of the feudal revolution, and therefore the force of progress in times of the decline of antiquity.
6) Is any hired worker who is deprived of ownership of the means of production and therefore forced to live by selling his labor a proletarian?
Indisputably, the proletarian is an employee who sells his labor and survives at the expense of it, being deprived of the means of production. But in such case, where do the questions like "what is the proletariat", "who are the proletarians" come from? Should we count only industrial workers as proletarians or all those included in the definition mentioned in the question?
You can see an argument between the followers of different wrong answers to this question. Some people claim that proletariat means industrial workers. Other people believe that industrial workers are only one type of the proletariat equal to the others. Both these answers are worth one another.
Large machine production is a core of modern economic activity. Over the past fifty years machine production has spread much more widely than at the beginning of the industrial era. We continue to live in this era despite the illusions of apologists for the concept of the “post-industrial world”.
Machine production has spread to such economic sectors as transport, agriculture, communications (infocommunications, which means that it has spread to the industry of not only transmission, but also storage and processing of information). Our whole life depends on the production of machines by machines. It depends on the production and operation of machines for the extraction and transmission of energy to maintain the functioning of machines. Our whole life depends on the operation of these machines, regardless of whether each of us is individually involved in the production or operation of these machines.
As much as machine production is a core of modern economics, industrial workers are core of proletariat. The proletariat is a broader than its core, but also the core has vital meaning.
Not all workers are proletarians. For example, the lower classes of the petty bourgeoisie can be workers, who own the means of production necessary for the application of their labor force and therefore do not sell it on the labor market. But all the working people must be united around the proletariat, just as the proletariat must be united around its core. This is a condition for the proletariat to grab the place of the leading class of a nation instead of the bourgeoisie. This is a condition that must be fulfilled to make the conquest, retention and exercise of power by the proletariat possible.