April 2003
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM
vs.
ANARCHISM
vs.
COMMUNISM
vs.
NATIONAL
SOCIALISM
______________________
One of the primary goals facing International Socialism is the not only (!) the question of the unequivocal International Socialist Revolutionary overthrow of Corporate State Capitalism—but how to create an International Society free from the Reactionary tendencies of Rightist Anarchism (Libertarianism), Single Party Communist Dictatorship, and that Fascist Perversion of Marxism, "National Socialism".
Ideally Socialism
incorporates the best of an Anarchist point of view by promoting the concept of
RADICAL INDIVIDUALISM WITH A COLLECTIVE FOCUS. Individuality, free from the
domination and exploitation of the mortal ego (Yahweh) is without a
doubt, Humanity’s CROWN OF CREATION & MUST BE
RESPECTED BY THE COLLECTIVE RACE.
Historically, however, organized and semi-organized Anarchistic political tendencies have been responsible for the indefensible terrorism and senseless, anti-social vandalism that often results in State repression directed against the entire Socialist/Worker’s Movement. In San Francisco there is (or was) a painted mural around the boundaries of a school in a Working Class district depicting the political evolution of so-called “Minority” groups in the United States, titled “Our History is No Mystery.” Rightist Anarchist delinquents saw the mural as an expression of Socialist “Authoritarianism” so they defaced this collective work of art with the Anarchist Circle A and such intelligent graffiti as “Nigger Lovers” and “Death to Commies!” During the recent mass Peace March (January 2003) in San Francisco a tiny band of these idiots ran around breaking windows and vandalizing newsstands (robbing the Working Class operators of income.) It is just this type of stupidity that supplies the Establishment with justification to invoke the Cops and to slander all the good the March represented. It also created an atmosphere that could only serve to senselessly alienate the many first time participants in collective political action.
This is just what the Anarchists wanted.
They are so emotionally and politically immature and disoriented that they are unable to form any coherent revolutionary program on their own—and it drives them crazy to see positive, nonviolent unified action. So they go out of their way to wreck it.
These so-called “Anarchist” thugs (the cast-offs of a Capitalist Society in deep decay) are the first to be recruited as skinhead Fascist thugs.
Libertarian Anarchism as represented by the United States Libertarian Party, is a petty outfit run by Rightists who are even too far to the Right for the ultra-reactionary Republican Party. They remain somewhat in organizational existence thanks to Capitalist $$$ and impressionable idealists and/or crackpots without a political oar to row in. The Capitalists in charge of the Libertarian Party (primarily frustrated, white, small business owners and landlords—often of the slum variety) promote trendy causes like the legalization of marijuana and elimination of income taxes in order to hide behind a propagandistic smoke screen and snare social activist innocents into the mire of the Libertarian political swamp. During times of revolutionary upheaval these types willingly rush into the welcome embrace of Fascism, and undoubtedly discover more congenial company with upfront bigots than with their former pothead colleagues.
Certainly there is a Left Anarchist perspective, so-called Anarchist Syndicalism or Utopian Socialism. Lenin called this tendency “ultra-leftist” and considered it “an infantile disorder.”
______________________
Emma Goldman best represents Left Anarchism. Goldman was a highly principled immigrant to the U.S. and personified the highest pro-Worker currents of the Anarchist Tendency. Goldman was a feminist pioneer who fought determinedly for both women and men’s rights and was a tireless champion of the Working Class. She got the Hollywood treatment in the movie “REDS.” The film somewhat accurately portrayed her impressionistic inability to grasp the significance of the Bolshevik Revolution and the unfortunate political necessity for the newly conceived Soviet Regime to enact various “authoritarian” degrees in order to prevent a massive international Capitalist invasion and Royalist counter-revolution.
The inheritors of the Left Anarchist position today who, while obviously sincere in their beliefs, have not progressed any further than Goldman in accessing the political realities needed to achieve a victorious GLOBAL SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. As a matter of fact, many Utopian Socialists would not care to witness such an historic event if it involved the survival of the State in any form.
And this is where we unequivocally disagree with their position.
In the most “Utopian” pro-socialist scenario, Capitalist Society will fall with such a global crash—that areas of people will be forced to INTELIGENTLY OPT FOR AN INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIVE ECONOMIC SYSTEM BASED ON MUTUAL RESPECT & SIMPLE COMPASSION. This schema is noble, but naïve.
In order for International Socialism to survive the inevitable Global Economic Crisis, a strong Socialist Administration will be necessary to facilitate the implementation of economic democracy and social justice—and in order to prevent counterrevolution from the rapacious appetites and the Capitalist Oligarchy and its Fascist goon squads.
______________________
This Socialist Era will be based on an EXPANDED economic social democracy far surpassing the current deceptive and hypocritical Global Capitalist “Democracy” strangling the world today. In addition, citizens in the Socialist State will be ENCOURAGED to ACTIVELY & INTIMATELY PARTICIPATE IN THE DAY TO DAY ACTIVITIES OF THE STATE, BOTH AS GUARDIANS & ADMINISTRATORS. This level of participation will be possible do to the increased “free time” afforded to the “average person” under New Aeon Socialism through the proactive utilization of advanced technology under Socialist Administration. No longer will citizens be restricted to voting once every four years or so in rigged elections. The Socialist State will belong to the people, because the people will run it, not egotistically motivated politicians.
It is essential that International Socialists learn from the brutal mistakes of the Soviet Regime—as well as from Social Democratic and Labour Party deceptions and betrayals of the Working Class.
[See also, THE SOCIALIZATION OF STATE
AUTHORITY]
______________________
Marxist-Leninists (“Orthodox” Communists or self-styled Bolsheviks) as pointed out in earlier articles—had their chance and blew it BIG TIME. And not just in the Soviet Union and Eastern Block States—but EVERYWHERE they have had a presence.
The Communist Party policy can be described as “Moral Substitutionalism.” Marxist-Leninists-Whateverists draw a specious and self-serving distinction between “Bourgeois Morality” and so-called “Proletarian Morality,” and in so doing assert the Right of The Party to use any means at all to foster the Goals of said Party.
[We draw a distinction between Communism with a capital “C” and communism with a lower case “c.” The former refers to the political program advocated by Marxist-Leninist-Stalinists who insist on the “traditional” Marxist doctrine of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat solely directed by the Communist Party. We suggest that the term “Proletariat” is archaic considering the economic and social reality today. Communism with a small “c” can refer to any number of collectivist philosophies, including that of Early or Gnostic Christianity. Indeed, we consider ourselves Gnostic communists. There is an historic precedence for this position.
See, THE NATURE & HISTORY OF
GNOSTICISM]
The only Communist “Tendency” that reflects any positive value to the International Social Revolution is Trotskyism, or the Left Opposition.
Regarding Trotskyist Communism there are two essential elements of the equation to consider: (1) The persona of Trotsky himself, and (2) the nature and political effect (or lack thereof) on the political landscape today.
Leon Trotsky was a complex,
multi-faceted individual with a personal will-to-power that matched Lenin’s.
Many people have speculated on what a different course history might have taken
had Lenin—and particularly Trotsky—stayed in power at the head of the Soviet
Union. Perhaps such projections are mere fantasizing, but the forces and
factors involved are indeed legendary. One thing is certain, creativity and
individual development would have fared far better with either Lenin or Trotsky
at the helm than Stalin.
There is a story concerning the American expatriate dancer Isadora Duncan and her run-in with the early Soviet Bureaucracy. The dancer was giving a free performance in Moscow during the famine years. The performance included her now famous interpretation of the March Slav. When Party Leaders realized that sections of the music contained the old Tsarist Anthem, they demanded it be omitted from the program. Duncan appealed to Lenin (who was in the audience) and he reportedly admonished the bureaucrats saying, “Leave Isadora alone; she’s not hurting anyone, and we can learn from her.” Isadora Duncan later went on to being banned in Boston for dancing bare-breasted.
Trotsky formulated the Marxist theory of PERMANENT REVOLUTION in opposition to the Menshevik (Social Democratic) and Stalinist theory of a two-stage Socialist Revolution. The two-stage theory suggests the necessity for a bourgeois-democratic revolution before a socialist administration can be effected. This theory led directly in the anti-Working Class notion of the “Popular Front,” or the uniting of Capitalists and the Working Class in joint political action. This tactic has always led to the DEFEAT of Working Class interests in every instance it has been applied. Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution may sound like a recipe for perpetual political chaos to those unfamiliar with his views, but it actually makes a lot of sense. What it implies is the need for the Working Class to take absolute charge of the socialist revolutionary process without the corrupting and deceptive involvement of Capitalist Parties or individuals in order for the process to succeed.
National Socialism, to the contrary, substitutes Capitalist interests and that of the small Bourgeoisie for those of the Working Class.
Today the Trotskyist Left Opposition is represented/fractured by a bewildering host of groups, each calling the other “sectarian,” “bandits,” “traitors,” “renegades,” etc. All the invectives are cloaked with the late 19th and early 20th Century terminology so typically dreary of pre-Soviet Marxist polemics. After Stalin’s ascendancy, of course, there were only the ultra-dreary polemics of Stalinism and the corrupt “theory” of “Socialist Realism” in Art and Literature.
Most seem to claim to be the “only authentic heirs of Trotskyism.”
What a shame they cannot find the common ground to forge a reconstituted REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL based on mutual respect and creativity.
There are, however, legitimate concerns regarding the area of political principle that prevent almost any form of unity (or United Front) that seem to obsess the various factions.
______________________
Let’s briefly examine just ONE of these separating issues: The disastrous 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
Here’s how FUNK & WAGNALLS
New Encyclopedia (1980) describes the political process that led to the
invasion:
In 1963 King
Zahir removed his cousin Muhammad Daud,
who had been
prime minister since 1953, and took full control of
the reins of
government. The following year he promulgated a new constitution…
The first
legislative elections were held in September 1965.
Afghanistan
experienced major economic difficulties in
the late
1960’s…during which 80,000 persons are believed to
have died of
starvation. By 1973 aid from the Soviet Union had reached
$1.5 billion;
from the U.S. $425 million; and from China $72 million.
…In July
1973…Daud seized power, deposed the king,
and proclaimed
Afghanistan a republic…In April 1978 Daud
was killed during
a violent coup d’etat. The new rulers…led first by
Noor Muhammad
Taraki…and later by Hafizullah Amin…suspended the
constitution and
instituted a program of “scientific socialism.” This led to armed
resistance by
devout Muslims, especially among the mountain tribes. Unable to contain
the rebellion,
Taraki and Amin turned to the USSR for help. Despite Soviet military aid,
resistance to the
government continued in 1979. In December…Amin was overthrown and
killed in a
Soviet-backed coup, and Afghanistan was occupied by Soviet troops. The USSR
then installed
Barbak Karmal…Although Karmal tried to placate the rebels,
the insurgency in
the countryside persisted, and more than 2 million
refugees fled to
Pakistan…
What FUNK & WAGNALLS omits to mention is the fact that the Karmal regime instituted progressive reforms to improve the level of education in general, and the horrendous plight of women (who were basically treated as slaves) in Afghanistan in particularly. The Muslim reactionaries took their revenge by skinning teachers alive and stoning to death any one they perceived to be progressive.
The Red Army occupation became a major bone of contention between at least 2 ostensibly Trotskyist factions: The Spartacist League (now the International Communist League) and the International Committee of the Fourth International. [Incidentally, both groups accept the Red Flag Hammer & Sickle with the 4 to represent their support for a reconstituted Fourth International—as does this Journal; though we prefer to visualize it as the birth of a Fifth, or SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL.]
The Sparticist League (SL) gained some notoriety with their slogan HAIL RED ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN! While most of the Left, including the ICFI, denounced the invasion and the slogan as Stalinist and Sectarian. The SL, as usual, accused everybody else of betraying Trotskyism.
So who was “correct”?
We can see both sides of this issue, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union (Bureaucratically Degenerated, State Capitalist, or otherwise) it becomes something of a moot point.
And more to the point, must it stand in the way of long delayed UNITED FRONT OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM? It’s not going to get any easier in the days ahead with U.S. and British Capitalism straining at the bit to recolonialize the entire planet (and Capitalists of Germany, France and other Capitalist powers would like to get their share of the pickings too.) Surely ostensibly Revolutionary Socialist groups can rise above fractionaldebate and formulate an operational United Front Founding Document everyone can live with.
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM is in critical need of Revolutionary Leadership AND Spiritual Rebirth.
The essential fact that the Trotskyist groups seem immune to admitting, is that a monolithic Party whose ethical consistency is dependent upon the power of one or even two dominant personalities is bound to degenerate into Reactionary Leader Syndrome at best, National Socialism at worst.
So now we arrive at the National Socialists (Fascists or Nazis).
During
World War II most of the Fascist leaders of the time in Germany, Italy and
Japan were either justifiably eradicated by the enemy or committed suicide,
thereby saving the time, labor and expense of their execution. It’s just a
shame that the Allied Capitalists States and Stalinists didn’t finish the job
by eliminating the German, Italian and Japanese Capitalists (who were the primary
benefactors of fascism)—but then, of course, that particular task was not a
priority on the Allied Agenda (considering that Allied Capitalists also
benefited financially from the War.) The German Capitalists (and nuclear
fission experts) were given preferential treatment as they were needed in the
“War Against Communism.” Many of them, including the manufacturers of the
Concentration Camp gas that killed millions, are thriving today throughout all
of “Unified” Germany.
Organized
Christianity is certainly not as blameless as it now pretends to be. It was
Anti-Semitic Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholicism that encouraged pogroms and
all manner of reactionary doctrines that directly fueled the insanity of the
Third Reich. In Germany itself every mainstream, “traditional” Christian Church
blessed the blood soaked flags of Hitler and his MILLIONS OF COCONSPIRATORS in
Genocide. In the United States today these selfsame Christian and Religious
“Leaders” will bless the bombs of U.S. and British Capitalism aimed at the
People of Iraq.
According to Marx, the International Socialist Revolution would have to first succeed in an advanced Capitalist Nation such as Germany or the United States—and then the surrogate Capitalist countries would fall like a row of dominos.
This scenario is the only way it will work.
The Working Class of the United States has often been blind-sighted by the machinations of the State Capitalist Democratic Party—and, as is the case today, roped in to support Imperialist War aims. The difference today is the fact that the Capitalist State is in an advanced stage of increasingly violent senility.
There are three political alternatives:
(1) The current state of perpetual war, eventually leading to Fascism and Barbarism.
(2) Complete Economic and Social Chaos that will eventually lead into #1 above, or #3 below.
(3) INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION. Certainly it would be better if this goal can be met before a total Global breakdown. However, it may require such a disaster in order to wake people up from their support for the State Capitalist System. No matter how the process eventually plays out, it will take a highly motivated and educated Working Class to pick up the pieces.
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Updated 7/09