Now that my first book launch has come and gone I'm living under the (perhaps false) hope that: a) the book will be well read and critically received; b) its publication will lead to the future publication of larger projects. In many ways, the launch felt like a success. The reading of the book's introduction was well received, the ensuing discussion was pretty good, and people seemed genuinely interested in reading the small treatise. No one hostile to the book's politics was present––after all, there were enough PSF events happening simultaneously that could absorb these elements––and so the launch was amiable rather than antagonistic. Not that the latter climate is not without its benefits: engaging with detractors can potentially sharpen your political line, isolate the backwards and win over the intermediate, but as a first book launch I far prefer the former climate. After all, I was in a city with which I am unfamiliar and it feels good to be among comrades and fellow travellers.
As expected, the glow of possessing a physical copy of the book has worn off. Even though I knew that this would be the case (because why would I be excited to hold an object that I clearly wouldn't be excited to read since, well, I'd written the bloody thing?), for the entire train ride to Ottawa I was anticipating my arrival at my publisher's PSF table to finally touch and physically manipulate what I had only seen electronically. The aura of the dead tree book, a variant of commodity fetishism, was clearly contaminating my excitement even though I recognized it for what it was. Is this yet another example of repressive desublimation? Perhaps.
When I finally arrived at the Kersplebedeb/PM table I was handed a copy of The Communist Necessity and, maybe in recognition of the above fetishization, jokingly exhorted to smell the freshness of its paper. And yeah, hell, it did smell fresh: they knew what I wanted, understood the compelling need of an author to imbibe in the material objectness of their product. Nice sleek little volume as well, printed on quality paper and glowing with newness. As a bonus, I was given the also-recently-printed Turning Money Into Rebellion (which I almost finished reading on the train ride back to Toronto and will review very soon), a book that I probably would have bought otherwise. Have I mentioned before how much I love Kersplebedeb? Not just what they produce but the people behind the production––I'm proud to have my first book included in their catalogue.
Some funny observations connected to this point of my book launch sojourn: 1) my book was selling pretty well before I arrived, though some of the buyers were surprised that it was Maoist––why is it that the ideology behind the most revolutionary movements since the end of the 1980s to the present somehow seen as outdated; 2) apparently one person investigating the Kersplebedeb/PM table noticed Bromma's The Worker Elite and thought that, without having read it of course, it was "taken down" by Stephen Darcy's terrible review that is a very good example of the straw-person fallacy (how the hell Darcy could have written this review is beyond me, it reads as if it was written about a different book and is thus says more about the author than the book itself––gods, I hate this kind of "review" isn't written about my book); 2) a box of one hundred books (part of the amount I requested for book launches) is much heavier than I assumed––I was carrying this box back to Toronto for a still-to-be-scheduled Toronto launch (hopefully September 25th) and it ended up just being three pounds shy of the baggage limit.
In any case, I'm thankful that Kersplebedeb suggested a book launch in Toronto at this time and worked hard to make sure that the book was available for said time. I'm also thankful for the PCR-RCP groups in Ottawa that worked hard to arrange the launch, host me, and promote my first book. They were the reason that the launch even happened, that I had a place to stay, and that the people who attended the launch were a non-hostile crowd––so a big thanks to their efforts and command of logistics that made my in-and-out of Ottawa enjoyable.
There was some irony in its launch, considering that the PSF ended up becoming something of an intersection of two approaches that I critique in The Communist Necessity: a) left refoundationalism, which is the belief that if you get all of the divided multiple left grouplets in one space you can end up with something that amounts to more than the sum of its parts; b) electoralism, which ended up being one of the outcomes of the PSF where the dominant social democrat groups pushed through a resolution that the Canadian left needed to focus on defeating Harper in the electoral system––the lowest level of unity, which in some ways amounts to collaboration with the bourgeois system, was reached by the end of this weekend. Surprise, surprise.
Following this weekend successful book launches there will be others. Despite the problems I am encountering in booking the Toronto launch (why the hell won't anyone return my calls or emails except for one space that is being vague about its calendar?), there is a Montreal launch scheduled for September 28th by the good folks at Maison Norman Bethune. And if you're not living in Toronto or Montreal, and are interested in reading this book, it is now available to be ordered and shipped from the publisher's store––please support me by buying a copy.
As expected, the glow of possessing a physical copy of the book has worn off. Even though I knew that this would be the case (because why would I be excited to hold an object that I clearly wouldn't be excited to read since, well, I'd written the bloody thing?), for the entire train ride to Ottawa I was anticipating my arrival at my publisher's PSF table to finally touch and physically manipulate what I had only seen electronically. The aura of the dead tree book, a variant of commodity fetishism, was clearly contaminating my excitement even though I recognized it for what it was. Is this yet another example of repressive desublimation? Perhaps.
When I finally arrived at the Kersplebedeb/PM table I was handed a copy of The Communist Necessity and, maybe in recognition of the above fetishization, jokingly exhorted to smell the freshness of its paper. And yeah, hell, it did smell fresh: they knew what I wanted, understood the compelling need of an author to imbibe in the material objectness of their product. Nice sleek little volume as well, printed on quality paper and glowing with newness. As a bonus, I was given the also-recently-printed Turning Money Into Rebellion (which I almost finished reading on the train ride back to Toronto and will review very soon), a book that I probably would have bought otherwise. Have I mentioned before how much I love Kersplebedeb? Not just what they produce but the people behind the production––I'm proud to have my first book included in their catalogue.
Some funny observations connected to this point of my book launch sojourn: 1) my book was selling pretty well before I arrived, though some of the buyers were surprised that it was Maoist––why is it that the ideology behind the most revolutionary movements since the end of the 1980s to the present somehow seen as outdated; 2) apparently one person investigating the Kersplebedeb/PM table noticed Bromma's The Worker Elite and thought that, without having read it of course, it was "taken down" by Stephen Darcy's terrible review that is a very good example of the straw-person fallacy (how the hell Darcy could have written this review is beyond me, it reads as if it was written about a different book and is thus says more about the author than the book itself––gods, I hate this kind of "review" isn't written about my book); 2) a box of one hundred books (part of the amount I requested for book launches) is much heavier than I assumed––I was carrying this box back to Toronto for a still-to-be-scheduled Toronto launch (hopefully September 25th) and it ended up just being three pounds shy of the baggage limit.
 |
| And here's a stack of ten of them. The object aura is even more exciting when you a put a bunch of them together! |
In any case, I'm thankful that Kersplebedeb suggested a book launch in Toronto at this time and worked hard to make sure that the book was available for said time. I'm also thankful for the PCR-RCP groups in Ottawa that worked hard to arrange the launch, host me, and promote my first book. They were the reason that the launch even happened, that I had a place to stay, and that the people who attended the launch were a non-hostile crowd––so a big thanks to their efforts and command of logistics that made my in-and-out of Ottawa enjoyable.
There was some irony in its launch, considering that the PSF ended up becoming something of an intersection of two approaches that I critique in The Communist Necessity: a) left refoundationalism, which is the belief that if you get all of the divided multiple left grouplets in one space you can end up with something that amounts to more than the sum of its parts; b) electoralism, which ended up being one of the outcomes of the PSF where the dominant social democrat groups pushed through a resolution that the Canadian left needed to focus on defeating Harper in the electoral system––the lowest level of unity, which in some ways amounts to collaboration with the bourgeois system, was reached by the end of this weekend. Surprise, surprise.
Following this weekend successful book launches there will be others. Despite the problems I am encountering in booking the Toronto launch (why the hell won't anyone return my calls or emails except for one space that is being vague about its calendar?), there is a Montreal launch scheduled for September 28th by the good folks at Maison Norman Bethune. And if you're not living in Toronto or Montreal, and are interested in reading this book, it is now available to be ordered and shipped from the publisher's store––please support me by buying a copy.
Heya!
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I'm somewhat hostile to the book's politics, was present, and generally agree that it was a good event.
Define "hostile". I don't know if I'd call a disagreement necessarily hostile (unless you really are anti-communist through and through) because, though I disagree with my anarchist friends and very strongly so, I am not hostile to them or their events. I was thinking of "hostile" more as the kind of ultra-sectarian kind of "intervention" on the part of an ortho-trot who attends an event simply to attack the people involved. Or, worse perhaps, some openly pro-capitalist faction in the crowd.
DeleteOK, fair enough. In that case, I'm probably quite similar to your anarchist friends with whom you strongly disagree.
DeleteThe primary point of disagreement, in the context of the event, being that, though I think critiques of "movementism" are warranted, it seems somewhat disingenuous to speak as such critiques are absent within anarchist organizing itself. Certainly, anarchists were hardly hawking papers at the PSF and trying to "recruit" with opportunistic anti-Harper sloganeering, which made the insinuation that we're more-or-less like Trots/liberals particularly insulting.
Like, of any non-anarchist left formations, I'm certainly the most sympathetic to Maoists in general, and, in a "Quebec"/"Canada" context, the RCP in particular - I would see shared ground around some of these critiques as grounds for said sympathy. It seems, to me, that the primary differences concern questions that have yet to work themselves out in practice (ie - what will *work* in our particular circumstances) - and, no offense since I believe the opposite is also true, the RCP has yet to really set any bars that anarchists have failed to match.
In any case, I was happy to discuss the matter civilly, as were those I was sitting with (RSM members). I agree that it definitely makes for a better atmosphere than the bizarre practice of yelling positions at people.
"Movementism" is not a phenomenon that is intrinsic to anarchism, and I make that quite clear in my book and was careful to point that out at the event when I was asked a specific question about this. Although it does emerge from anarchist praxis, it's also larger. The book itself was two pronged in that it critiques the reemergence of the acceptance of "communism" in the context of a movementist praxis.
DeleteWhile I agree that the PCR-RCP has set any bars that anarchists have failed to match, vice versa is also the case. There is really nothing sustainable that has come out of anarchist praxis in the past 18 years that I've been an activist, sometimes as an anarchist. The point, here, is not that the PCR itself has yet produced anything sustainable, only that this kind of politics has historically proven itself capable of doing far more than anarchist practice has. Again: the book covers that territory, as does a lot of things I've written on this blog, so there's no point getting into this tired argument here.
The argument about what will work in practice is a good one, but a dangerous one. T. Derbent has a few things to say on this matter that are worth looking into… But I digress.
Glad you were in attendance.
Hi, left refoundationalism- great term. I've been in various ' lets get all the left groups together for an alliance' several times, and it is always a bit pathetic. Personally tho, I think the existence of too many Marxist based parties makes the whole thing seem a little ridiculous, it is like the 'peoples front of judea, or Judean Peoples Front'. The one true church of God. I often think there must be something faulty with Marxism in itself, that it constantly is subject to splits. The mainstream parties have divisions, but they don't split. Why?
ReplyDeleteThis issue isn't a problem with Marxism itself, but rather the nature of leftist politics specifically in the first world. These are the imperialist centers, and therefore the strongest 'links' in the chain that is the global capitalist system. Objectively revolutionary groups are relatively small, and bourgeois ideology is at its most prevalent. The situation in the third world is much different. CPI (Maoist) as it is today is the result of a series of mergers of communist parties, for example.
DeleteWell I think that even in the global peripheries there is a history of the same splits. The merger you mention in India, for example, happened because of a lot of effort on the part of the Maoists after a long history of splinters and an entire generation where, after the fall apart of the CPI(ML), many of these groups were killing each other. Before that, even the CPI(ML) emerged because of a split with another organization. And there are still a lot of non-Maoist marxist groups in India.
DeleteBut to reply to the original statement, the fact that there are multiple mainstream parties (and often factions within them) demonstrate that the bourgeois has a level of "splitting" but, since that class has hegemony, there is less of a problem. Still, to take Canada as an example, the emergence of the QS can be seen as a "split" from a bunch of other social democrat groups that were not offering the people in the QS the kind of social democratic politics they wanted. The Conservative party in Canada has similarly gone through multiple splits, reformations, and mergers. Less is at stake, though, if your class is in power and these parties simply represent a different casting of the same capitalist project. Track back to the rise of the bourgeoisie as a class, when it was gaining hegemony, you find so many parties and grouplets and splits as well.
Personally, I think that different leftist groups is inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it can become sectarian––and yes, sometimes these splits are strange––but other times it represents the way in which a principled and proper line has to come into being. The same thing happened with Lenin's party and later with the party in China under Mao. When revisionism sets in then a split becomes necessary. The danger is unprincipled sectarianism but maintaining a principled difference is not necessarily bad––and I've written about it before––but can be part of the development of a revolutionary movement.
Some splits are inevitable, and about the political line. However, in some cases, it may be about personality or the individual power of a leader, and the political and ideological rhetoric may just cover that up. Its hard to tell sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the 3rd world Left as being anymore united than the 1st world Left. They are also extremely divided.
When there are several parties with similar names all struggling for what sounds like the same thing, it does cause a certain disbelief, just as when there are too many churches all claiming to be the one and only 'true' church of god.
I don;t think there is any perfect philosophy, and Marxism has imperfections as with any other. I know people do the ' well, whatever atrocities and mistakes Jews/Christians/ Muslims etc might commit, the Torah/Bible/Koran is untouched by these, for those people were not true Jews/Christians/Muslims etc But is this also the case for Marxism? Whatever mistakes Marxists have committed, does Marxism remain untouched and pure?
There is no such thing as a "pure" marxism––I've made this case before––but I also think it's a category mistake to compare it to religion. But if you are going to make that comparison, then you've answered your earlier question about how it "cause[s] a certain disbelief" since, clearly, the variety of different tendencies within a single religion (which is probably a better analogy than different religions since we're not comparing marxism with other political ideologies but with itself) are usually used as proof that x religion is significant and the fact of these different tendencies doesn't have anything to do with the strength or weakness of this religion in the eyes of other people or potential converts.
DeleteIn any case, I reassert what I said earlier about bourgeois ideology and the multiple "capitalist" ideologies that proliferated between so many groups prior to the emergence of capitalism.
Zizek, Badiou, Bertrand Russell, Tariq Ali, and many others compare Marxism to religion.
ReplyDeleteZizek says Lenin is like St.Paul.
Russell says Marxism is like the Old Testament or Islam
Tariq Ali also compares it to Islam.
Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins say it is a secular religion.
I think Marxism and Anarchism verge or touch the religious, because it gives a total answer for everything, while other political theories/ideologies don't. You can be a religious or atheist liberal or conservative, believe in God or the Buddha or whatever. In Marxism, this is not possible. It is atheist and materialist at core. It proposes another means of salvation, instead of after death, a salvation in the eventual communist paradise. .
The prophets are Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao and their writings are like holy books. The Russian and Chinese revolution are quasi mythological events which are constantly referred to, much as with the life of Jesus for Christians. Marxism has been called by some a Christian heresy, and this perhaps is true.
I'm well aware that these comparisons exist, and for a variety of different reasons. Zizek and Badiou are interested in the formal comparison of institutions. Russell is just an anti-communist, and to him we can add people like Popper; their own dogmatic fidelity to the bourgeois order can also be called religious based on their own logic, so no point in paying attention to their thoughts. Hitchens and Dawkins are even worse in their assessments.
DeleteI am also well aware that any ideology can become dogmatic and verge on the religious; this a danger with anything, Marxism included, and you can find a religious mindset amongst scientists at every period in the development of a specific scientific terrain (i.e. examine the dogmatic assumptions made by those scientists during the paradigm shift to the Einsteinian order, a desire to cling to Newtonianism).
Why I think that treating Marxism as a religion in essence is a category mistake is because theorists who provide a concrete analysis of a concrete situation, and prove this through revolutionary movements (only to encounter successive problematics) are more part of a scientific process in that they are creating truth procedures. Does this mean that these events cannot be mystified and given a religious aura? Obviously this is always a danger, as is the religious-minded attempt to treat Marxism as a pure dogma and its interlocuters as prophets, but you can find the same thing in other sciences as well, or even in the arts, and yet it would be strange to call science or art "religious" in and of themselves. The problem has to do with how it is conceived.
Marxism does not propose a total answer for everything, though some of its dogmatic inherents will claim this is the case, but only an explanation of the motion of history––class revolution. This means it has always been open to the future, and hence all the different tendencies, and has always encountered problems it cannot solve: i) either because history is such that these problems cannot be answered unless one believes that marxism is some sort of arcane operation of predicting the future; ii) or because these problems lay outside the boundaries of its terrain (it can intervene on questions of other sciences when these questions intersect with its given terrain––history/soceity––but it cannot even come close to answering them, so it does not possess a total explanation of such questions.
Your definition of Marxism sounds precisely like the Popperian nonsense that has done nothing but straw-person and misconceive its subject matter. While it is true that Marxism looks to find an ethical solution to the problems on earth, and is interested in the necessities that can teach us something about this solution, it does not as a whole maintain that a "communist paradise" is inevitable like the second coming of Christ: while some of its adherents have used this language, and this more has to do with the historical conjuncture and those moments where it did indeed seem like capitalism would fall, the theory as a whole is chalk full of examples where contingency was treated as equally important. As Engels once put it, if we don't want the logic of capitalism to destroy the world (as it is doing) then it is necessary to transcend these boundaries. Luxemburg short-handed this to "socialism or barbarism", knowing that the former was not preordained in any way, shape or manner.
[cont.]
DeleteFinally, the "salvation" that communism proposes is the only salvation that can be spoken of materially. Does this mean that it is essentially atheist? For some this has been the case, but for others (i.e. the liberation theologians and other marxist Christians) all this has meant is that we need to focus on the ways to make life better here. There is a reason why Marx and Engels did not consider communism to be "atheist" even though they were atheists: they believed that atheists/theists were not social classes and so it was useless to focus on this problematic. Those people who ascribe to a religion and are Marxists usually assume that the life-after-death question of salvation is a separate question from making the world a better place.
At this point, your comments are bordering on outright ignorance of the literature surrounding this question, or even a knowledge of marxism. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has little to do with this post. I have written about these issues elsewhere on this blog, and I recall having at least one post on religion/theism/atheism, and several on why there is "no pure" marxism and why a sophisticated historical materialist approach has always eschewed the idea of "prophets" amongst Marxism, as well as noting the dangers of dogmatism that are caused by a desire to have easy answers in the face of militant agitation. As for the last issue, I will again point out that we can learn a lot about proletarian ideology in comparison to the emergence of bourgeois ideology: early capitalists were also extremely religious minded in the way they defended the beginning of their order, but this does not mean that capitalism is a "religious" doctrine even if it can be treated as such, and now possesses a level of mystification amongst so many.
Glad you like how the book looks! & thanks for the nice words, and for sending it my way to publish!
ReplyDeleteNo, thank you! It's an honour to be on your catalogue.
DeleteKarl Popper is right to bring into question the 'scientific' nature of Marxism. Does every criticism of Marxism mean that the critic is an anti-communist?
ReplyDeleteRegarding my knowledge of Marxism, it might be better. I have made attempts to read things by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. On the whole, I found them not easy to understand, as they are replying to debates that seem outdated, use terms that are no longer used, ie materialism vs idealism, metaphysics vs science etc, or historical events that have long passed. Also, Marx/Engels seem to have a very 19th century concept of science, and they are replying to various debates that it is hard to get a grip on and frankly seem a bit dated, unless you are a full time scholar of this stuff.
At this point you're close to trolling. Popper was an anti-communist and unapologetic about his anti-communism. His entire definition of science was designed simply to attack marxism and, in doing so, he misrepresented marxism. That's the problem with Popper… Aside from the fact that his definition of science as a whole is just a bad definition.
DeleteYou continue to keep moving to areas you apparently no very little about in an attempt to maintain an anti-communist position just because. Just because you think some words are no longer used doesn't mean they aren't used in philosophy, nor that they are unimportant. Moreover, there is a lot of marxist theory and application of the universal aspects of the tradition in the contemporary world. Finally, the enlightenment definition of science is far more useful than the attempted definitions of people like Popper, which is why the work of Bachelard and Kuhn––which doesn't run counter to the general definition that Marx and Engels understood but adds more sophistication––is better than the work of Popper. But again, I've spoken about "science" before on this blog. As I said before, you're welcome to read up on that.
As for being a full time scholar, the basic ideas of MLM, when distilled down in programmatic form, are very easy for people to grasp. This is why revolutionary communism is capable of mobilizing people in massive revolutionary movements, primarily the people with nothing to lose but their chains. It's people who have a certain measure of privilege (and here I include myself) that have problems getting this stuff and throw up a lot of excuses. At the same time, it also has a scholarly level as with anything. Problem is that the latter often gets in the way of the former when it should enrich it.
The notion of Marxism as a religion seem to hinge upon an unexamined notion of religion in general as dogmatism. But "dogmatism" is largely a matter of perceived style and imputed personal motivations, a distaste for a bossy attitude condemned as unreasoned and unreasonable misuse of false authority. But I think that resting political and social analysis on such subjective grounds is a dubious project from the start.
ReplyDeleteIf you even look at "religion," you see in some times and places it is merely primitive medicine. In others it is tribal identifying mythology and supernatural sanctions for tribal mores. In yet others it is redistribution of meat in the form of sacrifices. Most of the great empires are closely associated with a state religion which conspicuously does not redistribute meat but promises nonmaterial rewards and acts as an agency of the imperial government. But even these state churches can become worldly powers in their own right. Today some "religion" is a kind of social life marketed as a service.
The identification of "dogmatism" with "religion" I think is a sure symptom of the substitution of moralizing for objective analysis (much less a scientific approach.)
(There is a small set of usages of "dogmatism" restricted to parties in the Marxist tradition, with the kind of specificity as terms like "revisionism" or "opportunism" or "adventurism." The obviously relevant closely related term, preferable I think for its specificity is "sectarianism." When a politically ossified political organization erects artificial political distinctions as a cover for the unprincipled pursuit of solely partisan, or even personal, gains, the practice is called sectarianism, the creation of artificial distinctions dogmatism and the slogans shibboleths. This is in parallel to Christian denominations which supposedly worship the same God yet oppose each other. Superficially the comparison is apt, hence its popularity. But until someone devises a way to demonstrate the true purpose of religion, the notion of sectarianism as an offense against true religion is precisely as I said, mindless moralism. Political organizations do have purposes and goals and thus it is possible to meaningfully describe an organization as ossified and unprincipled in its pursuit of organizational perpetuation at the expense of its original purpose.)
Communist Necessity is on my list for purchase. It may take a couple months since books are periodic treats, but I'm still looking forward to reading it.
Steven Johnson
Thanks for planning to buy it and thanks for this intervention. The person arguing about religion, I suspect, is someone who is a religious liberal and, based on their last rhetorical response, is most probably a troll.
Delete'As for being a full time scholar, the basic ideas of MLM, when distilled down in programmatic form, are very easy for people to grasp.'
ReplyDeletesuch as children who joined the Nepalese PLA? Or the illiterate peasants of Peru or Nepal?
if someone doesn't believe in MLM, then they are putting up excuses!! this is the circular logic which Popper talked about in Marxism.
Where did I say "if someone doesn't believe in MLM then they are putting up excuses"? What I did say was that you were not arguing in good faith, based on the amount of red herrings you were employing. So, no, this is not circular logic. You are trolling, and it is clear you really do not know much about the PPWs you cited. The fact that you take statements I make out of context, attribute to them another meaning, and then cling to your own position––*dogmatically* I might add––bears all the hallmark of a troll, someone who does not want to engage in a reasonable debate.
Delete"Illiterate peasants joining in a movement to fight against their own oppression?! Horror of horrors! They can't read, obviously this means they can't understand anything. Why, they're no different from children. How tragic for the big bad communists to exploit them so!"
Deletelol
DeleteCongratulations. I have learnt a lot from reading your blog fwiw :)
ReplyDeleteRandom blog reader
Here are some notes from a reader i Sweden (yep, you have at least one reader in Stockholm). I find the book very interesting and with a lot of good insights. I like that the scientific approach is stressed. It makes you think, and that is important.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe my critical points are of more interest? The first is that 'the necessity' is very much helped by the productive forces, the technological revolution which continues every day, in our daily lives. You stress 'the necessity' because people are opressed and exploited and capitalism creates worser and worser suffering, and I agree 100%. But if we add the productive forces, you may say that the possibility that the necessity can be realized is greater. Another world is necessary ... and it is also possible. I know you have written about this earlier (am a regular reader of your blog) and you don't accept that technology itself creates communism. I agree, it takes great popular movements for that, but they will be much stronger if they use the possibilities new technology gives us. Productive forces ARE a part of the ‘necessity’. At least as I see it ... but not in your otherwise excellent book.
And second: a lot of know-how needed for the struggle is to be found among ‘middle-class’ people. From that point of view maybe it isn’t so smart just to tell them that they just should be pulled down. Am not sure that is what you say (p .97) but it might be interpreted that way. Isn’t it smarter to try to get them into the big anti-capitalist front? “Unite the many to defeat the few.”
If I give you seven out of ten possible ‘red flags’ for the book, is that fair?
Sorry for poor English
The Anonymous Swede
I have at least two readers in Sweden since Gabriel Kuhn also reviewed the book.
DeleteMaybe the problem is translation but I think you missed the point of my book. I think that the proper combination of productive forces and productive relations is necessary for socialism, but this had nothing to do with the CN. The CN is really just about marking out the way that organization/strategy should proceed, demanding a break from social movementism and a return to a Leninist approach. At the centres of capitalism the productive forces are already at the level required for a socialist society and our being held back by capitalist productive relations; in this context, then, the political instance is lagging behind for many reasons (economism, labour aristocracy, poor strategy/organization, etc.). In any case, the book was primarily about why it was important to return to Leninism, but with everything we've learned from movementism, and to draw a specific line of demarcation that all future attempts at theory that claim to be radical need to deal with: the fact that the tools provided by the two great world historical revolutions must be drawn upon; the fact that communism is a necessity if we are to overcome capitalism and not just some ideal concept. Of course this necessity will have to do with a transformation of productive forces, but that was not the point of the book.
As for your last paragraph: there is just as much know-how amongst proletarianized people, and more in certain important areas, as people in the so-called "middle class". What I was speaking of there was the necessity of this middle class to proletarianize if a revolutionary movement is to survive and serve the people rather than expect that they can have a higher living than people upon whom this living is dependent. Nothing really new there, and this has been the basis of revolutionary communism for a while and for good reason. When this relationship is reversed, capitalism is restored. I think you're missing the general timeline that that part is meant to indicate: it is about the fact that people have to realize that in the period of socialism this is what will happen. Before socialism then, yes, get them into an anti-capitalist front if they will get into that front. But what will socialism mean for them? A change in their quality of life for a while. As someone who has a petty-bourgeois kind of life (lower petty-bourgeois since my labour is completely casualized but when I get work I do well) this is always something I have to struggle with if I claim to proclaim fidelity to communism.
Hello:
ReplyDeleteDo I understand there will be a book launch in Mississauga?
No, there is no planned book launch in Mississauga.
Delete