Some sense of reason and sensibility have returned to the Italian people, court annuls Berlusconi immunity.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Distinctions
It is important to lay out some distinctions about Marxism. Marxism is a revolutionary theory, meaning that it is not a political ideology that should be exercised in governments. Yes I know that it is commonly held that the Communist Manifesto was written as the handbook for implementing Communism. However a reading of the Manifesto will reveal that in fact it is a simple summation of what is meant by; Communism, who the bourgeoisie and proletarian are, what the current situation of Capitalism is and what is the Communist party's role in History.
Communism is not something that can be forced on society. Forcing Communism ignores the basic structure of humanity, it would be a top down approach with the superstructure forcing change in economy, not change in the economy bringing change to the superstructure. Impatience and want to force the Revolution can be seen as the major failing of all so-called Communist governments but, although communistic governments failed to heed one of the basic tenets of Marxism they furthered the evolution of the theory into practice. Lenin was perhaps the first to recognize this disconnect with Marxist theory. To make sense of creating a Communist government, Lenin latched onto the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. When the opportunity to overthrow a capitalist-bourgeois government is presented a Dictatorship of Proletariat should arise, take control of the means of production and enter the stage of socialism. Here is the philosophical genius of Lenin, the distinction between socialism and communism. Lenin defined socialism as the historical stage of transition between capitalism and communism, it occurs fully in the period of capitalism but prepares for the transition to communism. In this way Lenin avoided contradicting Marxism.
Communism has thus never existed nor should it within the Historical Now. Socialism can act a sort of place holder for the proletariat till the end of History and the Revolution but it should never be confused with communism.
To those who would point the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of China to capitalism as the failure of socialism, showing its inability to serve the proletariat and to function as a stable government, I would say this is ignorance of the facts and unwillingness to comprehend historical factors. On the surface yes, socialism failed but, was the Soviet Union and China's interpretation of socialism the only acceptable one... no. It is a generalization and oversimplification of socialism to claim that the USSR and China were the only countries able to define socialism. There is a political spectrum among the capitalist countries of the world and so by extension there is a political spectrum among socialist countries. The fall of the USSR, more appropriately, showed the inability of the political right within socialism to continue to evolve and change. One needs only to look at history to understand that forces of change eventually overcome reactionists. The opening of China is instead an attempt to preserve socialism not its death. China unlike the USSR is trying to evolve socialism parallel to the evolutions in capitalism thus preserving it, however China is still dominated by a conservative and right-wing approach to socialism.
Communism is not something that can be forced on society. Forcing Communism ignores the basic structure of humanity, it would be a top down approach with the superstructure forcing change in economy, not change in the economy bringing change to the superstructure. Impatience and want to force the Revolution can be seen as the major failing of all so-called Communist governments but, although communistic governments failed to heed one of the basic tenets of Marxism they furthered the evolution of the theory into practice. Lenin was perhaps the first to recognize this disconnect with Marxist theory. To make sense of creating a Communist government, Lenin latched onto the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. When the opportunity to overthrow a capitalist-bourgeois government is presented a Dictatorship of Proletariat should arise, take control of the means of production and enter the stage of socialism. Here is the philosophical genius of Lenin, the distinction between socialism and communism. Lenin defined socialism as the historical stage of transition between capitalism and communism, it occurs fully in the period of capitalism but prepares for the transition to communism. In this way Lenin avoided contradicting Marxism.
Communism has thus never existed nor should it within the Historical Now. Socialism can act a sort of place holder for the proletariat till the end of History and the Revolution but it should never be confused with communism.
To those who would point the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of China to capitalism as the failure of socialism, showing its inability to serve the proletariat and to function as a stable government, I would say this is ignorance of the facts and unwillingness to comprehend historical factors. On the surface yes, socialism failed but, was the Soviet Union and China's interpretation of socialism the only acceptable one... no. It is a generalization and oversimplification of socialism to claim that the USSR and China were the only countries able to define socialism. There is a political spectrum among the capitalist countries of the world and so by extension there is a political spectrum among socialist countries. The fall of the USSR, more appropriately, showed the inability of the political right within socialism to continue to evolve and change. One needs only to look at history to understand that forces of change eventually overcome reactionists. The opening of China is instead an attempt to preserve socialism not its death. China unlike the USSR is trying to evolve socialism parallel to the evolutions in capitalism thus preserving it, however China is still dominated by a conservative and right-wing approach to socialism.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Facism
The second of my current projects,looking at the rise of fascism and understanding its modern ancestors, right now is in the research phase. I am reading a collection of Leon Trotsky's writing on the rise of fascism in Germany. The book titled The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany covers Trotsky's writing from 1930 to 1940. Trotsky is much easier to read than Marx or Engels but this is mainly because he does not have to define the tenets of Marxism, instead he assumes the reader to be versed in the ideas and vocabulary of Marx. His assumption is are based on the audience for his writings which would have been the Communist Party of Germany and the International more generally. Trotsky's focus is not on a critique of Fascism, which is more in line with my goals, but on criticizing the Communist Party, Stalinism and laying out a path for the Party to achieve both the destruction of Fascism and achieving the Revolution in Germany. In the readings I have done so far Trotsky has already laid out some fundamental analysis of Fascism; the economic basis of the party, which is the petite bourgeoisie that is experiencing more of the hardships of capitalism than previously, its ability to attract poor and exploited workers (mainly because of the Stalinist bureaucracy's suppression of the ideology of revolution in favor of falling to the politics of the capitalist), and its policies of demonizing communists and even socialists. In his writings before the take over of the Nazis, Trotsky can clearly see that the policies of fascism will lead to defeat of the revolutionary classes and could lead to the complete destruction of communism in Germany. Therefore Trotsky continually tries to waken the communists to the threat of fascism.
Already the opening articles that I have read lead to some interesting insights into the modern rise of fascism. Focusing, for now, on the western world countries such as Italy, Russia and The United States are experiencing extreme nationalist movements that are essentially fascist if not outright claiming fascist heritage. As historically these movements are carried by a disaffected lower middle class funded by select members of the big bourgeoisie. They appeal to lower classes by using scare tactics that feed the fear that the current power structure will take away what little these lower classes have. The fascist have also begun to perfect what their socialist enemies have already done, which is to operate under the guise of democracy to legitimize their power in the world view, the primary example of this for fascists being Italy and for socialists Venezuela. The growth of fascism is some thing that deserves more studying, because with out a strong far left there is a limited list of early warning systems to stop the rise of another fascist state.
Already the opening articles that I have read lead to some interesting insights into the modern rise of fascism. Focusing, for now, on the western world countries such as Italy, Russia and The United States are experiencing extreme nationalist movements that are essentially fascist if not outright claiming fascist heritage. As historically these movements are carried by a disaffected lower middle class funded by select members of the big bourgeoisie. They appeal to lower classes by using scare tactics that feed the fear that the current power structure will take away what little these lower classes have. The fascist have also begun to perfect what their socialist enemies have already done, which is to operate under the guise of democracy to legitimize their power in the world view, the primary example of this for fascists being Italy and for socialists Venezuela. The growth of fascism is some thing that deserves more studying, because with out a strong far left there is a limited list of early warning systems to stop the rise of another fascist state.
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