Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Russian revolution was conducted by the urban working class which, while small, was concentrated in some of the biggest factories in the world. This tiny working class was able to make the revolution and lead the peasantry during the civil war, but after being bled white during that civil war, and with the collapse of industry... The working class was crushed and physically dispersed. As this happened, a bureaucracy formed which was able to slowly take necessary functions into its own hands until it dominated the whole state.

The problem with Russia is that it was dependant on the revlutions in western europe (principally Germany) which were defeated and in some cases even betrayed by the above mentioned bureaucracy.

China is a different story. With the Long March, the CCP cut itself off from the working class along the coast and relied on the peasantry. As such there was not only no possibility for workers democracy, but just the opposite: they had to crush it.



It isn't cheating the system. The problem is that the conditions for a full evelopment of capitalism like in France and England is missing because capitalism has entered from the outside. Thus we see an artificial native capitalist class that is dependant on the other big capitalist countries and is tied to the semi-feudal nobility and clergy. It is unable to make a revolution like those seen in England or France. As such, only the working class is revolutionary, so it is left up to the tiny working classes of these countries to conduct the revolution in the interests of the capitalists. The thing is, some of the measures at this point trancend capitalism. (example: land to the toilers. This takes land away from the bourgeoisiefied land-lords and the land-owning capitalists in order to give it to the peasantry, but this not only takes land awy from a section of the capitalist class, but it impacts others through the mortgages they hold and other debts they owe, thus the whole capitalist order in these coutnries is called into question by this one act).

Thus the revolution passes over into the sociaist revolution. The problem is that while these countries are the most likely to have a revolution, they are unable to actually make socialism on their own. They need to hold out until a revolution in one of the advanced capitalist countries happens so they can recieve material, economic and technical help from the more advanced country.




I remember reading this really cute quote one time by this minor CCP official. Whan asked why the CCP was in charge of a country with heavy capitalist investment he said it was so there would be little time spent building the revolution when they needed to kick the capitalists out.

Now, as cute as that is, it isn't likely to happen (sorry Dermy, but bureaucratic self-reform is bullshit, re: Poland). What seems to be the case is that the heads of the CCP have decided that capitalism is what is needed for China to be great, and so they are bringing in capitalism, but they have learned from the mistakes of Gorby: Do it slowly, keep control, and DO NOT let go of power.

Currently, no matter what the aims of the CCP leadership at the moment, it is still a deformed workers state and should be defended by all communists against imperialist attack from without and capitalist counter-revolution from within. That the CCP is itself preparing the counter-revolution itself, the only way to trully defend the PRC is to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy from power through a working class political revolution.

That is pretty much a complete exposition of Trotskyism, by the way...

The vanguard is a necessity prior to the revolution. After the revolution, material conditions willing, the party will not need to hold on to power for a long time. In fact, it may have to hold on to power for a really short period of time--historically speaking. The problem wasn't with vanguardism itself, but with the situation the vanguard found itself in. With the working class either wiped out, driven back to the village through unemployment or coopted into the nascent bureaucracy there was no basis for the soviets as a democratic institution. This would not have mattered nearly as much is the 1923 German revolution had succeeded, because there would be a connection with the west, as well as a huge boost in morale. But it didn't, and the failure to even attempt a revolution on the part of the KPD demoralised the remains of the Soviet working class, and the Bolsheviks. As such, it was extremely easy for this group to come forward with interests of the bureaucracy.

I see this as a defeatist ideology.
Rather than come to revolutionary consciousness, the proletariat will stop at trade-union consciousness on its own. It must be shown through example that only communists are capable of getting decent reforms from the capitalists, and that they can get those reforms because they are willing to lead the working class to overthrow capitalism.

Class struggle always works.

As much as they want to be able to control the capitalists, they will be unable to. It will, in the end, come to a stituation of counter-revoluton by the capitalists or political revolution on the part of the workers. Just as this question was posed in easter-europe, so it will be posed in China, and it will have similarly devistating effects.

Eh, I'll get around to maybe finding my posts and putting them here when I have time and a stable internet connection.

Until then this is a post saver that in the future might be edited with such a posts.