Posted April 15, 2014

     Immanuel Wallerstein maintains that Third World national liberation movements were able to obtain political independence, but they were not able to improve social and economic conditions.  In general, this is true.  I maintain, however, that we must distinguish between moderate and revolutionary national liberation governments.  The former have cooperated, to some extent through coercion, with the neocolonial world-system, and therefore they have limited possibilities for the improvement of social and economic conditions.  The latter, on the other hand, are seeking to construct an alternative more just and democratic world-system.

     But are the concrete gains of the revolutionary Third World national liberation governments sufficient to justify the claim that they are constructing an alternative world-system?  In addressing this question, some general observations can be made concerning six nations that claim to be developing socialist projects: China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.  First, these six nations have in different degrees developed structures of popular democracy.  The first three, which came to power through armed struggle, have developed popular power, in which the people form local popular councils that elect delegates to serve in higher levels of authority, which in turn elect delegates to a still higher level.  These structures are an alternative to representative democracy, in which the people elect, not a delegate from among the members of a council that regularly meets, but a representative, chosen from competing candidates whom the electors have never met, making the choice on the basis of television news sound bites and political advertising.  Representative democracy is experiencing a crisis of legitimation in the world-system, but in Cuba, popular power has high levels of participation and legitimacy (see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context”).  In the second three countries, in which revolutionary governments came to power utilizing structures of representative democracy, there are continuing efforts to develop structures of popular participation and forms of integrating popular councils into the process of representative democracy.  In addition, all three have held constitutional assemblies with broad popular participation and have created new constitutions, which have increased the level of political legitimacy, in spite of on-going efforts by the United States to generate conflict and political instability.  We will be examining further the alternative political structures that have been developed in the socialist nations in future posts.

        The six nations with self-proclaimed socialist projects have had significant gains, in varying levels in different historical periods, in the protection of the social and economic rights of the people.  These gains include reduction or elimination of illiteracy as well as significant increases in access to education, health care, art, and sport.  We also will be looking at these gains in future posts.

     On the international plane, the six nations have insisted on their sovereignty.  Indeed, Wallerstein has described China, Vietnam, and Cuba as fiercely independent.  They take seriously the principle of the sovereign rights of all nations, a principle affirmed by the United Nations and other international agencies but disregarded by the global powers, which continually intervene in various forms in the affairs of Third World nations.

      As we have seen, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador are the leading nations of ALBA, which seeks to develop mutually beneficial commercial, financial, social and cultural relations among the participating nations, thus developing an alternative practice in international relations, based on the principle of solidarity among all peoples.  The member nations of ALBA are developing commercial and cultural accords with China and Vietnam (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014).

      And we have seen that the nations of ALBA and their approach to international relations enjoy support from all of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  The progressive and leftist governments of the region, such as Argentina and Brazil, have significant relations with the nations of ALBA, and to some extent, they are participating in the construction of an alternative world-system.  Moreover, the recent Declaration of Havana by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) shows that all of the nations of the region affirm fundamental principles of ALBA, even the few nations that continue to be strong allies of the United States and its neoliberal project (see “The Declaration of Havana 2014” 3/14/2014).

       The alternative principles formulated by the leading nations of the alternative socialist civilizational project have been affirmed not only by the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, but also by the nations of the Third World.  This can be seen in the 2006 Declaration of the Non-Aligned Movement, an international movement organization whose membership consists of 118 governments of the Third World, which together represent 75% of the nations of the earth and 80% of humanity.  The Declaration asserted that the collective desire of the movement is to establish a more just and equal world order, but various obstacles exist, including “the permanent lack of cooperation and the coercive and unilateral measures imposed by some developed countries.”  The Declaration rejected the neoliberal project, maintaining that the liberalization of commerce perpetuates and increases inequality among and within nations, and it increases the marginalization of countries in development.  The Declaration also praised Cuba for its dignified example of independence, and it expressed support for Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia in their conflicts with the global powers.

      The development in practice of an alternative ethic for international relations is emerging at a time in which the world-system has entered a terminal structural crisis.  The economic, financial, ecological, political, and social crisis of the world-system has been caused fundamentally by the fact that it has reached the geographical limits of the earth, taking away its historic method of expanding by conquering new lands and peoples.  The global elite has responded to the crisis with the imposition of the neoliberal project, which functions to accelerate and deepen the global crisis.  The neoliberal project demonstrates that the global elite is morally and intellectually unprepared to respond to the systemic crisis in a constructive form, and it has been an important factor in the emergence of the alternative project from below that proclaims socialism for the twenty-first century.

      Wallerstein writes of the loss of faith in the capacity of the state to improve the social and economic conditions of the people.  To be sure, there is a tendency for the people to speak of the need to decentralize, to overcome the historic problem of all administrative structures, be they political or economic, or be they under private or public ownership, to be vertically directed from above.  Thus, in the emerging socialist world there is a tendency to speak of “socialism from below” in opposition to “socialism from above.”  But this is understood as a movement to improve socialism, to bring it to a more advanced stage by seeking to overcome an historic problem of all administrative structures.  It is a movement for the improvement of socialism that continues to affirm the historic socialist project, that continues to affirm the importance of the state in the development of the economy and in the providing of human services, that continues to defend the historic nationalizations by socialist governments as necessary and desirable, that sees local action as necessary but also as part of a national plan and project, and that above all continues to have faith in the capacity of an organized and politically conscious people to take control of states and convert them into actors in the construction of a just and democratic world-system.

      We should take seriously the discourses of the charismatic leaders of our day: Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa.  They maintain that a more just and democratic world-system is possible through a process in which a politically conscious and unified people take control of the state in order to transform it into a mechanism that defends the rights, interests, and needs of the various popular sectors.  They have affirmed the legitimacy of the historic charismatic leaders in Latin America, from Bolívar to Fidel, as well as the historic revolutionary charismatic leaders of Africa and Asia.  They have obtained the support of the majority of the people, in spite of the hostility and divisive maneuvers of the global elite and the national bourgeoisies. 

       The just and democratic world-system emerging from below is a real possibility for the future.  And so is a neofascist global military dictatorship implied by the new forms of ideological manipulation, interventionism, and militarism being developed by the global powers.  Humanity confronts a choice between these two real possibilities as the world-system experiences bifurcation.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Wallerstein, world-systems analysis, ALBA, CELAC, Non-Aligned Movement

Posted March 18, 2014

     We have seen in various posts since March 4 that a new political reality has emerged in Latin America and the Caribbean, defined by rejection of US-directed integration and by the formulation of an alternative integration from below, with its most recent expression being the Declaration of Havana emitted by the 33 governments of CELAC on January 29, 2014.  The process of Latin American union and integration can be seen as an effort by the neocolonized peoples and nations to by-pass existing exploitative structures of the core-peripheral relation and to gradually replace them, step-by-step, with alternative structures for relations among nations, shaped by complementary and mutually beneficial intraregional commercial and social accords.  The formation of the Bank of the South seeks to provide a financial foundation for this alternative project, undermining financial penetration of the region and the control of the region by transnational banks and international financial institutions. 

      In conjunction with this step-by-step process of establishing alternative commercial and social relations among nations and alternative financial institutions, the new Latin American political process is proclaiming the fundamental principles and values for an alternative world-system: the protection of the social and economic rights of all persons, including the rights to a decent standard of living, housing, nutrition, education, and health; respect for the sovereignty of all nations, even those that are not wealthy or powerful; and the development of forms of production and distribution that are ecologically sustainable.  Thus there exist in embryo the commercial, social, financial and ideological components of an alternative more just and democratic world-system.

      Do these developments mean that we are in a change of epoch, involving a transition from a world-system with a logic of domination and superexploitation to a world-system with a logic of equality, solidarity, and sustainability?  It has been so named by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, when he observed that we are not in an epoch of change, but in a change of epoch.  In the same vein, Hugo Chávez proclaimed that the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is constructing “Socialism for the XXI Century,” a socialism different from the socialisms of the twentieth century, “a socialism renewed for the new era, for the XXI century” (Chávez 2006:193).  And this notion of socialism for our era has been invoked as well by Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales. 

     As early as 1982, Immanuel Wallerstein maintained that the world-system has entered a structural and fundamental crisis and was in transition to something else, possibly, on the one hand, a world-system with a new logic of domination, or on the other hand, a socialist world order and/or a new civilizational project (Wallerstein 1982:11, 51-53).  Can we interpret the process of change in Latin America as the emergence of an alternative civilizational and socialist project that Wallerstein imagined more than thirty years ago as a possibility? 

      I believe that indeed we can, and the principal reason is that the process of Latin American and Caribbean unity integrates values formed by the movements of the peoples of the world during the last two and one-half centuries: the bourgeois democratic revolutions that proclaimed the rights and the equality of all; the socialist and communist movements that expanded these rights to include the rights of workers and peasants to elect delegates who would govern in accordance with their interests and their social and economic rights and needs; the Third World national liberation movements that proclaimed that rights pertain to nations and peoples as well as persons, and that such rights include self-determination and true sovereignty; movements formed by women that proclaimed the right of women to full and equal participation in the construction of the society; and the movements formed by those who have sought to defend nature and the ecological balance of the earth.  These movements have formulated what I call “universal human values,” values concerning which there is consensus in all regions of the world, and which have been affirmed by various international organization and commissions, including those of the United Nations.  Based in these universal human values, the process of Latin American and Caribbean unity is developing in practice an alternative civilizational project, one that draws from various political and cultural horizons and that has faith in the future of humanity.  It presents itself as an alternative to the established neocolonial world-system that places markets above people, seeks military solutions to social conflicts, pays insufficient attention to the ecological needs of the earth, and induces consumerism and cynicism among the people.

    To be sure, CELAC is not in itself a revolutionary organization that seeks to establish an alternative socialist civilizational project: it includes nations where traditional political parties still govern, and it has not arrived to a concept of popular power or popular democracy.  But CELAC does represent progressive reform of the world-system from below, in which alternative practices, incompatible with the structures of the neocolonial world-system, are being developed cooperatively by governments that pertain to the semi-peripheral and peripheral regions of the world-economy (see “The Modern World Economy” 8/2/2013).  Furthermore, CELAC is part of a process of change in Latin America and the Caribbean, in which several progressive/Leftist governments have come to power, adopting reforms from below in defense of the rights and needs of the people, in accordance with universal human values.  In some nations of the region, this process of change indeed is revolutionary, involving the displacement from power of the political representatives of international corporations and national bourgeoisies, replacing them with delegates of the people, who are beginning to adopt policies that defend and protect the rights and needs of the people, to the extent that limited resources permit.  This revolutionary process is being led by Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador, and by charismatic leaders in these nations.  We will be discussing the revolutionary processes in each of these nations in future posts.

      Both of the possibilities envisioned by Wallerstein are simultaneously emerging from the conflicts and contradictions of the world-system.  Alongside the emergence of Latin American union and integration and the proclamation of “Socialism for the XXI Century,” there also has occurred a turn to the Right by the global powers since 1980.  Confronting a situation in the 1970s in which the modern world-system had reached the ecological limits of the earth; at a time in which the movements of the people, in all zones of the system, had arrived to define the right of all persons and nations to benefit from the blessings the earth; the global elite found itself in a situation in which it could no longer make concessions to the working and middle classes of the core or to the national bourgeoisies (and indirectly to the people) in the semi-peripheral and peripheral zones.  The global elite thus turned to the aggressive pursuit of its interests: the imposition of the neoliberal project on the Third World, in violation of the principle of sovereignty and without regard for the social and economic needs of the people; new strategies of interventionism in those Third World nations that seek true independence, making a mockery of established norms of international diplomacy; an attack on the protection of social and economic rights enshrined in Keynesian economic policies in the nations of the North, a process that has accelerated since 2007; the use of the media to distract the people and to generate distorted understandings of social conflicts; and unilateral military action by the United States, setting itself above international regulation and prompting Fidel Castro to refer to a “global military dictatorship.”  In short, the global elite has adopted aggressive measures to preserve its privileges and the structures of the neocolonial world-system on which such privileges depend. 

     But the aggressive policies of the global elite defy the logic of the neocolonial world-system, which requires the protection to some degree of the social and economic rights of the working and middles classes in the core as well as the interests of the national bourgeoisie in the periphery and semi-periphery.  Thus the aggressive measures have undermined the stability of the neocolonial world-system, deepening and accelerating the crisis of the system.  The aggressive measures cannot sustain the unsustainable neocolonial world-system, but they may turn out to be the first steps in the transition to an alternative neo-fascist and militarist world-system, characterized by: forced access to global raw materials; by repressive control of populations, particularly in the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions; and by the manipulative use of the media to distract and confuse the people (see “The erosion of neocolonialism” 3/17/2014).

      In this historic moment in which two practical possibilities for the future exist side by side, we intellectuals of the North who are committed to universal human values must escape the traps of the logic of domination of the established world-system: the fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines, leaving us with partial understandings of what is occurring; and a distorted concept of scientific knowledge, which compels us to demonstrate our “objectivity” by offering criticisms of the movements from below, criticisms that undermine their legitimate claims and political strategies and that confuse our people.  We have the duty to seek to understand the movements from below, to delegitimate the ideological distortions of the system, and to affirm the possibility that humanity can be saved by virtue of a political process formed by the neocolonized, even when this political process does not have the characteristics that we would have anticipated or would have thought desirable.   I will discuss these unanticipated characteristics in the next post.


References

Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne:  Ocean Sur.

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1982.  “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis.  New York and London: Monthly Review Press.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Rafael Correa, Chávez, Wallerstein

Posted March 20, 2014

      Encountering the proletarian movement in Paris in 1843-44, while simultaneously studying British political economy, Marx formulated a penetrating and moving understanding of human history.  He interpreted the social action of workers, artisans and intellectuals connected to the working class movement as the first steps in a revolutionary process that would forge a transition from capitalism to socialism.  The future socialist society, Marx believed, would be built on a foundation of automated industry, and it would be characterized by the abolition of class divisions, inequality and exploitation, because there would not be a functional need for them.  Marx thus envisioned the creation of what we would today call a just and democratic world-system, established by the political action of the exploited class.  (See various posts on Marx in January 2014, particularly “Marx and the working class” 1/6/2014; “Marx illustrate cross-horizon encounter” 1/7/2014; “Marx on the revolutionary proletariat” 1/14/2014; and “The social and historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014).

       We have seen that the process of change occurring today in Latin America and the Caribbean can be interpreted as the beginning of the emergence a post-capitalist/socialist/civilizational project that seeks the establishment of an alternative more just and democratic world-system (see “A change of epoch?” 3/18/2014).  Thus we are able to see in our time the possible fulfillment, at long last, of the transition envisioned by Marx from capitalism to socialism. 

     But the possible transition to socialism of our time has characteristics that Marx did not, and given the time in which he wrote, could not fully anticipate.  The social movements that are its foundation are not the working-class movements of the core but movements of multiple popular classes and sectors of neocolonized regions of the world, which have included students, peasants, women, workers, and indigenous peoples, and movements in which the principal leaders have come for the most part from the petit bourgeoisie.  (I have discussed this phenomenon and its implications in different contexts; see: “The social and historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014 “The proletarian vanguard” 1/24/2014; and “The proletariat and the Mexican Revolution” 2/14/2014).

      Another dimension, not anticipated by Marx, has been the role of charismatic leaders, and this also is a phenomenon that I have discussed previously (see “Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013; “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014; “Lessons of the Mexican Revolution” 2/19/2014; “The dream renewed” 3/6/2014).  In the case of the process of Latin American unity and integration, Hugo Chávez has assumed this indispensable function of charismatic leadership.  Discerning that the objective conditions for integration were present, and possessing faith in the Bolivarian vision of sovereign Latin American nations united in La Patria Grande; Chávez was constantly present, proposing and exhorting.  (To read more about Hugo Chávez Frías, see “Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela”).  It is a question of objective and subjective factors being present, from which emerges a charismatic leader who is able to discern what is possible and to lead the people toward its fulfillment.  As we continue in the development of this blog to review various revolutionary processes in various nations, we will see that this combination of objective and subjective factors and charismatic leadership is a recurring phenomenon.

      In addition to the important role of charismatic figures with exceptional gifts of understanding and leadership, another characteristic of the new Latin American and Caribbean political phenomenon, also a characteristic not anticipated by Marx, is the central role of patriotism.  Not the distorted form of patriotism that has a tragic history in Europe and the United States, in which elites manipulate popular sentiments in order to enlist the people in wars against other nations, for the disguised purpose of protecting elite interests.  But a form of patriotism that values the protection of the sovereignty and the dignity of the nation, and that proclaims one’s own nation’s right to sovereignty on the basis of the principle of the sovereign rights of all nations.  In this new form of patriotism, the enemies of the nation are not the peoples of other nations, but the national elite who have dishonorably betrayed the nation in the pursuit of particular interests.  It is a kind of patriotism that would propel Hugo Chávez to proclaim, with reference to the traditional political parties in Venezuela: “They were on their knees, there is no other way to say it, they were on their knees before the imperial power.” 

     The new form of patriotism, which I call “revolutionary patriotism,” is intertwined with a spirit of internationalism and international solidarity (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).  The new patriotism proclaims the right of all nations to true independence and sovereignty, and it condemns the imperialist policies of powerful nations that seek to maintain the neocolonial world-system.  It expresses solidarity with all nations and peoples that seek true sovereignty and independence.  In his 1982 essay, in which he was contemplating the possible transition to an alternative world-system, Wallerstein wondered, “What kind of ‘nationalism’ is compatible with the creation of a socialist world order” (1982:52)?  The revolutionary patriotic discourses that at the same time are expressions of international solidarity, formulated by Chávez, Morales and Correa, are responses to Wallerstein’s question.

     Revolutionary patriotism is not new.  It has been an integral component of anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions of the twentieth century.  Patriotism would compel a young Vietnamese socialist in Paris in the 1920s, who later would become known to the world as Ho Chi Minh, to take the name of Nguyen Ai Quoc, which means “Nguyen the Patriot.”  Although clearly a committed communist who believed in a global revolution, Ho was above all a patriotic nationalist.  And patriotism would prompt a young Fidel Castro in the 1950s to conclude a public statement with a phrase from the Cuban national anthem: “To die for the nation is to live.”  When the triumphant revolutionary army entered Havana on January 8, 1959, the comandantes at the front were bearing huge Cuban flags. Subsequently, the revolutionary government did not change either the national anthem or the flag, a decision that was explained by Fidel, in response to a question from a foreign journalist, by saying, “There is a lot of glory under that flag.”  The Cuban Revolution took power in 1959 in the name of popular aspirations for a truly sovereign nation, accusing the established political elite of having violated the dignity of the nation.

      Thus the socialist revolution of our time is developing in a way that Marx did not fully anticipate.  It is a popular revolution formed by various popular classes and sectors, with a principal social base in the neocolonized regions of the world, led by charismatic leaders with exceptional gifts who for the most part have social origins in the petit bourgeoisie, although the leaders have included workers (Nicolás Maduro) and peasants (Evo Morales).  These charismatic leaders have aroused and channeled the anger and the hopes of the people, in part by sound analysis of global dynamics, but also in part by touching the patriotic sentiments of the people, and by naming the treasonous conduct of the national bourgeoisie, for its collaboration with the interests of international capital at the expense of the people, many of whom were already impoverished and ignored by centuries of colonial and neocolonial domination.  Driven by faith in the future of humanity, the charismatic leaders have proclaimed that a better world is possible, and they have found the audacity to lead the people in its quest for a more just and democratic world, in which all persons are treated with dignity, and the sovereignty of all nations is respected. 

     Although the socialist revolution of our time does not have the characteristics that Marx fully anticipated, it is in a broad sense the realization of the socialist revolution that Marx foresaw.  Marx envisioned a socialist revolution on the basis of observing the contradictions of the capitalist system from the vantage point of the exploited class, and from this vantage point, he recognized that the contradictions cannot be resolved without structural transformations that imply the end of the system itself and its transition to something else.  From this vantage point from below, Marx also could discern that one possible outcome was the transformation of the system in a form that would protect the rights of all, and that such a resolution would be consistent with human progress and with advances in natural and social scientific knowledge, thus making such a resolution all the more likely.  In our time, we can see such a possibility unfolding:  A resolution of the contradictions of the capitalist world-economy, which can be discerned from the vantage point from below, through the decisive and informed political action of the exploited and neocolonized, who seek a more just and democratic world-system.

       The post-1995 resurgence of revolution by the neocolonized peoples of the earth provides a clear choice for humanity: a choice between, on the one hand, a neocolonial world-system that places markets above people and the privileges of the powerful above the rights of the humble; and on the other hand, a dignified alternative being led by charismatic leaders whose gifts of discernment, commitment to social justice, and denunciations of the powerful  remind us of the prophet Amos, who condemned the structures of domination and privilege of the ancient Kingdom of Israel as violations of the Mosaic covenant, a covenant that was a sacred agreement between a homeless and marginalized people and a God who acts in history in defense of the poor.

     We intellectuals of the North have the duty to observe and discern what is happening, and to explain it to our people, so that the people, freed from the distortions of the media, can decide what they ought to do.  I believe that, if the people were to know, a consensus would emerge to do what is right.  But the people need the help of intellectuals.  In no national revolutionary context have the people figured things out by themselves.  The role of intellectuals, who created a subjective context from which emerged charismatic leaders, was essential, and charismatic leadership was decisive.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1982.  “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis.  New York and London: Monthly Review Press.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Chávez

      The Russian Revolution was an historic event of lasting importance for humanity.  It inspired the peoples of the world, who saw in it the real possibility for ordinary people to develop structures of political action and to seize power.  It would henceforth be known that the world need not be ruled by the rich. 

       There is much disagreement concerning the development of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin.  I am influenced by Trotsky’s writings on the Russian Revolution, and I am persuaded by the Trotskyite Ted Grant on the Soviet Union.  On the other hand, I am not sympathetic with the historic tendency of Trotskyite parties to rigidly apply the concepts of Lenin and Trotsky in other lands, regardless of particular conditions.

     In Ted Grant’s view, the Russian Revolution suffered within seven years a major reversal, victim of a petty bourgeois and bureaucratic counterrevolution represented by the emergence of Stalin, a counterrevolution that nonetheless invoked the legacy of Lenin, sometimes distorting his intellectual work for purposes of ideological justification.  Accordingly, the Soviet Union after Lenin can be understood as a system of petit bourgeois bureaucratic control from above sustained through political repression and ideological distortion.  In spite of reforms introduced by Khrushchev, the system was not able to return to its Leninist foundation, and it ultimately collapsed under the weight of its contradictions, making possible a bourgeois counterrevolution that dismantled the structures of the petty bourgeois bureaucratic state.  But even that “deformed worker state” of 1924 to 1990 was able to register impressive gains in economic and industrial development, as a consequence of state planning and state ownership of the means of production, legacies of the era of Lenin and Trotsky (Grant 1997).

      The universal significance of the Russian Revolution, however, lies above all with the contributions of the October Revolution to human understanding.  All knowledge emerges in social context, and the most advanced understandings of society emerge in connection with the social movements formed by the dominated (see “What is cross-horizon encounter” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013).  Marx, as we have seen, developed new understandings on the basis of his observations of the Western European proletarian movements of the nineteenth century (see various posts on Marx from 1/6/2013 to 1/15/2013).   Similarly, Lenin arrived at new insights, forged in practice as he sought to understand what ought to be done.  Appropriating the insights of Marx, Lenin further developed Marxism through practical reflection on the Russian Revolution, thus establishing the perspective that came to be known as Marxism-Leninism.  Subsequently, Marxism-Leninism would influence charismatic leaders in the Third World, such as Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, who would appropriate its insights and at the same time further develop them through reflection on the revolutionary processes in their particular national conditions. 

      Therefore, we today are able to understand Marxism-Leninism as a constantly evolving theory and practice that began with Marx and continued with Lenin and that has been developed further by Third World national liberation movements of the twentieth century as well as by the renewed popular movements of the twenty-first century that proclaim socialism for the twenty-first century.  In reflecting on the possibilities of the present historic moment for renewed popular revolutionary movements in the countries of the North, an important task is the intellectual work of studying these revolutionary processes, examining the speeches and writings of their leaders, in order to arrive at an understanding of the essential characteristics of popular revolution, a necessary component of effective revolutionary political action.

      In the case of the Russian Revolution, important insights learned include: (1) the necessity of structures of popular power, in which the people form local councils to debate and discuss and to elect delegates to represent them, who in turn elect delegates at the higher levels that function as the highest political authority, thus substituting popular democracy for representative democracy and parliamentarianism;  and (2) the role of a vanguard party, which functions to politically educate the people, overcoming ideological distortions.  In addition, with respect to the Russian Revolution, we see the unusual capacity of Lenin to understand national and international dynamics from the perspective of the exploited workers and peasants.  The people were able to recognize these characteristics, and they lifted him up to speak on their behalf, thus establishing him a charismatic leader.  This phenomenon of a charismatic leader with unusual gifts and with a special relation with the people would occur later in Third World popular revolutions.  It is a necessary dimension of the revolutionary process, because the charismatic leader has the capacity: to discern insight from confusion in the various contradictory tendencies within the movement; to formulate a coherent comprehensive vision that unites the insightful components; and on this foundation, to forge the political unity of the people, an indispensable prerequisite for success.  We will discuss this phenomenon of Third World charismatic leaders in future posts.

 
References

Grant, Ted.  1997.  Rusia—De la revolución a la contrarrevolución: Un análisis marxista.  Prólogo de Alan Woods.  Traducción de Jordi Martorell.  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.  [Originally published in English as: RUSSIA—From Revolution to Counterrevolution].


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Russian Revolution, Lenin

Posted January 15, 2015

     As we have seen in posts from 1/6/2014 to 1/14/2014, Marx forged a synthesis of British political economy and German philosophy from the vantage point of the worker.  On a foundation of encounter with the emerging proletarian movement, Marx discerned meaning in human history, and he envisioned a future society established on a foundation of automated industry and characterized by versatile work and by the reduction of labor time.  His work represented the most advanced formulation of his era, overcoming the idealism of German philosophy and the ahistorical empiricism of British political economy, and analyzing human history and capitalism from the vantage point of the exploited and dominated class.

     Writing after the emergence of the proletarian movement, he discerned what German philosophy and British political economy could not see: the role of class domination in human history; and the role of class interests in political conflicts.  But writing before the emergence of the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World, he did not discern that integrated with the axis of class domination, there is an equally powerful axis of colonial domination.  Although aware that colonial domination was important in promoting the economic development of the West, he was unable to forge a theoretical system that was based on a foundation of the two axes of domination and that therefore could keep consistently in view the world-wide process of colonial domination.

       This limitation of Marx, rooted in the historical and social context in which he wrote, led him to erroneously believe that the Western proletariat would become a revolutionary class that would act politically to establish a socialist society.  He did not foresee the capacity of the capitalist class to utilize the material benefits resulting from colonial domination to make concessions to the proletariat of the nations of the core, thus channeling Western proletarian movement in a reformist direction, nullifying its revolutionary potential.

       With the reformist orientation of the working class organizations of the West since 1875, the revolutionary torch has been passed to the colonized people of the Third World, where movements led by charismatic leaders could discern the axis of colonial domination as well as the axis of class exploitation, inasmuch as both were integral to the colonial situation.  Third World charismatic leaders thus have left an intellectual legacy that has constituted a reformulation and a further development of the important insights of Marx.  They have left sacred texts, the study of which is a necessary intellectual work, integral to the development of a more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.

     The factors that made possible working-class reformism have come to an end.  The world-system has reached the geographical and ecological limits of the earth, and it can no longer expand through domination of new lands and peoples, as it did for nearly five centuries.  The world-system thus has entered a structural crisis, which it cannot resolve without bringing to an end the double axis of class and colonial domination, a resolution which the global elite is ideologically and politically unprepared to undertake. 

     Thus a global revolutionary situation has been established.  The Third World anti-neocolonial revolutions have been renewed, and the peoples of the earth are in movement.  It is a movement by humanity in defense of itself, and it is constructing an alternative world-system.   The Third World has taken the lead, but it will soon spread to the nations of the North.  It is not a proletarian revolution centered in the core, but a multi-class popular revolution with its most advanced expression in the Third World.  Although it has characteristics that he could not fully see, the revolutionary transformation anticipated by Marx is now at hand. 

     While the work of further developing an emancipatory and integral historical-philosophical-social science, the foundation of which was established by Marx, has proceeded in the breast of social movements seeking social justice, the Western universities have demonstrated their indifference to the advances in human understanding that Marx’s work represents.  Controlled by corporate interests, the universities have established fragmentation in the study of history, philosophy, and the social sciences, facilitating the marginalization of Marx’s work.

       Those of us who are intellectuals and academics of the North should follow the example of Marx:  seek cross-horizon encounter with the social movements of our time, that is, the social movements formed by the neocolonized of the Third World.  Such encounter would require personal emancipation from the assumptions of the academic disciplines and from the bureaucratic control of the academic departments.  Personal emancipation would enable us to prepare ourselves to fulfill the duty that history has bestowed on us: to make a necessary contribution to the emerging global revolution that will soon envelop our own lands.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marx, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, proletarian revolution, working class

Posted 7/24/2013

     Whereas Marxism-Leninism sees the exploitation of workers by capital as the fundamental axis of domination, the Third World perspective focuses on colonial  domination.  Whereas  Marxism-Leninism sees a fundamental class division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the Third World perspective perceives a world divided between the colonizer and the colonized.  Marxism-Leninism, therefore, engages in class analysis, whereas the Third World perspective engages in colonial analysis.  

     And this difference shapes visions of the future: Marxism-Leninism sees the possibility for a socialist society on a foundation of automated industry, characterized by structures of popular democracy, worker control of production and of political structures, and the gradual elimination of the state bureaucracy, with administrative functions carried out by workers themselves, whose productive labor time would be reduced by the advances of automated industry.  In contrast, the Third World perspective sees the possibility for a post-colonial society characterized by the self-determination of peoples, solidarity and cooperation among peoples, and the true sovereignty of nations, thus enabling the peoples and nations to eliminate poverty and to promote their economic and cultural development as well as protect and conserve the planet.

      To be sure, Marxism-Leninism discerned elements that would later become central to the Third World perspective.  Marx understood that capitalism is an international system, and he understood that the source of the primitive accumulation of capital is force.  Lenin understood the role of imperialism in the advanced stage of capitalism, and he affirmed the principle of self-determination in relation to the oppressed and exploited nationalities of the Russian Empire.  Nevertheless, it is a question of a basic frame of reference in the context of which these elements are understood.  Marxism-Leninism, on the basis of observation of bourgeois and proletarian revolutions in Europe, established a frame of class analysis; whereas the Third World perspective, on the basis of the experience of the conquest and peripheralization of the Third World, established a frame of colonial
analysis.

     From a Marxist-Leninist perspective, it is tempting to view the Third World Revolution as not a true revolution, as representing merely reform within the structures of capitalism.  But if we pause for personal encounter and reflection, we find that Third World intellectuals and leaders have developed in theory and practice a process of change that involves the replacement in power of one social group by another, the formulation of alternative concepts and understandings, and the development of structures with fundamentally different practices and consequences.  And these are precisely the elements that Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg defined as essential components of revolution, as distinct from reform.  The Third World Revolution does not look like the revolution that they envisioned, but it has the characteristics that they understood to be essential to the revolutionary process.

      The most advanced of the Third World leaders, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, who themselves were formed by advanced anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements, forged a creative synthesis of the Third World perspective with Marxism-Leninism.  Their formulations thus can be understood as stages in the development of Marxism-Leninism.  
 
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, Vietnam