Despite his decisive primary victory and impressive campaign, many Democratic lawmakers are refusing to endorse Zohran Mamdani and are spreading baseless lies and smears in the process.
  • veganbtw@lemmy.ml
    156·
    3 days ago

    Essentially that there is no way that the dictatorship of the proletarian will ever be temporary and that even though he spends time talking about the evils of the bourgeois state and how it must be dismantled this dictatorship with its “vanguard” (which are just new elites) will necessarily form a new state that will also form self-preservation methods and never transfer to a workers run stateless system. Bakunin calls them a red bureaucracy and Emma Goldman writes about how the Bolshevik state simply replaced the old Tsarist state and became reformist and bourgeois in nature losing its revolutionary character in time. The crackdown of the Kronstadt rebellion was the first seeds of this nearly immediately after the October revolution. The anarchist response and alternative to the centralized state that Lenin believes is required is a decentralized system of worker self-management pods in federated councils and communes, not a top-down elite vanguard run dictatorship.

    A lot of the disagreement comes from the understanding and lessons learned from the Paris commune. Lenin believes this is a prototype of a worker’s state with recallable delegates, less red tape/bureaucracy and the removal of the existing state but Anarchists don’t believe the lesson here is to just create another state, although I personally would argue a dictatorship of the proletariat is preferable to the dictatorship of capital we currently live in, we want more communes that work together. We don’t believe the revolutionary character of the commune went far enough to actually destroy the existing state and instead tried to recreate it on a smaller scale.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      262·
      3 days ago

      I think you’re erasing the economic component of the Marxist position, as well as conflating the nature of the state, which Marxists and Anarchists somewhat disagree on. Marxist communism, in its stateless form, is still fully centralized and planned, but also classless. It isn’t about “transferring to the workers,” that basis is the means by which to bring about communism. The millitarization of the state is necessary until the world is socialist and all class contradictions have been resolved, but there will still be administrative positions well into communism.

      Anarchism is indeed more decentralized, but this is a departure from the Marxist understanding of economic development. The real argument is not based on how to get to the final stage, but what that final stage even looks like to begin with. Full horizontalism a la anarchism, or a one world collectivized and planned a la Marxism.

      I do support anarchists generally, certainly over capitalists, but I think a lot of confusion is drawn between anarchists and Marxists due to having different stances on terms and what they look like in practice.

      • veganbtw@lemmy.ml
        93·
        3 days ago

        In Lenin’s writing in State and Revolution it is absolutely is about transferring the mechanism of the state to the workers who then form a militarized proletarian “temporary” state to destroy the other classes. That is what the dictatorship of the proletariat is, a transfer of power from the Bourgois and capital class to the working class who then destroy the other classes to create a classless system. I don’t think this is possible and that is the crux of the disagreement.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          181·
          2 days ago

          What you just said isn’t at odds with what I said. The state is a system that resolves class contradictions through class oppression, in socialism that state resolves them in favor of the proletariat. It isn’t a distinct class. The “special bodies of armed men” Lenin speaks of, ie the millitant organizations, are there to protect from invaders and to keep the bourgeoisie, as long as it still exists, in check.

          As the economy grows and develops, the class contradictions must be resolved. The job of the state in socialism is to keep the proletariat in power, and gradually sublimate private property until it’s fully centralized, globally, at which point there is no bourgeosie nor proletariat. Administration doesn’t cease to exist, but millitant policing and armies that retain state power have no reason to exist when there’s no class conflict to be reconciled.

          Bukharin explains the difference between the Marxist and anarchist position here, though do be warned, it’s highly sectarian (as this matter inevitably becomes, as it’s the core argument between Marxists and anarchists):

          Communist society is stateless. But if true - and most certainly it is - what really is the difference between anarchists and Marxist communists? Does this difference no longer exist, at least on the question of the future society and the “ultimate goal”?

          Of course it exists, but is altogether different. It can be briefly defined as the difference between large centralized production and small decentralized production.

          We communists on the other hand believe that the future society must not only rid us of the exploitation of man by man, but also allow man more independence from nature by reducing “necessary working time” and maximizing socialized productive forces and the productivity of socialized labor. That is why our ideal is large-scale centralized, organized and planned production, tending towards the organization of the entire world economy. Anarchists, on the other hand, prefer a wholly different type of organization: their ideal is small communes - unsuited to large-scale production by the very nature of their structure - which conclude “agreements” between themselves and are connected in a network of voluntary contractual relationships. Clearly such a production scheme is reactionary from an economic standpoint. It will not and cannot give space to the development of productive forces; from an economic standpoint, it is more like the communes of the Middle Ages than the society that will replace capitalism. This scheme is not only reactionary but utopian par excellence. Future society will not be born of “nothing”, will not be delivered from the sky by a stork. It grows within the old world and the relationships created by the giant machinery of financial capital. It is clear that the future development of productive forces (any future society is only viable and possible if it develops the productive forces of the already outdated society) can only be achieved by continuing the tendency towards the centralization of the production process, and the improved organization of the “direction of things” replacing the former “direction of men”.

          But anarchists will reply that the essence of the state is precisely centralization; “By maintaining centralization of production, you will thus maintain the state apparatus, its power, violence”, and “authoritarian relations”.

          This fallacious argument is based on a purely childish and unscientific notion of the state. As with capital, the state is not “a thing”, but a relationship between individuals - between classes to be more precise. It is a relationship of class, domination and oppression - that’s the essence of the state. Otherwise the state does not exist. To consider centralization as the characteristic and main feature of the state is like considering capital as a means of production. The means of production becomes capital only when monopolized by one class and used for the wage exploitation of another, i.e. when these means of production express the social relations of class oppression and class economic exploitation. On the other hand, they are a good thing in themselves - the instrument of man’s struggle against nature. That is why they will not disappear in future society and will have a deserved a place there.

          So, in essence, the Marxist conception of communism is founded on centralization and organization, while the anarchist conception is based on decentralization and the elimination of any and all hierarchy. I am sympathetic to the anarchist position in that I used to be one, but over time have come to become a Marxist-Leninist. As a consequence, I find a lot of conflict between Marxists and anarchists is largely due to differences in analysis of what the state even consists of, and righting those misconceptions of the other helps productive dialogue on the left.

          • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            The state is a system that reconciles class contradictions, in socialism that state resolves them in favor of the proletariat. It isn’t a distinct class.

            This is wrong, Lenin in State and Revolution precisely points out that this was Kautsky view of the state. The state is not a reconciliatory tool, it is a tool for a class to dominate the others. When we talk about a dictatorship of the proletariat we talk about seizing the state and use it to oppress the capitalist class not to reconciliate. Make the capitalist serve their historical mission of organizing and developing the productive forces but strip them off all political power.

            Another thing i would like to point out is about the withering of the state. It should be understood that the state as a tool for organizing production, is not going away, but the state as a tool of class oppression is what is going to wither away.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              3·
              2 days ago

              I’ll be honest, I completely fucked up the wording there. Rather than “reconcile,” I meant resolve, as in when the bourgeoisie comes into conflict with the proletariat, the state will resolve it in favor of the proletariat through class oppression, hence why I said it would resolve them in favor of the proletariat. Thanks for pointing it out, I’m not a Kaustkyite I assure you.

              As far as your second paragraph, I’m in full agreement. What Engels calls the “Administration of Things” cannot be anything but an organized society, and that implies government, but with private property sublimated it will no longer have any class character and the state as such will no longer exist, as it cannot resolve class contradictions that no longer exist.

              I’ll correct my wording!

          • veganbtw@lemmy.ml
            63·
            2 days ago

            I’ve gone the other way with my thinking from pretty hard line Maoist to Anarchist in my middle age. I think your response is good for anarchists who are stuck in the theory of people who are long dead but not really my personal thinking and understanding, including living through a war, which I added towards the end.

            I don’t believe that the goals dictatorship of the proletariat is actually possible. I don’t think that it will ever work and exists firmly in the imagination of thinkers from 100 years ago. I’m not an anarchist in the Bukharin sense, I’m an anarchist in the sense that I desire a way of life for all animals, including humans, that is anti hierarchical but simply do not believe these contradictions are resolvable in a knowable way. I believe that the future classless government-less system is desirable but that the pathway is not clear without Leto II-esque prescience thinking. If we get there from a MLM sense or some other sense matters not to me.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              7·
              2 days ago

              Honestly, I see a lot of overlap between Maoism and anarchism, so that’s not that big of a stretch if you ask me. I also am not opposed to hierarchy or government, humanity’s strengths lie in its ability to organize, and the progressive elements of capitalism like the socialization of production should be mastered so that we can have a more just, scientifically driven society based on common ownership and planning.

              As far as the here and now, I think the PRC is doing it best, and is charting that course at the forefront. It has a long way to go before we can reach communism, but the path forward already exists.