Lessons and Conclusions from Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder

Thomas Riggins

In the last chapter, the tenth, of his 1920 book "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin looks back over the previous nine chapters and then draws several conclusions about the then current state of the world struggle for socialism and also predicts some future developments. Let us see how accurate he was from our point of view some 93 years later.

He begins by looking at the Russian Revolution of 1905 and remarking that two lessons can be drawn from it. First that the industrial working class (the proletariat) has far more power and influence in society  than its actual numbers would suggest. It does not have to be a majority of the population in order to lead the population in a revolutionary direction. By waging economic and political strikes it can start an armed uprising aimed at the ruling class. Granted that 1905 was premature, but the tactics developed then paid off in 1917. Second, the creation of Soviets in 1905 was the beginning of a new way to organize the masses and to lead a mass struggle against capitalism.

 I think we can give Lenin high marks here. Even though only at the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge, due to the on going crisis of world capitalism, we can already see the working class more and more organizing both economically and politically to lead the struggle against the rule of the banks and financial and industrial oligarchs.  "Soviets" is a Russian word, so whether you want to use it  or the term "worker's councils" or "the occupy movement" organizations similar to these will have to be eventually set up as the bourgeois governments lose control of the economy and working people have to take it over and direct it towards serving the needs of the people.

Having said that, we must admit that Lenin's optimism about the near future in his own day was completely wrong. He thought it was clear that bourgeois parliamentary types of government were clearly on the decline and would be replaced throughout the world by Soviet type governments. That trend, after the rise of fascism, World War II, and the Cold War, is no longer discernible in the early 21st century.

Lenin was convinced that "communism"-- i.e., revolutionary Marxism was on the ascent  in the working class movement against its two  main enemies "Menshevism" (by which he meant nationalism and opportunism under whatever forms in different countries) on the one hand, and ultra-leftism ("Left-Wing" communism) on the other.

After a hectic century of struggle we currently have five "communist" countries in which both those currents have been nominally overcome (at least as openly argued for positions). In the rest of the developed world Menshevism is alive and well as a popular option in the working  class movement and "revolutionary" Marxism, where it exists at all, is a very small fraction of the working class (although in some countries it is growing and radicalizing thousands of workers in response to the calls for "austerity" in response to the general crisis of capitalism). "Ultra-leftism" has been reduced to small cult-like extremist groups on the fringes of the anti-capitalist struggle with little or no influence within the working class.

The Second International (which Lenin thought "virtually dead") is alive and kicking while the Third International, which Lenin held was winning the dual between the Internationals "on a world-wide scale"- is, as they say, "history." Lenin was blinded by the stunning successes of the Bolshevik revolution and its positive reception by the international working class. The founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, just two years after his book on left-wing communism came out would seem to have justified all this optimism.

What else did Lenin think was on the agenda for the near future, or at least the not very distant future? Well, he thought the international working class was ripe to be led towards the construction of "a world Soviet republic." This is a pipe dream today vis a vis the near future. However, the preconditions for such a republic remain exactly as Lenin stated them.

There are, he said, two FUNDAMENTAL principles of communism that parties have to work towards-- one is Soviet power (i.e., working people actually meeting in councils and taking political and economic power as a result; the other is "the dictatorship of the proletariat"-- an infelicitous  expression these days-- but this only means that the working people once in power will not allow the bourgeoisie to engage in active opposition to the worker's new government.

Lenin thought the establishment of these two fundamental principles on a world wide basis was the historic task of the working class  in his day. As it turned out it was all the working class could do to keep itself from being crushed by fascism and economic depression and it failed to live up to the expectations Lenin mistakenly, as it tuned out, had had for it.

He thought the "chief thing" necessary for the struggle he saw coming had already been achieved by the time he wrote LWC. The chief thing was that internationally the vanguard of the working class had been won over to the need for proletarian dictatorship and the establishment of the Soviet system and was "against bourgeois democracy." Let us grant that Lenin was correct about this (although I have my doubts). Even so this "vanguard" was not able to pull off the NEXT step in the struggle--i.e., "the search after forms of the TRANSITION or the APPROACH to the proletarian revolution." It was unable to convince the majority of the working masses to follow its lead and remained a militant contingent of the working masses but not THE vanguard (except in a theoretical sense).

Lenin was well aware of the necessity of winning over the majority as he said, "Victory cannot be won with a vanguard alone." And the broad masses of the people cannot be won over by agitation and  propaganda "alone." No, "the fundamental law of all great revolutions" is that "the masses must have their own political experience."

Well, in the U.S. and Europe they have had plenty of time to gather this experience and unless they are suffering from some type of attention deficit disorder (ADD) we can only hypothesize some failure on the part of the socialist leadership (opportunism, nationalism) OR, dispute the horrendous world upheavals that have rent the world in the last ninety years, the three crucial constellations of social forces have not come together which portend the outbreak of a world wide revolutionary movement  such as Lenin expected in his time.

ADD is not to be taken seriously (only about 2.5% of the world's population, plus or minus a few percentage points, appear to suffer from ADD according to many experts) so what are the three social conditions that have to be in action? Lenin says that millions and tens of millions of people must be on the move and ready for progressive revolutionary leadership to change the system.

 If this is the case then revolutionary Marxists must find (1) ALL the hostile bourgeois class forces usually united against the workers are embroiled in internecine struggles among themselves and have so weakened themselves they can no longer effectively oppose the workers ; (2) the petty bourgeois democrats (Mensheviks of whatever stripe) and their parties have so discredited themselves politically that the workers no longer have faith in them and will not vote for them; (3) the working people are becoming more and more determined, as the struggle continues, to support revolutionary forces dedicated to over throwing the bourgeoisie and creating  a workers government.

All three conditions must hold and if they do "revolution is indeed ripe", and if the Marxists have correctly understood that these conditions are in fact present and they act on them at the RIGHT MOMENT, then "victory is assured." This is a tall order indeed! I can see why "victories" are few and far between, especially considering the fact that Marxist leaders in many countries they already "controlled" were blind to the fact that they were the ones their "own" workers had lost faith in. Well, as Lenin pointed out earlier, it is not a crime to err, but it is not to learn from the error and correct it. The five "Leninist" states still standing have their work cut out for them.

Here is another important conclusion that Lenin draws looking back over the history of the socialist movement and adapting it to the struggle he sees coming. That is, that since the really class conscious vanguard can be numbered in the thousands, while a revolutionary upsurge is to be measured by the activity of millions who are not at a high level of class consciousness but reacting to oppressive conditions in an almost instinctive manner, the vanguard must be able to master all forms of revolutionary struggle-- both legal and illegal-- and be ready to correctly act under rapidly changing conditions.

It is relatively easy to act in a revolutionary manner once the pot of discontent has boiled over, Lenin points out; the really difficult time for the class conscious Marxist is to know how to behave in times that are not revolutionary, are indeed relatively calm and peaceful and revolution looks to be a far off possibility, or no possibility at all,  and the bourgeoisie is seemingly benign or even when it is behaving in a reactionary manner does not seem about to lose control of the state.

In these situations when conditions for "direct, open really mass and really revolutionary struggle DO NOT YET EXIST" it is the task of the revolutionary Marxist not to lose sight of the revolutionary ends even when the masses of working people "are incapable of immediately appreciating the need for revolutionary methods of action."  Lenin says in these conditions the main task for socialists in both America and Western Europe [nowadays we might as well include the whole capitalist world] is to find a way to lead the oppressed classes "to the real, decisive and revolutionary struggle." I think if Lenin were around today he would see this as the real task  of 21st Century socialism. The problem is, to figure out how to do this without falling into the traps of opportunism (Menshevism) on the one hand, and/or being too focused on national peculiarities and interests at the cost of not maintaining an international outlook on the other.

Lenin understood this problem and stipulated that Marxists must actively engage with the political struggles in their own countries but in a NEW way completely different from the usual way of working in the union movement and in political movements influenced by the traditional (and opportunist) left. They must propagate Marxist theory to the masses with leaflets and meetings and work not only with the advanced industrial workers but also get involved with "the unorganized and downtrodden poor" and their election work should NOT be aimed at winning elections per se ("to 'get seats' in parliament") but to educate and inform the masses about what Marxism is all about, they should "try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people."

 This may have to be done within the rules of the bourgeoisie but the Marxists will always keep to their own slogans and advocate Marxist solutions and not water down their positions to curry favor with the opportunists and their followers. Lenin says this is a very hard job to do, "and extremely difficult in America" but nevertheless "it can and must be done." Well, this is the message of the 1920s to us and to the 2020s: is it still appropriate or is it out of date and ready for the ash heap?

One must note, in considering this question, that the tactics put forth by Lenin were based on the historical conditions that he found himself in and his interpretation of what they portended. Here is the context as he understood it.  The masses were on the rise everywhere as a result of colossal destruction inflicted upon the people by the savage world wide war waged by imperialism from 1914 to 1918 "for the sole purpose of deciding whether the British or the German robbers should plunder the largest number of countries." Social "sparks" were flying every where and revolutions could flare up at any moment and the Marxists had to be ready and able to take advantage of them.

The Russian Revolution had shook the world and the bourgeoisie was "terrified of Bolshevism" and over reacting to the perceived threat to such an extent they were actually helping Bolshevism grow in popularity with the working class. Lenin refers to the Palmer raids when the American bourgeoisie had "completely lost its head" and arrested thousands and thousands of people suspected of being Bolsheviks. This could only help the cause he thought because it helped to get "the masses interested in the essence and significance of Bolshevism."

But this revolutionary fervor was tamped down, a great economic depression gripped the world leading to another explosion of a world wide imperialist war (1939-1945) , followed by revolutionary upheavals which were countered by a resurgent imperialism led by the U.S. in the form of the "Cold War." McCarthyism was a revival of the Palmer "red scare" and definitely showed how the bourgeoisie could "lose its head"-- but (pace Lenin) did not "help the cause" by moving the working class to become more interested in Marxism. Finally the "Cold War" eventuated in the demise of the Soviet Union and east European socialism. So, looking at the world of today, we have to decide if the tactics Lenin put forth in the 1920s are still the best guide to action in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Are there any after shocks from the Russian Revolution still to come?  What tactics could be better?

Lenin himself was not unmindful of the fact that the capitalist countries would gang up on Russia and do all in their power to crush "Bolshevism"; he just did not think it was possible for them to do it. He tells us that the bourgeoisie thinks of practically only one thing when it hears the word "Bolshevism": "insurrection, violence, and terror; it therefore  strives to prepare itself for resistance and opposition primarily in this field." This sounds familiar.

 He even thinks they may succeed for a time in putting down the Marxist "contagion" (their favorite word) by violence and the killing of "hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands" of revolutionary Marxists (as they have already done in India, Hungary and Germany-- [and were about to do in China])-- but these are only the actions "of all historically doomed classes." Lenin is a little too cavalier here, I fear, and certainly underestimated the future death toll inflicted on the worker's movement by the capitalists-- especially their Nazi incarnation which cost about 25 million Soviet lives alone.

At any rate Lenin thinks they will fail to eliminate revolutionary Marxism because the "contagion" is too wide spread and has infected every aspect of the capitalist organism-- its social, political, economic, educational, and moral institutions-- Marxist ideas are everywhere and the corruption and exploitation of capitalism can no longer be hidden from the masses who must, eventually, overthrow it. "Life," he says, " will assert itself." Today, when the bourgeoisie is busily destroying the planet itself and threatening the existence of billions of people these views of Lenin remind us how far we still have to go to rid the earth of the exploiters and to educate masses of people in the fight against "the frenzied ravings of the bourgeoisie."

In his day Lenin thought that only ONE THING was preventing the victory of the socialist movement from rapidly coming about-- is it the same thing that is holding it back in our time as well?-- "namely, the universal and through awareness" on the part of all revolutionary Marxists dedicated to the achievement of socialism "in all countries of the necessity to display the utmost FLEXIBILITY in their tactics." This is something that from Lenin's day to the present most Marxists have failed to learn how to put into practice.

Finally, Lenin explains why the leading Marxists of the pre-World War I Second International (Kautsky, Otto Bauer, and Plekhanov to name just a few of the better known) fell into opportunism and took the capitalist road ( if I may use that expression). It was their lack of flexibility and inability to properly understand dialectics. "The principal reason for their bankruptcy was that they were hypnotized by a definite form of growth of the working-class movement and socialism, forgot all about the one-sidedness of that form, were afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable and continued to repeat simple and, at first glance, incontestable axioms that had been learned by rote…."

In other words, they did not appreciate the revolutionary environment created by the war and its aftermath and attempted to impose bourgeois political legitimacy and parliamentary democracy on the socialist movement which they had learned in the post 1848 struggle of the working class to organize itself and develop its consciousness. By failing to ally with the new revolutionary consciousness (such as manifested by the Soviets and revolutionary worker's councils) they ended up on the side of the bourgeoisie and against the workers. At least this seems to me to be his position.

Considering the situation to be as he described it, Lenin held that the two trends within the socialist movement, he called them Right doctrinairism (opportunism) and Left doctrinairism (ultra-leftism), had to be opposed but that the Right was far more dangerous than the Left (which was new and experience would soon correct).  Today the ultra-left is confined to fringe groups or to groups that thrive in countries with an under developed working class due to backward economic conditions, while almost all of the major political parties following the dispensation of the Second International are completely controlled by opportunist non revolutionary cadre that are running dogs (another useful expression from another context) of the dominate forces of finance and industrial capital.

 Those remaining socialist parties and groups which consider themselves "Leninist" in orientation will find Lenin's book on "Left-Wing" Communism still a meaningful tool to use in the struggles of the 21st century as will others who are struggling with the problems of organizing the working people to take political and economic action to liberate themselves and humanity at large from the scourge of capitalism.

Despite the NRA and the Ultra-Right Most Americans Favor Gun Controls

Thomas Riggins

According to a recent report in Science Daily (1-28-2013) the majority of the American people support more gun controls to reduce and prevent the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. Despite the hysteria over the "violations" of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution generated by the NRA and the lunatic right-wing extremists in the Republican congressional delegations  and their misinformed constituents (as well as others)  that new gun controls laws would result in, a recent scientifically conducted poll by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has determined that the majority of the American people reject these right-wing arguments and want more laws to ensure gun safety.

Here is a breakdown in percentages of the survey's findings:
1. Universal background checks (no loopholes)-- 89%.
2. Ban on military style assault weapons-- 69%.
3. Ban on high capacity ammunition clips-- 68%.
4. Ban on gun ownership for individuals considered "high risk"-- 83%.
5. Ban on those who violate restraining orders for domestic violence-- 81%

While percentages were not given, the article also reports that more regulation of gun dealers was supported as well as various restrictions dealing with those having a mental illness. The survey was conducted with both gun owners and non-gun owners and found little difference between them in their responses so that it represents a true cross section of the American public on this issue.

Colleen Barry, PhD, one of the authors of the study said,"This research indicates high support among Americans, including gun owners in many cases, for a wide range of policies aimed at reducing gun violence. These data indicate broad consensus among the American public in support of a comprehensive approach to reducing the staggering toll of gun violence in the United States."

The researchers also conducted a separate survey, at the same time they did the gun control survey, to determine the public's attitudes towards mental illness. This is a complex subject requiring a dialectical analysis of the potential contradiction between the goal of preventing gun violence and that of preventing stigmatization of persons with mental illness.

This second survey revealed the following:
1. In favor or more screening and treatment of mental illness to prevent gun violence-- 61%.
2. Agreed that there is a big problem of discrimination against the mentally ill--58%.

About 50% of those interviewed thought the mentally ill more dangerous than other people and about 66% did not want to live near anyone with a "serious" mental illness. This led Dr. Barry to conclude, "In the light of our findings about Americans' attitudes toward persons with mental illness, it is worth thinking carefully about how to implement effective gun-violence prevention measures without exacerbating stigma or discouraging people from seeking treatment." Actually, it is more complicated than not just exacerbating stigma; we must find a way to diminish stigma and even eliminate it in the long run without watering down gun control measures in the process.

This means Congress must engage in a serious non-partisan legislative project to begin reversing and eventually eliminating the dangerous culture of gun-violence that has been created by the gun manufacturing lobby, the NRA and the corrupt politicians that are dependent on them and do their bidding in Congress.

This survey has shown what the majority of the American people want and those in Congress and elected positions of power who work against the goals described above are only interested in their own narrow interests and the interests of a few big corporations and not those of the American people and their children.

Right now the number of people murdered in the U.S. (31,000 a year according to Science Daily) is 20 times greater than the average in other developed capitalist nations that consider themselves "advanced."  It is not the American people who are ultimately responsible for this violent gun-culture imposed upon them by reactionary corporate forces and their political stooges. Now is the time to bring about meaningful change and mobilize progressives to support those fighting for change.

Lenin on "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain

Thomas Riggins

There was no Communist Party in Great Britain when Lenin wrote "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder [LWC]  (the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded a few months later at the end of July 1920). Nevertheless, Lenin devoted chapter nine of the aforementioned book to discussing the problems of ultra-leftism in Britain. It is not my intention to rehash all the political fights of 1920 surrounding the formation of the CPGB discussed in  LWC, instead I will highlight those insights from Lenin that pertain to general principles of Marxism and that are arguably relevant to the struggle for socialism in the early 21st century.

Lenin begins this chapter with a discussion of an article written by Willie Gallacher (1881-1963) published in the  "The Workers' Dreadnought" (a publication of one of the groups which were in the process of founding the CPGB) which was full enthusiasm for communism, the Russian Revolution, and the future of the working class in Britain. It also rejected cooperation with the Labour Party and working in the Parliament and the author did not want to cooperate with those who did.

Lenin praised Gallacher's article [he later refers to it as "a letter to the editor"] for expressing the mood, or the temper, of the masses and explained it was just these type of young workers, represented by the author, who would be the future of socialism and who should be supported in all their efforts to build a revolutionary socialist party in Britain. Nevertheless, he does not want them to commit the same errors that the early Bolsheviks made, and that the German party made with respect to ultra-leftism.

The future CPGB would be a formation composed of the coming together of at least four different socialist groups. To build a mass party it would be necessary to work with many other groups of workers at differing levels of class consciousness. Lenin stress that the CPGB, as should be the case with all Marxist parties, has to base its activities on SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES: and science, Lenin says, requires two things.

 First, a knowledge of what is happening in other countries, capitalist countries, and an analysis of the similarities and differences with your own country and how revolutionaries in those countries have coped with their own conditions. Second, a knowledge of your own country and ALL the groups, classes, parties, etc., and their positions and relationships. The policy adopted, in order to have the greatest number of supporters and best chance of wining, "should not be determined only by the desires and views, by the degree of class-consciousness and the militancy of one group or party alone."

The focus of all this fuss about cooperating and compromising with the bourgeoisie was the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party were considered by the radical workers as sell outs and "social patriots" who would govern in the interests of the capitalists not the workers whom they ostensibly represented and led. Lenin agrees with this and then states "it does not at all follow that to support them means treachery to the revolution; what does follow is that, in the interests of the revolution, working-class revolutionaries should give these gentleman a certain amount of parliamentary support." But why does this follow? Why give any support to false leaders who pose as progressives and really do the dirty work of the enemy? What can Lenin be thinking of?

We must consider what was going on in Britain in the 1920s. The Labour Party was growing and the two main governing parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) were beginning to panic. The Leader of the Liberals, Lloyd George, proposed a coalition with the Conservatives to stop the Labour Party. [Imagine a time in the US when the Republicans and Democrats unite to stop the Green Party!].

Meanwhile many Liberals are jumping ship and going over to the Labour Party. Lenin says that what is happening is that the liberal bourgeoisie is abandoning the traditional two party system by which the liberal and conservative capitalists alternate in ruling the government and exploiting the workers; a system "which has been hallowed by centuries of experience and has been extremely advantageous to the exploiters…."

The British leaders of the revolutionary workers, the very leaders of the future CPGB saw what was going on and even admitted the majority of workers were supporting the Labour Party saying, as did Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) one of the founders of the CPGB, that "the majority of the British working class has not yet emerged" from the way of thinking represented by the Labour Party.

Even knowing this she said: "The Communist Party must not compromise…. The Communist Party must keep its doctrine pure, and its independence of reformism inviolate: its mission is to lead the way, without stopping or turning, by the direct road to the communist revolution." Shades of Blanqui!

Lenin is a firm believer that the working class learns by doing. If the workers believe in such a party or such and such an idea, which is wrong and will not emancipate them, they must go through the experience of living and working with these false ideas until they learn from experience that they must abandon these wrong approaches.

Meanwhile the revolutionary Marxists will have been working along with the workers and supporting their efforts but also explaining why their views will not succeed and why Marxism provides a better alternative. This is the only way to win over the working people to the revolutionary Marxist point of view. This is why we must work in the reactionary institutions of the bourgeoisie.

 "To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone."

We come now to Lenin's famous formulation of The Fundamental Law of Revolution. Lenin says this law applies to all revolutions which means many of the revolts, insurrections, and coups that historians like to call "revolutions" are not revolutions at all. The Law states: "for a revolution to take place it is not enough for exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "LOWER CLASSES" DO NOT WANT to live in the old way and the "upper classes" CANNOT CARRY ON IN THE OLD WAY that the revolution can triumph."

Two obvious conclusions Lenin draws, with respect to an anti-capitalist revolution, are, first,  the majority of the working class (or at a minimum the majority of the politically active class conscious workers [this is "iffy" a majority of these may still be too small]) must fully understand the need for a revolution and be willing to take up arms if necessary to carry it out; second, the government of the ruling class must be undergoing a crisis which brings the masses of people, even those "hitherto apathetic," into a movement that so weakens it (the government) that the revolutionary elements can "rapidly overthrow it".  The revolution will not be a tea party.

Lenin thought the two conditions mentioned above were fast developing in Great Britain, but they did not in fact come about. Nevertheless, Lenin's advice in general as to how the Marxists in Great Britain should behave still makes sense even in our own day, and it is not restricted to any particular country. Briefly he says that unless we want to risk being seen as "mere wind bags"  and  a party that represents only a group and not the masses of the revolutionary working class ["revolutionary" is the key word to understand in this context] we must get the MASSES to follow our party.

To do this we must help the working class achieve the maximum of class consciousness and this means working in the political world in which we and they find ourselves and helping them to understand, by their own experiences, that no solutions of bourgeois politics can solve their problems and the only way forward for their class is by supporting a revolutionary Marxist party.

How would this practically be done? Extrapolating from the conditions of Lenin's day to the present time, and using the experience of the 2012 US elections, I suggest the following edited comment from Lenin: We would take part in the election campaign, we would hand out leaflets in favor of Marxism and explaining what's wrong with capitalism, and where we are not running our own candidates we would urge support for the candidate most favorable to the workers and who had the most support from the union movement and we would urge the defeat of all reactionary, ultra-right and anti-labor, anti-progressive candidates.

Lenin's actual advice to the British Marxists was: "We would take part in the election campaign, distribute leaflets agitating for communism, and in ALL constituencies where we have no candidates, we would urge the electors TO VOTE FOR THE LABOUR CANDIDATE AND AGAINST THE BOURGEOIS CANDIDATE." Others may have a better revision of this quote than what I have proposed above, but I have tried to factor in specifically US conditions (both major parties are bourgeois, the ultra-right poses a clear and present danger, the labor movement is under attack, among others).

As Lenin maintained that each country had an unique historical configuration of its own regarding the class struggle and the relations between the classes and parties making it up, it was therefore the task of Marxists to learn "to apply the general and basic principles" of Marxism to their own situation in order to "study, discover, and predict" the proper course of action. It is with this conclusion that he ends this chapter of LWC.

Betrayal Without Remedy: The Case of the Missing Wages

 Thomas Riggins

Monday's Wall Street Journal tell's the story of how Hostess Brands, Inc., took its workers wages and used them to cover its own expenses ("Hostess Maneuver Deprived Pension" WSJ 12-10-12).

Hostess Brands (famous for Twinkies and Wonder Bread) has gone out of business after a lengthy bankruptcy process. During this process information has come out about how corporations can break their contracts with and steal from, their workers and yet escape prosecution for their actions. It is an object lesson on how the laws are written to benefit private property and capitalists at the expense of working people who are often denied equal protection.

Here is what Hostess did. It signed contracts with workers in which it was agreed that part of their wages would be diverted from their paychecks and be invested in their pensions. This was a contribution made by the workers independently of the contractual payments made to the pension funds by the company.

In 2011, due to the company's financial problems, Hostess announced that it would end payments to the pension funds. OK, that is one problem for the unions to deal with. But what happened to the worker's wages that Hostess was supposed to be putting into the funds? These wages were not payments coming out of the pockets of Hostess per se.

Well, Hostess did not start to include these payments in the worker's paychecks. Instead they just kept their wages for the company and used them to pay for their own expenses. During an interview the new CEO, brought in to oversee the liquidation of the company, said this was "terrible" but , "I think it's like a lot of things in this case. It's not a good situation to have." As to getting the money back-- C'est la vie.

The WSJ reports that "experts" say that since the money didn't come "directly" from the workers [?] no federal laws were violated ("probably"). Huh! The company says they will put the wages I earned into X and they divert it to Z and since I didn't have it listed as "deducted" from my paycheck it didn't come "directly" from me therefore it is really theirs!

The WSJ quoted a lawyer not involved in the case who said, "It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy. It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately." Why then would any union sign contracts with companies to co-contribute to their pension funds and allow the companies to oversee the payments if they can just keep them and the workers are "without remedy." Is this gaping hole in federal law being addressed?

This betrayal only affected one of two major unions at Hostess: the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union. The Teamsters did not have this kind of arrangement with the company. The baker's union did because "This local was very aggressive about saving for the future," according to a union officer. This is just another example of the truth of the socialist adage that any future for workers under capitalism is problematic.

Update 1: The Kansas City Star reported on 12-10-12 that the National Labor Relations Board has found "that Hostess had failed to bargain collectively and in good faith with a union."

Update 2: Hostess Brands issued the following statement on 12-11-12: “At no time were these pension contributions paid as wages, so no funds were ever ‘deducted from paychecks,’ as one news outlet erroneously reported. Hostess Brands has at all times continued to pay its union employees' current wages in full compliance with its collective bargaining agreements.''

This statement from Hostess is a new low in the metaphysics of mendacity: since the wages were not first paid then deducted but went directly to the pension funds they were not wages. Caveat faber.

Lenin on Marxism and Bourgeois Democracy

Thomas Riggins In chapter seven of "'Left-Wing' Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin addresses himself to the ultra-left claim that socialists should no longer work with or be members of bourgeois parliaments. This may not be a very pressing issue for American (i.e., U.S.) socialists and it seems settled as far as other countries are concerned (as a result of widespread agreement with Lenin's views) but in Lenin's day there were many so-called Left socialists who supported boycotting all bourgeois electoral work. Lenin thought this totally incorrect. The ultra-Left's position was that bourgeois democracy was historically and politically obsolete; the wave of the future was advancing worker's democracy in the form of Soviets and so all Marxist socialists must only work to build that future. Lenin's response to this is philosophically interesting and rooted in his reading of Hegel and his understanding of the latter's historicism. Lenin had made a profound study of Hegel's Logic while in exile (among other of the German's works) and could not but have been impressed by the following passage in Hegel's introduction to his "Lectures on the Philosophy of History" (even though he thought Hegel had been completely antiquated with respect to most of his views on history by the work of Marx and Engels.) But the following Hegelian passage, I believe, still had meaning for him, and for us today as well.  Hegel wrote that he wished to call his students "attention to the important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an ABSTRACT form and its determinate application and concrete development." An example would be that "all men are created equal" was an abstract truth, the civil war was a determinate application-- as was the later civil rights movement. That application is still working itself out. Grasping that Hegelian principle we can understand Lenin when he agrees with the ultra-left that indeed bourgeois democracy IS historically obsolete.  Lenin says this is true in a "propaganda sense."  Capitalism has also been obsolete for over a hundred years, he says, it is obsolete today in that we know its contradictions, that it doesn't work and cannot feed the people and insure their future and we know that socialism is the answer and the only future available if humanity is not to perish but this ABSTRACT truth, from the point of view of world history, does not mean that its determinate application, its concrete development will not require "a very long and persistent struggle ON THE BASIS of capitalism" Lenin says world history is measured in decades, indeed he could have said centuries (Napoleon saw the Sphinx looking down on him from 40 centuries): whether the concrete development reaches fruition now or a century from now is something indifferent to world history. Lenin was mistaken in seeing the revolutionary era of his day as the fruition of the social ideal just as we are wrong to see the globalization of the capitalist world market as the refutation of the social ideal which from the point of view of world history may be ushered in by a new revolutionary era which may even now be at the heart of the current world capitalist breakdown and may take place in a decade or in 20 decades. For this "very reason," Lenin says, "it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics." So, while in a technical sense the ultra-left is correct about the historical "obsolescence" of bourgeois democracy, the real question is, is bourgeois democracy politically obsolete? The answer to that is a resounding "NO!" The masses of working people participate in bourgeois elections and think in terms of bourgeois constitutionality and for Marxists to ignore that fact and refuse to engage in political work where the masses are is the height of irresponsibility. This mistake that is raising its head again in 1920 was already refuted and abandoned in 1918 by the German socialists. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, "outstanding political leaders" opposed it in Germany and subsequent events have proven them to be correct. Those parties today (1920) that are again bringing up this erroneous theory should study the history of Marxism on this issue and admit their mistake. This is a most important principle for Lenin. When a mistake is made it cannot be papered over, ignored, denied, or explained away. How a party treats its mistakes is one of the best ways of judging how serious it is about its duty towards its CLASS and towards WORKING PEOPLE in general. A party that fails to admit and rectify publicly its mistakes is NOT a party of the masses. The mistake of the ultra-lefts is failing to recognize what is obsolete from the point of view of Marxism-- from OUR point of view is NOT obsolete from the point of view of the masses. Granted then that we must work within the framework of bourgeois democracy so that we can influence the masses, Lenin stresses that we must not SINK TO THE LEVEL OF THE MASSES. The working people must be told "the bitter truth." That truth, which we are duty bound to tell the people, is that their allegiance to bourgeois democracy is nothing more than a "prejudice." Even so, we must also act politically with regard to the ACTUAL class consciousness of the working masses (not the class consciousness of the Marxist elements): if we don't, Lenin says we risk turning into "windbags." Here I must mention an issue that was important to Lenin but is no longer applicable at the present time. One of reasons he was upset by the ultra-lefts is that some of them were in leadership positions within fraternal communist parties which were members of the Communist International (Third International). Lenin was convinced that his position on bourgeois democracy was correct and had been successfully applied in Russia and it was also the position of the International, which, he said "must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics)…," and the rejection of his views by some members of the International amounted to abandoning the concept of internationalism even while giving lip service to it. Today, of course, we have to be concerned with internationalism but there is no "International" to oversee and direct a unified program subscribed to by all the active Marxist parties. In fact, national tactics take a leading role everywhere. There are some regional groupings of Marxist parties as well some groupings based on particular ideological interpretations of Marxism, and some "go-it-alone" parties. This reflects the fragmented and ideological confusion that reigns on the left and is a major reason why more international meetings and conferences should be held with a view to creating some kind of consensus around international issues and how the national struggles in each country can relate to the movement  towards creating the conditions or preconditions for an international unified fight back against capitalism. Another issue addressed by Lenin in this chapter is the relation between legal and illegal activities by the worker's party. All worker's parties are faced with this issue and all engage in some form of illegal activity. In the U.S. Marxist parties, for example, although they were legal parties, still engaged in illegal activities such as sit ins and illegal demonstrations during the civil rights movement , and various forms of civil disobedience in anti-war protests and marches. Lenin thought that as capitalism begins to breakdown and the workers become more militant the bourgeois state would crack down ever harder on the working class violating its own standards of legality. As an example of ruthless persecution of working people he gives the example of the United States ("the example of America is edifying enough"). He has reference to the Palmer Raids and the espionage acts. It is also edifying to see the Obama administration dust off these old laws from ninety years ago to try and shut down whistle blowers and journalists (think of Wiki leaks). Socialist parties should be prepared to face savage persecution by the state as the class struggle intensifies. Paper tiger parties today will be treated as real tigers tomorrow if they effectively lead the workers in the struggle against capitalism. Lenin stresses that before Marxists even think about repudiating working within bourgeois democracy there must be a revolutionary situation in which the majority of working people have lost faith in the bourgeoisie and are willing and able to advance towards the seizure of power and the establishment of a socialist state. People can talk revolution all they like and advocate revolutionary tactics all they want but "without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action." Certainly in the U.S. there is no mass revolutionary mood [yet] and none on the immediate horizon and this must be taken into account by the left (as it has been in the pages of Political Affairs and other socialist publications- albeit with some confusion between tactics and strategy among those who have not kept their eyes on the prize). In Europe and other areas of the world the situation is different and various degrees of the "revolutionary mood" are rapidly advancing as the glacial melting of global capitalism speeds up a pace. Lenin further notes that "it is very easy to show one's 'revolutionary' temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism" [i.e., bourgeois democracy] but tactics "must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of ALL the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements." A tall order, I should think, with many opportunities for error: all the more reason for more international conferences and even the creation of a new International. So, the upshot of this discussion is that Marxists must work within bourgeois democratic institutions and it is childish to attack parties and socialist leaders who do so. The only justified criticism, Lenin says, is against those leaders "who are unable --- and still more against those who are UNWILLING --- to utilise the structures of bourgeois democracy … in a revolutionary and communist manner." The question that remains is: What constitutes a revolutionary and communist manner in the 21st Century?

The Class Struggles in Southern Europe (2)

Euro-area finance ministers approved the payout of 49.1 billion euros ($64 billion) of loans through March and committed to “additional measures” in case Greece’s debt reduction veers off track.
While another cut in bailout-loan rates and an increase in infrastructure funding would top the list of extra measures, the policy makers hinted that outright debt relief -- still a taboo topic in creditor countries led by Germany -- would be on the table as well.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_13/12/2012_474302

The failure of the bond buy out target was waived very quickly, you might say they stopped short at appearing to bend over backwards to lend Greece more money, but that's all. And they still argue that Syriza (the radical left Greek party that advocates strong negotiation) would not have (had) any leverage!

From, for instance, Merkel's recent position on Greece as well as banking supervision, you can see that she does not act chiefly for her own nation as a whole but also and predominantly for her class as a cosmopolitan European entity. This is why Greece gets the bail out despite failing (and once again defaulting) to meet the criteria of the bond buy back, and why Merkel must sell the idea that Germany will not mutualise debt to her own ordinary citizens, while making sure that this is a future possibility. Each other bourgeois leader does similar, more-or-less, and is involved in the political charade.

So what does this mean for a future Europe?

While it shows that there can be compromises between the national interests, these interests are only compromised by trading with and often away the rights and interests of the lower classes (especially in the crisis), namely the general European working class. Where their own national bourgeois interests outweigh their general interest, national interests tend to win out, but this depends on the relative national power of the competing nation too. Germany is the biggest European economic power and can therefore better defend its own national interests while also ensure its cosmopolitan elite profits from the European project too. Notwithstanding, the national interest does not always coincide with the interests of the ruling national class, which is easier to see in Greece than in Germany of course, but is also just as true in Germany.

The big problem is the reality that is the present economic crisis. The progress of the crisis has been relentless, and the politics has run kind of parallel to it in a way that is consistently only really self interested, so it uses the crisis as a means to implement measures that the European ruling classes desired anyway, it is an opportunity for it, and it takes its opportunities like any opportunist would. But in doing so it tends to ignore the reality of the crisis or give to it only a passing nod of attention. So we have two paths that, in fits and starts, are diverging. The first path is the apparent political route to financial harmonization and federalism in the Eurozone, backed up by humanist rhetorical flourishes such as the recent Nobel Prize awarded (to the EU, or to itself you might say) for 'creating peace in Europe'. As well as proving a negative this piece of ridiculous hubris is set against a reality of harsh austerity measures deriving from its neoliberal policies which have generated poverty and some extreme reactions such as the rise of fascism in Greece and extreme rightist policies in Spain.

This clash of opposites has not yet become so sharp as to be able to puncture the smug pomposity of the Eurozone apparatchiks or the club of political leaders, who only see a slow and steady progress to something ill defined that could possibly be a federal social democratic Europe, but which looks like at the moment a vehicle for the richest nations to better exploit the poor of the poorest 'peripheral' nations at the behest of their lesser endowed bourgeoisie. Yet the problem of the economic crisis is not resolved either by the austerity or the manifold agreements to unify, at some stage, Europe. In actual fact the problems are exacerbated by these, at best partial illusions under the influence of which both the club of national leaders and Euro apparatchiks can drift into the self satisfaction that they have 'acted' and so at least absolved themselves from further responsibility. That in, say, Greece people are suffering, with a lack of a social safety net, from the effects of the crisis and the failure of their policies, can be set aside as something that exists as if in another dimension which cannot impinge on theirs. Of course, the contours of this partition between the two dimensions has, as well as ideological illusions, also some real aesthetic accoutrements, the repressive state apparatus that in the end enforces the will of the state by violence, the riot cops and suchlike.

The central core of the Eurozone ideology sees itself as a hero of peaceful diplomacy and soft power (to use an appropriate phrase from Saif's LSE doctoral thesis) belonging to its humanist-humanitarian ideals, which are in fact stressed in the European Charter, but just as this document is being trampled underfoot in the rush to austerity for the workers, the reality is one of implementing by increasingly authoritarian means anti-social and anti democratic policies. It is not that the European peoples have failed to notice this disparity, they have protested vigorously as we all know; the problem is what to do about it beyond mere protest. While, say, Egyptians are strenuously trying to get a democratic government at least as democratic as exists in a few nations central to Europe, European peoples are protesting against secular democratic governments and systems that have been achieved after similar long historical struggles. These governments and their democracies still appear to be advanced; they still appear to represent the people, and to belong to the people. This is democracy, how can they attack democracy without seeming to want despotism? So protests tend to flounder on the rocks of democracy itself, and/or the question of democracy begins to loom: what is it exactly? Why are we apparently failed by this system, yet we have the vote? Have we really voted to represent us these fools who have squandered money and got into enormous debt just because we, like them, became greedy? The poor became greedy!! The people are told this is how it was, that it was their choice and so also their fault as well as the fault of democracy (and its baggage of 'entitlements', the sense of entitlement, and the dignity that goes with that) itself that the crisis led to such huge debts. There is little room left here for a critique of democracy. The bourgeoisie say it is democracy or fascism, you choose one or the other, and the people do not want fascism, so it is democracy, this democracy. The question as to whether this democracy was ever truly representative is not to be discussed, it is a taboo subject. For on this assumption, that we have such a choice, rests the whole underlying bourgeois media story of ordinary folk being to blame for the crisis.

It is not the end of the matter though, again because the crisis is just too big and too deep. It has its own reality that will trump the measures and the illusions both. At some future point we can expect the opposition between the reality and the rhetoric of power to become too sharp. Even if, for instance, a federal states of Europe becomes increasingly a genuine possibility, long before this can happen the crisis will be also visiting Germany, and with that the problem of sharing the debt, as federal partners, or not. Indeed this crisis is likely to be both the motivation for federalism as a solution to the crisis and at the same time the reason why its biggest apparent exponent does not want it to be the solution. In the process we can expect that the debts will be smuggled and dispersed even more onto the shoulders of the European working classes, but as the consequences of austerity approaches the core, so too will the protests that follow it. The European project may not be about to fail formally, but it has in fact failed as a form of social democracy, the ideals of a harmonious Europe have been shattered and left behind and what we face is not necessarily a de facto break up of the Eurozone but its repressive iron fist poking out of threadbare holes in the soft glove in order to hold it together. That it may or may not break up is therefore a merely academic question, European nations are not about to sail away from Europe, but in actual fact what has been lost is already the most important part of it, you might say, its heart. It will be the task of the European workers to start it beating again, even though it was mostly fictitious in the first place, only they can give real heart to the heart of Europe.

by Gary Tedman

Urgent Action Needed to Combat European Climate Change by Thomas Riggins

The European Environment Agency ( EEA, an agency representing 32 member states set up by the European Union) issued a recent report entitled "Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012." The report describes shocking examples of climate change and predicts even more shocking future impacts of the changing climatic conditions in Europe. However it never spells out the real causes of the climate change (our dependence on and use of fossil fuel for example) nor does it propose any far ranging solutions. At least none are reported in the story published by ScienceDaily on November 23, 2012 covering its conclusions ("Climate Change Evident Across Europe, Confirming Urgent Need for Adaptation.")

The EEA informs us that throughout Europe extreme weather has resulted in more and more destruction from floods, droughts, heat waves and that these trends are on the increase with greater occurrences  expected in the future. Rainfall has been going up in Northern Europe and down in the South. All across Europe the temperature has been going up and new higher averages are being recorded. Not only that, but this warming trend is melting away the sea ice in the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet and many of Europe's glaciers. Also most of Europe's permafrost is now exposed and melting  due to less snow cover.

The EEA isn't reported to be worrying to much about how this will impact the human population in Europe as such, but is warning all this climatic disaster could cost a lot of money: "If European societies do not adapt, damage costs are expected to rise, according to the report."

Granted all this extreme weather and climate change is in the works, the European Union doesn't want to go out on a limb as to the cause: "more evidence is needed to discern the part played by climate change in this trend…." Our climate deniers here in the U.S. could not agree more. Meanwhile over 95% of climate scientists are agreed that this "trend" is the the result of human caused  global warming.

The EEA also knows that humans are involved because while they need "more evidence" as regards climate change they do add that, according to ScienceDaily, "growing human activity in hazard-prone areas has been a key factor" in the rise of damage costs. But it is not just activity in "hazard prone areas" and it is not simply "human activity"-- it is the activity of the trans-national and national corporations on a world wide basis polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases and the governments that refuse to take meaningful action against them-- including some European Union governments that sponsor the EEA.

The best the EEA Executive, Jacqueline McGlade, can come up with to counter the damages of climate change is to hope people can "adapt" themselves to it. This is at least the implication of the Science Daily quote attributed to her: "Climate change is a reality around the world, and the extent and speed of change is becoming ever more evident. This means that every part of the economy, including households, needs to adapt as well as reduce emissions."

What we have to do is force political actions that reign in the oil, gas, and coal industries and others who want to increase and further develop the uses of carbon based fuels. What we need is binding international agreements that reduce and eliminate the use of all chemicals that endanger the lives, health and well being of human beings and other life forms making up the biosphere. The climate change meeting in Doha this week will show how seriously the governments of the world take this challenge.

Marx and Democracy (notes)

Just as it is not in fact religion that creates man but man who creates religion, so it is not the constitution that creates the people but the people which creates the constitution. In a certain respect, Marx maintains, democracy is to all other forms of the state what Christianity is to all other religions: deified man under the form of a particular religion, and, in the same way, democracy is the essence of every political constitution: it is socialized humankind under the form of a particular constitution of the state. Marx says (note male referent) that while Hegel's idealism proceeds from the state and makes man into the subjectified state, democracy begins with man and makes the state objectified man. He directly counterpoises democracy to Hegel's idealism. From this it becomes evident that "all forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are false to the extent that they are not democracy". Marx explains that the right to pardon is the ultimate expression of contingent and arbitrary (undemocratic) choice, and significantly this is what Hegel makes the essential attribute of the monarch: he defines the source of pardon as the 'self-determined' or 'groundless' decision [die grundlose Entscheidung].

...the Estates are, according to Marx, the sanctioned, legal lie of constitutional states, the lie that the state is the people's interest or the people the interest of the state. From here he proceeds to the question of elections: staying within the critique of Hegel, he criticizes the concept of representation: in a choice of such individuals, as have a better understanding of these affairs than their electors have, it is supposed to follow that the relationship which deputies have to their electors is not that of agents. But he says it is only by means of a sophism that Hegel may declare these individuals understand these affairs 'better' and not 'simply'. His conclusion that they do understand these affairs better could be drawn only if the electors had the option of deliberating and deciding themselves about public affairs or of delegating definite individuals to discharge these things, precisely if representation, did not belong essentially to the character of civil society's legislature. But in the state constructed by Hegel representation constitutes precisely the legislature's specific essence, precisely as realized. What is significant for Marx is that Hegel here designates trust as the substance of election, as the substantial relation between electors and deputies, and trust is a personal relationship.

Excerpts from "Marx, Democracy, and the Aesthetic Level" by Gary Tedman.

Lenin on "Reactionary" Trade Unions: Chapter Six of "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder by Thomas Riggins

One of the most difficult questions facing any socialist movement is its relation to the trade unions. Modern day trade unionism is an integral part of the capitalist system. It functions to further the interests of working people within capitalism by trying to get their commodity (labor power) paid for at the highest price possible in relation to its value. This price can be measured in wages as well as benefits wrested from the capitalist class by means of negotiations, demonstrations, work stoppages, sit ins, and strikes. Under capitalism unions qua unions are not revolutionary organizations. Some unions and union members are in fact even reactionary. In the U.S. for example about 40% of unionized workers voted for the Republican reactionary Mitt Romney in the 2012 general election.

In chapter six of his work "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder, Lenin address himself to the relation Marxists should have with the capitalist trade union movement. He refers to the trade unions under capitalism as "reactionary" because he was writing in a revolutionary period in which socialist as well as capitalist oriented trade unions both existed. This is not that time so I shall dispense with the term "reactionary" except in direct quotations.

At the beginning of this chapter Lenin notes that the ultra-Left in Germany consider it very revolutionary to condemn the German unions as compromising, nationalistic, and counter-revolutionary and that no communists should have anything to do with them. Lenin intends to give reasons why he thinks these ideas are wrong and are just a lot of "empty phrases."

Lenin will first make remarks about the situation in Russia. He does so to remind us
what the purpose of this work is --i.e., to apply "to Western Europe whatever is universally practicable, significant and relevant in the history and present-day tactics of Bolshevism." We may not find as many things today, ninety years later and in non-revolutionary conditions (but growing pre-revolutionary movements are afoot in the anti-austerity struggle and the fightback against the banks), as people in Lenin's day found but there still are some practicable ideas in Lenin's work.

One such idea is that as the struggle today intensifies Marxist parties will start to grow into larger and larger mass parties (as happened to the Bolsheviks after 1917) and many of the new members will be "careerists and charlatans" out to feather their own nests with no real dedication to the workers. Lenin says they only "deserve to be shot"-a la the Chinese Communist Party's response to extremely corrupt officials. This may be a little too "proactive" for our sensibilities these days, but we should be aware of such people and kick them out of the movement and warn the workers about them. If conditions become more revolutionary we can expect the working people to handle these types as they see fit.

Another point made by Lenin is really not so relevant in the current situation, but should still be mentioned in case the working class actually finds itself exercising state power in the future. That is the relation of the worker's party to the institutions of the state. We must not look at the state as some kind of independent institution that all political parties share in and whose main departments are headed now by one party, now another or a combination of parties. The bourgeoisie is an unnecessary parasitical exploiting class with no useful role to play in modern society except to oppress working people and exploit them. This class will no longer have a role to play in the political life of a state controlled by workers so no state institution will make any political or organizational decisions without consulting with and taking guidance from the worker's party.

With respect to the trade unions, Lenin says that the party "relies directly" upon them. Trade unions are formally non-party organizations but the party, in Russia (and presumably in any future worker's  state), actually controls the leadership positions in all the unions and the unions carry out the party line. There are millions of workers only a relatively small number of whom (the most class conscious) are members of the party. The trade unions are the vehicle by which the party keeps in touch with the working masses and keeps the class unified in its struggle to defeat the bourgeoisie and build socialism. Under capitalism the unions are not typically led by leaders committed to building socialism and thus the unions function to uphold bourgeois rule despite their struggles for better pay and working conditions.
Marxists should be in the union movement and hopefully get themselves elected to leadership positions by the rank and file. Marxists union members should be carrying on socialist education and agitation and explaining to workers why they will never be secure in their lives, jobs, or pensions under capitalism.

There are two main positions that the Marxists should push that will differentiate them from the opportunistic and pragmatic labor leaders. The first is to fight against the view that bourgeois democracy is the only form of democracy that should be supported. Direct worker's democracy, in whatever form it takes (worker's councils, soviets, etc.), should be the ideal. The second idea to fight is that the union movement should be politically "independent." In Russia that would have amounted to the workers having unions independent from workers political power running the state. In our pre-revolutionary situation the unions should support and be affiliated with political parties having a pro-working class agenda. An intellectually mature working class will have its own political party or parties reflecting working class values and led by working people themselves. In the U.S., I repeat, it is absolutely scandalous that forty percent of unionized workers vote Republican in general elections.

However, it is not sufficient just to maintain contact with the workers and the people in general through the trade unions. Lenin says that other types of non-party organizations have to be set up and institutions developed whose membership consists of workers and petty bourgeois elements who are not members of the party. In the West these organizations have been give the uncharitable name of "front groups" by the bourgeoisie. Their real purpose, according to Lenin, is to allow the party to understand the "temper" of the people and "to come closer to them, meet their requirements" and "promote the best among them" to leadership positions. This is a thoroughly democratic way for the people and the party to interact for the common interests of the working class and its allies.

In Russia all of this party work was carried out by means of the Soviets which Lenin
says are a form of democratic expression far superior to anything created by bourgeois democracy. While making these remarks Lenin also mentions exactly what type of workers rule is involved in the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (DP). The DP is not a dictatorship of all the working people, or a dictatorship of workers and peasants. In Russia it is "a dictatorship of the urban proletariat" and the DP is meant to lead the agricultural population (a backward majority) towards supporting the rule of the urban working class. It has as one of its main functions to lead the mass of poor peasants  and to wage "a systematic struggle against the rich, bourgeois, exploiting and profiteering peasantry, etc." In the West of the 21st Century such a DP has no existential basis and would not make a good role model for the type of workers democracy required to establish socialism.

In Lenin's day such a DP was what was required. The Russian Marxists had arrived at these ideas after 25 years of intense struggle against the Russian feudalists and bourgeoisie and from their point of view the ultra-left antics of some German "Communists" and others of pitting "leaders" against the "masses" and advocating abandoning the trade union movement and also other forms of legal struggle sounded like "ridiculous and childish nonsense."

Lenin admitted that the old bourgeois craft unions and distinctions between workers are a legacy left to socialism by capitalism and that the trade unions too are riddled with bourgeois attitudes and prejudices. But he said this is the material we have to work with and it will take years and years of work to develop the industrial unions of the future which will represent whole industries  and lead to the abolition of the division of labor between people. This goal is the goal of fully developed Communism and in1920 only the first baby steps were being taken. Lenin warned that, "To attempt in practice, today, to anticipate this future result of a fully developed, fully comprehensive and mature communism would be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four." This warning was another in the species of not trying to skip stages and prematurely try to bring about remote future possibilities. Perhaps all the errors of Soviet collectivization and also of the Great Leap Forward could have been prevented had Lenin's views been taken seriously.

Lenin here seems to reject the whole idea of "social engineering" and the idea of creating the "the new Soviet man." He says we have to build socialism with the type of people "bequeathed" to us by the capitalist system and not try to build it "with human material specially prepared by us." If Lenin's successors had followed this advice they would have been much more tolerant of the frailties of human nature and open to different ideas and notions of how to go about building on the foundations of socialism created under his direction. They could have avoided the paranoia and purges of the 1930s and 40s.

Reflecting again on the trade unions, Lenin remarks that they evolved out of the primitive isolation and disunity of the early working class and were an essential form of working class organization that developed to unify and unite workers and give to them class consciousness. Now it is the Communist Party which is the highest form of working class organization and which expresses the highest level of class consciousness and the trade union movement, born as it was under capitalist conditions has revealed that, compared to the revolutionary class conscious workers, it has backward tendencies related to narrow minded craft interests.

Lenin uses the term "Communist" in relation to the Party in a way which leads me to think he didn't really believe Communist parties had arrived at a stage of development where they deserved to be called "Communist." He says "the Party will not merit the name until it learns to weld the leaders into one indivisible whole with the class and the masses." I don't think that ever happened in the Soviet Union but the reasons for this failure to weld an indivisible whole are to complex to discuss here."

At any rate, whatever the limitations displayed by the trade union movement this movement was indispensable for the development of the working class and every capitalist country has produced trade unions which represent the interests of the working people in the economic contest with the capitalists. The unions will be necessary in the transfer of the management of the economic life of socialist countries to the working class, not to the separate unions, and eventually to all working people. For this reason Lenin calls the unions a "school of communism" that will be the training ground for workers in the building of socialism.

Nevertheless at the present time there are many backward attitudes and ideas floating about in the ranks of the trade unions and many of these attitudes will remain even if working people eventually gain state power. How should we deal them both now and in the future. Repression was not an option favored by Lenin. He says these backward attitudes are INEVITABLE considering the historical context in which the unions were formed. Not to understand this is to show complete ignorance of the role of the party. It would be "folly" to either evade this problem or try to "leap over it" [even a great leap won't work]. The role of the party is to educate and enlighten the backwardness that living under capitalism will inevitably imprint on large sections of the working people. The Party's job is to win the support of the masses and to maintain and extend that support through education and example. Obviously shooting people or sending them to the Gulag is not a good way to carry out that assignment. It will take many years of patient work and struggle to carry out that mission. Presumably the party that fails in this mission will not be around in the long run.

Paradoxically, Lenin thinks the labor leadership in the more advanced countries of the West are more opportunist and play upon the credulity of the workers than those in backward Russia. This is because Russia was going through a real revolutionary awakening and the the vast majority of the workers chose to follow the Bolshevik wing of the Marxist movement rather than the Menshevik wing which was opportunistic and social chauvinist. Lenin is particularly vitriolic when he refers to the Western labor leaders calling them "the craft-union, narrow-minded, selfish, case-hardened, covetous, and petty-bourgeois 'labour aristocracy,' imperialist-minded and imperialist-corrupted" leadership. This type of leadership has to be fought against and completely driven out of the trades union movement. Marxist trade unionists still have that daunting task before them.

Taking all this under consideration, Lenin warns that the attempt of Marxists to assume political power "should not be made" until the majority of workers are firm supporters of the Party. This stage in the struggle will vary "in different countries and in different circumstances; it can be correctly gauged only by thoughtful, experienced and knowledgeable political leaders of the proletariat in each particular country." It s thus still, it seems, the primary mission of Marxists to educate the working people and remind them that, while it is necessary to work in bourgeois trade unions, and to contest bourgeois elections (to hold off the right and protect the interests of the working class) these forms of bourgeois democracy are not a solution to the problems of exploitation, unemployment, and preventing war, and must be replaced with real democratic institutions based on working class political power. The faux democracy of the West is part of the problem, not part of the solution leading to human liberation from capital.

It is of course the case, Lenin says, that Marxists uphold the interests of the working people AGAINST the opportunistic labor bureaucrats ("the 'Labour Aristocracy'"). This is "an elementary and most self-evident truth." The ultra-left's error is to think that because some unions, or even most unions, in the West have a pro-capitalist  top  leadership that Marxists should abandon the trade unions and create ARTIFICIAL organizations to compete with them. This is infantile. The only way to help the workers better understand what the issues are is for Marxists to work in the labor movement with them and expose those "agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement."  Lenin particularly likes Daniel De Leon 's (the leader of the now moribund Socialist Labor Party) formulation: "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class."

Lenin maintains that Marxists cannot leave the backward workers to the mercy of these capitalist labor leaders or under the influence of those workers Engels described as having "become completely bourgeois." Lenin's reference is to a letter Engels sent to Marx in 1858 in reference to British workers. I'm going to quote it because, with a few slight adjustments, Engels' observations hold true for many workers  today in the West.

Engels wrote to Marx from Manchester on October 7, 1858 that, in effect labor leadership could move to the right, because "the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat ALONGSIDE the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable. The only thing that would help here would be a few thoroughly bad years…." Well, the bad years are once again upon us, I hope we can make the best use of them.

With regard to the trade union movement, Lenin finds the ultra-left "Marxists" to be acting in a "frivolous" manner with regard to mass work. Their "ridiculous 'theory'" of not wanting to work in the union movement betrays a fundamental principle of mass organization which is  to WORK WHEREVER THE MASSES ARE TO BE FOUND. Marxists have a duty to work in the union movement and educate the workers by exposing the baseness and class collaborationist nature of the pro-capitalist labor leaders. The nature of this type of work has to be fine tuned and take into consideration the specific features of the working class and its history in each country but it cannot be ignored.

It is particularly childish of the "Left opposition" to demand brand new unions be set up with but one requirement for membership: accepting the Soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin says that the Communists have been running Soviet Russia for almost three years and it would be ruinous for them to make such a demand on Russian workers for union membership. "The task," he says, facing Marxists "is to CONVINCE the backward elements, to work AMONG them, and not FENCE THEMSELVES OFF from them with artificial and childishly 'Left' slogans."

Not only should Marxists work in the trade union movement, but In fact Lenin even favored Marxists, following the idea of being where the masses were, joining the Black Hundreds (the Russian KKK of the time) so as to win the backward workers and peasants away from the organization. I cannot, however, envision Leftists in the U.S. flocking to the Tea Party Movement to enlighten its working class members and win them away from the reactionary Republican party (however correct that tactic might be).

So much then for Lenin's views on the relation that a Marxist party should have with the trade union movement. I will next examine his views about working in bourgeois parliaments.

Troubled Children Adopted by Homo/Heterosexual Parents Flourish Equally Well by Thomas Riggins

Anyone who googles "anti-gay adoption" will find scores of websites dedicated to the proposition that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt children. These range from commentators equating gay adoption to "sexual abuse'' to news headlines concerning Mitt Romney's flip flops (he was for it and now is against it) and the battles going on in state legislatures to ban it: all in the name of "concern for the children."

Well, we should all be concerned for children and if being adopted by gay couples was injurious to children we should oppose it.  But children should also be protected from the actions of ignorant, bigoted, religious fanatics and hypocritical political demagogues who don't give a hoot about children and families (other than their own.)

Fortunately there is some scientific evidence available to decide if children are helped or harmed by gay adoptions. Unfortunately bigots, hate mongers and hypocritical right-wing politicians are completely immune to being influenced by science.

For those more influenced by facts than fantasy, ScienceDaily on October 18, 2012
published the following article: "Foster Kids Do Equally Well When Adopted by Gay, Lesbian or Heterosexual Parents, Study Suggests." SD always adds "suggests" because science should not be dogmatic.

Here's the deal. UCLA psychologists studied the cases of 82 high risk foster care children who were adopted by heterosexual parents (60), lesbian parents (7) and gay male parents (15). The children had an average age of 4 and the parents of 41.

The psychologists assessed the children three times  after their adoption-- at 2 months, one year and two years and also questioned the parents about any problems. What they found out was that , on average, the children had made real progress in their mental development, their behavior issues (these were high risk foster children, remember) were stable and the their IQ measurements went up an average of 10 points-- "a large increase."

The lead author of the study said "The children showed meaningful gains in heterosexual, gay and lesbian families. Their cognitive development improved substantially, while their behavior problems and social development were stable."

If the opponents of gay adoption had had their way 22 of these children would not
have been adopted and would have remained in foster care institutions (not enough heterosexuals to go around, sorry about that). Those high risk children may have been denied the positive changes in their lives that they received by means of gay adoption. It is not the children the bigots are interested in. They are only interested in their own sleazy agenda and hope to gain their ends by creating and appealing to the prejudices of a misinformed public