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The legacy of Lenin

12/22/2016

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      There are various factors that facilitate that, in the societies of the North, we find it difficult to appreciate that we should turn to a study of Lenin to discern what should be done.  

      (1) The fall of the Bolshevik revolution after the death of Lenin. Lenin’s final struggle was against the state bureaucracy, many members of which were oriented to attending to their interests as a class, rather than the interests of society as a whole.  When Lenin died, the Russian Revolution fell to a bureaucratic counterrevolution that put Stalin at the head, creating a situation in which a ruling class pretends to represent the interests of workers and peasants, when in reality it promotes its own class interests.  Without an adequate understanding of these dynamics, we tend to believe that Lenin’s concepts were indirectly responsible for the subsequent emergence of Stalinism.  The teaching of political science in U.S. universities in the post-World War II era reinforced this view, inasmuch as it was based on a frame of reference that contrasted liberal democracy with communist and fascist totalitarianism, brushing aside reflection on the bureaucratic counterrevolution against Lenin (Katznelson 1997:234-37).  But the writings of Trotsky and the Trotskyites provide a basis for making a distinction between Leninism and Stalinism (Grant 1997; Lenin 1995; Trotsky 1972, 2008).  

     (2)  The undemocratic result of the democratic revolutions.  Led by the emerging bourgeoisie, the democratic revolutions of the West triumphed because of the ample participation of artisans, workers and farmers, who had been recruited to the revolution by a discourse that promised liberty and justice for all.  Following the triumph of the democratic revolutions, the bourgeoisie was able to consolidate its control, although it maintained a rhetoric that pretended to be committed to a democratic system of government, limiting its definition of democracy in order to effectively accomplish this ideological deception.  On such foundation, there emerged a system directed by politicians who were skillful in adopting a discourse that pretended to promote the interests of the people, while they in reality were defending bourgeois interests (see “American counterrevolution, 1777-87” 11/4/13 and (“Class and the French Revolution” 11/27/2013).  

       At the same time, the principles of the bourgeois democratic revolution were appropriated by the Third World project, expanding and deepening their meaning (see various posts on the Third World project).  However, in the societies of the North, we have a limited understanding of the Third World project.  We often fail to make a distinction between the accommodationist Third World politicians, allied with neocolonial interests; and revolutionary Third World political leaders, who were committed to a project of national sovereignty and social transformation.  If we take the accommodationist project as representative of the Third World project of national liberation, we cannot see the unfolding revolutionary project in an alternative form, and it appears that the democratic revolutions of the Third World, like the democratic revolutions of the West, failed to attain their proclaimed goals.

       If we are aware of the undemocratic character of Western political institutions, if we combine this with a superficial understanding that does not distinguish consistently between accommodationist and revolutionary Third World political leaders, and if we do not distinguish between Leninism and Stalinism, we tend to believe that revolutions promise a just and democratic world but ultimately fail to deliver on this promise.   This belief undermines the potential viability of the Leninist concept of a vanguard political party that leads the masses toward emancipation.

     (3) The bureaucratization of society.  For the bourgeoisie, the expansion of bureaucracy is a mechanism for the recruitment of the petty bourgeoisie and the upper levels of the proletariat and the peasantry to the side of the bourgeoisie; and it is a mechanism for the prevention of a revolution from below, channeling the revolution in the direction of reform.  The petty bourgeoisie has an interest in reform and in the expansion of public and private bureaucracy, as it seeks to consolidate its position in the bourgeois order and the developing capitalist system.   Thus the expansion of bureaucracy is intertwined with reform, and this expansion serves both bourgeois and petty bourgeois interests.

     From the point of view of the development of productive capacity, the expansion of bureaucracy has both advantages and disadvantages.  On the one hand, it is inefficient, in that the bureaucracy becomes bloated with parasites, as it seeks to expand without limit, in accordance with the interest of the petty bourgeoisie, the members of which occupy the higher and lower positions of the bureaucracy.  On the other hand, bureaucracy aids efficiency, in that it is a system of labor organization and hierarchical control from above, and in this respect it serves the interests of the bourgeoisie.  In times of economic growth and expansion, the bourgeoisie will tolerate the inefficient aspects of bureaucracy, as a concession to the petty bourgeoisie.  But in times of crisis, the bourgeoisie will attack the parasitic bureaucracy, and it will act to reduce the size of public and private bureaucracies.   

      The popular sectors of the societies of the North experience bureaucracy as a centralized structure, controlled from above, that constrains creativity, innovativeness and personal initiative.  This experience leads to a rejection of authority in all its forms, including the legitimate distribution of authority, necessary for all social organizations if they are to attain their goals (see “Authoritarianism vs. legitimate power” 5/16/2016).  Such an unrealistic rebellious attitude undercuts the credibility of the Leninist notion of a centralized and disciplined political party, necessary for challenging the centralized rule of the bourgeoisie.

     (4)  The counterrevolutionary and bureaucratic university.  British political economy had emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to formulate a systematic analysis of modern capitalism, thus applying the modern scientific principle of knowledge based on empirical observation to economic and social dynamics.  But British political economy was limited by its ahistorical character, and by the fact that it looked at reality from a bourgeois horizon.  Marx, by synthesizing British political economy with German philosophy, and by analyzing from a proletarian point of view, moved the science of political economy to a more advanced stage.  Marx’s work demonstrated that knowledge of social dynamics emerges from a comprehensive response to philosophical, historical, economic, and social questions; and that advances in knowledge are integrally tied to the movements of the exploited and the dominated.  From the vantage point of the evolving capitalist world-economy, the form of knowledge developed by Marx was a serious threat, for it implied a knowledge that would be integral to social reconstruction in accordance with the needs and rights of the exploited classes.  

     Western universities functioned to contain the Marxist threat, developing an approach to knowledge of social dynamics that prevented the implications of Marx’s analysis from emerging.  There were four elements to the containment of Marxism in the universities. First, fragmentation, separating philosophy and theology from analysis of social dynamics, and dividing the latter into separate disciplines of history, economics, political science, sociology, Eastern studies, and anthropology.  Secondly, “society” became the unit of analysis, assuming that the world is composed of autonomous societies with overlapping political and cultural boundaries.  Thirdly, scientific objectivity was understood as the bracketing of values, as the leaving aside of ethical, moral, philosophical, and religious questions.   Fourthly, the university became bureaucratized, with professors organized into separate departments, each with narrow questions of investigation and with limited scope (McKelvey 1991:3-21; Wallerstein 1974:4-7, 1996, 2004, 1999, 2011:219-73).  

     The fragmentation of knowledge, the restriction of investigation to narrow questions, the epistemological assumption of society as the unit of analysis, and the concept of objectivity as value neutrality, organized in a bureaucratic structure controlled from above and allied with political and economic elites, meant that the university had become a legitimating servant of dominant particular interests.  With the pursuit of knowledge eclipsed in the universities, the development of knowledge would emerge in the social movements formed by the dominated, a knowledge formulated in the fashion of Marx.  The Third World movements of national and social liberation would become not only political agents of social change but also the depositories of an accumulating wisdom with respect to social dynamics.  Charismatic leaders with exceptional gifts would study the received intellectual and moral tradition and would creatively apply it to a new historical and social context, thus developing it further.  

      The development of the university as a counterrevolutionary ideological structure and bureaucratized social system undermined the possibility for the popular appreciation of the role of Lenin and other revolutionary leaders in the formulation of a knowledge of social dynamics necessary for human emancipation.  To the extent that the peoples of the North were disconnected from the Third World movement of national and social liberation, it was difficult for them to see the profoundly counterrevolutionary character of the structures and epistemological assumptions of the Western university.

       Fidel has said that revolution in our time is above all a battle of ideas, and the central idea that we of the Left must grasp and teach to our people is that we have been denied our human right to knowledge and cultural formation, as a consequence of ideological distortions and the bureaucratization of education and society.  To break with this ideological enslavement, the fundamental first step is personal encounter with the social movements of the Third World, where the spirit of Marx and Lenin is alive.

     As the universities were turning to the structural marginalization of Marx, Lenin developed Marxist knowledge further, on the basis of his observation of popular struggles.  Observing the capacity of workers and peasants to form soviets (or popular councils), he discerned that the key to the struggle of the workers against capitalists and of peasants against landlords was the taking of political power by the workers and peasants through the formation of soviets and the substitution of soviet power for parliamentary power.  And observing the resistance of the oppressed nationalities of the Russian Empire, he discerned the importance of the self-determination of peoples.  When he discerned that the revolutions in the West were not going to triumph, which he considered necessary for the survival of the Russian Revolution, he anticipated that the center for the global socialist revolution would pass from the Western proletariat to the oppressed and colonized peoples of the world (Lenin 1943, 1968, 1972, 1995).

     The prediction of Lenin came to pass.  The Bolshevik revolution fell, and the Third World revolutions of national liberation would arrive to take central stage in the world arena.  The global powers were able to channel many of these revolutions to reform, using a variety of amoral means, including alliances with the opportunist accommodationist politicians.  But there are a number of cases in which a popular revolution has taken power, and the leadership of the revolution in power has defended the people and the nation, putting into practice revolutionary values and ideals.  The charismatic leaders of the Third World revolutions that sought both national sovereignty and social transformation are most clearly exemplified by Ho Chi Minh and Fidel. Ho was attracted to Lenin from the moment when, as a young man in a meeting of the French Socialist Party in Paris, he learned that Lenin defended the rights of the colonized peoples; and he subsequently studied the works of Lenin in the Soviet Union, in an institute for revolutionary leaders from Asia (“Ho encounters French socialism” 5/5/2014; “Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014).  Fidel studied the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin at the library of the Cuban Communist Party, reading on his own, independent of his university studies and of the party (“Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 9/11/2014).  Both Ho and Fidel would adapt the insights of Lenin to their particular national conditions, forging a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with the nationalist traditions in their particular nations (“Ho reformulates Lenin” 5/7/2014; “Ho synthesizes socialism and nationalism” 5/8/2014; “Ho’s practical theoretical synthesis” 5/9/2014; “Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014).  With exceptional mastery of the art of politics, they would lead their peoples in the taking of power, and they would forge new nations on a basis of revolutionary values and ideals. Their revolutionary projects continue to exist to this day, defending the dignity and the sovereignty of the nation and the rights of the people, and participating with other Third World nations in an international effort to construct a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  These Third World projects are the true heirs of Lenin, not Stalinist Russia, even though we must be aware that the Soviet Union after Lenin, until its fall in 1990, continued to have important dimensions that were a consequence of the legacy of Lenin (Grant 1997).  And the Third World project of national and social liberation is the true heir of Marx, further developing knowledge of history and social dynamics on the basis of insights developed by social movements that seek human emancipation (see posts on the Third World project of national and social liberation).

      We of the Left must appreciate the legacy that has been Left to us by our historic leaders.  The speeches and writings of Lenin form part of the body of sacred texts that are the intellectual and moral heritage of the Left.  They also pertain to the cultural heritage of humanity, for they are part of the evolution of knowledge of social dynamics, developed by the peoples in movement and by the charismatic leaders that they have lifted up.  We should study these sacred texts, always seeking to creatively apply their insights to our social and historical context.

     Lenin taught that it is necessary to form a vanguard political party that leads the people in the taking of political power.  He maintained that a vanguard political party, characterized by democratic centralization and discipline, is necessary for protecting the masses from the centralized and amoral power of the bourgeoisie (Lenin 1920; see “The infantile disorder of the Left” 12/19/2016).  

      We have alternative values, but we cannot implement them if we eschew the necessary dynamics of human social organization.  It is idealist to hope that persons of good will in the United States could contribute to the development of a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system without forming an alternative political party that is directed by visionary and committed leaders and that is characterized by the discipline of its members.  Without such a party, good work can be done in local communities; but such efforts will not be enough, as long as the national government remains in the hands of those who are committed to the defense of the short-term interests of the financiers and the large corporations.  We have the duty to develop a political structure that ultimately will be able to take power, confident that, if it is formed in accordance with universal human values, it will fulfill its historic duty to the people, the nation, humanity, and the earth.  

     We must form an alternative political party, look for leaders with exceptional gifts and with high moral commitment, lift them up, follow their lead, accept their direction, and defend them when they come under attack by the powers-that-be, all the while calling upon others to become a part of the process, which they can do if they have the discipline to study, to learn, to teach and to organize.  We cannot refuse to do this in the name of an idealist purity, accepting the material comforts that the neocolonial world-system unavoidably confers, and leaving the weak without defense before the barbarity of the global powers.

      Lenin taught that a revolution succeeds when the people have rejected the established order and when the rulers are unable to govern in the old way, and it is stimulated by a crisis that affects all, exploiters and exploited alike (1920:65).  These are precisely the conditions in which we live today.  But Lenin also taught that a revolution requires that a “majority of workers, (or at least a majority of the conscious, thinking, politically active workers) should fully understand the necessity for a revolution, and be ready to sacrifice their lives for it” (1920:66).  The mission of an alternative political party of the Left, a popular democratic socialist party, is to establish such consciousness and sacrificial dedication among significant numbers of the people, through a commitment to popular education and to acquiring mastery of the art of politics.

     That it can be done is the fundamental and most important teaching of Fidel.


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.

Katznelson, Ira.  1997. “The Subtle Politics of Developing Emergency: Political Science as Liberal Guardianship” in Noam Chomsky et al., The Cold War and the University.  New York: The New Press.
 
Lenin, V. I.  1920.  Left Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder.  London: The Communist Party of Great Britain.
 
__________.  1943.  State and Revolution.  New York: International Publishers.
 
__________.  1955.  To the Population; On Democracy and Dictatorship; What is Soviet Power?  Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.
 
__________.  1968.  National Liberation, Socialism, and Imperialism: Selected Writings.  New York: International Publishers.
 
__________.  1972.  Speeches at Congresses of the Communist International.  Moscow: Progress Publishers.
 
__________.  1995.  Lenin’s Final Fight: Speeches and Writings, 1922-23.  New York: Pathfinder Press.
 
Trotsky, Leon.  1972.  The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it going?  New York: Pathfinder Press. 
 
__________.  2008.  History of the Russian Revolution.  Translated by Max Eastman.  Chicago: Haymarket Books.
 
McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 
 
Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1974.  The Modern World System, Vol. I.  New York:  Academic Press. 
 
__________.  1999.  The End of the World as We Know It:  Social Science for the Twenty-First Century.  Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
 
__________.  2004.  The Uncertainties of Knowledge.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 
 
__________. 2011.  The Modern World System IV: Centralist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914.  Berkeley: University of California Press.
 
Wallerstein, Immanuel, et al.  1996.  Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences.  Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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The vanguard party model

5/12/2016

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Posted May 10, 2016

​     In yesterday’s post (“What is direct action?” 5/9/2016), I described Mitchel Cohen’s concept of revolutionary transformation through the formation of direct action communities of resistance, which Mitchel formulates in his 2013 book, What is Direct Action? Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  I continue today with reflection on Mitchel’s analysis of revolutionary strategies in the United States.

      Mitchel maintains that the New Left of the 1960s indicted the system, rather than trying to reform it.  In contrast, he notes, the official Left today is reformist. Composed of unions, churches, liberals, mainstream environmental groups, academic Marxists and solidarity groups, it seeks to pressure the government to make changes, through protests and the issuing of demands as well as lobbying Congress.  Many of the groups of the official Left use a strategy that Mitchel calls “lowest-common-denominator coalition-building.”  This involves framing issues in a form that intends to maximize popular support, using appeals based in underlying cultural assumptions that are central to the maintenance of the system.  Examples include: the advocacy of free health care, but for legal residents, not illegal aliens; the opposition to wars not on the basis of their immorality, but on the grounds that the money spent could be used for jobs in the United States; and the anti-war slogan “Support our Troops, Not the War!” The reformist approach of the official Left accepts the legitimacy of those in power and the underlying assumptions of the system; it is lacking in vision and imagination (Cohen 2013: 41, 218-24).

     Mitchel maintains that many of the organizations of the official Left follow a vanguard party model, in which the leaders of the organizations engage in a strategy of consciousness-raising, seeking to overcome false consciousness among the people.  Mitchel, however, rejects the concept of false consciousness.  He maintains that the people are isolated, impotent and afraid; but they are not lacking in political information.  Rather than analytical presentations of Truth, the Left should establish direct action projects, enabling the people to overcome isolation, impotence and fear (Cohen 2013: 174, 179-80, 189, 217, 307, 341).

     In rejecting the concept of false consciousness, Mitchel apparently does not see the limited understanding of the people of the United States, a phenomenon that is a result of patterns that have been in place for more than a century: ideological distortions by a corporate-controlled media; fragmentation in higher education, limiting the possibility for a global and integral view of human history; the creation of a consumer society, giving emphasis to the possession of things rather than the quest for understanding; and superficial and ethnocentric discourses by the political representatives of the elite. The limited popular consciousness in the United States is clearly and painfully evident from the vantage point of Cuba, Latin America and the Third World, and it pertains even to the US Left.  It is a phenomenon that has victimized all of us intellectuals and activists in the United States, to a greater or lesser degree, without exception.

      What can be done to overcome the limited historical, social and global consciousness of the people of the United States?  If we study the popular revolutions of the world, we see that the limited understanding of the people, rooted in established structures, was a general problem.  The people possess common sense intelligence and a sense of right and wrong; but most people think concretely, and they only partially understand their situation, provoking feelings of powerlessness.  In triumphant revolutions, the obstacle was overcome through a process of popular education forged by charismatic leaders and vanguard parties.  The common sense intelligence of the people enabled them to discern charismatic leaders and vanguard parties, who possessed the personal qualities that enabled them to see through the ideological distortions and lead the people to a revolutionary theory and practice.  

     So the question emerges, how can we apply these lessons to the United States?  How can we effectively educate our people, who have been ideologically manipulated and mis-educated? Believing that the people are not lacking in knowledge or understanding, Mitchel does not adequately address this question.  But it is a question that we must address.  

      Mitchel maintains that raising consciousness about oppression, without involving the people in direct action projects, leads to an increase in despair and a feeling of powerlessness among the people. In contrast, involving people in direct action projects provides people with the means “to act collectively to empower themselves over the conditions of their lives” (Cohen 2013: 304, 325, 339-42; italics in original).

      I agree with Mitchel that describing structures of oppression without offering a practical road to liberation can lead to an increased sense of powerlessness.  But it seems to me that Mitchel makes the opposite error of denying the importance of analysis, which is necessary for understanding structures of domination and the possibilities for liberation.

      In my career as a college teacher, I found that my most successful efforts in popular education were based on a combination of intellectual work and practical experiences.  So I turn to such a synthetic model in imagining a vanguard party that is effective in involving people, transforming people, and creating the political conditions that would make possible a societal transformation from capitalism to socialism in the United States.

      An effective vanguard political party would be dedicated to popular education, and it would be based on significant intellectual work, developing pamphlets for popular education, which would describe human history, the historic and present structures of domination and exploitation, and the historic and present struggles for personal and national liberation.  At the same time, it would involve the people in a variety of activities.  Some of these activities would include involvement in popular education at the local level.  But they also would involve the kinds of direct action activities that Mitchel advocates.  Indeed, at the local chapters of the vanguard party, the fostering of direct action strategies and direct action communities of resistance would be one of their most important activities.  Participation in such a vanguard political party that combines theory and practice in a variety of forms would empower the people, both subjectively and objectively. 

     If history is our guide, we can see that if the people are to free themselves, they must be led.  The people possess common-sense intelligence and a thirst for liberation and social justice, but they naturally are divided and confused.  They must be led to that unity of action that is necessary for societal transformation, and this is the role of the vanguard party.  A vanguard party can include direct action strategies and the fostering of direct action communities of resistance.

     For further posts on this theme, see “A socialist revolution in the USA” 2/1/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; and “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015.  They can be found in the category Revolution. 


Reference
 
Cohen, Mitchel, et.al.  2013.  What is Direct Action?  Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  Brooklyn: Red Balloon Collective Publications.
 
 
Key words: vanguard, Left, false consciousness, consciousness raising, revolution, socialism
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From proletarian to popular revolution

12/23/2015

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     When Marx came to understand the fundamentals of historical materialism in the 1840s, he had good reason to interpret the proletariat as the emerging vanguard of the socialist revolution.  Unlike peasants, who worked and lived in relative isolation, industrial workers were concentrated in work and in their living conditions, and they were subjected to extreme forms of abuse, including super-exploitative wages and the destruction of work as a craft.  Marx discerned that large-scale industry would expand, making industrial workers the majority of the workforce, placing them in a position of control of major parts of the productive process.  These dynamics would give rise to the industrial working class as the popular sector with the most advanced revolutionary consciousness and as the greatest political force.

      Trotsky noted that the conditions that placed industrial workers at the vanguard of the revolution were particularly advanced with respect to Russia.  Russian industry developed late, in comparison to England, France and Germany.   And it developed rapidly at the beginning of the twentieth century, through investment by capitalists from Western Europe, and it immediately took the form of large-scale industry, concentrating large numbers of workers.  Moreover, the workers were drafted directly from the countryside, rather than from the craft guilds of the cities, thus producing a radical social dislocation.  These conditions established a proletarian leadership in Russia capable of leading workers and peasants in revolutionary action.  

      However, peasants and agricultural workers comprised the great majority of the laboring population of Russia.  Lenin, therefore, adapted Marx to Russian conditions, conceiving a revolution of workers and peasants led by a proletarian vanguard.  When the proletarian revolutions in the Western industrialized nations did not triumph, Lenin anticipated that the epicenter of the world-wide socialist revolution would move to the oppressed and colonized nations and peoples, which we today call the Third World.  Thus with Lenin, there begins an evolution in Marxism, and a movement away from Marx’s concept of a vanguard formed by a Western European industrial proletariat.

       Marx’s concept of the proletarian vanguard would undergo further modification with the Sinification of Marxism, the adaptation of Marx to China by Mao Zedong.  In Mao’s analysis, the principal revolutionary class is the “propertyless class,” which in China consisted principally of peasants, replacing the revolutionary proletariat of Marx’s analysis.  

     In Vietnam, the revolution for national liberation was being carried forward by the petit bourgeoisie, with roots in the nationalism of Confucian scholars, and the peasantry.  Ho Chi Minh was formed in the nationalism of the Confucian scholars, and his political activities obligated him to flee Indochina.  He later was educated in the Soviet Union, enabling him to learn Marxism-Leninism.  He was for many years a representative of Indochina in the Communist International, and it therefore was logical and politically sensible for Ho, when he emerged as leader of the Vietnamese Revolution, to continue with Lenin’s formulation of a peasant-worker revolution, led by a working-class vanguard.  But Ho, adjusting to the conditions of Vietnam, made a subtle theoretical and practical reformulation of Lenin’s concept, by defining workers in such a broad way that they included intellectuals and peasants.   Moreover, whereas Lenin supported anti-colonial national liberation movements as a transitional stage, Ho interpreted national liberation movements in the colonized regions as complementary and equal to the proletarian revolutions of the advance industrial nations.

      Unlike Ho, Fidel Castro was not educated in the Soviet Union.  He read the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin on his own in the library of the communist party in Cuba.  He more loosely appropriated Marxist-Leninist concepts, adapting them to conditions in Cuba.  In “History Will Absolve Me,” which functioned as the manifesto of the Cuban revolution from 1953 to 1959, Fidel spoke of a revolution that responds to the need of the people, and he named the sectors of the people: the unemployed, agricultural workers, industrial workers, tenant farmers, teachers, professors, small businessmen, and young professionals in health, education, engineering, law, and journalism.  For Fidel, the revolution was more of a popular than a proletarian revolution.

     In the movement toward “Socialism for the Twenty-First Century” in Latin America today, the tendency to speak of the people, as against the working class, has been reinforced by the fact that new social subjects of women, indigenous peoples, and ecologists have emerged, supplementing the conventional social subjects of workers, peasants, agricultural workers, students, and blacks.  The vanguard is not a proletarian vanguard; rather, it is a vanguard of the people, consisting of consisting of persons from the various popular sectors who possess high levels of understanding and commitment.  The vanguard comes from the people and is organically tied to the people, and it speaks and acts in defense of the people.

     When I was a participant in the anti-war movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were those, including members of the Progressive Labor Party, who spoke of a vanguard of industrial workers.  It was a concept that made no sense to me, for it was inconsistent with my experiences.  Blacks and white middle class students had the most advanced revolutionary consciousness in the United States at the time, as a result of the fact that they had experienced, in different ways, the contradiction between US claims to be democratic and the actual practice.

      The identification of a working-class vanguard in the Revolution of 1968 in the United States resulted from the error of literally applying Marx’s concepts, which were developed in a particular time and place.  And it was an error with very serious consequences, for it contributed to the undermining of the credibility of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice.  

      But we today can avoid the error of literalism.  We can study and learn from Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, so that we would be able to politically act in an intelligent and effective form.  We should fully understand the following five points.  

      (1) Marxism is not dogmatic.  Marxist-Leninist theory and practice contains no fixed and unchanging concepts and strategies, for it has been continually evolving from the time of Marx to the present day.  

     (2) We should study the Third World.  The evolution of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice is a global phenomenon, occurring in popular social movements in all of the regions of the world, and attaining a particularly advanced expression today among the neocolonized peoples.

     (3)  The members of the vanguard read.  The people tend to focus on concrete problems, and they often are unable to understand particular problems in the context of an evolving social system characterized by structures of domination and exploitation.  In contrast, the members of the vanguard are able to understand concrete problems in historical and global context, largely as a consequence of their commitment to studying the speeches of charismatic leaders and the works of intellectuals tied to popular movements.  

     (4) The vanguard teaches and leads the people.  If we study popular revolutions of the world, we are able to understand that the role of the vanguard is to educate the people and to lead them in emancipatory political action, seeking to transform structures of domination and exploitation and to construct social and national liberation.  

     (5) The vanguard comes from all races, ethnic groups, classes, genders and ages.  If we observe the unfolding popular revolutions of the world, we see that the vanguard is formed by committed and responsible persons from all of the popular sectors.

     The formation of a vanguard of the people is the key to popular revolution, which by definition is the taking of power by the people.  Popular revolutions in the core nations of the world-system are necessary, because the global power elite is leading humanity to chaos and is placing at risk the survival of the human species and the life of the Earth.

     In various posts on Marx, the Russian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution, Vietnam, the Cuban Revolution and the presidential primaries in the United States, I have commented upon the concept of the vanguard, its role and its composition.  These posts have been placed in the category of the Vanguard.  The posts are as follows:

 “Marx on the revolutionary proletariat” 1/14/2014
“The social & historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014
“The proletarian vanguard” 1/24/2014
“The revolutionary party of the vanguard” 1/25/2014
“The proletariat and the Mexican Revolution” 2/14/2014
“Ho reformulates Lenin” 5/7/2014
“Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014
“The pluralism of revolutionary unity” 9/18/2014
“Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015

In the category of Vanguard, scroll down to locate the posts.
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Presidential primaries in USA

8/25/2015

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     In times of crisis and uncertainty, the people lose faith in established mainstream political institutions, and they simultaneously turn to both the Right and the Left.  This occurred, for example, in Europe following the First World War.

     The emergence of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as significant contenders for the nominations of the Republican and Democratic parties is a sign that US voters are increasingly disenchanted with the two traditional political parties and with mainstream political institutions, inasmuch as both Trump and Sanders are marginal members of their respective parties, and both adopt a discourse more to the Right and to the Left of their parties.

     The growing lack of faith in mainstream politics indicates that the time may be ripe for a third party of the Left in the United States, as has occurred in Latin America, where new parties of the Left have been formed since 1995 and have captured control of governments in a number of nations, utilizing electoral procedures of representative democracy.  The new parties reacted to and took advantage of the cooperation of national elites and their political pawns in the imposition of the neoliberal project by the global powers.

      The neoliberal turn of global elites in 1980 occurred as a result of the structural crisis of the world-system, the first signs of which emerged during the 1970s.  The crisis has been caused principally by the fact that the world-system has overreached its geographical and ecological limits.  Since the sixteenth century, the world-system expanded through the conquest and domination of new lands and peoples, thus incorporating more natural resources, additional reserves of cheap labor, and new markets.  But this mechanism for productive and commercial expansion has been eroded since the middle of the twentieth century, when the system reached the geographical limits of the earth.  New technologies can increase productivity on existing land, and additional natural recourses can be discovered, but these possibilities do not provide for the sufficient growth of the system (see various posts in the section on the crisis of the world system).

      But the effort by global elites to increase levels of exploitation through the imposition of neoliberal policies does not address the source of the crisis.  Moreover, the neoliberal project has provoked popular rejection in both peripheral and core zones during the last twenty years, thus creating a situation in which the world-system is not only ecologically but also politically unsustainable.

     Coinciding with the structural crisis of the world-system, the United States has entered a period of productive, commercial and financial decline relative to other core powers.  Excessive military expenditures, rampant consumerism, insufficient investment in manufacturing, and uncontrolled financial speculation have contributed to its decline since the early 1970s.  The decline of hegemonic core powers following their ascent to hegemonic dominance is a normal phenomenon.  But the coincidence of the structural crisis of the world-system with the decline of the hegemonic core power, provoking its turn to unilateral neo-fascist militarism, has accelerated a global turn to chaos.  

     Political discourse in the United States lacks the capacity to explain the sources of the crisis of the world-system and the relative decline of the nation.  So anxiety grows among the people.  They increasingly are losing faith in mainstream political institutions.  They are turning more and more to unconventional approaches, which in the case of the presidential primaries are represented by the candidacies of Trump and Sanders.  

     But neither Trump nor Sanders points to the necessary road.  Trump’s discourse taps into fear and ignorance, and its ultimate logic would be a fascist order that would be far from democracy and social justice.  Sanders heads in the right direction, but in a far too limited form.  He has no discourse to explain the world systemic crises and the national decline nor to formulate a comprehensive national project that seeks democracy and social justice on a global scale.  Furthermore, what is needed at this moment is not a presidential candidate representing one of the two established parties, but an alternative political party.  

     The success that Sanders has had with his superficial discourse of the Left does indicate, however, that the people may be ready to follow the lead of an alternative political party of the Left that seeks to take power and govern in the name of the people.  That is to say, the people in the United States may be prepared for revolution, which would be the fourth stage in the American Revolution, the first three being the periods of 1763-1789 (establishing political independence), 1829-1876 (abolishing slavery), and 1955-72 (establishing fundamental civil and political rights for minorities and women).

      If we follow the example of successful revolutions in the world of the past 100 years, a revolutionary party of the people of the United States would need an effective manifesto and platform.  The manifesto would explain global historical dynamics, so that the people would be able to understand the crisis of the world-system and the national decline as well as the necessary constructive responses by the nation.  The platform, on the other hand, would formulate specific proposals that would address the concrete needs of the people.

      Whereas revolutions in other lands often have resulted in new constitutions, constitutional amendments would be more appropriate in the case of the United States.  More than 200 years of constitutional continuity is a significant achievement, and it should not be cast aside.  Moreover, the road of constitutional amendment is an historic legacy of the three earlier revolutionary stages of the US popular movement, resulting in the Bill of Rights; the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments; and the proposal in the 1970s for a constitutional amendment affirming equal citizenship rights for women.  In the present historic moment, the revolutionary party should propose four constitutional amendments affirming: (1) that women have full constitutional rights; (2) that democratic rights include social and economic rights, such as education, health care, nutrition, housing, and a minimum standard of living; (3) that the foreign policy of the nation must respect the full sovereignty of all nations; and (4) that the government has the right and the duty to take measures necessary for the ecological balance of the earth.

      Concrete platform proposals could include: reduction of taxes for the middle and working classes and a tax increase on corporations and the wealthy; the replacement of student loans with direct grants and the forgiveness of existing student debt; infrastructural investment to provide for needs in housing and urban public transportation and to provide employment; a minimum-wage increase; structures of community control to facilitate crime prevention, prevent police violence, and increase citizen participation; a domestic partnership law to ensure fairness for gay couples living together; expansion of structures supporting adoption and single-parenthood as alternatives to abortion, while affirming the principle of reproductive rights and the legality of abortion; universal social programs that provide support for persons in need, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender; an anti-imperialist foreign policy of North-South cooperation, with constructive proposals with respect to sovereign nations that have been demonized, such as Venezuela and Iran; cooperation with other nations in order to reduce illegal immigration, trafficking in human persons, and illegal drug trafficking; reduction of expenditures on high-technology military weapons, combined with the increasing use of the armed forces for emergency relief and construction projects throughout the world; expansion of government support for public television; and campaign finance reform, with the goal of eliminating the dependency of political candidates on the contributions of the wealthy.

      The revolutionary party should have the long-range goal of seeking to capture the presidency and the Congress in a period of twenty-five years, cultivating allies in the judiciary and the military during this period.  Its focus initially should be on the education and organization of the people, rather than on the election of candidates.  However, in the short-term, candidates could be nominated in Congressional districts with favorable demographic characteristics, such as districts with high percentages of blacks, Latinos or Native Americans.  Elected members of the Congress in these demographically favorable districts could play an important role in the education of the people throughout the nation with respect to the perspective, values, and proposals of the revolutionary party.

      The revolutionary party should be launched when there is significant support for the new political party from prominent public intellectuals and personalities, including political leaders affiliated with the Democratic Party who are prepared to cast their lot with the new party, in consideration of the challenges that the nation and humanity confront in the present historic moment.


Key words:  Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, revolution, revolutionary party

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Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba

8/13/2014

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Posted September 9, 2014

    We have seen in previous posts that there is a tradition in Marxism-Leninism of interpreting the popular revolution as a proletarian revolution or as led by a proletarian vanguard (see posts on The Vanguard).  In “History will absolve me,” there is no notion of a proletarian revolution or a proletarian vanguard.  Instead, we find a concept of a people prepared to support a revolution, a people coming from various social classes (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014).   . 

      As he explained in an extensive interview in 1985 with the Brazilian Dominican priest Frei Betto, Fidel already had a Marxist-Leninist formation at the time of “History will absolve me.” During his third year at the University of Havana, he had begun to study the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, using books obtained at the library of the Communist Party.  In his study of Marxist literature, The Communist Manifesto had the most impact on him, because of its simplicity and clarity, and particularly important was its understanding that human societies are characterized by class division.  Fidel’s life experiences, in which he had “seen up close the contrasts between wealth and poverty, between a family that possessed extensive land and those that have absolutely nothing,” (Castro 1985:161), confirmed the truth of Marx’s insight into class division.  And the insight, for Fidel, had explanatory power, for it made clear that social phenomena are not consequences of the evil or immorality of men, but of factors established by class interests (Castro 1985:157-70). 

     In this description of his reading of The Communist Manifesto, we can see that Fidel was making immediately a Cuban interpretation of Marx.  In confirming the validity of Marx’s insight for the reality of Cuba, Fidel was focusing not on the exploitation of the industrial workers, which was the social context in which Marx formulated the concept, but on the unequal distribution of land, rooted in the colonial and neocolonial situation of Cuba.  Thus, Fidel was beginning to appropriate from Marx in a form that reflected the neocolonial conditions of Cuba. 

      Fidel was not studying the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin as an academic exercise.  He was seeking to understand how to further develop the Cuban Revolution and the revolutionary theory and practice that was the heritage of Céspedes, Martí, Mella, and Guiteras. As a result of this intellectual work and political practice, Fidel had formulated, even before the Batista coup, a revolutionary strategy for bringing about a profound social revolution in Cuba.  Having observed the isolation of the Communist Party, in spite of its considerable influence among urban workers, and the dissemination of anti-socialist and anti-communist ideas, he concluded that it would be necessary for the revolution to develop in stages.  The first stage would involve a mass rebellion by the majority of people, focusing on concrete demands that would respond to the sources of popular discontent; and a subsequent stage would be characterized by the formation of the political consciousness of the people, during which the socialist character of the revolution would be understood (Castro 1985:164-65).

      Thus, Fidel had become a Marxist-Leninist by 1950, the year of his graduation from the university.  But his understanding of Marxism-Leninism was shaped by Cuban revolutionary practice, and it adapted the key insights of Marx and Lenin to Cuban reality. Accordingly, he did not speak of a proletarian revolution, but a popular revolution formed by various classes and social sectors, including the unemployed, agricultural workers, industrial workers, tenant farmers, teachers and professors, small businessmen, and young professionals.  He did not refer to a proletarian vanguard, but instead implied that the popular revolution would be led by members of the various popular classes who possess the courage to act in defense of the revolutionary ideals defined by José Martí.  And he conceived and envisioned a socialist revolution in stages.  Based on an appreciation of the insights of Marx as well as observation of Cuban reality in a context of political practice, Fidel’s formulation represented a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with the Cuban revolutionary struggle for national liberation. 

     Fidel’s formulation was an important theoretical advance in the evolution of Marxism-Leninism.  But Fidel did not present it as such.  He did not offer a theoretical analysis of the development of the concept of a proletarian vanguard, describing the social context in which the concept emerged and explaining why a reformulation is necessary. Rather than making a theoretical defense of his reformulation from proletarian to popular revolution, he simply presented the new formulation.  And this creative formulation made sense to the people, for it described what they already knew in experience, and it included concrete solutions.

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).

References

Castro, Fidel. 1985.  Fidel y La Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. [English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology.  Melbourne: Ocean Press].

__________.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean 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, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada
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The pluralism of revolutionary unity

8/8/2014

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“It is the permanent teaching of Fidel concerning how to defend principles in an uncompromising manner without falling into dogmatism.”—Amando Hart Dávalos, Cuban Minister of Culture, December 9, 1987, with reference to “Un Encuentro con Fidel,” a transcription of a fifteen hour interview with Fidel by the Italian journalist Gianni Miná on June 28, 1987.
Posted September 18, 2014

     Fidel Castro is a man of firmly held principles: the right of nations to be truly independent and sovereign; the rights of all persons to education, health care, nutrition, and housing; and the right of all nations to defend themselves against aggression, interventionism, and terrorism.  And he is a person of convictions: the resolution of the social problems generated by the capitalist world-economy and the neo-colonial world system cannot be resolved without a structural transformation to a socialist world-system.  But he has never been dogmatic.  His absorption of Marxism-Leninism was characterized by a creative interpretation and adaptation of its insights to Cuban reality and to the Cuban struggle for national liberation, and thus he forged in theory and practice a form of Marxism-Leninism that was a synthesis with the ideas that emerged from the Cuban struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism (see “Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014; “Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 9/11/2014).  Thus, in his formation as a Marxist-Leninist, Fidel placed himself in opposition to the established dogmas of Marxism-Leninism.  His way of thinking was diametrically opposed to dogmatism, that is, to fixed doctrines, concepts and plans of action that are applied universally, regardless of particular national conditions.

      Dogmatism leads to sectarianism, which involves the refusal of popular organizations with common goals to cooperate, because of differences in tactics or concepts.  When revolutionaries adhere to fixed doctrines, they have a tendency to believe that those who do not accept these doctrines are outside the revolutionary process and are allies, consciously or unwittingly, of the counterrevolution.  Thus, there emerges the lack of cooperation and division within the revolutionary movement, rendering it unable to take power or to implement a deep political, economic, social and cultural transformation.  We have seen, for example, that in the early 1930s, sectarianism among popular organizations in Cuba created division within the popular revolution and facilitated Batista’s rise and consolidation of power (“The lesson of sectarianism” 8/15/2014). 

     In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Fidel worked to overcome sectarianism in the Cuban popular revolution, and his success in this effort made possible the survival and sustainability of the Cuban Revolution.  He sought to forge unity on the basis of a common commitment to an anti-imperialist project that would transform neocolonial structures (Arboleya 125).  He sought to include all who had participated in the struggle against Batista, regardless of organizational affiliation or whether they had been in the guerrilla struggle or the urban front.  In spite of a political situation overwhelmingly in favor of the organization that he founded, the 26th of July Movement, he dissolved this organization and established a new unifying revolutionary organization that would include the communist party and the Student Directory, which eventually led to the establishment of a reconstituted Communist Party that would be the only party to lead the revolution (“Unifying the Cuban revolutionary process” 9/16/2014). 

     Thus, Fidel sought to create unity on a foundation of commitment to common principles and acceptance of a diversity of views with respect to the implementation of these principles, a diversity concerning concepts, strategies, and tactics.  These differences would be debated within the context of an organizational unity of a single political party, which would permit the maintenance of political unity of the face of the opposition of the counterrevolutionary forces.

      The Cuban revolutionary project has been criticized for developing a single political party and not following the multiple party model of representative democracy.  Structures of representative democracy, however, were developed in a social and historical context defined by the need of the revolutionary bourgeoisie to enlist the support of the popular classes, but also to constrain the full expression of popular interests (see various posts on the American Revolution and the French Revolution).  As a result, structures of representative democracy often function to protect elite interests rather than the interests of the people.  In a neocolonial context, representative democracy is even more dysfunctional with respect to popular interests.  For in a neocolonial context, the denial of popular rights and needs is more profound, the capacity of the government to make concessions to popular demands is less, and the popular movement must contend with both the international and national bourgeoisie.   In the neocolonial context, when a popular revolution triumphs, it needs a political structure that promotes unity, in order to defend the revolution for national liberation and social and economic transformation against the various strategies and maneuvers of powerful national and international actors.  Such a need is not provided by a system characterized by multiple political parties, for it promotes competition for power rather than the seeking of consensus.  For this reason, the African nationalist movement and the movement for African socialism in the 1960s developed a concept of one-party democracy, as we will see in future posts.

       Following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, a political process developed in the context of Cuban conditions was required.  Given the historic problem of division and sectarianism, which had undermined the Cuban revolution in three historic moments (1873-78, 1898-1902, 1933-35), Fidel sought to develop a political structure that would permit internal debate and discussion but would facilitate unified action on the basis of consensus.  In developing this approach, he took into account, on the one hand, the historic problem of division within the revolution; and on the other hand, the fact that the revolution must proceed in an environment characterized by the opposition of powerful actors that have an economic interest in preventing the structural transformation that the revolution intends.  The single revolutionary party does not intend to stifle debate, but to permit debate and respect diversity in a form that does not undermine necessary revolutionary unity.

     At the international level as well, Fidel has possessed a pluralist conception of revolutionary unity that is opposed to dogmatism and sectarianism.  Speaking in 1987, Fidel maintained that there had been a tendency in the international communist movement to “seek an impossible unity, an absolute homogeneity of thought” that “ignored the diversity of situations existing in the world,” and that does not take into account the particular conditions of each nation.  This tendency had emerged as a result of the prestige and authority of the Soviet Union in the international communist movement.  Fidel discerned, however, that there was beginning to emerge within the international communist movement “a greater understanding of the diversity of situations and of the need for pluralism within socialism.”  He saw this emerging principle of pluralism as a remedy for the problem of sectarianism.  In the case of the Third World nations, he observed, many theoretical concepts had emerged that reflected Third World situations (Castro 1988:125-28).  In this respect, Fidel was anticipating what would become a principle in the Third World revolutions after 1995 and a principle of socialism for the twenty-first century: respect for the diversity of situations in the various nations, recognition of the pluralism of socialism, and avoidance of a sectarianism that excludes and divides.

     In the same vein, speaking at a time in which Muammar Qaddafi and the Ayatollah Khomeini had been labeled as devils by the transnational mainstream media, Fidel described both as revolutionaries, even though they were not Marxist-Leninists and had philosophical and political concepts different from those of Fidel.  Qaddafi, he noted, had played an important role in liberating Libya from colonialism and from the military bases of NATO.  His government had established national control over petroleum, had developed important programs in economic and social development, and had made an effort to provide food for the people.  Fidel noted that he had read Qaddafi’s Green Book, which expressed advanced social ideas; although he did not agree entirely, Fidel expressed respect for Qaddafi’s point of view.  The aggression and hostility of the United States toward Qaddafi, Fidel noted, is simply a consequence of his anti-imperialist policy and his defense of the sovereignty of Libya.  Similarly, Khomeini had played a central role in overthrowing the Shah of Iran, who had been a tyrant and an ally of imperialism (Castro 1988:118-21).

     In his comments with respect to Qaddafi and Khomeini, Fidel was anticipating attitudes in Latin America today, where socialist and Leftist governments are developing relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.  In spite of religious and cultural differences, the need for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations, cultural interchange, and unity in opposition to US and European imperialism is recognized.
 

References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Castro, Fidel. 1988.  Un Encuentro con Fidel: Entrevista realizada por Gianni Miná.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Mina, Gianni.  1991.  An Encounter With Fidel.  Translated by Mary Todd.  Melbourne: Ocean 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, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Communist Party of Cuba
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Ho reformulates Lenin

5/7/2014

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    Ho Chi Minh possessed a double social and experiential foundation for his understanding.  On the one hand, he was an intellectual and activist of the colonized world, formed in the tradition of the patriotic nationalism of the Confucian scholars.  On the other hand, he had experienced encounter with Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement in Paris and Moscow from 1917 to 1924 (see “Ho encounters French socialism” 5/5/2014; “Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014). 

     Thus, Ho Chi Minh possessed the social foundation for a synthesis of Third World nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, and he had developed the basic components of this synthetic perspective by 1924.  Although his perspective necessarily involved a reformulation of Lenin on the basis of the colonial situation of Indochina, Ho did not announce a reformulation of Lenin’s thesis.  Rather, his strategy was to invoke Lenin, calling upon the international communist movement to take seriously Lenin’s thesis on the colonial question, and providing interpretations of Lenin’s thesis that were subtle reformulations.

       In its classical formulation, Marxism-Leninism viewed the industrial working class as the vanguard of the socialist revolution, since the factory workers had the most advanced revolutionary consciousness.  And it viewed the peasantry as prepared to support a worker-led socialist revolution, if the revolution unequivocally supported peasant interests in obtaining land (see “The proletarian vanguard” 1/24/2014).  

     At the time of the triumph of the October Revolution, Lenin believed that in order for the Russian Revolution to be able to sustain itself, a triumph of the proletarian revolutions in the advanced nations of Western Europe would be necessary (see “A permanent global revolution” 1/27/2014).  When the proletarian revolutions in the West did not triumph, Lenin reformulated his understanding of the global revolution, giving greater emphasis to the revolutions of national liberation in the colonies.  He understood that the profits obtained through the exploitation of the colonies increased the capacity of capitalism to make concessions to core workers, thus enabling the system to create a labor aristocracy in the advanced nations, thereby undermining the possibility of revolutionary transformation to a political-economic system governed by workers.  Lenin therefore called for the formation of alliances between the proletarian movements in the core and the national liberation movements in the colonies, even when the national liberation movements include the national bourgeoisie, with the intention of struggling against international imperialism and the imperialist exploitation of the colonies.  He believed, however, that the revolutions in the colonies ultimately must be led by a proletarian vanguard (Lenin 2010:130-37; 1972:55-60; 1993:261-65).

     Lenin’s “Thesis on the national and colonial questions” converted Ho Chi Minh into a Leninist.  Ho invoked Lenin’s concept in order to criticize the Western communist parties for ignoring the national liberation movements in the colonies.  Like Lenin, Ho believed that the colonies were decisive, because most of the strength of the capitalist class was derived from the exploitation of the colonies.  As we have seen (“Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014), Ho believed that attacking capitalism via the industrial working class of the advanced countries was like trying “to kill a snake by stepping on its tail.”  He did not make the reverse error of believing that the capitalist snake could be killed by the movements of national liberation of the colonized. Rather, he advocated the forging of a global revolution through complementary movements of workers in the core and of national liberation in the colonized regions, working on a basis of alliance, solidarity, and mutual support.

        But Ho’s understanding involved a subtle reformulation of Lenin.  Lenin considered support for national liberation movements as a tactic in the global transition to socialism, which ultimately would require revolutionary movements in the colonies led by a proletarian vanguard.  Ho, however, viewed the global revolution as a having complementary dimensions: a proletarian struggle in the core, which would embrace and support national liberation movements; and national liberation struggles in the colonized region, which would seek not merely political independence but would pursue a class revolution within the nation.  For Ho, they were different but equal partners, and they would support each other in order to kill the capitalist snake.

      Ho Chi Minh’s view of the global revolution implied a reformulation of the concept of the vanguard, and here too Ho was subtle.  The vanguard in the Vietnamese revolution was composed of “workers,” but Ho had a dynamic concept of workers.  In his view, during the transition to socialism, agriculture would be modernized, and peasants therefore would be transformed into agricultural workers.  At the same time, intellectuals would learn to complement their intellectual work with manual labor (as Ho himself did during his life).  Thus peasants and intellectuals were workers, even though they were in a sense workers in formation.  But as potential workers, they could become part of the vanguard, if they possessed advanced political consciousness.  In practice, the Workers’ Party of Vietnam was composed of intellectuals, peasants, and workers, with intellectuals being in the majority, but with peasants and workers also playing a significant role.  In this way, Ho subtly reformulated the Marxist-Leninist concept of the proletarian vanguard, adapting it to the colonial situation of Vietnam (Ho 2007:155-57, 168, 170-71).

      Ho always presented himself as a disciple of Lenin, and he was.  But he reformulated Lenin’s insights in accordance with the colonial situation of Vietnam.  Whereas Lenin envisioned a proletarian vanguard, Ho developed a vanguard consisting of enlightened intellectuals, peasants, and workers.  Whereas Lenin distrusted the peasant as susceptible to bourgeois thinking, Ho discerned the revolutionary spontaneity of the peasant.  Whereas Lenin believed that petit bourgeois socialists betray the revolution (see “The role of the petit bourgeoisie” 1/28/2014), Ho saw the central role of the Confucian scholar-gentry class in the origin and development of Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism.  Whereas Lenin saw patriotism as an instrument of the bourgeoisie in manipulating the working class into participating in imperialist wars (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2014), Ho saw genuine patriotism as a necessary component of the struggle against colonial domination. 

     In adapting Lenin to the colonial situation of Vietnam, Ho was following the recommendations of Lenin himself.  In his message to the communist organizations of the East, Lenin asserted, “Relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourself to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries.  You must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism” (1993:263).

     Ho Chi Minh, therefore, was both Marxist-Leninist and nationalist, who forged in practice a theoretical synthesis of the two political-intellectual-moral traditions, a theme to which we discuss further in the next post.


References

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Lenin, V.I.  1972.  “Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial Questions” in Speeches at Congresses of the Communist International.  Moscow: Progress Publishers.

__________.  1993.  “Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East” in John Ridell, Ed., To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920—First Congress of the Peoples of the East.  New York: Pathfinder Press.

__________.  2010.  “Tesis sobre la cuestión nacional y colonial” in La Internacional Comunista: Tesis, manifiestos, y resoluciones de los cuatro primeros congresos (1919-1922).  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.


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, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin
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The proletariat and the Mexican Revolution

2/14/2014

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      In his classic work on the Mexican Revolution, Adolfo Gilly notes that the working class played a secondary role in the revolution (2005:332).  This was rooted in several factors:  the relatively small size of the proletariat; the dynamic and influential organization of peasants into revolutionary armies by Zapata in the South and Villa in the North; and the formulation of a national plan by an ascending petit bourgeoisie, which was able to attract sectors of the working class to its project.

     The rapid construction of railways in Mexico beginning in 1880 through investment by British and US companies led to the formation of a modern working class, and it expanded as a result of foreign investments in the mining industry in the 1890s as well as the emergence of new industries in steel and electric power in the first decade of the twentieth century.  The emerging working class formed labor organizations, organized strikes, and founded journals and newspapers, and in these activities they were influenced by the working class movement in Europe and by European social democracy.  Their demands for the most part were focused on the wages and working conditions of workers (Gilly 2005:20-22, 28-39).

     A potential in the evolution of the Mexican working class movement was represented by the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), a petit bourgeois group headed by Ricardo Flores Magón, which was active in organizing workers’ strikes in 1906 and 1907 in Senora and Veracruz.  The PLM program combined issues of workers with those of peasants: it called for a minimum wage, an eight-hour working day, a ban on child labor, and workers’ compensation insurance as well as the cancellation of peasant debts to landowners, the restitution of village land, the redistribution of unused land to peasants, and the protection of indigenous peoples.  But the potential for a peasant-worker alliance represented by Flores Magón and the PLM was not realized.  When Madero called an armed uprising in 1910 (see “The Mexican Revolution” 2/3/2014), Magonists organized an insurrection in Baja California, taking the cities of Mexicali y Tijuana.  But the rebellion was isolated, and it was defeated in June 1911 by the federal army.  In the critical year of 1914, when the revolutionary armies triumphed and the conflict among the revolutionary factions emerged (see “Peasant armies occupy Mexico City, 1914” 2/5/2014), Flores Magón was in exile in the United States (Gilly 2005:50-52, 86-88). 

     From 1911 to 1914, the working class movement was isolated from the two peasant armies of Villa and Zapata that were advancing the revolution.  With the taking of Mexico City by revolutionary armies in 1914, the principal actors were the peasantry, the petit bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie.  In 1915, workers’ organizations gave support to the Constitutionalist Army of Carranza, in exchange for concessions in regard to workers’ wages and conditions.  They organized Red Battalions, which played a decisive role in the successful military campaign against the peasant army of Villa in 1915 (Gilly 2005:190-92; see “A peasant-worker alliance from above” 2/10/2014).  Thus, instead of an alliance of workers and peasants organized from below, what occurred was armed conflict between workers and peasants, orchestrated from above.

      Following the successful military campaign against Villa’s Northern Division, the government in 1916 turned against workers’ organizations and arrested leaders.  In response, a three-day general strike by 90,000 workers in Mexico City broke out, the first general strike in the history of Mexico.  And a National Workers Congress was called, attended by workers’ delegates from throughout the country, which approved the foundation of the Mexico Regional Federation of Labor.  But these actions were carried out in isolation from the peasant struggle spearheaded by the Morelos Commune and the army of Zapata in the South and the guerilla war of Villa in the North.  And the statutes of the Federation of Labor appear to affirm the proletarian class struggle without seeking to define the role of the proletariat in the context of the peasant revolution of Mexico (Gilly 2005:217-22).

     Beginning in 1918 and with the transition from Carranza to Obregón (see “The consolidation of reform from above” 2/11/2014), workers organizations played a main role in the consolidation of the new class system led by the triumphant “revolutionary bourgeoisie” (Gilly 2005:223).

       The secondary role of the working class in the Mexican Revolution suggests the need for further reflecting on the insights of Marx, who formulated his understanding on the basis of the emerging proletarian movement in Western Europe, a movement that was then at the forefront of popular struggles in opposition to the structures of the capitalist world-economy.  But during the twentieth century, the workers’ movements of the core nations would become reformist, and Third World revolutions would move to the forefront of the global revolution.  In the context of the colonial situation of the Third World, the revolutions would have characteristics different from those that Marx anticipated, in that the petit bourgeoisie and the peasantry would play a central role (see “The social & historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014).  This is a theme that will be addressed further in future posts.


References

Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).

"Ricardo Flores Magón." Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

“Ricardo Flores Magón.” Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre.  Oct. 6, 2013.


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, Mexican Revolution, proletariat, working class, Ricardo Flores Magón
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The revolutionary party of the vanguard

1/25/2014

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     In calling the proletariat to the vanguard of the revolution, the formulators of classical Marxism were using the term “vanguard” in a broad sense.  But they also used the term in a more strict sense, as composed of persons who possess exceptional leadership qualities, who lead, exhort, and educate the workers during the revolutionary process.

     The vanguard in this more strict sense was expressed by Trotsky when he wrote:  “The proletariat can become imbued with the confidence necessary for a governmental overthrow only if . . . it feels above it a farsighted, firm, and confident leadership.  This brings us to the last premise—by no means the last in importance—of the conquest of power: the revolutionary party as a tightly welded and tempered vanguard of the class” (Trotsky 2008:745-46).

     The taking of power occurs as a single historic event, such as the insurrection of October 25 and the assumption of power by the Congress of Soviets on October 26.  But the revolution is a continuing process, involving the development of the revolutionary project and the protection of the revolution against counterrevolutionary attacks, which assume a variety of forms.  In Trotsky’s conception, the revolutionary party, as the vanguard of the revolutionary class, has an important role to play in this on-going revolutionary process: formulating a clear direction that can provide the basis for unity and that can give the revolutionary class confidence that it can overcome all challenges and obstacles.

     The revolutionary party seeks to formulate its own political, intellectual, and moral perspective that is different from and opposed to bourgeois assumptions and opinions and is based on the thoughts and desires of the revolutionary class.  “Lenin taught the party to create its own social opinion, resting upon the thoughts and feelings of the rising class.  Thus by a process of selection and education, and in continual struggle, the Bolshevik Party created not only a political but a moral medium of its own, independent of bourgeois social opinion and implacably opposed to it” (Trotsky 2008:739).

    The Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky functioned as a revolutionary vanguard party from the end of April 1917 until it was undermined by bureaucratization and by a petty bourgeois counterrevolution, the signs of which were evident by 1924, according to the Ted Grant (1997).  There are other important examples of revolutionary parties that defined direction, unified the people, and inspired hope and confidence: the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, the Vietnam Workers’ Party under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh; and the Cuban Communist Party under the leadership of Fidel Castro.  These cases represent the most enduring and significant revolutions of the twentieth century, indicating the importance of the development of a revolutionary party that functions as a vanguard in the strict sense. 

       In my experiences in Cuba, I have found that there is a clear difference between the vanguard and the people, not with respect to privileges or material conditions, but in relation to understanding.  The members of the vanguard, which consists of perhaps 25% of the population, have an informed global and historical understanding of national and international dynamics, and they are committed to revolutionary values.  Most are members of the Party, but not all are; many have developed leadership qualities through the assuming of leadership roles in the various mass organizations of workers, farmers, students, women, and neighborhoods at the national, provincial, and local levels.  The vanguard has been formed through fifty-four years of revolution, and its formation is a significant achievement of the revolution. 

     The majority of people, on the other hand, tend to think much more concretely, concerned with issues such as the price of food or the quality of public transportation.  They have less of a grasp of national and international issues, although there is a general orientation of support for and appreciation of the revolution and its leaders.

      In light of this distinction between the vanguard and the people, it makes sense to speak of the necessity in the revolutionary process for a vanguard party that explains to the people, reminding them of fundamental facts and values, and that plays a leadership role in the revolutionary process.  The vanguard cannot lead, of course, without the support of the people, so the vanguard must be part of the people and must understand their concerns and needs, as the Cuban revolutionary leadership understands.

       Revolutionary processes lift up charismatic leaders, and there is an intimate relation between the charismatic leader and the vanguard.  The vanguard is formed by the charismatic leader, and as it develops, it seeks to become the institutionalization of charismatic authority, so that when the charismatic leader is no longer present, the vanguard is able to lead with legitimate authority, basing its decisions on the teachings of the charismatic leader. 

       As we reflect on the possibilities for popular revolution in the countries of the North, one of the issues that we must address is the question of how to form a vanguard, a sector of the people that has an informed understanding of fundamental historical and social facts and a commitment to universal human values; a vanguard that would be able to educate the people concerning the concrete steps that must be taken to advance toward a more just, democratic, and sustainable world; a vanguard that earns the respect of the people through its example and through its capacity to respectfully explain understandings that are alternatives to the ideological distortions that the people have internalized.  As I have indicated in previous posts, an important dimension of this process is encounter with the revolutionary movements formed by the Third World, which offer critical analyses of the world-system from below.


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].

Trotsky, Leon.  2008.  History of the Russian Revolution.  Translated by Max Eastman.  Chicago: Haymarket Books.


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, Trotsky, vanguard
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The proletarian vanguard

1/24/2014

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     Classical Marxist theory viewed the proletariat as the revolutionary class, as the vanguard that would lead the revolution.  In the view of classical Marxist theory, factory workers had the most advanced revolutionary consciousness for several reasons: they worked in the most productively advanced sector of the economy; they had an objective interest in seizing the possibilities provided by technological development, creating a society more technologically advanced and at the same time more just; and they lived and worked in concentrated conditions, making possible ample communication and growing awareness among them of the objective possibilities that lay in their hands (Lenin 1997:47-48, 67; Trotsky 2008:10, 38, 673, 916).

     The peasants, in contrast, were viewed by classical Marxist theory as not yet prepared to lead a socialist revolution, a consequence of the isolated conditions in which they worked and lived.  Moreover, the peasants had an objective interest in obtaining ownership of the land on which they worked, and this was understood in classical Marxist theory as a bourgeois interest in private ownership.  However, classical Marxist theory viewed the peasant as prepared to support a worker-led socialist revolution, if the socialist revolution unequivocally supported peasant interests in obtaining land from large-scale landholders.  And classical Marxist theory believed that that the socialization of the land and the voluntary collectivization of the peasants would establish the conditions for the emergence of socialist consciousness among peasants (Trotsky 2008:294-95, 625-40, 916-18; Lenin 1997:67).

     Trotsky viewed the necessity of proletarian leadership of the peasantry as unique to the Russian Revolution, a consequence of the particular economic and social conditions of Russia.  He viewed these conditions as fundamentally different from those that had shaped revolutions in England from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, in France during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in Germany during the nineteenth century (Trotsky 2008:38-39). 

     However, with reference to the colonized region, Trotsky believed that proletarian leadership of the revolution is necessary.  He writes:  “This appraisal of national wars and revolutions does not by any means imply, however, that the bourgeoisie of the colonial and semicolonial nations have a revolutionary mission.  On the contrary, this bourgeoisie of backward countries from the days of its milk teeth grows up as agentry of foreign capital, and notwithstanding its envious hatred of foreign capital, always does and always will in every decisive situation turn up in the same camp with it. . . .  The upper circles of the petty bourgeoisie, including the intelligentsia, may take an active and occasionally very noisy part in the national struggles, but they are totally incapable of playing an independent role.  Only the working class standing at the head of the nation can carry either a national or an agrarian revolution clear through” (Trotsky 2008:656).  Accordingly, Trotsky believed that oppressed nationalities must link their fate with that of the working class by freeing themselves from the leadership of the national bourgeoisie and national petty bourgeoisie, thus subordinating the national revolution to proletarian revolution (Trotsky 2008:655).

      Trotsky, however, writing before the emergence of Third World national liberation movements, could not discern the important role played by the petit bourgeoisie in anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements, casting its lot with workers and peasants in a revolutionary movement that sought the transformation of the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  We will see the important role of petty bourgeois leaders in Third World anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions in future posts.

     Observing the characteristics of Third World revolutions that have emerged since the days of Lenin and Trotsky, we are able to see that the global revolution has passed from a proletarian revolution to a popular revolution, characterized by the active participation and leadership of multiple popular classes and sectors, including the petty bourgeoisie, workers, students, peasants, women, and indigenous/ethnic groups.


References

Lenin, V.I.  1997.  El Estado y La Revolución.  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.

Trotsky, Leon.  2008.  History of the Russian Revolution.  Translated by Max Eastman.  Chicago: Haymarket Books.


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, Trotsky, proletariat, proletarian, vanguard
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    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

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