Let's tackle the most recent MaoistRebelNews2 video, which was a response to my last blog post, An Open Letter to Jason Unruhe, The "Maoist Rebel". Mass ad hominem was accompanied by a variety of disingenuous arguments on MaoistRebelNews2's behalf. From using messages from an earlier conversation on Lenin's What is to be Done?, to using quotes from my blog that had grammatical errors. His argument was riddled with holes, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt when he uses those grammatically erred quotes. I will tackle various aspects of this video, and return to my argument from the YouTube discussion on Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. If the Maoist Rebel wishes to discuss the idea the Vanguard party and the usefulness of What is to be Done?, that can be arranged for another time. We'll tackle the disingenuous nature of using messages from a totally different conversation later in this post.
As an aside; slander is said, libel is written. What the Maoist Rebel did in his video was slander me. Nothing I wrote is equitable to libel. Just to clear that up... also, I really don't care.
You will find the full discussion (initiated by me), in order, on "Equating the DOTP with Socialism" here:
First Message to MRN2
First Response from MRN2
Second Message to MRN2
Second Response from MRN2
Third Message to MRN2
Third Response from MRN2
Final Message to MRN2
Final Response from MRN2
"Hey, look what he said with grammatical error!"
A large part of the Maoist Rebel's argument was based on, as I have noted earlier, some quotes in which I had fucked up the grammar. What I want to do is to clear the air on these quotes, as I have done with the editing of my last post. I emphasize that I was both tired, and rushing when I had written it. The failure to proof-read and correct the errors falls back on me, and I apologize.
The first quote:
"... I immediately consulted a Stalinist friend, who said contrary to your claim that the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism were the same."
I fucked up here. I missed a couple of commas, and ended up wording things incorrectly. What I was referring to was my friend, who comes from the Hoxhaist tradition, acknowledging that equating the DOTP with socialism is not a common place activity with Stalinites. Here is how it should have read:
"... I immediately consulted a Stalinist friend who said, contrary to your claim, that the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism were not the same."
My apologies for the confusion in the wording, and the context of the message. I should have been more clear on the fact that I was just using a Stalinite reference point to sort out whether or not this was a common place thing, or in fact a part of Stalinite theory.
The second quote in question, which continues from the first, is:
"This got me to thinking that you may have misread Marx and Lenin, or you just didn't read them at all, and expressed that they viewed socialism as a classless society. "
Again, I erred in my haste. It should have read:
"This got me to thinking that you may have misread Marx and Lenin, or you just didn't read them at all, and didn't realize they expressed that they viewed socialism as a classless society. "
In this, the Maoist Rebel took it, incorrectly, that my view was that Socialism was NOT classless - that I had contradicted myself. As well, he took it that I was claiming he viewed socialism as classless. I did not intend to suggest that the Maoist Rebel's position was that Socialism was classless, nor to make it seem I viewed socialism as class based. Now this was, of course, a result of grammatical error. I can see how he could come to those conclusions, and again I take the blame for that.
The Maoist Rebel displayed the message I sent to him, as you can view in the links in the introduction sentence, and in his video. I do follow the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Mehring, Myasnikov, Damen, Dunayevskaya, and every true Marxist when I say:
SOCIALISM IS A CLASSLESS SOCIETY!
SOCIALISM = COMMUNISM!
"Hey, look what I said with Bigoted and Childish language!"
One of the more disingenuous things the Maoist Rebel did was to use a conversation, from an earlier time, to "prove" that he responded to me with more than one-liners. This earlier conversation was focused on an entirely different topic; the vanguard party and Lenin's What is to be Done?. What we were discussing was whether Lenin still believed in the notion of "workers can only achieve Trade Union Consciousness". The Maoist Rebel DID respond with a wall of quotes, as you can see in his video. However, this wall of quotes was not a response to the topic of my blog, or our conversation leading to my blog post -- Equating the DOTP with Socialism. No, it was a response to my argumentation against What is to be Done?, in our conversation on the Vanguard party. In fact, I did respond to the wall of quotes, but that is neither here, nor there. The wall of quotes is a moot point, for they are not a part of the conversation we were having. The Maoist Rebel needs to acknowledge that what he did in this instance, was extremely dishonest.
The Maoist Rebel goes on to talk about, very briefly, the idea that both Lenin and Mao viewed Socialism as a separate society from communism, and as a class-based one at that. He fails to provide any sources, any quotes, or anything at all to support this claim. I'm not going to argue for Mao, but when it comes to Lenin he certainly fell in line with Marx and Engels, and viewed the DOTP as a separate entity from Socialism, and Socialism as just the first phase of Communist society, i.e. socialism = communism. I will tackle that later, using the same sources and quotations as I did in our YouTube exchange.
Another claim is that those quotes I did supply were taken out of a wider context. However, the Maoist Rebel fails to explain the context, and how the quotes were not used in said context. Of course, this is because he can't, and what better way to not explain than deflection? I ask: where are the sources, the quotes?
A common theme played throughout the video, and that was that I am "butthurt", "retarded", "scum", etc. I'm not sure where this assclown gets the right to use bigoted language as an ad hominem. I'm sure if he didn't fear the repercussions of his fan base and others, he would have called me a "faggot", or a "bitch", as well. It's this type of bigoted and abusive language that shouldn't be tolerated on any forum, or in any discourse. Not with a liberal, not with a fascist, not with anyone.
Trotsky, Trotsky, Who's got the Trotsky? Not me!
Okay, what? I'm not sure if The Maoist Rebel is trolling when he labels me a Trotskyist, or not. Most likely he thinks there are only two tendencies within the Marxist tradition; Stalinism and Trotskyism. Though, I'll go ahead and give you a little run down of what I'm not about:
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I do not view the Soviet Union after 1921 to be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I oppose the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the methods used to deal with Kronstadt, the banning of factions in the Bolshevik party, and the right to national self-determination of nations.
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I oppose the overly centralized nature of the Bolshevik party, the Red Terror, and I oppose what the Bolsheviks did with agrarian reform.
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I oppose the theory of the Degenerated Workers' State, and the idea of soviet defencism, and that nationalization is what makes a workers' state.
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I oppose the Soviet invasion of Finland.
- Unlike Trotsky(ists), I oppose the militarization of labour.
- I see various flaws in all Trotskyist organizations. Such as the internal democratic problems of the SWP, the flirting with Liberalism of the ISO, the batshit tendencies of the Sparts, etc.
I can go on and on about this. Where my views DO stem from is: Rosa Luxemburg, the Spartakusbund of Germany, the Italian Communist Left, and the Bolsheviks like Gavril Myasnikov. I hold Lenin to be influential on my politics as well, but I do have my disagreements with him. You can look to the Internationalist Communist Tendency to see the views most closely associated to mine.
Stop calling me a Trotskyist already, you're like a fucking parrot. *SQUAK* "TROTSKYIST" *SQUAK*.
On the question of the DOTP, Socialism, and Communism
It is this conversation which was started on YouTube, and resulted in my prior blog post. I'll take this opportunity to publicly make my case against the idea that the dictatorship of the proletariat exists within socialism.
DOTP:
So, what is the dictatorship of the proletariat? The section of Chapter 5, in his State and Revolution, that Lenin dedicates to the DOTP is Section II: The Transition from Capitalism to Communism. Let's turn to Marx, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter IV:
"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."
This is the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and with that a proletarian state. Notice that Marx calls it a transformation of capitalism into communism, pointing out that it starts out within capitalism, and is transforming into socialism. What needs to be seriously acknowledged, from this point forward, is that Marx and Engels have always used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, i.e. to mean the same thing. This is the first point I have on my side, when referring to Marx viewing socialism as classless.
What do I mean by it starts within capitalism? Well, capitalism is a global system, and the DOTP has to operate within that framework. The mode of production under which the DOTP operates will be that of the capitalist mode of production - accumulation of capital, commodity production, and wage labour. It is by no means capitalism proper, but a continuously transforming economic, social, and political situation. What's missing is that private ownership, instead we have workers' ownership and control of these things.
Socialism/Communism:
As I mentioned before, Marx and Engels used the terms interchangeably. So, when they say one or the other, they are referring to the same thing. The differentiation between the two terms comes in with Lenin, and he acknowledges that what he is calling socialism, Marx called the first phase of communism.
"... inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society." - Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter 1.
"It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society." - VI Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Section III: The First Phase of Communist Society.
"...having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism)" - VI Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Section III: The First Phase of Communist Society.
In chapter 5 of Lenin's State and Revolution, he as well uses the word communism to refer to the whole of Communist society - First Phase and higher Phase, until he gets into "Section III: The First Phase of Communism" in which he uses the term "socialism" to refer to that specific aspect of communist society. Though, this shouldn't be confusing, just read the title of the section. Lenin clearly differentiates in this way, from the titles of the sections, to the whole of the text.
The big concern is whether or not Lenin, we know Marx and Engels did, viewed Socialism, the First Phase of Communist Society, as classless. Well, if you read, you would notice that in Section III: The First Phase of Communism, after discussing the unequal nature of the first phase/socialism -- the idea of to each according to his input -- he says (emphasis mine):
"Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism [Higher Phase of Communism] is necessary."I don't know how it could be any more clear. I stick by what I said, and what can be viewed in totality in the links I provided to our conversation on YouTube. The DOTP is not socialism. Socialism is classless. Socialism = communism. Marx, Engels and Lenin agreed on those points.
Summary and Questions to the Maoist Rebel
Stop acting like a childish moron, and actually prove your claim that Marx and Lenin viewed Socialism as a class based society. Your claim that they viewed the DOTP and Socialism as the same thing. Your claim that they viewed Socialism as a separate society from Communism. You won't, because you can't. I have just given you all you need to prove you wrong on the matter. I've provided to you that I fucked up on some wording, and with that have essentially demolished the entire video you made -- which was based on my grammatical errors. You have been more than dishonest with your video, when you used a previous conversation on another topic, and claimed that your response in that conversation was your response to our conversation on Equating the DOTP with Socialism. I am not a Trotskyist, and your use of bigoted and abusive language is befitting of a 12 year old.
So, I'm going to ask you:
i) How have I taken the quotes I used in our conversation out of context?
ii) Why did you claim that your response to our conversation on the Vanguard party, and Lenin's What is to be Done? was your response to me on the question of Equating DOTP with Socialism?
iii) Stalin declared socialism to have been achieved in the USSR in 1934, 16 years after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. What do you think the USSR was between 1918 and 1934, if not a DOTP within a capitalist mode of production/wider global capitalist framework?
iv) Where have Marx, Engels and Lenin supported the notion that socialism (The First Phase of COMMUNISM) is a class based society? Stemming from that, where have they supported the notion that socialism and the DOTP were the same thing?
That's it, my response to your idiocy.
Note: If there are any issues concerning grammar and my arguments, I would suggest you ask me to clarify before claiming something that will make you look even more stupid than you are.
T.K.
