Settlerist First Instincts in Colonial Genocide
2 months ago
"But in consideration of
your merits and good qualities We shall put you in front of a good wall and shoot you With a good bullet from from a good gun and bury you With a good shovel in the good earth." - Bertholt Brecht, The Interrogation of the Good
Nasser in Syria, 1960 |
As to imperialism, it relies on two forces: the one positive, derived from its scientific and technological activity and we cannot confront this force except through adopting it and seizing this decisive battle as an opportunity to leap to the level of modern science and organization. We shall then be delivered once and for all from the vestiges of reactionary mentality and the absence of planning. The negative force of imperialism is derived from the shortcoming and loopholes, which still exist in our society and its conditions. The loopholes give imperialism collaborators among our people who are enslaved by their private interests and blinded by ignorance and prejudice. It is within our power today to wrest this weapon from imperialism in order to purify our internal front, isolate the conspiring elements and speedily and decisively tackle the causes of plotting and deviation. - Michel Aflaq, Choice texts from the Baath Party founders thoughtIt is a strange phenomenon that modernity in the colonized world has had to be constructed against the "Modern World". The Third World modernizers - Secular Arab nationalism, South-East Asian Marxism, Latin American left-wing democracy and Pan-Africanism - all had to fight a vicious and bloody battle against that inventor of modernity - The West - in order to implement the process of modernizing and secularizing the society. The West had first projected the characteristics of barbarity and reaction onto the colonized, and then later, as some Westerners became "aware" of his own complicity in the barbarity of imperialism, projected the imagery of the "noble savage", unfairly ripped out of their "natural" habitat onto the colonized. Neither of these projections allowed for a coherent modernity to develop in the Third world.
As faith in Western democracy eroded and with the internal political awakening stimulating new hope for effective and immediate action, the Bolshevik message offered both a new intellectual faith and a new political model. Marxism was seen as the most advanced intellectual product of the modern West, but one that rejected the Western world in its capitalist form and its imperialist relation to China. The latter was most forcefully demonstrated through the nationalist appeals of the Leninist theory of imperialism (which gave the colonial and semi-colonial lands a crucial international revolutionary role) and the new Soviet government's renunciation of the old czarist imperialist privileges in China. To become a Marxist was one way for a Chinese intellectual to reject both the traditions of the Chinese past and Western domination of the Chinese present. 3Third-World Marxism, and other such "modernizing" ideologies, had to commit to a dialectical inversion in order to achieve their goals. They had to perform a double negation - a negation of themselves as dominated from the outside as well as the negation of themselves as dominated by their own past. Western modernity was predicated on the subjugation of the "non-moderns" in the sense that it had to actively prevent the rest of the world from effectively modernizing. Thus, being "non-modern" became a weakness, rather than a strength, in the fight against Western colonialism and imperialism. It was precisely that condition which the Western imperialists aimed to keep them in. But this inevitably created tension, because just as the West had prevented the independent development of the Third World, it had also systematically demonized or erased the cultural and social heritage of those peoples. How do you then create a "modern" identity without legitimizing the colonial erasure and demonetization of the older, "non-modern" identity? It was a contradiction that was difficult to overcome. The contrast between the secularism and progressive thought of Mossadegh and the Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah is an example of that contradiction.
“When the Boers, in their fright and misery, decided to use these savages as
though they were just another form of animal life they embarked upon a
process which could only end with their own degeneration into a white race
living beside and together with black races from whom in the end they
would differ only in the color of their skin. They had transformed themselves
into a tribe and had lost the European’s feeling for a territory, a patria
of his own. They behaved exactly like the black tribes who had roamed the
Dark Continent for centuries.
My point is not the awful, Conradian diction or even the stark conceptual separationWhile it's true that many of these anti-imperialist modernizers have been repressive and that the rapid economic transformations they subjected their people to caused traumas and suffering, the condemnation of these societies as "totalitarian" by the Western intelligentsia is more than hypocritical. It is in effect a whitewash. Western modernization not only created the Dickensian conditions of the working class of its own countries, but built it on the colonization, enslavement and subjugation of the rest of the world. By comparison, these "counter-modernizers" were exceptionally mild. Yet, for daring to break the pattern of domination and exploitation, we call them "totalitarian", and cast them once more into the category of the primitive brute that must be destroyed. It doesn't matter how many people voted for them, and what their people think of them, the very act of independent development is a sure sign of totalitarianism. It's through this lens Hugo Chavez, elected president 15 times by the people of Venezuela, can be cast as a Latin American Saddam Hussein.
between the European and the African. It is the effect upon the Boers and
thence – so the retrograde diffusionist argument goes – upon Europe. We
“degenerate” into a race-based, primitive and nomadic, rootless “tribe” (or “race
organization”) no better than them. Thanks to this contact with the primitive, not
only do we come to think in terms of race (i.e. in a racist way), but this mode of
thinking later morphs into a tribal nationalism that, in turn, becomes modern
anti-Semitism and totalitarianism (“a whole outlook on life and the world”).
This last phenomenon “lies in the nature of tribalism rather than in political facts
and circumstances”5
The revolutionary and emancipatory potential of Marxist thought that differentiates it from the liberal variety is precisely the elevation of the most downtrodden and exploited to the position of privileged subjects - the ones to bring about a better future for all humanity. Invoking the term heroic modernism, I mark socialist modernity as distinct from either capitalist or colonial modernity in its belief in the emancipatory potential of history through new forms of community. Socialist modernity embodied the capacity of people to boldly step out as political agents to make history, even if the conditions were not of their choosing and the outcomes were not what they intended. It is the very definition of heroism: the courage to try even at risk of failure. 6With all this being said - we do not know if the "counter-modernizing" of the BRICS countries will be successful. With global tensions adding up, especially between the US versus Russia and China, the violence of global capitalism might just as well lead to a period of reaction and destruction. It is unclear for how much longer the US will tolerate the counter-hegemonic influence of the BRICS without a war. But what is certain is that the face of the old world is shifting its shape. The colonized world has shown that it's ready to take its own path. But is the West ready to face a de-colonized Modernity?
Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn words, exuberant promises and the high-sounding slogans of freedom and equality. But, in fact, it screens the non-freedom and inferiority of women, the non-freedom and inferiority of the toilers and exploited. Soviet, or socialist, democracy sweeps aside the pompous, bullying, words, declares ruthless war on the hypocrisy of the "democrats", the landlords, capitalists or well-fed peasants who are making money by selling their surplus bread to hungry workers at profiteering prices. - Lenin, Soviet Power and the Status of Women
WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACEThe dark cloud of war and militarism once again looms over Europe. The entire continent has become a victim of warmongering at a rapid pace since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the Charlie Hebdo incident. The Russian is coming, and ISIS is around every corner! Those in power play victims of these menacing outside forces - and seek to victimize us. At every moment, the media, the politicians and the army generals try to equate their interests in war with ours. It is the shared European ideal we must defend against the Oriental existential threat. It is the blood and soil of our European brethren which have to be protected at all cost. The people of Europe has heard this call before - will they be fooled again?
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out. - Bertolt Brecht: A German War Primer
A thousand times the imperialists have “renounced all thought” of annexations and of the financial strangulation of weak nations. But should we not compare these renunciations with the facts, which show that any one of the big banks of Germany, England, France and the United States does hold small nations “in subjection”? - V.I Lenin: Bourgeois Pacifism and Socialist PacifismIt is this hypocrisy which spits in the eye of every genuine national liberation movement. This hypocrisy is not a product of ignorance - it's a genuine affirmation of the West's own perceived supremacy and impunity. Where were the Western leaders who denounced the IMF, as it is looting the Ukrainian economy and victimizing its citizens right now? Where were those who cry for the national integrity of Ukraine when the son of Joe Biden became the lawyer of a major Ukrainian energy firm? Where were those who cried out for the self-determination of the Ukrainians when the IMF appointed non-Ukrainian shadow bankers as important ministers of the new Ukrainian government? And, what expression of self-determination is it to deliberately bomb your own civilian population?
How long should the gamblers of imperialism abuse the patience of the people? Enough and more than enough slaughter! Down with the war instigators here and abroad! - Karl Liebknecht: The Main Enemy Is At Home
"Without Revolutionary Theory, There Can be No Revolutionary Movement! |
Now, will Jehu have learnt anything from this? Almost certainly not. Like a preacher on the streets, speaking of the end times, he will angrily rant about The Fascist State, The Illiterate Marxists and the Bourgeois Simpletons, to a small and insignificant crowd of Chosen Ones. He claims that it does not matter if either he or I are correct, and he is right - even proving that all his revalations about what Marx really meant was wrong would not get him to change his mind!It seems I am right. As Jehu responded to my last critique, he not so much responds to my questions and quotations, as he continues with his tradition of strange and misleading use of other people's texts, or describes my position in a very misleading manner.I non-the-less feel compelled to reply. To avoid any confusion: I am the @sushi_goat he refers to.
“If the proletariat was not a class, it would be nonsensical to claim that they act as a class, and that they overthrow the state as a class.”To which he responds:
"I completely agree with @sushi_goat on this point. Since Marx and Engels did not believe the proletariat was really a class, they could not very well then argue that the proletariat acts as a class without fatally compromising their argument. "
"As @sushi_goat argues, it is indeed nonsensical to claim the proletarians act as a class if they are not a class. However, this is the nonsensical claim of conventional Marxism, not mine. Since @sushi_goat, Marx and Engels, and I all agree that, in historical materialism, it is nonsensical to assert a non-class acts as a class, this would seem to suggest the proletarians are not a class — as Marx and Engels in fact state explicitly in a passage cited by @sushi_goat."This is a nonsensical use of my quotation since I actually argued the complete opposite. I argued that since Marx and Engels explicitly states that the proletariat acts as a class in relation to the bourgeoisie in The German Ideology, it is nonsensical to claim what Jehu claims: that the proletariat doesn't act as a class under capitalism.
"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital."
[...]
"With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. "
[...]
"The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes."
[...]
"This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried."
[...]
Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
[...]
Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
[We must here take a short break and ask ourselves - if the bourgeoisie abolishes itself through the bourgeois state making them superfluous, as Herr Jehu says, and the working class has no interest against the bourgeoisie, then what the hell are these "matters" it needs to settle with the non-existing bourgeoisie?]
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.In this section Jehu can blame neither Kautsky or Lenin for "imposing commercial conflicts on the bourgeoisie". That is completely debunked according to this text, written after the German Ideology.
According to Kautsky and Lenin, the only consciousness the proletariat is capable of acquiring is one or another variant of bourgeois consciousness.Now, Kautsky does not claim that it is another variant of bourgeois consciousness. He claims:
The vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia: it was in the minds of individual members of this stratum that modern socialism originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more intellectually developed proletarians who, in their turn, introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done.The proletariat does not acquire bourgeois consciousness - it acquires proletarian consciousness through the discovery of bourgeois science. The consciousness remains strictly proletarian, but it is made possible by the bourgeoisie, and particularly "the portion of the bourgeoisie that goes over to the proletariat". This why Lenin says directly, that "this does not mean [...] that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology".
“Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted that economic development and the class struggle create, not only the conditions for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness of its necessity.” - Karl Kautsky
“In the development of productive forces there comes a stage when productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being … and connected with this a class is called forth, … from which emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communist consciousness…” - The German IdeologyWhat does Jehu think of this?
I may be wrong, but it seems to me Kautsky is quoting the German Ideology almost verbatim to then deny Marx and Engels believed communist consciousness arises from the working class itself.This is obvious nonsense, since The German Ideology was released in 1936 in Soviet Russia, after Lenin was dead! Kautsky wrote this in 1901-1902, and I have yet to find any translated documentation of it outside "What is To Be Done?". We don't know, as far as I can see, the rest of the statement Kautsky made. We have literally no proof that Kausky ever read The German Ideology, nor do we have proof that Lenin did! The German Ideology was only discovered and aquired, with all the previously unreleased "Philosophical-Economic Manuscripts" by David Riazanov, decades after this polemic occurred. What Jehu tries to claim here is historically revisionist - or just plain dumb - nonsense. But there's more!
But this is not the only problem I have with the conventional Marxist narrative on this subject: If Kautsky and Lenin are to be believed, not only is the working class unable to develop its own consciousness, it cannot develop any consciousness at all. This would make the proletarians rather unique among classes in society, but — okay — my argument is that they are unique among classes .As I pointed out in my earlier essay, they do develop class consciousness. They are not unable. This is argued directly by Kautsky and Lenin.
"The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc" - Lenin, What is to Be Done?
But this is absolutely untrue. Of course, socialism, as a doctrine, has its roots in modern economic relationships just as the class struggle of the proletariat has, and, like the latter, emerges from the struggle against the capitalist-created poverty and misery of the masses. - Karl KautskyHere, the important distinction is drawn between socialist consciousness and class struggle. Marx and Engels already believed, in The Communist Manifesto, that the workers, in order to fight for their class interests, develop a consciousness of the shared interests against the capitalist class in an economistic form. But a higher level of theoretical understanding, socialist consciousness, can only come from the "bourgeois ideologists." As the Engels said in "The Peasant War in Germany" (which I cited in the earlier blogpost):
"The German workers have two important advantages over those of the rest of Europe. First, they belong to the most theoretical people of Europe; and they have retained that sense of theory which the so-called ’educated’ classes of Germany have almost completely lost. Without German philosophy, which preceded it, particularly that of Hegel, German scientific socialism – the only scientific socialism that has ever existed – would never have come into being. Without a sense of theory among the workers, this scientific socialism would never have entered their flesh and blood as much as is the case. What an immeasurable advantage this is may be seen, on the one hand, from the indifference towards all theory, which is one of the main reasons why the English working-class movement crawls along so slowly in spite of the splendid organisation of the individual unions; on the other hand, from the mischief and confusion wrought by Proudhonism, in its original form, among the French and Belgians, and, in the form further caricatured by Bakunin, among the Spaniards and Italians."The English working class did not succeed in establishing a socialist movement, because they only organized in trade-unions, while the German worker had the advantage of bourgeois science to it's disposal! It's written right there, yet Jehu, who presumably read my post, addresses it nowhere. Jehu continues with this absolute nonsense:
There is a question to be raised here: how can the consciousness of the proletariat reflect the material conditions of the other class? Since in historical materialism, consciousness is determined by material conditions, how does this happen?The consciousness of the proletariat can never reflect the material conditions of the other class. Nobody ever said it did. Kautsky claims that scientific socialism developed through bourgeois science, which is true of Marx and Engels, not that it developed as a form of bourgeois consciousness! As it makes bourgeois science and philosophy into it's own, it creates socialist consciousness, a consciousness which is directly opposed to the bourgeois class, as Marx, Engels, Kautsky and Lenin all explicitly state. Neither, do I think there is necessarily a contradiction between the quotes in German Ideology and the Kautsky quote from "What is to be Done", like Jehu thinks:
How these two approaches to the question of consciousness can be reconciled remains a task for Marxists, but, for the most part, they refuse even to recognize there is a problem.In the Communist Manifesto, this view receives a synthesis - it's through a section of the bourgeoisie's gradual proletarization that the ideological and scientific knowledge of socialism enters the proletarian consciousness. We do not need to "recognize this problem" - Marx and Engels already made it a non-problem! And in the very same text that Jehu uses to claim that Marx and Engels never changed their mind from "The German Ideology", "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", we find this statement:
Hegel has freed history from metaphysics — he made it dialectic; but his conception of history was essentially idealistic. But now idealism was driven from its last refuge, the philosophy of history; now a materialistic treatment of history was propounded, and a method found of explaining man's "knowing" by his "being", instead of, as heretofore, his "being" by his "knowing". From that time forward, Socialism was no longer an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Ch. 2Hegel, that great proletarian! What has he to with Proletarian consciousness? In contrast, Jehu's conception of socialism sounds more like the earlier Utopians: socialism for him, is an accidental discovery from the indigenous brains of the Proletariat!
"If I am not concerned about the interests of the working class, it is for a very good reason: I don’t know what the working class interest are and can’t know this. The interests of the working class do not diffuse among its members like some class substance adhering to each member of the class. Likewise the interests of the bourgeois class are not in any way apparent to the members of that class. We could start this discussion off with one premise: no member of any class in bourgeois society has any idea of her class interests nor any way of apprehending the interest of the class to which he or she belongs."He is quite right that the interest of a class may not be apparent to the individual members of the class. Warren Buffett seems to have no clue, or no care, that his proposal to tax the rich is antagonistic to his class as whole. As is stated in "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, the "separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a common battle against another class". The realization of the individual members that they are a member of a socioeconomic class in society only occurs through the antagonisms between the classes. This forming of a class, and this process of becoming conscious of ones class interests, occurs gradually. Starting in the individual workplaces, against the individual capitalist, the workers start their struggle. These struggles intensify: unions form. The struggle of the unions, as well as the increased socialization of the workplace due to bourgeois centralization, leads to a greater discovery among the proletariat that they are a member of a class. Eventually they form a political party to fight for their rights - this is not only what Marx and Engels describe, it is what happened in history!
The interests of the bourgeois class find their ideal expression in the form of a state that also stands over against the members of the class. This is why the bourgeois state is the “ideal” representative of the bourgeois class and it is also why the bourgeois class cannot rule directly on its own behalf, but only through a state. No member of the bourgeois class knows the interests of that class; they only know their own interests.Of course, this is nonsense. That the individual bourgeoisie cannot rule directly is a given, seeing as the individual capitalist also competes with other capitalists - that is why there is a class organization under capitalism - the State - were the bourgeoisie in general, collectively, can make arrangement that defends their status as a class. This is analogous to the function of a trade union for the proletariat - the proletariat is also internally competitive, competing for jobs, higher wages, better positions and social status. But since the workers collectively share an interests in higher wages and more favorable work hours, they band together in a trade union. Of course this union does not express the wish of every single member of the workers in the trade, which is showcased by the fact that not all workers join a union. This does not matter - a generalized social formation never fully encompasses the subjective wishes of every single individual.
What constitutes the interests of a class are only the average material conditions of the class and these conditions are entirely independent of the members of the class themselves. Thus Marx and Engels argued, “the class in its turn achieves an independent existence over against the individuals…”
Now, what are the average material conditions of the proletariat? Wage Labor. Without the sale of their labor power, no worker could last for even a month. But it precisely the average conditions of the class — labor — that drive the class into poverty and creates capital as a power over it. Ideally, its interest is in the sale of its labor power, but this interest itself has been turned against the proletarians by capital.
So if I can be faulted for anything, it may be in saying the proletarians have no interest — but this is only because the interest they do share drives them to destitution. Their interest as an average member of their class is itself the very thing that grinds them under the capitalist machine.
No other class in society is positively destroyed by pursuit of its own material conditions of existence, its own interests and this, of course, presents us with a logical paradox: How can any class in society have an interest that operates only to undermine its conditions of existence? Clearly if a class has an interest that positively undermines its own material conditions of existence, the class itself should collapse.Now, Engels states that the antagonism is this:
The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie. - Socialism: Utopian and ScientificThis sounds different to Jehu's take on the class interest of the proletariat. Jehu says the interest is in the sale of labour power. It is of course not wrong to mention wage labor, as this is a fundamental part of capitalistic appropriation, but it must not be confused with the actual class interest. Even though the workers fight for higher wages, and more secure wages, it is only a partial expression of their true interest. As they state in The Communist Manifesto:
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.The workers, through their labor, do not create property for themselves - only capital, that property which is used to further exploit the laborer through wage labor. The antagonism here is not wage labor as such; receiving a wage for doing labor does not necessarily imply exploitation. The wage as a form does not even imply capitalism: the question is whether or not labor is a commodity - wage labor is simply the value form. Some capitalists receive a wage - but this wage actually exceeds the amount of labor they do by quite a bit. In the case of a workers cooperative. there is no wage exploitation at all - the surplus generated by the cooperative (i.e the income generated that exceeds what the workers need to reproduce themselves as individuals) is put into the cooperative itself, and doesn't fall in private hands. In a socialist state owned enterprise, the state takes the surplus and not only reinvests it in the industry, but also invests it in infrastructure, healthcare, education and all the other necessities the working class needs.
"On our collective there is no room for priests or kulaks" |
Marxists make a big show of believing it is an urgent task of the working class to put down a rebellious group of formers capitalists. In fact, unlike as in Marx’s day, the number of real capitalists is actually very tiny and requires almost no effort at all to police.This is nonsense - pure unadulterated nonsense! The power of the capitalist class never laid in it's number of members, it laid in it's power and resources, it's ideological hegemony over parts of the proletariat, and it's ability to bribe certain portions of society to act in it's interests. Our modern capitalists have private armies in their disposal, private police, and private weapons industries. It has more resources now, than ever, to be used to destroy workers power! In Marx's day, in fact, it would've been easier! If they had overthrown the European governments, the new, proletarian state would essentially have no external enemies to worry about, and the internal enemies, the capitalists, while larger in number, were weaker in their collective class power. In the modern imperialist world, you not only have to worry about the internal bourgeois overthrowing your state, you also have to worry about the external, imperialistic bourgeois of the entire world overthrowing you, a bourgeois class which still has it's government intact, and will come up with all sorts of reasons to attack you.
Marxists always want to turn our attention to the role the commune plays in suppressing its exploiters, but this is not the problem most “really existing socialisms” faced. Instead, we see the opposite problem, where the public authority separates itself from the commune and becomes a power standing over against it.
Now, to be honest, anarchists like Bakunin pointed out this danger to Marx and Engels in their own time. We cannot just look away and pretend that did not happen or that the problem is not significant. It is not simply a question of replacing the present state by a commune as @sushi_goat implies. It is not simply a problem of acknowledging the need for authority, or that the capitalists must be suppressed, it is also a question of the extent to which authority and suppression is even necessary.Here, Jehu makes a claim about "really existing socialism". Now, he says nothing to back it up - he does not explain where, in the USSR, public power turned against the workers. He merely assumes it did - through the given narrative that the bourgeois dogmatists have provided the working class with to scare them away from communism. That's a huge statement to make. Now, it also has nothing to do with historical materialism - it is also a completely misleading view of the USSR. As Al Szymanski shows in Is The Red Flag Still Flying?, the USSR remained a proletarian dictatorship, and socialist, until at least the early 80's. Even when the USSR was at it's most unequal, bureaucratic and authoritarian, it had an unprecedented level of social mobility, worker influence and participation in government, in relation to any capitalist country in existence. Labor as a commodity - the foundation of the capitalist mode of production - was abolished. Even as a bureaucratic strata developed, this group could only marginally better their condition, and they could not pass this privilege onto their children, which is one of the fundamental sociological basis for a class to emerge. Nobody could enrich themselves by exploiting the labor of others. If the USSR represented a "new class society" were the bureaucratic state apparatus is somehow a class onto itself, it is the first and only class society in which class is defined as having slightly bigger apartments. While not a perfect utopia, it was never meant to be one either. The USSR, throughout it's existence, faced bloody invasion, attempts at foreign subversion and wrecking, trade embargos and other economic pressure, and was finally forced into collapse by the West, who had forced them to militarize to point of complete economic meltdown.
While Marx argued that there is a fairly lengthy period between capitalism and communism, he made this argument in his day, not ours. By what yardstick is the extraordinary period of revolutionary transformation to be measured? Is this period fixed? Does it change over time? Is it longer today than it was in Marx’s time? Marxists are fond of telling us that some period is necessary, but they don’t have clue as to how to measure this period’s duration. And this is critical, because the greater the duration, the more likely the public authority is to escape the control of the commune.Marxist are constantly asked how long they envision the State existing. We rarely answer this, because there is no way we can. It is not a question that even makes sense. It assumes that there can be a prediction for this, when, by it's very nature, it can't. It is exists as long as it needs to. It cannot logically end before the fundamental contradictions it needs to resolve are resolved. We have no prediction for this - we do not know in what state the world will be when the workers grab power in any specific country. The particularities need for the transformation period is determined by the national conditions of the proletarian dictatorship. If, for example, the US carried out a revolution, the main imperialistic bourgeoisie of the world could be targeted, and the process would be made simpler and shorter. But, seeing as revolutions tend to occur in the weakest links of the imperialist chain, we are more likely to see a revolution in a peripheral country, which is going to have to fight longer and harder to gain dominance locally, against for example , the US bourgeoisie, as well as developing the productive forces. But as I stated earlier, this is all just speculation and does not mean that we know how long the proletarian dictatorship needs to whither away.
What does it mean to be a fascist state? It mean the state is now the direct exploiter of proletariat. The assumption of management of the national capital, as @sushi_goat explains, does not do away with the capitalistic relationship; it simply renders the capitalist class itself superfluous to that relationship: as Engels argued, the state itself becomes the national capitalist.While I didn't ignore it, I did perhaps make an incorrect statement in that I claimed the state being the national capitalist was simply the emergence of finance capital. Although that is relevant, it doesn't say quite what Engels says. However, Engels didn't say the state becomes the national capitalist in the section I quoted. Let us return to it:
Again, I did not make this up, @sushi_goat saw it for himself in the passage he quoted — he just preferred to ignore it.
"But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital." - Socialism: Utopian and ScientificIt says the State is the ideal personification of the total national capital: it never once said that it has become a national capitalist, that exists independently of the bourgeoisie. Instead, that section is to be found quoted in Jehu's original post:
“All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.”Does this mean that when the workers overthrow the state, there is no bourgeoisie at all? No. Even as Engels claims there is an increase in state ownership or direction of industry, it does not mean that the bourgeois class is abolished - it merely cannot secure the reproduction of it's class interest through the anarchy of the market. The capitalist relation cannot exist without someone receiving a capitalist surplus. The State cannot merely be act as a capitalism without capitalists. It directs the production - Engels is clear on this - but nowhere does he say that the profits generated from State industry or State investments goes to the public power system. The bourgeois remains the profiteers of this project. The bourgeois class is not superfluous in the sense that they do not exist as a class anymore. They are, Engels says, "shown to be superfluous"for the working class. The working class no longer believes that the bourgeoisie are capable of running the system they have created - but nowhere in the following quotation is it suggested that the bourgeoisie has disappeared as the general profiteer of industry:
"If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose." - Socialism: Utopian and ScientificThe capitalist centralization of Capital proves to the people that there is nothing essential to the capitalist, as an individual economic actor, that makes him somehow more skilled or fit to run and profit from the socialized forces of production than the workers themselves.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages” - Wealth of NationsBut as the competition is done away with by the process of competition itself, it becomes more and more of a system of central planning itself. Every "decentralized" aspect of capitalism becomes gradually destroyed or distorted. Class mobility becomes a structural impossibility, and the "choices" presented to the consumer when going to market no longer represents choices between several different, competing capitalists. While there is an increasing multitude of different commodities, the providers of the commodities have shrunk in number - the choice between this or that product no longer becomes meaningful, since the profits go to the same 3-5 massive corporations that produce the given commodity. Even if one wants to "buy local", the centralization effectively assures that this is no competition for the mega-corporations. It is no longer the radical, individual entrepreneur, the basement inventor or those who think "outside the box" who maintain and drive forward the socioeconomic order. Radical competition is replaced with radical monopoly, which act as a central planner, more and more attached to the State in order to ensure stability. Centralized capital already acts as the straw-man capitalist ideologues built against State central planning: economic activity is decided by a few businessmen in suit, far removed from the reality of the average consumer and worker. As the capitalists radically lose their ability to act as competitive capitalists, they become superfluous in driving production forward, Essentially, they have lost all of what makes them a progressive force in society, but retain their status as an exploiter of wage labor. The State, rather than the market forces, becomes central in reproducing the bourgeoisie's profit. They become superfluous - they no longer move production, technology and industry forward, while it remains unable to provide the worker with it's most basic needs, or any advancement in wages. The workers more and more realize that they do not need the bourgeoisie to manage industry and society, that all the functions of the State and industry could be performed by proletarians themselves!
Indeed, in the last financial crisis, Washington actually bailed out the finance capitalists themselves.Yes, because the state is the "personification of national capital!" It exists to guarantee profits for the smaller and smaller, but increasingly more wealthy and powerful bourgeoisie! The entire bourgeoisie is not thrown out - the bourgeoisie just becomes more and more dependent on the state functioning as a subsidizer and planner for it's survival. Jehu has not explained to me, yet, what the "state as national capitalist", in his view consists off. Is it merely the state doing any form of investment? In this case, the State has always been a capitalist, since the State has always been involved with creating infrastructure and providing services. Does the profit fall in private hands or does it fall in the hands of the State to enrich the senators and judges? In either case, let us continue:
And Engels did not simply predict finance capital; he predicted the state would become the national capitalist. I have constantly pointed out that this is the context within which I use the term ‘fascism'; but Marxists who object to my writings choose to ignore it. And they choose to ignore it because they know the implications of the state being the national capitalist: politics is dead.This, once again, is complete nonsense. Nothing about the state being a national capitalist implies that politics is dead. Engels does not suggest it does. It suggests that capitalism has reached it's final stage - however, as I have shown earlier, Marx and Engels believe in taking political power. They do so without any fuzz. or mystification. Indeed, Engels states directly in "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" that: "the proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property". So clearly, politics is not dead - if it was, there would be no need for the proletariat to grab political power. Jehu cannot claim that the statement: "politics is dead", originates in the thought or logic of Engels, because Engels blatantly states the opposite.
That is the only reason why I use the term fascist state — because no one has any illusions that a fascist state need not be overthrown.This, of course, does not make any sense what-so-ever. It makes about as much sense as Tony Cliff claiming his analysis of the USSR as state capitalist originates with his distaste for the state (which I believe he did, but I cannot find the source) - it has nothing to do with the scientific definition of things . It aims to create a idealistic distaste for something, and is thus, little more than Rude Words. It doesn't matter if Jehu calls the level of capitalism in which the State assumes the dominant role "Fascist". He might alternatively just do what Engels does, and call it the "national capitalist", and it would be necessary to overthrow it all the same. He could call it "The Great Scary Boo-Boo Ghost" and it would still need to be overthrown. He could even call it something nice, like "Job Creating Teddy Bear", and it would still need to be overthrown. The change of words to describe a thing does not become the thing. Instead, he introduces the confusing and exaggerated term "Fascist State". Now, let us remind ourself that the actual Fascist states did not work the way Engels claims the National Capitalist does. In fact, Nazi Germany went against state-ownership and control! While the entire Western capitalist world was building social democratic institutions and increasing State ownership, Nazi Germany privatized several vital industries and banking:
The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery of public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven. As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party. - Germa Bell - Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930's Germany .This suggests that Jehu's description of state as national capitalist is harmful, because the original term was used to describe a system that acted differently to how Engels describes the national capitalist. While the rest of the capitalist world was building state industry - Jehu cites Washington building 1500 in WWII industries as proof that the American state is"fascist" - Nazi Germany destroyed the conversion of industry to public hands. Now, another problem with how Jehu approaches the issue of "Washington building 1500 industries in WWII" is that he merely claims the state building industry means that the state is a national capitalist. The State, in every stage of Capitalism, has always been a part of building infrastructure and other things, and so we have to prove not just that the State built something, but that this represents the capitalistic relation, or that it is the dominant form of production. Jehu does not prove it. Anyway, he finishes the blog post:
"So, why does @sushi_goat and other Marxists object to the term? What possible reason could they have for denying the state is fascistic. What part of the existing state do they want to save?"Nobody ever denied that the state was "fascistic" - Jehu merely changed Engels terms and claimed that questioning the merits of this change in terms is equal to denying what the term describes! If Jehu started calling his dick "Enver Hoxha", and we all thought that was pretty dumb, Jehu would presumably claim we deny that his dick exists!