Gentlemen,
"If we sit down and discuss with the representatives of black reaction, it is to say to the workers: "these people are all right, they are reasonable and we can have a debate and discussion with them". "
No it isn't. The reason we would debate with them is to expose them to the working class. We don't seek to win them over. We do seek to win the working class over.
"A united front between social democratic and communist workers gives the revolutionaries a bigger audience."
The basis of unity is principles. There is no such thing as a united front. There cannot be as there can only be one proletarian political organisation. Or else the working class has factional political interests.
"It is not enough to have correct ideas, you must also have a correct way to put ideas into action."
Your method is related to your theory. They should both rest upon one another and condition one another. To say otherwise is utopian.
With regards to violence against the fascists, it appears you think I am a pacifist. Of course, if the fascists are using violence, we would respond. But we would not initiate violence.
"Well most would probably say that some of the interests are both food, housing and the right to organise. Thats exactly why we fight for socialism. So people can have a a life and the world can evolve."
These are not political interests but are economic interests. We are dealing with political, not economic questions. There are two fields to the class struggle.
"Richard im starting to ask myself whether you discuss to learn and test your theories, or you instead do it just for your ammusement. This may seem a bit hard but it is the impression I get from reading your posts."
You write this because you note I keep on asking the same question. Perhaps you should be aware that nobody has actually answered it. They have accepted that workers can develop socialist consciousness, but have not dealt with the question as to whether a majority of them can do this under capitalism. These are different questions, as any Left-Communist will tell you.
One of your members replies in the affirmative. Why then does the working class need to be led? This goes against Leninism (see Communist Organisations and Class Consciousness, ICC).
"When the mass is thrust into action, only these first groups can foresee a final end, and it is they who support and lead the rest... The degeneration of the social-democratic parties of the Second International and the fact that they apparently became less revolutionary than the unorganised masses, are due to the fact that they gradually lost their specific party character precisely through workerist and “labourist” practices. That is, they no longer acted as the vanguard preceding the class but as its mechanical expression in an electoral and corporative system, where equal importance and influence is given to the strata that are the least conscious and the most dependent on egotistical claims of the proletarian class itself" (Party and Class, Bordiga 1921).
"So for example, workers´ striking for higher wages have immediate interests in socialism because in socialism they wouldn´t be exploited? But this is not an immediate interest, it is an absolute solution."
Again, political interests and economic interests are being confused.
"Paris commune was then indeed a fascist rebellion or what? If not that, than it at least used "fascist tactics" to defend itself, according to what you say."
It used violence, yes. The employment of violence is not the question. It did not curb free speech. That is the point.
"Obviously, you have not been around workers."
How is that so? I am a member of the working class. If you are sick of arguing with me that is up to you.
"So, it's wrong to blame Lenin because Russia was being attacked by imperialist powers so how could they support outside revolutions? Were they supposed to give power back to the czar when they realized they were going to be attacked and should wait to build up their forces for another 10 or 20 years?"
I never attacked Lenin for this, but merely observed the impossibility of a socialist revolution in the Soviet Union as a result of it being isolated and that a majority of workers having not fully developed socialist consciousness.
It wasn't Lenin's fault. That is what lies at the base of your claim that I am idealist. I do not subscribe to the great man theory of history.
Gentlemen, I have had fun discussing with you all, but it appears that most of you are tired of discussing.
I feel we are not getting particularly far. I have found another forum,
http://www.iidb.org, which I note organises formal debates. I would like it very much if you would want to engage in a formal, more structured debate on that forum, as the unstructured nature of this discussion is quite annoying in the sense that it is difficult to pick out the points etc. If your leaders want to set up a formal debate area in this fora, then I would like very much to take part in that.
Please do send me an electronic mail at
rcpglasgow@hotmail.com if you have any more enquiries or if you wish to reply to my post.
regards
richard
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