Hi Daniel,

Continuing from part A:

Daniel -- Part 4 -- November 11:

> But it is too late for me to back out
> now; and I wouldn't want to anyway. One of the many
> differences between a Leninist and a Nazi is that Nazis
> don't try to recruit people by operating at the very lowest
> and most militant levels of the class struggle - fascists
> tend to get the middle-class vote. As anarchists, we face an
> organised Leninist presence in virtually everything we do.
> Often they want to work with us, to participate in our
> organisations, until it is no longer politically expedient
> for them to do so. Nazis want to shoot us now; Leninists
> want to shoot us after they begin their reconstruction of
> capitalism.

One problem with the last sentence above (ie: "Leninists want to
shoot us") is that a number of young people who are new to
political activity and attracted to anarchism hear this kind of
nonsense and, due to lack of political experience and knowledge,
actually believe it. The problems in the political movement (ie:
the saturation of the reformist ideology and reformist
prejudices--and the highly manipulative sectarian infighting and
slander used by each group against its opponents) are both real
and complex. But a more serious approach is needed to understand
the nature (and cure) of these diseases.

The sentence before:

> Often they want to work with us, to participate in our
> organisations, until it is no longer politically expedient
> for them to do so.

is quite accurate. Often these groups are motivated mainly by
the potential of recruitment to their own ranks. That,
unfortunately, is how they measure all progress. Such sectarian
motivations are poison to the revolutionary movement and create a
lot of mistrust between activists who should really be working to
find the broad avenue of principled cooperation.

Daniel, I am certain that you are capable of a deeper analysis of
the problems in the revolutionary movement.

> For example, if a Leninist at a
> spokescouncil meeting demands a show of hands, it isn't
> necessarily clear to everyone why this is damaging to
> affinity-group based organisations. It is precisely so that
> we can prevent authoritarians from taking over our
> organisations, that it is so very important that we fully
> understand their ideas, outlooks and tactics, and be able to
> thoughtfully engage those ideas on a theoretical level.

As I suggested in the part A the affinity group model of
organization has its own problems. One problem is that your
activity and influence is restricted mainly to your local group.
We need a model of revolutionary organization where activists
have the ability to influence one another--have the ability to
request attention from one another--and get attention. Along
with this must exist methods of collaboration concerning who is
(or is not) worthy of attention--with each activist making his
own decision--and forging his or her own reputation. A model of
revolutionary organization that is not dysfunctional will include
within itself various trends of thought. These trends will both
compete with one another for influence and cooperate on a wide
range of projects. In business ecosystems this is called
"coopetition" and it will exist in the revolutionary movement
also.

> Without such an engagement, we will not be able to expose
> them - or more relevantly, their theory - in the full light
> of its corrosive and deadening effect on working class
> organisation.

You are for engagement here. Good :-)

One of the problems is that most of these "Leninist" groups
oppose genuine engagement (such would lead to the exposure of
their own bankruptcy and a loss of members) but are not open
about this. So they sometimes pretend to engage or engage in a
non-serious way (by using insults and distortions of the views of
their opponents as a way to sabotage genuine engagement). Such
tactics tend to give engagement a bad name. This is why it
becomes important to take a clear stand in favor of genuine,
principled engagement. Hopefully this debate will help to prove
that principled, sincere engagement is possible and is not a
complete waste of time.

> It is for this reason that I see this debate as a front in
> what Ben has called "mass-based information war" - a
> metaphor for the ideological aspect of the class struggle.

The phrase "mass-based information war" is also a way to help
activists grasp the need to make full use of the emerging
revolution in digital communications--and to help them better
understand the need to develop and use effective principles and
tactics in this war.

> I have trouble justifying why this debate
> should be conducted on such a public level, since my only
> personal interest in it is not in promoting myself, my
> ideas, or even the substance of the debate itself; but only
> in subjecting my ideas to criticism and developing/absorbing
> new ideas, so that I might become a better activist in my
> own undertakings in the "real world". It is after all
> people, not their ideas, that make history - and if this
> debate is going to have any positive effect on 'history' at
> all, it will be because of the reformulated ideas its
> participants can take from it into the real "ring" of the
> class struggle that is our everyday existence; and will have
> little to do with the number of "spectators" who may (or may
> not) briefly have their attention drawn to it.

I believe the questions we are discussing are of importance to
activists everywhere and to the revolutionary movement as a
whole. Ideas do matter and are sometimes decisive.

--snip--

> what "communism" will be like, or how we are likely to
> achieve it, are not questions that anyone without a really
> good crystal ball can ever hope to answer.

Not true. We can say, for example, that genuine communism will
not contain classes that are based on the private ownership of
the means of production. Talk of needing a crystal ball strikes
me a way of throwing one's hands into the air and considering it
hopeless to confront the crisis of theory.

> According to Ben,
> the most powerful idea of the present epoch is that "a world
> without bourgeois rule is possible, practical and
> achievable". The task of proving this idea to be true is
> paramount then, because apparently, once we have proven this
> simple idea to "the masses", and the masses grasp it, we
> will "unleash the full potential of the anti-war movement,
> and all other progressive movements".

(see my comments below)

> Now whilst agreeing with Ben that flawed theory certainly
> can, and does, have a debilitating effect on virtually all
> popular struggles, it needs to be said that theory is not
> the principle reason for the paralysis of the working class;
> such a thesis would be pure idealism.

The working class is paralyzed because it lacks a genuine
revolutionary organization which does not have its head shoved up
its rear end--but on the contrary is worthy of the respect,
attention and trust of workers. The crisis of theory plays a
decisive role in the lack of such a revolutionary organization.
For example: it is difficult for two revolutionary-minded
activists to work together in a principled way if activist A
believes that activist B wants to shoot him. Another example: it
is impossible to organize a mass movement for the overthrow of
bourgeois rule when no one really believes that the working class
can run society better than the bourgeoisie.

Why should it be "idealism" to recognize that there are times
when ideas are decisive? Daniel I think that stuff like this is
baggage that you carry with you from your recent experience with
a cult. I will make it simple: Imagine you are standing on some
railroad tracks. A nearby locomotive is rushing toward you at 90
miles an hour. You close your eyes and imagine that the
locomotive is no longer there. That is idealism. If instead,
the idea forms in your brain that you better damn well jump out
of the way--that is materialism. Ideas can be decisive _if_ they
correspond to the laws of motion of the external material world.

> Living
> revolutionary theory therefore only emerges in and through
> the class struggle itself: not outside or beyond it, in some
> theoretically transcendent realm where a tiny vanguard of
> self-proclaimed 'theorists' conjure it out of the occult.

We are not, Daniel, theorists who are isolated from the class
struggle. Speaking for myself, I have experience in many popular
struggles that are manifestations of the class struggle, have
been part of a number of political organizations, have helped to
create and distribute high-quality agitation that positively
impacted these struggles, etc. My work is based on a study of
the theoretical work of others who also have profound connections
to the class struggle (as well as from a study of life: politics,
economics, culture, technology, etc). Unless we believe that
theory will be delivered to us by martians (or by god) then we
can expect it will be developed by human beings.

> To
> "prove" socialism was precisely the project of the
> Saint-Simonians; and furthermore, it was for exactly this
> reason that Marx labelled them "utopian socialists". Marx's
> great insight was in recognising that socialism cannot be
> abstractly "proved", but that its potential realisation lies
> solely in the concrete conditions in which workers find
> themselves:

You are confused Daniel. The utopian socialists attempted to
prove to the ruling classes (ie: the _bourgeoisie_) that a
society without exploitation was possible. This is why they are
only a footnote in history. Our tasks are different: we must
help the _working class_ recognize that an alternative to
bourgeois rule is both possible and necessary. In particular,
after the fiasco of the Soviet and Chinese revisionist experience
(semi-feudal police states with one-party rule), we must help
progressive activists recognize that the working class can run
society _better_ than the bourgeoisie. If we fail to do
this--then we are simply being _passive_ while bourgeois
apologists, on a daily basis, "prove" that bourgeois rule is
eternal.

More soon ...

All the best,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 31.Jan.2003
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)