Paresh Chattopadhyay : another article
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Another good article by him. just published in an Indian publication, arguing that Bolshevism did lead to Stalinism against the Trotskyist Alan Woods (Ted Grant's successor):
It is indeed a devastating article by Paresh and to be recommended.Once more it reinforces my earlier readings and orginal opinion of Paresh as a very worthy Marxist.
ALBs link to article wrote:Let us now examine the author’s points. First, the idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. The way he connects Marx with this idea shows, we are sorry to say, his very superficial reading of Marx (in his rush, it seems, to connect the Commune with the Bolshevik regime). There is no textual evidence that Marx “based his idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Paris Commune”. There is no extant text where Marx calls the Commune a “dictatorship of the proletariat” for the simple reason that Marx never thought that the communards’ revolution was a socialist revolution in his sense. He makes this very clear in his 1881 letter to Domela-Nieuwenhuis where he stressed that “this was merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, (and) the majority of the Commune was in no way socialist…” It was Engels who used this expression for the Commune, though more in a kind of rhetoric against the “Social-Democratic philistines”.[my bold]Once again, as for 'science' and 'materialism', it is extremely important to separate out 'what Engels wrote' from 'what Marx wrote'.There is no god called 'Marx-Engels', as the Leninists/Trotskyists/Materialists assume.
ALBs link to the article wrote:Later in the 9th party Congress Lenin denounced the “still surviving notorious democratism”, and characterised the “outcry against appointees” as “pernicious trash”. Lenin observed that “the fact that a class is the leading class does not make it at once capable of administration”. Would one be too wrong to conclude that the proletariat (in Russia) was incapable of administering its own state?Doesn't this sound like YMS's objections to my arguments that workers should control science?To YMS, I'm displaying 'notorious democratism', and arguing that 'the leading class is capable of science' and 'capable of administering its own science'.I'm warning you all, comrades, that 'Materialism' is the source of such thinking. If 'matter' is the determinant of 'consciousness', then those who claim to have access to 'matter' (ie. 'materialists') will determine 'political consciousness', in the face of democratic objections from the class.'Matter' trumps 'democracy', according to the 'materialists'.
jondwhite wrote:I prefer what Engels wrote. Its easier to read.Yes, you're spot on, jondwhite! That's why people read Engels in preference to Marx, who never used one word where ten would do, and constantly added sub-clauses and caveats, so as to render his main point incomprehensible.Unfortunately, Marx was suggestive, stimulating, and requires us workers to discuss just what he meant. It's not obvious at all.Engels, on the contrary, is simpler. But, he's saying something very different to Marx.You want 'easy', whereas Marx talked about there being no royal road to understanding.Whilst workers do 'easy', they won't do 'revolution', which requires 'difficulty' in both theory and practice.The 'easiest' thing, of course, is to simply assume the god 'Marx-Engels' spoke with one voice. Easy, but wrong.
AAANNYYWAYS, sticking to the thread, i sent Paresh the following e-mail.
Quote:Apologies for filling your mail in-box with an unsolicited message but once again i must express my admiration for your recent article in Mainstream Weekly http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article5252.html I think i was a devastating take down of Alan Woods and you should be congratulated on your consistent criticism of Leninism from a Marxist position. You will be glad to know that many share your opinion and have done for many years. I myself am a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain who were among the earliest critics of the Bolshevik Revolution and among the first to describe it the USSR as state-capitalist (long before Tony Cliff and the “Johnson-Forest” tendency.) You may find this article by one of our members of interest which may be reflective of your views on Marx and revolution. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society Our whole website is worth a perusal whenever you have the time in your busy schedule. in comradeship and solidarity alan johnstoneAnd just received the following reply from him
Quote:Dear Friend,Many thanks for your kind message. I had sent this link to Adam B.I will surely have a look with interest at your organ.In solidarityParesh C.It seems ALB is once again ahead of the game in establishing contact with likeminded people. Comrade Stefan Shenfield also has translated an article, the Economy of Freedom, that is i think also very insightful and should be read, too. http://aitrus.info/node/2595
There's another one just out by him in this Indian publication:http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/20/special-articles/twentieth-century-socialism.htmlnOt read it fully yet but it seems to make the same point as in his previous recent articles:
Quote:The 20th century brand of socialism, following the Bolshevik victory as the prototype of socialisms, has nothing to do with socialism as envisaged by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It can be considered only as one among different varieties of socialism such as guild socialism, anarchist socialism, market socialism, and so on. The Marxian socialism, as a portrait of an alternative society after capital, is based on the "associated mode of production." The fundamental characteristic which separates socialism envisaged by Marx from the prevailing socialism is that Marx's socialism, conceived as an association of free individuals, is a completely de-alienated society with no commodity, no money, no waged/salaried labour, no state, all of which are considered as instruments of exploitation and repression of a class society used to put down the immense majority of the humans. The 20th century socialism is quite aptly recognised as a system of party-state, two avatars. Characteristically, and in total opposition to it, in no discussion of the nature of the society after capital– that is, socialism–by Marx and Engels we find these two avatars. They disappear along with capital, the last class society.Comrade Binay Sarkar of the WSP(India) has written a criticism of Chattopadhyay's article here:https://www.academia.edu/25627820/Critique_of_Paresh_Chattopadhyays_Twentieth_Century_Socialism_
Also available, in a more readable form, on the WSP (India) website here:http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/paresh.pdf
I'm afraid Binyay's criticism of Chattopadhyay in the linked article is pretty hopeless. To start with Binyay should read some up to date work about Kronstadt and the ideas that were in the minds of those sailors (Getzler's and Avrich's books for a start). At times Binyay's piece reads as though it could have popped out of Socialist Worker – "You cannot achieve socialism without an exclusively clear-cut socialist goal and class-wide revolutionary organization", and "the Leninist “party-state” was a form of ruthless state capitalist dictatorship. But that doesn‟t necessarily lead to the conclusion that party and state are of no use for the working class. Both are necessary and useful even during the “political transition” ". We have moved on sufficiently from Engels's time to see the danger of such a formulation, of the view that the state might be some kind of class neutral structure that socialism could use until the day the state withered away – "the government of persons . . . replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production." That sentence from Engels seems to me to refer less to the socialism we strive to build but more to Fukuyama's 'end of history', the idea of non political public administration that we see in the EU and in modern Toryism, the role of the state sold to us as no more than the prudent ordering of public affairs. Binyay's comments about the WSM are depressingly petty. Chattopadyay's article is about why the word 'socialism' has come to mean the totalitarian rule of a brutal police state. I'm afraid that, in the history of ideas, the Comintern and the Red Army, both of the Red Armies, have rather dwarfed the contribution the WSO has made to the meaning of the word 'socialism' in the popular imagination, precious beacon though the SPGB has been.
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