Raising class consciousness

[cyberrevolution1]

It's all well and good being a self declared socialist, and discussing socialism with other socialists on forums, but how does the movement go about pursuing socialism?

lenninists would argue that a vanguard party, such as the SPGB , could lead the revolution with their superior awareness of capitalism and class conflict. They would say that the masses don't have to necessarily support Marxist socialism, as the revolutionaries would run the country for the good of said masses.

But I, as well as German revolutionary rosa Luxemburg, believe that this method would only lead to tyranny and corruption, as shown by the examples of China and the ussr. Luxemburgists , or the modern variants of it categorised as left communism, believe that the revolution must occur from the masses themselves, and so for a socialist revolution to occur, the masses must have a sufficient amount of class consciousness. This must be our first move- to teach class consciousness to the British and international masses.

What would be the best way of going about this? Is it through rallies, education classes, protests or perhaps online campaigning on a viral scale? I'm interested in the opinions of the members of this forum 

[DJP]

Your mistake is to think that the SPGB is a vangardist party. In fact we would agree with Rosa Luxemburg, and are against Lenin.How to propagate socialist ideas? I don't think there is one best answer or magic bullett.

[Anonymous]

The Socialist Party is not a vanguard party and we have always opposed Leninism.  We disagree with Lenin but agree with Marx when he said "The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself"Socialism cannot be established by a leadership or a minority Vanguard because as Eugene V Debs said:  "I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out."How we convince fellow workers to join us in our democratic leaderless party committed to  socialism is the big question.

[cyberrevolution1]

DJP wrote:

Your mistake is to think that the SPGB is a vangardist party. In fact we would agree with Rosa Luxemburg, and are against Lenin.How to propagate socialist ideas? I don't think there is one best answer or magic bullett.

i wasn't saying the SPGB is a vanguard party, I was using it as an example of what would act as a vanguard party in lenninists ideologyi agree with you that the SPGB is a luxemburgist movement

[cyberrevolution1]

I know, that was the question I was asking. I feel like this forum is often a battleground where members critique others choice of words and their interpretation rather than actually discussing the topic

[DJP]

cyberrevolution1 wrote:

i agree with you that the SPGB is a luxemburgist movement

The SPGB isn't really "Luxemburgist" either, but certainly closer to Luxemburg than Lenin.But yes, that's not what you were asking.I think we have to utilize every method we can, and also look into the psychology of how people make and change beliefs, I think this aspect has not adequately been thought about in the past.What do you think?

[cyberrevolution1]

DJP wrote:

cyberrevolution1 wrote:

i agree with you that the SPGB is a luxemburgist movement

The SPGB isn't really "Luxemburgist" either, but certainly closer to Luxemburg than Lenin.But yes, that's not what you were asking.I think we have to utilize every method we can, and also look into the psychology of how people make and change beliefs, I think this aspect has not adequately been thought about in the past.What do you think?

thats an interesting way of looking at it. There's a book called the sane society by Eric Fromm, a book that combines psychoanalysis with Marxist thought. It speaks about the human situation, and how people are living an unfulfilled existence due to the materialism and consumerism of modern capitalism. I think theories like this would be a great place to start understanding how the people's minds work under celebrity culture capitalism, and see how to convey socialism in a way that would ring true to the masses

[alanjjohnstone]

Finding the appropriate formula for inspiring and insitgating social revolution is, of course, the Holy Grail for all socialists and through history various strategies, as you say, Cyber, has been tried and found to be wanting. The old slogan is the only one we have to go by, "educate, organise and agitate".Presently, the Party is having to re-evaluate how we go about this in practical terms since it is clear that we (and our left-wing rivals) are not being successful. Capitalist ideas of nationalism and faith in reformist politics are still prevailing and it isn't just a temporary fad as with Brexit or Trump but a long-standing obstacle to the advancement of socialism.But saying that, there has been many socetial developments that have grown successful and assists us. Sexism, homophobia, and even racism, although not disappeared, has very much diminished in their influences. In our own lifetimes, we have witnessed the changes in attitudes grow more and more inclusive. Even religion despite the apparent resurgence of militant islam has less power and many churches scramble to re-define themselves to maintain popularity.I have not found anyone who disagrees with our goal but have met many who doubt it can be achieved by the means and methods we advocate. Our task is to instil a confidence and hope within our fellow worker that the status quo cn be overthrown without detrimental effects upon them, themselves, since events in history seems to indicate that revolution always has a neagative downside.One thing is very obvious, we need new members, so if you do agree with our principles, cheering us on from the sidelines is not sufficient. We need you as part of the team.

[Bijou Drains]

cyberrevolution1 wrote:

DJP wrote:

cyberrevolution1 wrote:

i agree with you that the SPGB is a luxemburgist movement

The SPGB isn't really "Luxemburgist" either, but certainly closer to Luxemburg than Lenin.But yes, that's not what you were asking.I think we have to utilize every method we can, and also look into the psychology of how people make and change beliefs, I think this aspect has not adequately been thought about in the past.What do you think?

thats an interesting way of looking at it. There's a book called the sane society by Eric Fromm, a book that combines psychoanalysis with Marxist thought. It speaks about the human situation, and how people are living an unfulfilled existence due to the materialism and consumerism of modern capitalism. I think theories like this would be a great place to start understanding how the people's minds work under celebrity culture capitalism, and see how to convey socialism in a way that would ring true to the masses

Fromm put forward some interesting ideas, you might find some of the works of Claude Steiner of similar interest. My own view is that their is no magic bullet, and that that fact is actually part of the Socialist case that we fail to utilise. The Socialist case is multi-dimensional, it appeals on lots of different levels and to lots of different frames of reference. I think we need lots of different propaganda approaches. If we limit ourselves to one approach we limit the appeal of the Socialist case.

[alanjjohnstone]

Here are some quotes that maybe food for thought“A period of revolution begins not because life has become physically impossible but because growing numbers of workers have their eyes suddenly opened to the fact that problems hitherto accepted as part of man’s unavoidable heritage has become capable of solution…No crisis of capitalism, however desperate it may be, can ever by itself give us socialism ” – Will Capitalism Collapse? “If we hoped to achieve Socialism ONLY by our propaganda, the outlook would indeed be bad. But it is Capitalism itself unable to solve crises, unemployment , and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars , which is digging its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning slowly. Our job is to shorten the time , to speed up the process” – Socialism or Chaos We can quote from Paul Mattick with his understanding to his own political experiences:“There is no evidence that the last hundred years of labour strife have led to the revolutionizing of the working class in the sense of a growing willingness to do away with the capitalist system…In times of depression no less in than these of prosperity, the continuing confrontations of labor and capital have led not to an political radicalization of the working class, but to an intensified insistence upon better accommodations within the capitalist system…No matter how much he [the worker] may emancipate himself ideologically, for all practical purposes he must proceed as if he were still under the sway of bourgeois ideology. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions, but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual. It is this situation, rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalism. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions, but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual. It is this situation , rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalist ideology, that makes the workers reluctant to express and to act upon their anti- capitalist attitudes…” – Marxism, Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie Also from Sidney Hook in his From Hegel to Marx who said“…the struggle to achieve institutional change produces changes in those who participate in the struggles. The Praxis of trying to bring about a new order, no abstract doctrine, educates the workers …Marx‘s great insights that human beings cannot change the world without changing themselves, and that social struggles, under certain conditions, are the best school for acquiring an education in social realities are not isolated thoughts but organically connected with his materialistic theory of history .… The class struggle is not a doctrine, but the school in which doctrines arise are tested and used or discarded. The working class not only becomes conscious of itself in these struggles, but it changes and re-educates itself by its revolutionary practice"  Another insightful comment upon the non-commital and non-involvement of many workers in creating socialism comes from Hegel in his Philosophy of the Mind:“If, therefore man does not want to perish he must recognise the world as a self-dependent world which in its essential nature is already complete, must accept the conditions set for him by the world and wrest from it what he wants for himself. As a rule, the man believes that this submission is only forced on him by necessity. But ,in truth , this unity with the world must be recognised, not as a relation imposed by necessity , but as the rational …therefore the man behaves quite rationally in abandoning his plan for completely transforming the world and in striving to realise his personal aims, passions and interests only within the framework of the world in which he is a part”  Anton Pannekoek describes in The Workers Council that“[class consciousness] is not learned from books or through courses on theory and political formation, but through real life practice of the class struggle”  While Wilhelm Reich in Sex-Pol describes class consciousness ande explains:“Everything that contradicts the bourgeois order, everything that contains a germ of rebellion, can be regarded as an element of class – consciousness; everything that creates or maintains a bond with the bourgeois order, that supports and reinforces it, is an impediment to class consciousness”and again“Against the principle of self-denial preached by political reaction, we must set the principle of happiness and abundance …Any socialist political economist can prove that sufficient wealth exists in the world to provide a happy life for all workers .But we must prove this more thoroughly, more consistently, in greater detail than we generally do”and again“Question: If two human beings, A and B, are starving, one of them may accept his fate, refuse to steal, and take to begging or die from hunger, while the other may take the law into his own hands in order to obtain food. A large part of the proletariat, often called the lumpenproletariat, live according to the principles of B .Which of the two types has more elements of class consciousness in him ? Stealing is not yet a sign of class consciousness but a brief moment of reflection shows , despite our inner moral resistance, that the man who refuses to submit to law and steals when he is hungry, that’s to say, the man who manifests a will to live, has more energy and fight in him than the one who lies down unprotesting on the butchers slab …we have said that stealing is not yet class consciousness. A brick is not yet a house , but you use bricks to build a house” Finally, we have from Murray Bookchin's contribution in his article Listen Marxist “ The Marxian doctrinaire would have us approach the worker, better still – enter the factory – and proselytize him in preference to anyone else. The purpose ? to make the worker class conscious. In the end , the worker is shrewd enough to know that he can get better results in the day-to-day class struggle through his union bureaucracy than through a Marxian party bureaucracy …the worker becomes revolutionary not by becoming more of a worker but by undoing his ‘workerness‘. His ‘workerness’ is the disease he is suffering from, the worker begins to become revolutionary when he undoes his ‘workerness' , when he begins to shed exactly those features Marxists most prize him – his work ethic, his character-structure derived from industrial discipline, his respect for hierarchy, his obedience to leaders, his consumerism, his vestiges of Puritanism. In this sense, the worker becomes a revolutionary to the degree that he sheds his class status and achieves an un-class- consciousness. He degenerates and he degenerates magnificently. What he is shedding are precisely those class shackles that bind him to all systems of domination. He abandons those class interests that enslaves him to consumerism , suburbia and a book-keeping conception of life” So, Cyber, we hold only generalisations  but possess a political approach that when exercised will not be counter-productive or have a negative effect. One of the great principles of the SPGB is our opposition to leadership, so whatever weaknesses or mistaken views we hold or  accused of, they cannot be imposed upon others with possibly even worse consequences. The validity of the SPGB's ideas will either be accepted or rejected by discussion and debate, plus by actual concrete developments on the ground. The SPGB are not going to become entryists or a vanguard who proclaim that we are possessors of the Holy Grail, that all must follow.Anyways, your question is a question the Party has always consideredhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/jackson-ta/articles/1906/07/class_conciousness.htm

[Capitalist Pig]

come up with a catchy slogan

[Anonymous]

We have.'Free Access to all goods and services, no wages needed'or'Common ownership of the earth's resources and democratic control of the production of goods and services'

[Anonymous]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

come up with a catchy slogan

This is not the Republican, or the Democratic party based on slogans, selling of personalities,based on promnises,and cheating workers. This is the Socialist Party based on socialism-communism, and it requires certain understanding of the socialist case, and class consciouness and the removal from our brains the bourgoise ideology which is social poison in the minds of the human beings. We are something more serious, more profound, and based on real social principles

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

We have.'Free Access to all goods and services, no wages needed'or'Common ownership of the earth's resources and democratic control of the production of goods and services'

And it is not based on political promises. It is something that mankind can achieve struggling for its own liberation, and we do not need leaders, and chieftans to do that. Workers do not need the rich peoples, or our own exploiters, or to become their tailgater  in order to liberate themselves. How workers are expecting that their own exploiters are going to liberate them ? We have been so fucked up by the bourgoise ideology that millions of workers are supporting their own rulers and masters

[DJP]

This is the kind of psychological problems I had in mind..http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

[Author]

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