The Bourgeois Dictatorship Grows Increasingly Insecure

What the, "war on terror" really means is,

'Look and anyone but me.'

 
Third (Communist) International

1. Faced with the growth of the revolutionary movements in many countries, the bourgeoisie and their agents among the workers are making desperate attempts to find ideological and political arguments in defense of the rule of the exploiters.
Condemnation of dictatorship and defense of democracy are particularly prominent among these arguments. The falsity and hypocrisy of this argument, relentlessly repeated by the capitalist media are obvious to all who refuse to betray the fundamental principles of socialism.
2. Firstly, this argument employs the concepts of ‘democracy in general’ and ‘dictatorship in general’, without posing the question of the class concerned. This non-class or above-class presentation, which supposedly is popular, is an outright travesty of the basic tenet of socialism.
Namely, its theory of class struggle, which socialists who have sided with the bourgeoisie recognize in words but disregard in practice. For in no civilized capitalist country does ‘democracy in general’ exist; all that exists is bourgeois democracy.
And its not a question of ‘dictatorship in general’, but of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, i.e., the proletariat, over its oppressors and exploiters, i.e., the bourgeoisie, in order to overcome the resistance offered by the exploiters in their fight to maintain their domination.
3. History teaches us that no oppressed class ever did, or could, achieve power without going through a period of dictatorship, i.e., the conquest of political power and forcible suppression of the resistance always offered by the exploiters – a resistance that is most desperate, most furious, and that stops at nothing.
The bourgeoisie, whose domination is now defended by the socialists who denounce ‘dictatorship in general’ and extol ‘democracy in general’, won power in the advanced countries through a series of insurrections, civil wars, and the forcible suppression of kings, feudal lords, slaveowners and their attempts at restoration.
In books, pamphlets, congress resolutions and propaganda speeches, socialists everywhere have explained thousands upon millions of times to the people the class nature of these bourgeois revolutions and this bourgeois dictatorship.
That is why the present defense of bourgeois democracy under cover of talk about ‘democracy in general’ and the present howls and shouts against proletarian dictatorship under cover of shouts about ‘dictatorship in general’ are an outright betrayal of socialism.
They are, in fact, desertion to the bourgeoisie, denial of the proletariat’s right to its own, proletarian, revolution, and defense of bourgeois reformism at the very historical juncture when bourgeois reformism throughout the world has collapsed and the war has created a revolutionary situation.
4. In explaining the class nature of bourgeois civilisation, bourgeois democracy and the bourgeois parliamentary system, all socialists have expressed the idea formulated with the greatest scientific precision by Marx and Engels.
The most democratic bourgeois republic is no more than a machine for the suppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie, for the suppression of the working people by a handful of capitalists.
There is not a single revolutionary, not a single Marxist among those now shouting against dictatorship and for democracy who has not sworn and vowed to the workers that he accepts this basic truth of socialism.
But now, when the revolutionary proletariat is in a fighting mood and taking action to destroy this machine of oppression and to establish proletarian dictatorship, these traitors to socialism claim that the bourgeoisie have granted the working people ‘pure democracy’, have abandoned resistance and are prepared to yield to the majority of the working people.
They assert that in a democratic republic there is not, and never has been, any such thing as a state machine for the oppression of labour by capital.

 

Pro-life Socialim

 Pro-Life from a socialist perspective

By Jessica R. Dreistadt

The Socialist Party, like many left-wing political parties in the United States, supports a woman’s choice to have an abortion. The party’s analysis of this issue is grounded in solid Marxist theory and represents the consensus of party members.

However, some Socialists and other progressives disagree with this predominant position; we also base our beliefs on leftist ideology and a desire to promote and create a socialist society.

Unfortunately, the perspective of pro- life Socialists is sometimes met with ridicule and contempt. The purpose of this essay is to dismantle the dominance and dogma of some pro-choice Socialists and to encourage discussion and diversity within our movement.

This essay represents only the opinion of its author and is not meant to characterize the beliefs of all pro-life Socialists. The information presented here is offered in the spirit of a friendly reminder to all comrades that we should accept and love one another despite our differences of opinion.

A radical view and call to action

As a Socialist woman, I stand in solidarity with all who are oppressed including people who are poor, people of color, people with disabilities, and the unborn.

Women and children are relegated to an inferior social status throughout the world. Capitalist societies, in particular, determine the worth of women and children based on their contribution or relation to economic production and growth. However, the worth of women and children cannot be measured by any man. Women and children are intrinsically valuable and deserve every opportunity and privilege available to men and women of means.

Abortion reinforces this imposed inequality. Pregnant women who do not have adequate social and economic support become alienated in our capitalist society. As Socialists, we must support all women in need by addressing the root causes of gender and economic inequality.

Women often choose to have abortions because they feel stuck in an undesirable situation. We must work to change the conditions that lead women to have abortions rather than encouraging the women themselves to change and adapt to their situations.

The pro-choice worldview reduces women and children to material objects whose value in the home and society is based, in large part, on male desire and convenience. When a woman chooses to end a life because of lack of male support, she and her child are victim to the patriarchy. Men who support a woman’s right to choose are also taking advantage of their ability to use women’s bodies and abuse their relationships.

A woman who has an abortion materializes and assumes ownership of her child to justify her right to end his or her life. Mainstream feminists, now free from male domination in many ways, put our children in an inferior social position - similar to the one women once held.

When a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is subjugating the needs of her child and society to her own individual desires while supporting the opportunistic, money-driven abortion industry. These are the hallmarks of a capitalist society.

Abortion negates women’s ability to create life, reducing the societal value of our unique physical abilities because they are considered ‘inferior’ to the physical capabilities of men. Manipulating nature and its resources is detrimental to environmental harmony and disrespectful to the essence of womanhood. Abortion disrupts the natural flow and process of life and rejuvenation.

Many Socialists are pacifists and as such we condemn unnecessary violence. The taking of a life or the possibility of human life, especially when it involves pain, dismembering, and mutilation of a baby and emotional turmoil of a mother, cannot be reconciled with a belief in nonviolence. Being pro-choice and pacifist are incompatible positions.

Abortion is sometimes defended because the fetus is of a different age, appearance, and physical capacity than a ‘normal’ human being outside the womb. When the value of human life, and its right to continue living, is based on these subjective qualities, the floodgates to discrimination and domination are opened.

Abortion is always a compromise. Women and children deserve, and must demand, real choices that unconditionally meet our needs.

ACCEPT NO COMPROMISES!!

The abortion controversy will only be resolved through the elimination of all forms of violence, sexism, discrimination, income inequality, abstinence-only programs, and corporate controlled healthcare (and everything else) along with support for safe homes and communities, equitable resource distribution,
respect and opportunities for all, adequate childcare, comprehensive sex education programs, and easy access to birth control. A socialist society is the only solution.

Will There be An End to Capitalist Ideolgy?

Where's the revolution?

By Antony Lerman

The causes of the global crisis lie in corruption, financial manipulation and institutionalised fraud, market rigging, bankers' greed, illegal wealth appropriation exacerbated by the bank bailouts and the promotion of war as a means of generating profits for big corporations at the cost of the poor, the disadvantaged and socially destitute.

The consequences of The Great Recession will extend far into the future.

There's the human cost, the devastating impact on people's lives, whether for us personally, for already disadvantaged groups, the country as a whole, developing nations, or the more than 2 billion people already living on less than $2 per day.

Predictions about the consequences of the deficit-reduction measures proposed are already dire. And for many millions, the debilitating impact of financial retrenchment is a reality today.

Commentators of all political stripes are falling over each other to tell us that state social programmes will collapse. Unemployment will rise massively. Millions will be impoverished.

Health services will be curtailed, pensions reduced, infrastructure projects cut, educational opportunities diminished. Worldwide living standards will deteriorate. And things won't get better any time soon.

The last comparable global economic crisis gave a boost to all-encompassing, radical ideologies that claimed to provide a comprehensive analysis of what the problem was and a complete solution: communism and fascism.

Whatever you think of them – for me, both were disastrous – there is no doubting the immensity of each one's aspiration to remake society.

If, as many claim, "humanity is at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history", where is today's big answer, or bold ideological analysis and recipe for transformation, the movement that's taking the masses by storm? It's not that I want it.

It's just that the circumstances seem so ripe for such a response and yet, unless I'm missing something, nothing comparable has emerged and I'm struggling to understand why.

Perhaps it's because politicians in all countries affected have successfully framed the crisis not only in terms of economic errors but also but also moral deficiencies.

They have offered a sop to the anger of the public, but dampened down speculation about the need for revolutionary change by proposing solutions that are almost exclusively managerial.

Evil may have infected the system and a few bankers' knuckles may have been rapped, but the holy grail will be reached by cutting the deficit. The cuts may get ever more radical, but they're just cuts – what any accountant would tell you to do to get your personal finances in order.

Rebalancing the economy effectively means letting free market forces take care of growth, then incomes and spending can recover. Endure the pain, take the medicine and all will be well.

The global consensus among political leaders sees this is the right approach, with variations as to how far and how fast to go.

It may be keeping dissent in check for now, but it looks to me fragile and was achieved with no little sleight of hand. Can it really be the case that, in effect, a bunch of accountants will solve all our problems?

You don't have to look far to find powerful arguments being made that what happened is not merely natural to the economic cycle and therefore won't simply adjust itself in time.

This approach locates the cause of the global crisis in corruption, financial manipulation and institutionalised fraud, market rigging, bankers' greed, illegal wealth appropriation exacerbated by the bank bailouts and the promotion of war as a means of generating profits for big corporations at the cost of the poor, the disadvantaged and socially destitute.

If economic growth falters, and many are warning that it will, the appeal of an analysis that says the system is fundamentally broken and the economists have been revealed as emperors without any clothes, may dramatically increase.

If then pressure mounts for more radical, root-and-branch solutions, is there anything on offer that may seriously challenge the neoliberal consensus and mobilise the masses?

I have no special command of the landscape, so correct me if I'm wrong, but fully-grown, intellectually coherent political-economic solutions, ready for instant harvesting, look to me to be nonexistent.

Despite claims that Marxism is undergoing a revival, memory of the barbarous uses to which it was put by communist regimes is still too fresh to make it anything more than of minority interest.

And when a radical populist like President Lula da Silva produces 9% growth in Brazil in first quarter 2010, within a basically capitalist economic framework, what thinking revolutionary will see the appeal of Marxism?

So, too, with the anti-globalisation movement directed at G8s and G20s, which anyway seems to have run out of steam.

Green economic and political theories seem far too weak and underdeveloped to gain serious traction and the deficit-reduction bandwagon will only, and almost certainly unfairly, make green solutions look unaffordable.

It may be wrong to rule out something radically new coming from more establishment sources, like the new Soros-funded Institute for New Economic Thinking, but don't hold your breath.

Perhaps there are other ideologies in formation, which even now are generating great excitement among those keen to find a new global answer to the global crisis.

Equally, such ideologies will generate deep scepticism and possibly fear in many who distrust wholesale social engineering.

It's true that our current politics are too crude to cope with either satisfactorily, explaining the causes of our current problems or devising and implementing an intellectually coherent and fair set of solutions.

So some new thinking is desperately needed. Nevertheless, for all its inadequacies, I favour a more fox-like, piecemeal, generalist approach to this task, rather than the widespread adoption of a hedgehog-like, all-encompassing ideology.

And yet I fear that we may not escape a deeply damaging bout of the latter at some point over the next 10 years.