Economical essay: "The hawk’s shadow"

[The_bolshevik]

Originally posted by eyeradi8

Bolshevic, that is a pipe dream. Running a state's affairs is a full-time job. Hence, if you expect that a factory worker will put in a full day at the steel mill, and then switch roles to a full day's worth of administrative duties, you're dreaming. When will this worker sleep?

Furthermore, you're saying that such a worker will be financially compensated for his duel duty. Would this not create an elitist air to him, being of higher salary than the common man? Are you in favor of various salaries for various professions?

Ok, first of all the link to the videos I promised:

http://www.venezuela-en-videos.com/especiales.html
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As I said, surplus value would be used for shortening of the working day, this is the real precondition that workers can do at least partial job in running workers´ state. This is what Lenin and old bolsheviks understood and that is why they put all efforts to expand the revolution to developed west. Unfortunately this did not happen and provoked bureaucratic degeneration, which sabotaged even future posibilities of expanding revolution.

It probably would create an elitist air to him, yes. But this would be a good motivation how to get more and more workers involved in state affirs...and then this elitist air would vanish...

To comrade Vorosilov.

Probably you don´t know that western democracies were supporting Hitler all the time on start and wanted to get him to turn agaist East. As I said, this world capitalist allience against "jewish-bolshevism" was established anyway. And Hitlerites were way more powerful after consuming Europe.

And regarding Trotsky´s couop...I will repost my old post on the issue.

Quite a few writers have raised the question: "Why didn't Trotsky use his position, especially his authority in the Red Army, to seize power at the time?" In a recent book, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, edited by H. Ticktin and M. Cox, we find the following assessment: "Trotsky has been attacked on the grounds that he was no politician. As we have argued above, there is an element of truth in the chargeÉ The second charge against Trotsky is that he misunderstood the nature of the new regime under Stalin. This and the charge that he was no politician are linked in that it would have been his duty to have taken power from Stalin, if he had understood the nature of the counter-revolution that was to occurÉ he failed to understand the true nature of the beast in the crucial years when he could have prevented its rise." (H. Ticktin and M. Cox, The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, pp. 13-6.)

The whole episode is here reduced to the struggle of individuals and their particular qualities. These arguments are mere echoes of the arguments of the historians E.H. Carr, Richard B. Day, Moshe Lewin and Isaac Deutscher, who also saw the struggle largely in terms of personalities. Carr claims that Trotsky "failed to the last to understand that the issue of the struggle was determined not by the availability of arguments but by the control and manipulation of the levers of power. Later he argues: "He had no stomach for a fight whose character bewildered and eluded him. When attacked, he retreated from the arena because he instinctively felt that retreat offered him the best chance of survival." (E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, Vol. 2, p. 43.) Moshe Lewin again makes a similar criticism: "He [Trotsky] also had the weakness of a man who was too haughty and, in a sense, too idealistic to indulge in the political machinations inside the small group of leaders. His position as an outsider, on account of his past and his style, prevented him from acting when the moment came - for him, it only came once - with the necessary determination." (M. Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle, p. 140.)

The fact is that the struggle was not an issue of personal power, of Trotsky versus Stalin, but a struggle of living forces. Those who argue that Trotsky only had to use the Red Army to take power display a complete lack of understanding of the nature of power itself. Power is not a product of the will of individual "great men", as Nietzsche and others imagined, anticipating the ideology of Fascism. It is a reflection of the balance of forces between the classes in society. To use the army as a political force inevitably leads directly to Bonapartism. That is ABC for a Marxist. Bonapartism can only exist in certain conditions, normally when the contending classes in society are deadlocked. This creates conditions where the state apparatus lifts itself above society and acquires a certain degree of independence. Trotsky, just as Lenin before him, always placed his hopes in the working class. The workers sympathised with the positions of the Opposition, but were too exhausted and disappointed to do anything about it. They remained passive. The veteran Yugoslav Communist and Oppositionist Ante Ciliga, who was in Russia in the mid-1920s, comments on the mood of the workers at this time:

"The impression that these meetings and private conversations left on me was favourable, on the whole; but I was struck by the passive attitude of many of the workers. One felt that they had neither interest nor enthusiasm, but on the contrary a frigidity of manner, an exaggerated reticence. It was depressing. The workers seemed to say by their silence: it is all very well but what does it mean to us? One had to pester each person to get a word out of him." (A. Ciliga, The Russian Enigma, p. 21.)

As Trotsky explained in one of his last writings: "On the side of the Opposition was the youth and a considerable portion of the rank and file; but on the side of Stalin and the Central Committee were first of all the specially trained and disciplined politicians who were most closely connected with the political machine of the general secretary. My illness and my consequent non-participation in the struggle was, I grant, a factor of some importance; however, its importance should not be exaggerated. In the final reckoning it was a mere episode. All-important was the fact that the workers were tired. Those who supported the Opposition were not spurred on by a hope for great and serious changes. On the other hand the bureaucracy fought with extraordinary ferocity."

Passive support and sympathy was not enough to prevent the advance of the bureaucracy. Of course, a victory of the revolution in, say, China, would have completely transformed the situation, reviving the spirits of the Russian workers, and halting the bureaucratic counter-revolution in its tracks. But instead of victories there only came news of defeats, as a direct consequence of the policies of the Stalin-Bukharin leadership.

Ticktin and Cox state that: "We have to suspect that Trotsky at first was not prepared to lead. Later, of course, he refused to take power. He was the leader of the Red Army, and in 1924 Antonov-Ovseenko, chief political commissar of the Red Army, actually proposed that Trotsky take over." (Ticktin and Cox, op. cit., p. 13.) This is typical of the superficial approach to history which reduces it to a struggle of individual personalities. In general, if you ask the right question you stand a good chance of getting the right answer. If you ask the wrong question you will invariably get the wrong answer. Messers Ticktin and Cox do not even know what question to ask in the first place, and therefore end in a mess. The Left Opposition were not Bonapartists but revolutionary Marxists. That being so, they could not look to the military for solutions to the problem. They based themselves on the working class - not for sentimental or arbitrary reasons, but because only the working class can bring about the socialist transformation of society. To base oneself on any other class or social group may achieve a change in society, but never in the direction of a healthy workers' state.

People like Ticktin and Cox imagine themselves to be superior to Trotsky, who, they imply, was either too stupid or too cowardly to take power, whereas Stalin, one must assume, was more intelligent and more courageous. These "wise" academics write glibly about "the question of power" and at the same time show that they do not have the slightest idea of what power is. Trotsky explained that "power is not a prize which the most 'skillful' win. Power is a relationship between individuals, in the last analysis between classes". (Trotsky, Writings 1935-36, p. 177.)

In the absence of the active participation of the workers, there were indeed conditions for Bonapartism in Russia. But the use of the military in politics is not a thing that can be disposed of like putting a sword placed back into its sheaf. To rely upon the Red Army to take power would have resulted, in the given conditions, not in the prevention of the political counter-revolution but, on the contrary, in enormously accelerating it. The sole difference would be that instead of a civilian bureaucracy, the military caste would be in power. The fact that Trotsky was at the head would have meant nothing. Either he would do the bidding of the officer caste (which was naturally ruled out), or he would be removed and replaced with someone who would. At that stage, the movement towards reaction had not yet acquired a definitive character. The bureaucracy was still feeling its way. Stalin's cautious policy reflected this fact. A military coup would have led very quickly to the consolidation of proletarian Bonapartism. The faces would have been different, but the essence the same. The whole process of degeneration would have been enormously speeded up. That is all.

[The_bolshevik]

Originally posted by eyeradi8
Run that "surplus value...shortening workday" thing by me, or direct me to where you discussed it. The day would have to be shortened quite a bit for someone to be able to work it on top of running a state. And what would the rest of those workers be doing with all that free time?

The cath is that there would not be necessary to produce that part of surplus value which goes for superprofits of capitalists (read: their super privileges). On the other hand that surplus value could be used for higher wages or faster development. Since this is in general a big amount it is highly probable that it would be used for all the three main things in general.

It is highly probable that today the working day could be reduced to 6 hours or even less, which is for planning of producting and having discussions more or less enough, especially with the help of modern technology. But probably some few things could not be sort out that way, so what would be needed are full timers for those matters. This may sound like a bureaucracy, but it is not, because they would be under control of working people which would have control over the repressing apparatus and could recall the full timer representatives, as same as those who are only part timers.

What would people do with more free time? Is this really a problem? I think most people would welcome this.

"More and more workers involved in state affairs" IS beaurocracy.

Actually it is not so. If we take definition of bureaucracy as the leading cadres of an organizations that are alienated from the rank-and-file, thus having the ability of acting primarily in their interests and not in those of who they supposingly represent. In fact how much workers are involved in the state affairs and planning is a nice indicator of workers´ democracy against bureaucratic totalitarism. Here also quantity transforms quality of course.

comradely,

[rikbe]

Originally posted by eyeradi8
This may sound like a bureaucracy, but it is not, because they would be under control of working people which would have control over the repressing apparatus and could recall the full timer representatives, as same as those who are only part timers.
Please dude, you make it sound like every working stiff is a Trotsky tried to climb out. In the real world, most Joe Blows just want to earn a paycheck, hit the after-work bars for a few brewskies, and then get home in time for Fear Factor.
[/b]

The first problem with idealists is that they cannot imagine that most people do not think like them.
The second is that not two idealists think the same.
The third is that they think they are right, only because they are idealists.

[red_fury]

The first problem with idealists is that they cannot imagine that most people do not think like them.
The second is that not two idealists think the same.
The third is that they think they are right, only because they are idealists.

Adam smith was an "idealist"

So plreeeease shut up with your stupid dutch humour...

Oh BTW, Remember the words from John Lennons song "Imagine"

Got YA!

[rikbe]

Originally posted by red_fury

Adam smith was an "idealist"

So plreeeease shut up with your stupid dutch humour...

Oh BTW, Remember the words from John Lennons song "Imagine"

Got YA!

Who was Adam Smith?

I am not Dutch.

John had a lot of imagination... Maybe his killer took his imagination serious.

[carter]

Originally posted by red_fury
I am strongly disappointed by you ladies...
When it comes to a political discussion, the only thing you can do is swear and yell empty opinions, but when it finally comes to more serious discussion, hm...
I see no one can give a worthy economical reply, although economy is a "cornerstone" of politics!
Still waiting for your replies

Alexander

RedFag, na huey commie suka. That's really all I have to say to you or about you, peezda blat. Why waste words?

[carter]

Ordinary Russians are very funny, but Commies - no. The Commies are too busy stealing things these days for humor.