--- excerpt from --- Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 23:08:52 +0100 Subject: LL9804475 MWG: Reply to Klo McKinsey, part 2 * * * Klo also writes: I also have some questions I would like you to answer regarding your personal views. OK. Ill try to answer these in a much briefer manner than the questions above. -- (a) Would you allow bourgeois parties to run candidates, distribute literature, appear on the media etc., if you were making policy for a socialist state? [Technical Note: In the following answers, I will consider socialist state synonymous with dictatorship of the proletariat] If by bourgeois parties you mean political parties that advocate capitalist restoration and a return of power to the bourgeoisie -- HELL NO! Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, only parties that would defend the workers state against (or, at the minimum, refuse to support) imperialist intervention and internal counterrevolution would be allowed to operate freely. I would take the Bolsheviks approach to such parties: Until such time as they advocate or foment counterrevolution, let them operate -- but never for one second think that they will remain that way. Always anticipate that they will, under the blows of the class struggle, move toward advocating counterrevolution. But wait until such tendencies are clear in the eyes of the working masses. -- (b) Would you allow private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and, if so, to what degree? In general, this would depend on the concrete dynamics of the development of the proletarian dictatorship. To break it down specifically, would you allow private ownership of the means of production? No. The point of the transition period between capitalism and communism (the dictatorship of the proletariat) is not to solidify capitalist property relations, but to destroy them. This means that the means of production must be nationalized under workers control. Anything less only retards the development toward socialism. This point is generally immutable. Would you allow private ownership of the means of ... distribution and exchange and, if so, to what degree? For this, I would turn to Lenins comments on concessions during the period of the N.E.P.: "Is it not dangerous to invite the capitalists, does it not imply a development of capitalism? Yes, it does imply a development of capitalism, but this is not dangerous, because power will still be in the hands of the workers and peasants, and the landowners and the capitalists will not be getting back their property. A concession is something in the nature of a contract of lease. The capitalist becomes, for a specified period, the lessee of a certain part of state property under a contract, but he does not become the owner. The state remains the owner. The Soviet government will see to it that the capitalist lessee abides by the terms of the contract, that the contract is to our advantage, and that, as a result, the condition of the workers and peasants is improved. On these terms the development of capitalism is not dangerous, and the workers and peasants stand to gain by obtaining a larger quantity of products. (Concessions and the Development of Capitalism, Collected Works, Vol. 32 [International, 1977].) -- (c) How would the leaders of a socialist system be selected, if your program were instituted? How do you stand with respect to Lenin's democratic centralism? In reality, these are two different questions -- the first related to a workers state, and the second to the revolutionary party of the proletarian vanguard. For the first question, I would take as my example the early Soviet republic: elections from local and regional soviets (workers and soldiers councils) to a national congress of soviets. That congress would elect an executive committee, and from that, the various secretaries of different departments. Specific national circumstances may require certain nuancial differences, but the general model would be the same. As for the second, as Bolshevik-Leninists we stand squarely on the Marxist and dialectical basis of democratic centralism as developed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks through its experiences. This means that we adhere to Lenins conception of democratic centralism -- full freedom of criticism, full unity in action -- as outlined in What Is To Be Done? and his letters to the C.C. of the RSDLP (b) on the party of the new type. In order to have democratic centralism, both elements must be allowed to exist. You cannot have one without the other, or else you fail at both. As with Lenin, we reject attempting to substitute one for the other (monolithism on one side and ultrademocracy on the other). We also recognize that the emphasis that a Bolshevik party places on one aspect of democratic centralism depends on material conditions (e.g., illegality, civil war, etc.). We stand by the Cominterns Theses on the Organizational Structure of the Communist Parties: Its Methods and Content of Their Work, passed at the Third World Congress. -- (d) What guidelines would you institute regarding the distribution of anti-socialist writings, books, periodicals, magazines, etc. and what rules would you institute regarding public speaking? In terms of writings, books, periodicals, magazines, etc., of counterrevolutionary (i.e., capitalist restorationist) forces in the period of the proletarian dictatorship, they obviously would be suppressed. The same would also apply to public speaking. As for historical writings, etc., they would best be left to gather dust on the shelves of the libraries and museums of the socialist society. As Bolsheviks, we are not fetishists over democracy. We recognize that democracy has a class nature, and thus an inate inequality. We fight for workers democracy -- socialist democracy -- as opposed to the bourgeois-liberal democracy which was the standard-bearer for counterrevolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe in 1986-1991. Jim Paris -- Marxist Workers' Group | Ph#: (313) 535-7161 P.O. Box 19221 | Fax: (313) 535-4212 Detroit MI 48219-0221 | MWG@marxistworker.nu UNITED STATES | http://www.marxistworker.nu/