PACT OF NEUTRALITY BETWEEN UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS AND JAPAN
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, guided by a desire to strengthen peaceful and friendly relations between the two countries, have decided to conclude a pact on neutrality, for which purpose they have appointed as their Representatives:

The Presidum of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov,
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
and People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;

His Majesty the Emperor of Japan -

Yosuke Matsuoka,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jusanmin,
Cavalier of the Order of the Sacred
Treasure of the First Class, and

Yoshitsugu Tatekawa,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
Lieutenant General, Jusanmin, Cavalier of the
Order of the Rising Sun of the First Class and
the Order of the Golden Kite of the Fourth Class,

who, after an exchange of their credentials, which were found in due and proper form, have agreed on the following:

ARTICLE ONE
Both Contracting Parties undertake to maintain peaceful and friendly relations between them and mutually respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of the other Contracting Party.

ARTICLE TWO
Should one of the Contracting Parties become the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third powers, the other Contracting Party will observe neutrality throughout the duration of the conflict.

ARTICLE THREE
The present Pact comes into force from the day of its ratification by both Contracting Parties and remains valid for five years. In case neither of the Contracting Parties denounces the Pact one year before the expiration of the term, it will be considered automatically prolonged for the next five years.

ARTICLE FOUR
The present Pact is subject to ratification as soon as possible. The instruments of ratification shall be exchanged in Tokyo, also as soon as possible.

In confirmation whereof the above-named Representatives have signed the present Pact in two copies, drawn up in the Russian and Japanese languages, and affixed thereto their seals.

Done in Moscow on April 13, 1941, which corresponds to the 13th day of the fourth month of the 16th year of Showa.

V. MOLOTOV
YOSUKE MATSUOKA
YOSHITSUGU TATEKAWA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also: Soviet Declaration of War on Japan - Aug., 8, 1945

Courtesy of The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm

Germans first organized themselves into tribes. These were not democratic. Well, not at least as I understand the word or even close to what the Greeks used to do at the apex of the Athenian society. Great. Let’s move on. Then came the German kingdoms during the Middle Age. Do you really call a kingdom democracy? If you do, contact me, we have similar ideas of democratic centralism and dictatorial aspirations. That situation lasted for a millennium until Bismarck “unified” the German states with Prussia in the centre of it. The German Empire (Reich) had just been born. Again, when has an empire become synonym with democracy? But wait, we’re just about to enter the period that really matters to answer the original question: the Nazism era and its aftermath. After WWI the Republic of Weimar was installed. As far as I know there were elections and the whole democratic apparatus. Elections were fraudulent in some cases or at least subject to a recount due to intimidation, political assassinations and whatnot. However, Hitler officially came to power as a people’s representative. Now if you dare to call the Nazi regime (1933-1945) as democratic I’ll definitely have to ask you to contact me.

So, we finally hit the day and years after the fall of the Nazis. Germany was divided into 4 zones of influence, one to each of the main allies, US, UK, USSR and France. In practice, the two big spheres of domain were the USSR and the US, the Cold War has just started. Honestly I’m not very familiar with West Germany’s political system and history, but I’m sure there was a strong feeling of US manipulation in different levels. Now if you try to convince me elections in East Germany (or the infamous DDR) I will definitely ask you to leave the room.

I told my mom that I wasn’t sure if Helmuth Köhl, the ruling German chancellor after the collapse of the USSR and reunification of Germany, had ascended to power democratically. Gerhard Schröder and most recently Angela Merkel have. Can you now understand my point of view?

]]> http://thecommune.wordpress.com/?p=491 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:18:27 +0000 davidbroder http://thecommune.wordpress.com/?p=491 on friday 29th david broder posted a review of revolutionary strategy, a new book by the cpgb's mike macnair. this provoked more than thirty comments, and mike himself has written a response, which we reproduce here.

1. Political economy and changes in the working class

The reasons for the historical cast of my book are given in two places: on page 5: "Humans have no guide to action in the future other than theorising on what has happened in the past, and we do it all the time we are awake.". And on page 26: "When you are radically lost it becomes necessary to retrace your steps." To offer yet another version: the left is currently screwed up; in part it is screwed up by clinging to ideas which have been tried and failed. "How far are the fundamentals of Marx and Engels’ political strategy still relevant to us today? What should we maintain, and what should we throw out, from the subsequent elaboration of strategy by socialists and communists from the late 19th to the late 20th century?" (p19).

This exercise is largely an exercise in clearing the ground in relation to strategy - long term politics. Assessing the present political economic dynamics and the dynamics of the immediate class struggle comes after this exercise.

That said, my overall judgment is that present global conditions are not in an absolute sense new, and are more like the later 19th century than they are like any part of the ‘short 20th century’ (1914-1991). The exception to this judgment is, however, the dead weight of Stalinism and Social-Democracy (and, to a lesser extent, syndicalism) which still weighs down on the workers’ movement. The US is, as Britain was then, in relative decline but still dominant: we are not, I think, on the verge of a new 1914. Globally, capitalism, and with it the proletariat - the class dependent on wage-earning - has grown dramatically at the expense of peasant and artisan production. There has been a major shift to financial globalisation. These features were also characteristic of the later 19th century. So - as you quote me - is the fact that workplaces are commonly smaller than the giant factories of the 20th century. (Richard Price, Labour in British Society (1990) is a mine of relevant material). Hence, the ‘new’ is less new than it appears.

Overall patterns and dynamics, of course, have their limits and are translated into differing forms at more local levels. Jamie Gough’s Work, Locality and the Rhythms of Capital (2003) demonstrates brilliantly on the micro-scale of London how geographical shifts and forms of organisation of production are adapted and re-adapted by capital to address the problem of controlling the workforce.

As to a couple of particular points in your comments on changes in the working class. (i) On migrant workers, in fact what is involved is a permanent dynamical contradiction of capitalism, not a novelty. More in my 2006 Yürükoğlu lecture, ‘Fortress the West’ (http://www.t-k-p.org/yazarlar/ry/lectures/Fortress%20the%20West.pdf). (ii) Your statement that "manufacturing and mining are in sharp decline" is obviously true of the UK, but certainly not true of the global economy.

On the London Underground cleaners’ strike, this seems to me to be atypical rather than typical. The reasons are, first, that the underlying institution - the Underground - is public monopoly infrastructure, whatever ‘contracting out’ arrangements have been made in the legal forms, and Tube shut-downs by industrial action are very seriously disruptive to the City finance capitalist core of the UK economy. Second (and connected to the first) the railworkers are one of the best organised sections of the British working class and among the most militant. The cleaners are at the fringe of this system relative to drivers, etc, but they are nonetheless in a very different position to workers in small factories, offices, shops, etc., who form the clear majority of the UK working class.

Your emphasis on this point seems to me to contain an implicit syndicalism, which is the common coin of the far left: workplace organisation of the employed workers is to be the centre of any revival of the class movement. The economic conditions between the opening of the arms race around 1900 and the 1920s, and again from the beginning of rearmament in the mid 1930s, through the ‘Keynesian’ period, down to the crisis of 1981-2 and Thatcherism, strongly favoured trade union organisation at the point of production and shop-stewardism. But we are not in those times now, and the cases where workplace organisation alone will build the movement are limited. In order to rebuild the class movement from its present weak situation we are going to have to relearn lessons from a much earlier stage of its history.

2. Chávez and Mao, or "What is the left for?"

These are extremely secondary issues. My discussion of Chávez is addressed to the Chávez fan-club among leftists who take Chávez’ leftist and "Trotskyist" rhetoric as representing a political alternative. Now it may be that (as you appear to argue) Chávez is merely a bonapartist demagogue who doesn’t believe what he says. I don’t think this is proved: for all I know, Chávez himself may be sincere in his belief in his "21st century socialism". The point I am making is that even if he is, it still doesn’t lead anywhere - precisely because it is about moral sentiments rather than strategy. "Create two, three, many Venezuelas" is rather less compelling than "create two, three, many Vietnams" (which was always an illusory strategy, but at least looked like a strategy).

The stuff about Mao is even more secondary. My primary point is that Trotsky’s argument for automatic defencism in colonial and semicolonial countries attacked by imperialism does not hold water. The defencist line, and even ‘pointing your guns in the same direction’, might merely result in tying the workers’ movement to a collapsing state regime ¬- however much the left took political distance from the regime. Secondly, the far left has been recently faced with choices like those that faced Chinese communists. Taleban-defencism in Afghanistan, joining ‘the resistance’ in Iraq, are roads to extermination of the left however much the left took political distance from the Taleban or ‘the resistance’. (Quote-marks because ‘the resistance’ in Iraq is a variety of separate warlord groups with opposed interests and opposed political ideas.)

However, though I reject automatic colonial-country defencism, I do not reject revolutionary defencism as a tactic in all circumstances. Revolutionary defencism does not mean supporting the existing state or bourgeois leadership. It means addressing masses who are want to defend their country against a foreign invasion or liberate it from foreign occupation, where this attitude is justified (i.e. we are not merely in a war for redivision of the world between rival imperialists) with the idea that in order to defend against attack, it is necessary for the working class to take power away from the existing capitalist (etc.) regime.

On this I agree with Trotsky’s turn to the ‘proletarian military policy’ after the fall of France partially reshaped the political character of World War II (in Writings 1939-40). The point is that the question is in each case one of tactical judgment of how to get over to the broad masses in the concrete situation the idea that the working class needs to take power. In no case is political support for the capitalist, etc., government/ state acceptable. In some cases ‘pointing your guns in the same direction’ is right. It’s a matter of tactical judgment. In the particular case of the Hitler-Stalin pact and its subsidiary aspects, the occupation of the Baltics and eastern Poland and the invasion of Finland, it would have been right for any Russian left opponents of the regime who were able to do any sort of political work to call these scab acts even if the regime was a workers’ state. On the other hand, in the case of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 I think it is blindingly obvious that the only way any such left opponents could reach the masses would be by a revolutionary-defencist policy, even if the Stalinist regime was properly characterised as ‘state capitalist’ or ‘bureaucratic collectivist’ or whatever.

I don’t think that such tactics compromise proletarian class-political independence from the bourgeoisie. Equally, pointing out that the bourgeoisie, or whatever, are inconsistent or vacillating in the defence of what needs to be defended does not amount to giving them political support.

3. The state

This is the central question. It involves some historical issues (the first four paragraphs of this part of the review) and some theoretical ones (the remainder of the section, including the Marx quotes selected by Cyril Smith).

(A) Historical evidence

(a) "Revolutions where parties based themselves on the existing state machinery, or the existing organisations of the workers’ movement took power, have also all failed." True, but the Russian revolution got further than others: the earliest point at which it can really be said to have failed is the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the turn at this time to overriding the working class majority and alliance with the spetsy to create a bureaucratic state; IMO it was still possible down to 1921 that the Russians could be saved by the revolution in western Europe, in which case the Red Terror, and so on, would be remembered merely as regrettable but unavoidable emergency measures.

(b) "there is no evidence that revolutions with workers’ councils failed because these organs are unable to assert their authority: despite enjoying high degrees of authority across Germany and Russia in their brief existence, these organs were crushed by counter-revolutions." The Hungarian Soviet Republic was indeed crushed by counter-revolution. The German and Austrian Räte were, on the contrary, in their large majority incorporated behind the Social-Democrats. (The Berlin uprising of January 1919 was a ‘July Days’, i.e. localised; the Bavarian ‘Soviet republic’ was merely a short-lived minority putsch, not a mass movement.) Most other revolutionary movements (Italy, Spain, etc.) have not got even this far with the council form.
In this respect, my point about the Russian soviets’ form of organisation is that a Congress of Soviets which met infrequently could not hold its Executive Committee to account - let alone the Sovnarkom which was theoretically accountable to the Executive Committee. In order to hold the government to account, the congress would have needed to become a standing body which met every weekday apart from holidays, like a parliament. But the form (infrequently meeting congress/ soviet - more frequently meeting executive committee, + daily meeting government) is copied from the form of workers’ organisations (trade unions and parties). The point is that the organisations of struggle are inappropriate in their forms to the task of exercising power, i.e. taking coordinating decisions for the whole society.

(c) Sovnarkom "was an undemocratic manoeuvre against the soviets and grassroots power". This is illusory. OK, Rabinowitch argues that Lenin wanted an all-Bolshevik government and manoeuvred to seize power before the Congress of Soviets in order to get this. But in fact - as he makes clear - Lenin did not win his proposals in the Bolshevik CC; and the Left SRs and others agreed to the October pre-emptive strike against Kerensky, because there was a real risk that Kerensky would prevent the Congress from meeting. All parties at the Congress except the anarchists, who were numerically trivial, wanted a government to be formed. The majority certainly favoured a government of the ‘broad left’, but it was the Mensheviks and Right SRs who refused to participate in a government which included the Bolsheviks (who were either the majority or the largest minority) and therefore made such a government wholly impossible.

(d) Sovnarkom "within months - before the civil war - had bureaucratically centralised economic control and pulled the rug from underneath the factory committees." False, for two reasons.
The first is that the civil war started with the attack of Krasnov’s Cossacks on 28-29 October, or the beginning of the operations of Alexeev’s Volunteer Army and Kaledin’s Don Cossacks in December 1917. Allied military intervention against the revolution arguably began with British political and (attempted) military support for Kornilov’s attempted coup in September 1917; certainly, the British secret service was supporting efforts to organise White military forces and paying for industrial sabotage operations from the end of October (Kettle, The Allies & the Russian Collapse).
Second, Lenin’s (and Trotsky’s) turn away from workers control is datable to March-April 1918, i.e. is intimately connected with the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the associated (i) removal of Left SR support, (ii) Menshevik political revival in soviet elections, and (iii) expansion of White military operations (which is taken by anarchist and Liberal/ social-democratic critics of the Bolsheviks, though not by open rightists and military historians, to be the start of the civil war).

(e) "The author has also elsewhere criticised workers’ councils as undemocratic on the grounds that they do not represent working-class people who do not have jobs (students, pensioners, disabled people, the unemployed etc.): but in fact there is no reason why workers’ councils should just be composed of workplace delegates, and in Russia such people as Mike mentions had every right to vote in soviet elections." My point is not directed primarily against the Russian Soviets - which were, in substance, (as Trotsky says, below) united fronts of all sorts of class organisations (parties, factory committees, trade unions, and some sorts of campaign groups). It is primarily directed against western interpretations of these bodies as purely delegates of workplaces.
Both the 1918 Soviet constitution, and Marx’s interpretation of the Commune constitution, propose self-government of localities (including the workplaces in those localities) through universal-suffrage councils, with the central decision-making body government taking the form of delegates from the local councils.

(f) "The point about workers’ councils is not some organisational fetish - indeed, "workers’ council" would be a somewhat inaccurate characterisation of the 1871 Paris Commune, but it was still an organ of workers’ power - but that they have in history arisen in struggle and proven to be armed organs of working-class power counterposed to the bourgeois state machinery." Actually, however, this is still a fetish, in this case a fetishism of ‘organs arising from the direct class struggle’.
Compare Trotsky on Spain (1931): "We succeeded in creating Soviets in Russia only because the demand for them was raised, together with us, by the Mensheviks and the Social-Revolutionaries, although, to be sure, they had different aims in mind. We cannot create any Soviets in Spain precisely because neither the Socialists nor the syndicalists want Soviets. This means that the united front and the organizational unity with the majority of the working class cannot be created under this slogan." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/spain/spain09.htm). Trotsky’s judgment was confirmed by the later events of the revolution and civil war: though the workers created militias and in places seized factories, etc., they did not create soviets. What was missing was "a party, a party, and again a party" (Trotsky).
Subsequent events have in my opinion confirmed and reconfirmed this judgment: the mass desire for revolutionary change after 1945 was overwhelmingly expressed through the revived workers’ parties and trade unions - who, of course, betrayed the masses either by restoring capitalist order, or by creating Stalinist regimes; the Hungarian workers’ councils in 1956 did not even aspire to take power; the role of the ‘committees for the defence of the revolution’ in Cuba was entirely secondary (and in any case they were created in response to government appeals); David’s own work on 1968 shows that any tendency towards the creation of workers’ councils was completely secondary in the course of events; and so on …

(B) Theoretical

(a) The core of the issue is this. Is the proletarian revolution the immediate abolition of all states and classes and the leap into the kingdom of freedom and truly human relations? Or is it merely a moment in transition in this direction, one which ‘sets free’ the logic of development:
"The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. They have no ready-made utopias to introduce par decret du peuple. They know that in order to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that higher form to which present society is irresistably tending by its own economical agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of historic processes, transforming circumstances and men. They have no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant." The Civil War in France, ch 5, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm).
Or a moment in which the working class becomes strong enough to employ general means of coercion:
"[Bakunin]: If there is a state [gosudarstvo], then there is unavoidably domination [gospodstvo], and consequently slavery. Domination without slavery, open or veiled, is unthinkable — this is why we are enemies of the state. What does it mean, the proletariat organized as ruling class?
[Marx:] It means that the proletariat, instead of struggling sectionally against the economically privileged class, has attained a sufficient strength and organization to employ general means of coercion in this struggle. It can however only use such economic means as abolish its own character as salariat, hence as class. With its complete victory its own rule thus also ends, as its class character has disappeared." (Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm).
In the first case - that the proletarian revolution is the immediate abolition of all states and classes and the leap into the kingdom of freedom and truly human relations - an essentially spontaneist or Bakuninist approach is appropriate. The mass movement, set free of the constraints of the capitalist state system, will work out its own solutions.
In the second case, the revolution is merely the creation of "the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor" and "a lever for uprooting the economical foundation upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule." (both from The Civil War in France, ch 5). The revolution is then not in itself the abolition of classes, but the creation of stronger means for the proletariat to fight for its interests - to expropriate the capitalists where they have already socialised production, as in the natural monopolies and the giant oligopolistic corporations, and to subordinate the petty proprietors, (including managers, etc.) to the proletariat. The result is that it is necessary to consider the question of what political forms will have the effect of subordinating - primarily - managers and bureaucrats to those they manage.

(b) Marx is ambiguous on this issue. Alongside the quotations I have just given are those used by Cyril Smith, which you cite. My opinion is that these probably mean less than Cyril made them mean.
In the quotation from the Poverty of Philosophy Cyril cut out a large part of the passage which is about coercion, as distinct from the immediate passage to the end of classes: see the text at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02e.htm.
The quotations from The Civil War in France are not from the published text but from the first draft (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/drafts/ch01.htm#D1s1). The published version reduces considerably the idea of the Commune as representing the immediate transition beyond the class order, as opposed to the beginning of the proletariat working out this transition. Since the published text was sufficiently ‘scandalous’ it is unlikely that the changes in question are made in order to ‘tone down’ Marx’s ‘real’ positions: more likely that Marx concluded that the original text overstated the point or was too close to Bakunin’s views.
The remark on Bakunin is from the Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/drafts/ch01.htm#D1s1). A full reading of this text is in my opinion flatly inconsistent with the use Cyril makes of it in the passage quoted. More generally, the reading of Marx as proposing the proletarian revolution as an immediate leap beyond class society seems inconsistent with Marx’s practical politics in the First International, in the various correspondence with the Germans including the Critique of the Gotha Programme, and in the Programme of the Parti Ouvrier.
Nonetheless, a reading of Marx in these terms is a possible reading.

(c) The underlying reason for supposing that the proletarian revolution is not in itself and immediately the abolition of classes is the limits - to date - of the capitalist socialisation of small-scale property and production, and particularly of small-scale intellectual property in the form of specialist skills and its concomitant, the proletarianisation of intellectual labour.
We have progressed a long way forward on this front from winter 1917-1918, when the resistance of the managers, civil servants and peasants completely dislocated the Russian economy. The Bolsheviks were then forced - and any regime whatever would also have been forced - to make major concessions to spetsy in order to get access to the information the spetsy possessed so as to get production started again, the cities supplied with food, etc. Otherwise the cities would have starved and the Whites would have won the civil war. The concessions were both in wages/ salaries/ rations, and in authority relations in the workplace and the army. That was the real reason, not ‘elitist’, ‘partyist’, or ‘vanguardist’ malevolence, for Lenin’s April 1918 turn against workers’ control.
But though we have progressed a long way, we are not yet in a place where any group of train drivers could jump into the role of general managers of a renationalised railway and run it without assistance from the technical staff - or, equally important, where any group of urban workers could go out to take over the running of a family farm (whose owner has cut production in order to coerce the workers’ regime). We are moving in that direction, both through increased general education, and through the production of books (and web materials) through which technical information can be picked up. Probably, even in a full socialist system training periods will be needed for particular tasks as well as general education and access to published information.
But let us assume for the moment that the fall of the US world-hegemony turns out to be the fall of capitalism also and the working class takes over in the coming century. It is clear that there will still be major skills and training bottlenecks, and that large areas of production will still operate on the basis of small family enterprises. The small un-socialised private ownership of information, therefore, will continue to be the basis of a class of petty proprietors separate from the proletariat - including managerial and bureaucratic specialists (and probably also one of small capitalists). The problem is how to subordinate these groups to the interests of the working class.
In fact, this is also a present problem of the workers’ movement before it gets to the point of overthrowing the capitalist state regime (as I argue in the book at pp 45-47, 62, 90-98, and 108-110). We can’t do without trade union, party, etc., full-time or part-time officials: the result of trying to do so is the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’. But the officials - even of the SWP or LCR or AWL - have common interests with managers and state bureaucrats antagonistic to the interests of the working class. The capitalist class rules through the support of the labour bureaucracy. So the problem is how to subordinate the bureaucrats to the ranks. Marx clearly thought it was easy, as can be seen in several points in the Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy. He was wrong …

(d) The idea of the "democratic republic" is shorthand - as, in fact, the ideas of ‘soviet power’, ‘workers’ councils’ or a ‘workers’ government’ also are. What is it shorthand for? It is not a rigid blueprint for a new state, but shorthand for a set of political principles and some relevant institutions.
Republicanism is a body of political ideas, distinct from, prior to, and opposed to Liberalism, which was current between the late 17th and the mid 19th century. In the course of the 19th century fell out of favour, first among bourgeois politicians, and then (in the generation of Kautsky) in the workers’ movement. It has been revived as a modern academic political theory, alternative to Liberalism, by Philip Pettit (Republicanism (1997) and others. The reason for taking it seriously in connection with Marxism is that Marx and Engels grew up when Republicanism was still politically current and were part of the ‘democratic’, i.e. democratic-republican, movement in their youth; the Chartists were certainly Republican in their political ideas; and the republican principle of freedom from domination is a recurrent theme in Marx and Engels’ work. It’s one which they don’t, however, often refer to explicitly: the reason is that modern Liberal political theory, as distinct from Liberal political economy, was only beginning to emerge during their lives.

The central idea of Republican political theory is opposition to permanent relations of domination and subordination among humans: the lifelong authority of kings and aristocrats, and in modern times that of permanent general secretaries and ‘cadres’. Unlike Liberalism, Republicanism does not seek to escape from this problem by creating a ‘private sphere’ in which the individual is free, but by creating generalised participation in political decision-making and accountability from below.

Classical 17th-18th century republicanism held that this was only possible in a society composed of small owners. It therefore opposed large concentrations of landholding and wealth as tending to corrupt politics; but also supported the exclusion from political rights of ‘dependents’, i.e. women and wage-workers.
Democratic Republicanism broke through this barrier to advocate a republican polity which included all adults. The class fear this engendered among the capitalists led them to break off from Republicanism in favour of Liberalism. Consistent democratic republicans - like the part of the Chartist left, and like Marx and Engels - meanwhile became communists, seeing that private property in general tended to oppose the republican principle of opposition to permanent relations of domination and subordination among humans.
The core democratic republican political principles are therefore at the heart of the Marxist communist goals - as opposed to the hierarchical socialisms of Saint-Simon, etc. Democratic republican institutional forms - like the militia and the election of all state officials - also formed part of the common core programme of the early ‘Marxist’ socialist parties, the French Parti Ouvrier and the Eisenach, Gotha and Erfurt programmes.
We need to retrieve this inheritance of the past of our movement, not out of traditionalism, but because the principles and institutional ideas of democratic republicanism are powerful weapons in the battle of ideas against both the capitalists’ rule-of-law state, and against the labour bureaucracy which supports it.
Some secondary points in this context:
(i) "Mike’s alternative is only vaguely defined: he calls for a "democratic republic" with a "people’s militia"." In fact, at pp128-129 I give a list of five bullet points including not only demands about the military but also e.g. "election and recallability of all public officials; public officials to be on an average skilled workers’ wage" and "abolition of official secrecy laws and of private rights of copyright and confidentiality." My five bullet points are themselves examples, and I cross-refer to the CPGB’s Draft programme.
(ii) "it is not clear whether the democratic republic is meant to be the product of the revolution, or whether it is a taking-over of the existing state bureaucracy." In fact, it should be clear that the actual creation of the democratic republic would be, amount to, the smashing-up of the existing bureaucratic-coercive state. Here I follow Engels in describing the Paris Commune as a "democratic republic". But, as with the minimum programme in general, individual democratic-republican demands could be won under capitalism - and, if won, would strengthen the position of the working class in future class struggles.
(iii) "Indeed, although he says he is opposed to the rule of law, throughout the book Mike again and again refers to "democracy"." Democratic Republicanism is opposed to the rule of law. I have argued the point more extensively in an article on the Labor Tribune website: http://www.labortribune.net/ArticleHolder/republicanlaw/tabid/111/Default.aspx.
(iv) "the problem with state ownership in history has not just been a lack of democracy in the state, but the continuation of the law of value and wage labour." I think arguments that the law of value operated internally within the USSR after the forced collectivisation turn, or in Maoist China, are so unreal as to end up destroying the explanatory value of the ‘law of value’ as a theory. I agree broadly with Ticktin’s argument that the wage in the USSR was something more like a pension ("we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"); or with the view that the relationship of the worker to the firm was analogous to the serf industrial production of 18th century Russia. My point in the passage criticised (p162) is that without accountability of the bureaucrats from below, state ownership is de facto private ownership by the relevant bureaucrats. It is not capitalist ownership (which would be subject to the law of value) but pre-capitalist ownership.

     This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

     Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature last Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up. And having now confirmed and completed our evaluation of the evidence and our decision on a course of action, this Government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail.

     The characteristics of these new missile sites indicate two distinct types of installations. Several of them include medium range ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for a distance of more than 1,000 nautical miles. Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States, in Central America, or in the Caribbean area.

     Additional sites not yet completed appear to be designed for intermediate range ballistic missiles--capable of traveling more than twice as far--and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru. In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared.

     This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base--by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction--constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this Nation and hemisphere, the joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13. This action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had no need or desire to station strategic missiles on the territory of any other nation.

     The size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months. Yet only last month, after I had made clear the distinction between any introduction of ground-to-ground missiles and the existence of defensive antiaircraft missiles, the Soviet Government publicly stated on September 11, and I quote, "the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensive purposes," that, and I quote the Soviet Government, "there is no need for the Soviet Government to shift its weapons . . . for a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba," and that, and I quote their government, "the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is no need to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union." That statement was false.

     Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as he said his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, "pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the the defense capabilities of Cuba," that, and I quote him, "training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it were otherwise," Mr. Gromyko went on, "the Soviet Government would never become involved in rendering such assistance." That statement also was false.

     Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.

     For many years both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history--unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II--demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, American citizens have become adjusted to living daily on the Bull's-eye of Soviet missiles located inside the U.S.S.R. or in submarines.

     In that sense, missiles in Cuba add to an already clear and present danger--although it should be noted the nations of Latin America have never previously been subjected to a potential nuclear threat.

     But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles--in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy--this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil--is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.

     The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.

     Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation, which leads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required--and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth--but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.

     Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately:

     First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.

     Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS, in their communique of October 6, rejected secrecy in such matters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned in continuing this threat will be recognized.

     Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

     Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis.

     Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke articles 6 and 8 of the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations Charter allows for regional security arrangements--and the nations of this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presence of outside powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.

     Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted.

     Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction--by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba--by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis--and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.

     This Nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our own proposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum--in the OAS, in the United Nations, or in any other meeting that could be useful--without limiting our freedom of action. We have in the past made strenuous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have proposed the elimination of all arms and military bases in a fair and effective disarmament treaty. We are prepared to discuss new proposals for the removal of tensions on both sides--including the possibility of a genuinely independent Cuba, free to determine its own destiny. We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union--for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples.

     But it is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of intimidation. That is why this latest Soviet threat--or any other threat which is made either independently or in response to our actions this week--must and will be met with determination. Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed--including in particular the brave people of West Berlin--will be met by whatever action is needed.

     Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed-- and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas--and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war--the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil.

     These new weapons are not in your interest. They contribute nothing to your peace and well-being. They can only undermine it. But this country has no wish to cause you to suffer or to impose any system upon you. We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom.

     Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free--free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere.

     My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can see precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead--months in which our patience and our will will be tested--months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.

     The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are--but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high--and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

     Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

     Thank you and good night.

Source:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/ - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

On Aug. 8, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R. Molotoff received the Japanese Ambassador, Mr. Sato, and gave him, on behalf of the Soviet Government, the following for transmission to the Japanese Government:

"After the defeat and capitulation of Hitlerite Germany, Japan became the only great power that still stood for the continuation of the war.

"The demand of the three powers, the United States, Great Britain and China, on July 26 for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces was rejected by Japan, and thus the proposal of the Japanese Government to the Soviet Union on mediation in the war in the Far East loses all basis.

"Taking into consideration the refusal of Japan to capitulate, the Allies submitted to the Soviet Government a proposal to join the war against Japanese aggression and thus shorten the duration of the war, reduce the number of victims and facilitate the speedy restoration of universal peace.

"Loyal to its Allied duty, the Soviet Government has accepted the proposals of the Allies and has joined in the declaration of the Allied powers of July 26.

"The Soviet Government considers that this policy is the only means able to bring peace nearer, free the people from further sacrifice and suffering and give the Japanese people the possibility of avoiding the dangers and destruction suffered by Germany after her refusal to capitulate unconditionally.

"In view of the above, the Soviet Government declares that from tomorrow, that is from Aug. 9, the Soviet Government will consider itself to be at war with Japan."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also: Congressional Declaration of War on Japan - December 8, 1941

See also: Harry S. Truman’s Announcement Of the Dropping Of An Atomic Bomb On Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Courtesy of The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/

There is much of value in any serious attempt to talk about the tasks of the left today, and what exactly the purpose of its existence is: Mike Macnair's new book, which carries the subtitle "Marxism and the challenge of left unity" is certainly this. The left sects are crying out for some ideas and some definition for their project: what we have at the moment is a maelstrom of sectarian and internally undemocratic groups, with philistine hostility towards discussion and utter disdain for ideas other than those quoted from the holy texts of Lenin and Trotsky.

Mike himself makes many apt criticisms of the left groups of today, for example in terms of their bureaucratism, their pretentious "internationals" and their fake "broad left" unity initiatives. He criticises statist ideas of workers' power. Clearly there is much to say on these matters, and this book is an important contribution to the debate: or, should I say, it is to the extent that there is any debate, since none of the left groups concerned are likely either to respond to the book or take stock of its arguments. Furthermore, as I shall describe, Mike's own vision for the strategy for communism is in several areas somewhat mechanical, and he says little about the tasks of communists in the workers' movement - as opposed to the arguments to be had among the organised far left - in the here and now.

Economy

Surely a central part of elaborating a strategy for revolution should be some analysis of what is happening in the world economy and the objective changes in the British, European and world working class. This should include both commentary on the current crisis, and on broader changes in class composition. If I were to write a piece on Marxism today, or how the left should organise and what its objectives and project should be, this would be the first thing I'd write. But Mike does very little of this, and draws most of his arguments and conclusions from debates had during the revolutionary wave of 1916-21, and to a lesser extent, the period of struggles between the general strike in France in May-June 1968 and the Portuguese revolution. But a lot has changed even in the last thirty years.

The working class is ever more international, and the number of people who have to sell their labour power has massively increased and now represents a majority of the world population; in the most developed capitalist countries there are increased numbers of migrant workers; significant technological advances as well as outsourcing have shrunk the industrial working class, while activities like manufacturing and mining are in sharp decline; welfarism and state capitalism, both in the former Eastern Bloc and in the West, are much weaker than thirty years ago; and many jobs have been casualised. All of these changes, allied with attacks on the workers' movement's rights to organise, have impacted on working-class consciousness to the extent that there is a wide current of opinion believing that the working class either barely exists or has disappeared altogether.

My point is emphatically not that economic changes have put revolution off the agenda, and neither does the changed world situation automatically disqualify past arguments about what tactics we need. Similarly, I am far from being an economic determinist: certainly I do not believe that large economic crises necessarily lead to heightened class struggle and revolutions even if the working class lacks confidence in itself and ideas for change. Such - economistic - views of "spontaneous combustion" have nothing to do with Marx's method.

Nevertheless, changes in class composition do mean that the workers' movement has to organise differently and alter its priorities. I am sure that one of the main subjects of discussion at the commune's upcoming series on class struggle in the 1970s will be what has changed since then, and in what ways it is possible to import lessons of that time to today. The only reference I could find in Revolutionary strategy to this subject was a paragraph (pp. 29-30) asserting that the "growing fragmentation of labour", i.e. smaller workplaces, means that "the means of struggle need to change: they need to shift from workplace collective organisation to district collective organisation". Mike writes that, in this vein, trade unions ought to organise the unemployed and furthermore "perform significant welfare and education functions rather than simply being an instrument of collective bargaining on wages and conditions".

But although community organising is all very well and good, Mike just sidesteps the question of organising workers in their workplaces too, and how to do that today. The recent - successful - London Underground cleaners' strike shows both the possibility and necessity of organising more diverse groups of workers than the 'classic' industrial working class. Indeed, to use a crude phrase, the Tube cleaners 'tick several boxes' in this regard, in that they work in small numbers, on shifts; they are almost exclusively migrant workers; they are mostly women; the job is badly paid and it is easy to get sacked, particularly when Tube bosses raise questions over their immigration status. Of course, despite the other political issues directly relating to the strike - activists from the Campaign Against Immigration Controls and Feminist Fightback were very much involved in organising and publicising it - it does not automatically lead to some sort of "revolutionary consciousness": but this sort of struggle is extremely important for breathing energy into trade unions and facilitating the recomposition of the workers' movement.

What is the left for?

Presumably the reason why Mike's book about strategies for revolution is largely about the debates of yesteryear is that the left today simply has no strategy for revolution all, and so there is nothing much to argue with. It is barely even true that the SWP envisage a mass strike followed by a seizure of power by themselves, since in fact they never talk about revolution or communism and have hardly any perspectives beyond their latest electoral manoeuvre or activist initiative designed to party-build and give their students 'something to do'.

Similarly, although the supporters of Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian revolution" can at least claim to have some engagement with reality, given that Chávez is in power and enacting some meaningful reforms, they do not have any idea of what their "revolution" is actually for. All that matters is that Chávez is in power. The problem is not just, as Mike comments, that Chávez "offers no real strategic lesson for the left" (p.9) but rather that the "Bolivarian revolution" does not have any variant of the objective of working-class power at all - in fact, Chávez's rule has not even seen expropriations and state commandism. The resurgence of the Venezuelan workers' movement owes much to the response to the 2002 attempted coup and lock-out, but that does not reflect working-class control over the "Bolivarian revolution". The way that Mike criticises Chávez - for not having a strategy - is off the point, and reminiscent of both the way in which Trotsky criticised Mao for not "participating actively in the front lines" of the Kuomintang and the way in which Mike has commented on that discussion in the Weekly Worker. In the WW article Mike does of course clearly assert his hostility towards Maoism and bureaucracy - much as Revolutionary strategy makes some apposite criticisms of bureaucratic ‘socialism’ - but the way he reads off tactical and military lessons from the Maoists is abstract and makes no attempt to differentiate between purely military tactics and the strategy for class struggle. Mao’s insistence on the independence of his forces is not parallel in any shape or form to third campism.

Indeed, a central difference between Mao’s ‘independent course’ and that of third camp class struggle politics is that, unlike a clique’s military efforts to seize control of government by force, which could take any number of forms and include any alliances, a working-class revolution necessarily relies on class independence (or at least vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie, if we assume that the petty bourgeoisie will just be pulled along by either the bourgeoisie or working class). If it is not an all-out class struggle, then it will not be able to abolish the state or reorganise the economy to overcome the law of value, but rather replace one set of rulers with another. As the Solidarity group once wrote in a different context, “Means and ends are mutually dependent. They constantly influence each other. The means are, in fact, a partial implementation of the end, whereas the end becomes modified by the means adopted.”

If Mao’s forces really had been a workers’ movement with a revolutionary project, then it would still have been wrong to ally with the Kuomintang - even regardless of military considerations - since it would have undermined the confidence of the working class in itself, derailed the objectives of the struggle, and the Kuomintang would have been able to ‘veto’ any manner of demands, most importantly the revolution itself. Indeed, this had more or less played out already, in 1927. But as we know, Mao was not leading a working-class or communist movement, and the problem with “surrounding the cities” was not its impractability, but that the objectives of the “people’s war” were reactionary! Obvious as it is that Mike Macnair is not a Maoist, he talks about Mao’s strategy with a somewhat detached air, and I find it hard to see any value in such discussion.

In his discussion of communist attitudes towards war, Mike writes as if a series of correct manoeuvres and alliances could bring the revolution to its conclusion. This is problematic since on the Trotskyist left undue stress is often laid on the idea that the problem with cross-class alliances is that they are inoperable and fail, as in the case of the Spanish civil war, rather than that they are unprincipled. In fact the problem here was not that popular fronts are inadmissible because the bourgeoisie will not consistently fight fascists - for sure they cannot be relied on, but may well do so, as in the case of World War II - but rather that the formation of the alliance is in itself puts the idea of fighting capital as such off the agenda. In the case of Spain, the working-class revolution was crushed thanks to the anarchist (CNT-FAI) and centrist (POUM) leaders’ participation in the popular front. Not only was there the problem that the bourgeois Republicans made tactical errors because of their class standpoint, for example their delay in arming the working class and their refusal to grant Morocco independence and thus curry favour with Arab troops, but also that to maintain alliance with them the far left had to demobilise the revolution.

The belief that we should not bloc with sections of the bourgeoisie to fight imperialism, fascism and so on just because they are inconsistent or vacillating lends itself to support for them when they are waging such struggles. The author writes that although Trotsky’s analysis of the USSR as a gain for the working class was wrong, and so a “revolutionary defencist” attitude towards its attacks on Finland, Poland and the Baltic States in autumn 1939 would be misplaced, he would take a revolutionary defencist attitude to the USSR “in some circumstances (like the 1941 German invasion)” (p.82). Quite why he would do so is not explained.

Without exception, support for bourgeois forces means a partial abandonment of class struggle. I will clarify that by saying that in some circumstances it may be temporarily useful to “point your guns in the same direction” as a section of the ruling class - it is interesting that Hal Draper specifically counterposes this to his idea of “military support” in the ABC of National Liberation movements. Doing this is not “support” though, in terms of propping up someone else's fight: it is merely a tactic used when fighting your own struggle for your own objectives. There is an article by the International Communist Current about Lenin’s supposed “alliance” with Kerensky against Kornilov which is quite useful on this score.

The state

Mike is right to point out flaws with the "mass strike" idea of revolution, particularly in that the unravelling of the economy does not necessarily mean that any alternative centre of authority is posed. This was most obviously the case in the general strike in France in 1968, which I debated Mike on at the CPGB summer school this month. However, although the term "workers' government" is abstract (indeed, the JCR, now the LCR, called for this in June 1968 while refusing to call for a vote for either major workers' party), Mike's alternative is not that far from it.

He criticises the left for its exaggerated interest in workers' councils (this is hardly the case in Britain today), and argues "Workers' councils and similar forms have appeared in many strike waves and revolutionary crises since 1917. In none have these forms been able to offer an alternative centre of authority, an alternative decision-making mechanism for the whole society. This role is unavoidably played by a government - either based on the existing military-bureaucratic state core, or on the existing organs of the workers' movement" (p.49).

This is quite a conclusion to draw from history, given that - of course - revolutions where parties based themselves on the existing state machinery, or the existing organisations of the workers' movement took power, have also all failed. And there is no evidence that revolutions with workers' councils failed because these organs are unable to assert their authority: despite enjoying high degrees of authority across Germany and Russia in their brief existence, these organs were crushed by counter-revolutions.  It is not the case that "it was Sovnarkom, the government formed by the Bolsheviks and initially including some of their allies, and its ability to reach out through the Bolshevik Party as a national organisation, which 'solved' the crisis of authority affecting Russia in 1917": this was an undemocratic manoeuvre against the soviets and grassroots power, and indeed within months - before the civil war - had bureaucratically centralised economic control and pulled the rug from underneath the factory committees.

The author has also elsewhere criticised workers' councils as undemocratic on the grounds that they do not represent working-class people who do not have jobs (students, pensioners, disabled people, the unemployed etc.): but in fact there is no reason why workers' councils should just be composed of workplace delegates, and in Russia such people as Mike mentions had every right to vote in soviet elections. The point about workers' councils is not some organisational fetish - indeed, "workers' council" would be a somewhat inaccurate characterisation of the 1871 Paris Commune, but it was still an organ of workers' power - but that they have in history arisen in struggle and proven to be armed organs of working-class power counterposed to the bourgeois state machinery.

Mike's alternative is only vaguely defined: he calls for a "democratic republic" with a "people's militia". He criticises those who hold both that a workers' government would incite class struggle and also that it would only be a workers' government if it was created on the basis of class struggle: but it is not clear whether the democratic republic is meant to be the product of the revolution, or whether it is a taking-over of the existing state bureaucracy. I am opposed to the state monopoly of gun control, but the idea of a "people's militia" has no particular relation to the working class or communism. We are not for popular sovereignty, but rather the smashing of the state machinery and of capital.

He says that "workers' control" cannot be imposed from above, and wants the working class "to lay its hands collectively on the means of production" (p.162), "this does not mean state ownership of the means of production, which is merely a legal form. Without democratic republicanism, the legal form of state ownership means private ownership by state bureaucrats". But the problem with state ownership in history has not just been a lack of democracy in the state, but the continuation of the law of value and wage labour. We do not just want the working class to "control" capital "democratically", but to uproot it. Indeed, although he says he is opposed to the rule of law, throughout the book Mike again and again refers to "democracy". 

Marx poses the question far better (I have lifted these quotes from Cyril Smith's Marx at the Millennium):

"The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society. ... It is only in an order of things in which there are no more classes that social evolutions will cease to be political revolutions." (Poverty of Philosophy)

"The Commune – the reabsorption of the state power by society as its own living forces instead of as forces controlling and subduing it, by the popular masses themselves, forming their own force instead of die organised force of their suppression – the political form of their social emancipation, instead of the artificial force (appropriated by their oppressors) (their own force opposed to and organised against them) of society wielded for their oppression by their enemies." (Civil War in France)

"All France organised into self-working and self-governing communes ... the suffrage for the national representation not a matter of sleight-of-hand for an all-powerful government, but the deliberate expression of organised communes, the state functions reduced to a few functions for general national purposes.

"Such is the Commune – the political form of the social emancipation, of the liberation of labour from the usurpations (slave-holding) of the monopolists of the means of labour, created by the labourers themselves or forming the gift of nature. As the state machinery and parliamentarism are not the real life of the ruling classes, but only the organised general organs of their dominion, so the Commune is not the social movement of the working class and therefore of a general regeneration of mankind, but the organised means of action." (Civil War in France)

Smith also quotes Bakunin writing "There are about 40 million Germans. Does this mean that all 40 million will be members of the government?", to which Marx responds "Certainly! For the system starts with the self-government of the communities... When class rule has disappeared, there will be no state in the present political sense." 

Indeed, nowhere in the Civil War in France does Marx refer to the idea of a workers' state, and for that matter doesn't criticise the communards for their lack of a revolutionary party, much unlike Trotsky's Lessons of the Commune which exaggeratedly fetishises the question.

Conclusion

A strategy for communism must not only be centred on a working-class struggle for power, but an understanding of what this power would consist of. The point is not to draw up blueprints - for example, it would be meaningless to draw up a grand plan for rule by workers' councils unless these organs actually arose in the revolutionary struggle itself - but rather to overcome the terrible failures of the past and restore the idea that working-class rule, and thus communism, is still both possible and desirable.

There will be no "spontaneous combustion" crisis-followed-by-revolution, and nor do parliamentary "enabling acts" and Chávez-style statism have anything to do with working-class self emancipation. Both of these scenarios are élitist and deny the working class, i.e. the participants in the revolution, any subjectivity of their own. Arguing against these left commonplaces is an enormous challenge, and Revolutionary strategy, in parts, goes some way towards doing that.

But the starting point for strategy cannot just be analysis of where the left is at now. The left has poor ideas and poor implantation in the working class, and there is very little prospect of changing its sectism and sectarianism any time soon. We should not in the slightest abstain from that struggle, but two other important tasks also impose themselves: first to outline our vision for society and what alternative we actually have to capitalism, and second to take part in a recomposition of the workers' movement which gives due attention to the changes in the working class that have taken place in recent decades.

I'll gladly run some McCain parody stuff as well if someone can send it in.

FOR months we have been suffering under the torture of a problem which the Versailles Diktat created-a problem which has deteriorated until it becomes intolerable for us. Danzig was and is a German city. The Corridor was and is German. Both these territories owe their cultural development exclusively to the German people. Danzig was separated from us, the Corridor was annexed by Poland. As in other German territories of the East, all German minorities living there have been ill-treated in the most distressing manner. More than 1,000,000 people of German blood had in the years 1919-20 to leave their homeland.

As always, I attempted to bring about, by the peaceful method of making proposals for revision, an alteration of this intolerable position. It is a lie when the outside world says that we only tried to carry through our revisions by pressure. Fifteen years before the National Socialist Party came to power there was the opportunity of carrying out these revisions by peaceful settlements and understanding. On my own initiative I have, not once but several times, made proposals for the revision of intolerable conditions. All these proposals, as you know, have been rejected-proposals for limitation of armaments and ever, if necessary, disarmament, proposals for the limitation of war-making, proposals for the elimination of certain methods of modern warfare. You know the proposals that I have made to fulfil the necessity of restoring German sovereignty over German territories. You know the endless attempts I made for a peaceful clarification and understanding of the problem of Austria, and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia, and Moravia. It was all in vain.

It is impossible to demand that an impossible position should be cleared up by peaceful revision and at the same time constantly reject peaceful revision. It is also impossible to say that he who undertakes to carry out these revisions for himself transgresses a law, since the Versailles Diktat is not law to us. A signature was forced out of us with pistols at our head and with the threat of hunger for millions of people. And then this document, with our signature, obtained by force, was proclaimed as a solemn law.

In the same way, I have also tried to solve the problem of Danzig, the Corridor, &c., by proposing a peaceful discussion. That the problems had to be solved was clear. It is quite understandable to us that the time when the problem was to be solved had little interest for the Western Powers. But that time is not a matter of indifference to us. Moreover, it was not and could not be a matter of indifference to those who suffer most.

In my talks with Polish statesmen I discussed the ideas which you recognise from my last speech to the Reichstag. No one could say that this was in any way an inadmissible procedure or undue pressure. I then naturally formulated at last the German proposals, and I must once more repeat that there is nothing more modest or loyal than these proposals. I should like to say this to the world. I alone was in the position to make such proposals, for I know very well that in doing so I brought myself into opposition to millions of Germans. These proposals have been refused. Not only were they answered first with mobilisation, but with increased terror and pressure against our German compatriots and with a slow strangling of the Free City of Danzig-economically, politically, and in recent weeks by military and transport means.

Poland has directed its attacks against the Free City of Danzig. Moreover, Poland was not prepared to settle the Corridor question in a reasonable way which would be equitable to both parties, and she did not think of keeping her obligations to minorities.

I must here state something definitely; Germany has kept these obligations; the minorities who live in Germany are not persecuted. No Frenchman can stand up and say that any Frenchman living in the Saar territory is oppressed, tortured, or deprived of his rights. Nobody can say this.

For four months I have calmly watched developments, although I never ceased to give warnings. In the last few days I have increased these warnings. I informed the Polish Ambassador three weeks ago that if Poland continued to send to Danzig notes in the form of ultimata, if Poland continued its methods of oppression against the Germans, and if on the Polish side an end was not put to Customs measures destined to ruin Danzig's trade, then the Reich could not remain inactive. I left no doubt that people who wanted to compare the Germany of to-day with the former Germany would be deceiving themselves.

An attempt was made to justify the oppression of the Germans by claiming that they had committed acts of provocation. I do not know in what these provocations on the part of women and children consist, if they themselves are maltreated, in some cases killed. One thing I do know-that no great Power can with honour long stand by passively and watch such events.

I made one more final effort to accept a proposal for mediation on the part of the British Government. They proposed, not that they themselves should carry on the negotiations, but rather that Poland and Germany should come into direct contact and once more to pursue negotiations.

I must declare that I accepted this proposal, and I worked out a basis for these negotiations which are known to you. For two whole days I sat with my Government and waited to see whether it was convenient for the Polish Government to send a plenipotentiary or not. Last night they did not send us a plenipotentiary, but instead informed us through their Ambassador that they were still considering whether and to what extent they were in a position to go into the British proposals. The Polish Government also said that they would inform Britain of their decision.

Deputies, if the German Government and its Leader patiently endured such treatment Germany would deserve only to disappear from the political stage. But I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and my patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice. I, therefore, decided last night and informed the British Government that in these circumstances I can no longer find any willingness on the part of the Polish Government to conduct serious negotiations with us.

These proposals for mediation have failed because in the meanwhile there, first of all, came as an answer the sudden Polish general mobilisation, followed by more Polish atrocities. These were again repeated last night. Recently in one night there were as many as twenty-one frontier incidents; last night there were fourteen, of which three were quite serious. I have, therefore, resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used towards us. This attitude on the part of the Reich will not change.

The other European States understand in part our attitude. I should like here above all to thank Italy, which throughout has supported us, but you will understand that for the carrying on of this struggle we do not intend to appeal to foreign help. We will carry out this task ourselves. The neutral States have assured us of their neutrality, just as we had already guaranteed it to them.

When statesmen in the West declare that this affects their interests, I can only regret such a declaration. It cannot for a moment make me hesitate to fulfil my duty. What more is wanted? I have solemnly assured them, and I repeat it, that we ask nothing of these Western States and never will ask anything.

I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is a final one. I have repeatedly offered friendship and, if necessary, the closest co-operation to Britain, but this cannot be offered from one side only. It must find response on the other side. Germany has no interests in the West, and our western wall is for all time the frontier of the Reich on the west. Moreover, we have no aims of any kind there for the future. With this assurance we are in solemn earnest, and as long as others do not violate their neutrality we will likewise take every care to respect it.

I am happy particularly to be able to tell you of one event. You know that Russia and Germany are governed by two different doctrines. There was only one question that had to be cleared up. Germany has no intention of exporting its doctrine. Given the fact that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its doctrine to Germany, I no longer see any reason why we should still oppose one another. On both sides we are clear on that. Any struggle between our people would only be of advantage to others. We have, therefore, resolved to conclude a pact which rules out for ever any use of violence between us. It imposes the obligation on us to consult together in certain European questions. It makes possible for us economic co-operation, and above all it assures that the powers of both these powerful States are not wasted against one another. Every attempt of the West to bring about any change in this will fail.

At the same time I should like here to declare that this political decision means a tremendous departure for the future, and that it is a final one. Russia and Germany fought against one another in the World War. That shall and will not happen a second time. In Moscow, too, this pact was greeted exactly as you greet it. I can only endorse word for word the speech of the Russian Foreign Commissar, Molotov.

I am determined to solve (1) the Danzig question; (1) the question of the Corridor; and (3) to see to it that a change is made in the relationship between Germany and Poland that shall ensure a peaceful co-existence. In this I am resolved to continue to fight until either the present Polish Government is willing to bring about this change or until another Polish Government is ready to do so. I am resolved to remove from the German frontiers the element of uncertainty, the everlasting atmosphere of conditions resembling civil war. I will see to it that in the East there is, on the frontier, a peace precisely similar to that on our other frontiers.

In this I will take the necessary measures to see that they do not contradict the proposals I have already made known in the Reichstag itself to the rest of the world, that is to say, I will not war against women and children. I have ordered my air force to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives. If, however, the enemy thinks he can from that draw carte blanche on his side to fight by the other methods he will receive an answer that will deprive him of hearing and sight.

This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory. Since 5:45 a. m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met with bombs. Whoever fights with poison gas will be fought with poison gas. Whoever departs from the rules of humane warfare can only expect that we shall do the same. I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.

For six years now I have been working on the building up of the German defences. Over 90 milliards have in that time been spent on the building up of these defence forces. They are now the best equipped and are above all comparison with what they were in 1914. My trust in them is unshakable. When I called up these forces and when I now ask sacrifices of the German people and if necessary every sacrifice, then I have a right to do so, for I also am to-day absolutely ready, just as we were formerly, to make every personal sacrifice.

I am asking of no German man more than I myself was ready throughout four years at any time to do. There will be no hardships for Germans to which I myself will not submit. My whole life henceforth belongs more than ever to my people. I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me. I will not take it off again until victory is secured, or I will not survive the outcome.

Should anything happen to me in the struggle then my first successor is Party Comrade Goring; should anything happen to Party Comrade Goring my next successor is Party Comrade Hess.

You would then be under obligation to give to them as Fьhrer the same blind loyalty and obedience as to myself. Should anything happen to Party Comrade Hess, then by law the Senate will be called, and will choose from its midst the most worthy-that is to say the bravest-successor.

As a National Socialist and as German soldier I enter upon this struggle with a stout heart. My whole life has been nothing but one long struggle for my people, for its restoration, and for Germany. There was only one watchword for that struggle: faith in this people. One word I have never learned: that is, surrender.

If, however, anyone thinks that we are facing a hard time, I should ask him to remember that once a Prussian King, with a ridiculously small State, opposed a stronger coalition, and in three wars finally came out successful because that State had that stout heart that we need in these times. I would, therefore, like to assure all the world that a November 1918 will never be repeated in German history. Just as I myself am ready at any time to stake my life-anyone can take it for my people and for Germany-so I ask the same of all others.

Whoever, however, thinks he can oppose this national command, whether directly or indirectly, shall fall. We have nothing to do with traitors. We are all faithful to our old principle. It is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live, but it is essential that our people shall live, that Germany shall live. The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the sacrifice that many generations have made. If we form a community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, resolved never to surrender, then our will will master every hardship and difficulty. And I would like to close with the declaration that I once made when I began the struggle for power in the Reich. I then said: "If our will is so strong that no hardship and suffering can subdue it, then our will and our German might shall prevail."

Source: The Avalon Project

See also: Proclamation by Adolf Hitler - September 1,1939

See also: Treaty of Nonaggression Between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

See also: Radio Address by Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, September 3, 1939.

According to The Independent, Britain seeks to expand its empire with 77,000 square miles of Atlantic seabed.

Splendid news. I propose Tony Blair as Governor General. We could give him a nice plumed helmet - and a pair of lead-soled boots to help his descent to this latest territory to be painted red on the map.

THE BLOGMASTER ADDS:-
This is actually a very important point raised here by Sean. If Libertarians care about property rights and what they are and what they are for, (and many of us do,) then there ought to be an agreed legal method, which everybody respects (that's the point of Law after all, no?) to define what entitiy or "corporate person" or individual, owns what parts of the seabed.

We ought to care about who's administering such "Law" - in case it is a bunch of "authoritarian-nationalists" (a great term, which I picked up on a newsgroup just this morning, as a description of the government of the USSR Russia today in 2008.)

MUCH MUCH better, than the crass, sad term "nazi" which gets liberals into so much trouble when used by them to describe ordinary socialists accurately.

We here do not care whether there is stuff on or under the seabed round Ascenscion Island or not. Naturally, the inhabitants, of which there are several thousand, will. It's their life, not ours. But we think that the general point that's being made in the article is a vital issue for the next 100-200 years, while the Earth is still the primary source of New Property Rights.

Comments please, pronto! (There will be a short written test on 31st August, to see who's paying attention.)

The Georgians are an ethnic group; they have their own culture and traditions. Numerous genocides have taken place in the region in the last century, mostly at the hands of the Russians. When the USSR annexed Georgia, at it became the Georgian SSR, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were part of it.

But the Abkhaz and the Ossetians are also unique ethnic groups, who apparently want independence, and probably never should've been part of an independent Georgia. They've wanted it since The USSR broke up and they just happened to be within the Georgian SSR's borders.

They've been mostly autonomous since then. As an American, I don't really understand why disparate ethnic groups need to have their own territories; but if Abkhazia and South Ossetia really want it, I say fine. Just don't come crying to the west when the Russians decide they want to annex them.

There's no reason to blow such a tiny little geopolitical dispute into a new cold war; that's ridiculous. That would require two superpowers, and superpower Russia is not; it's bark is decidedly larger than its bite.

If history repeats itself, like it always does, Russia is setting itself up for another major embarrassment that will further traumatize its already psychologically messed-up (and shrinking) population.

You should be. You lost the last one (at least that's what they say). Is this kinda like Germany after WWI. "They" feel betrayed. It's too bad we're going into this thing with a pansy like Obama. I say "bring it."

The previous is a classic with the honorable Governator of California himself.
The next is better viddy quality with Patrick Swayze sporting a pretty blond rug, staright from the studios of NBC.

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/pumping-up-with-hans-and-franz/2736/

Times Online: Pakistan coalition collapses over judge deal.
Belfast Telegraph: Pakistan in turmoil after collapse of ruling coalition.
al-Reuters: Talk of Russia-Cuba ties seen as warning to U.S..
American Thinker: Rollback Russian Expansionism.

Cross-posted @ Rosemary's Thoughts.

the solidarity group's pamphlet on the 1871 paris commune. this compares trotsky and tales' insistence that the communards failed because of their lack of a party unfavourably to karl marx's civil war in france, which makes no such argument; and furthermore celebrates this great display of working class insurgency from below.

we also feature an article by david broder on the organisation of education under capitalism and the alienation of students, and an essay by chris ford on the relevance of the theory of state capitalism in today's globalised capitalist economy.

the website is now accessible at www.thecommune.co.uk as well as the wordpress address.